The English language had a bias when the dictionary I use was written, a bias toward equality and away from unequal or inequitable power between people. Of course Daniel Webster and his clan wrote the first version of this dictionary and it reflected some of their political leanings a bit. Being without equity, that is ownership, in a world where wealth is the key to political influence makes you unequal. Oh yes you get to vote these days, but the ability to influence other's votes is the prerogative of those with money, both candidates and their financial supporters. Even in that world not all of the influential are equal, some own media resources and use them to promote their personal or corporate agenda in the political life of the nation. This is not patriotism it is iniquity, pure and simple wickedness, and maybe even old Dan'l Webster would agree. It is doubly iniquitous to promote your dream of owning the media in the world as patriotic when in fact it is merely seeking advantage over others beyond the wildest dreams of emperors of old.

There are a lot of damned lies told in public life, there always have been based on my study of history. One of the damned lies promoted today by the left is that the government can be an instrument of fairness. That is that government can equalize the playing field of economic advantage. Bushwa, as my non-swearing grandmother would have said, even programs developed to help the disadvantaged are soon put to use to help those who need no help. Either that is true or they are eventually done away with in the way that welfare is being eliminated. Try to get a SBA (Small Business Administration) loan guarantee if you have no equity to pledge. On the other hands the Bush scions had no trouble getting government supported loans to play oilman when they were pups. What ownership besides stock in a worthless company did they forfeit when their attempt to find oil came up dry? Try to do that if you don't have a family with strong banking connections and money to burn, it won't happen. Government is not an instrument of fairness in regard to our economic life; it is far more often an added advantage to those who already have many advantages.

On the other hand it is clearly possible to start your own business without significant capital, it is just really difficult to succeed, but it is possible, I've done it and so have a few others I have known. The willingness to work as many hours a day as are necessary to survive is a requirement. Choosing an industry where knowledge and inventiveness are more important than capital is helpful. Being able to sell other people on supporting your effort with credit or their effort is essential. Beyond that you need a lot of luck and the endless will to overcome the handicap of no capital. It can be done but it is a lot easier when you have the equity of a family and their friends to fall back on.

Sophisticated investors sometimes call the first investors in a new company the three "F's" Family, Friends and Fools, and that is too often true. The reason it is true is even in success there is failure. When you have built a company that is growing fast you need capital more than ever, that is when the early investors run out of money and the pros enter the scene. The pros don't care about the early investors, they want to own as much of your business as they can get, this is not unreasonable as a goal. If you try too hard to preserve the ownership of your three "F's" they will look for the next business to invest in. They may buy you up on the downslide that will probably ensue, or you will wind up in bankruptcy with no way to pay back your investors. The world of capital is a hard one and not a fountain of easy wealth for those unprepared to deal with it. On the other hand capital that is too easy to get, as it was during the recent Internet bubble, is almost always wasted. The system works but it is not a fountain of equality and if you are looking for fairness don't try to enter that world, it will squash you flat.

Inequality prevails in the financial world and it always has, the game is rigged but it is the only game in town if you want to play for high stakes. Wealth is different from owning your own house, it is harder to attain without the advantage of a family that is already wealthy. It is a glorious fact of life in this nation that even if you fail and wind up in bankruptcy you can start over. Hopefully you will be wiser the second time out and avoid the same mistakes that you made the first time. But don't expect to be treated the same way by the investment community as those who come from wealthy families, you won't be. You may even need to make a scion of one of those families a part of your business if you need investment capital. That is one of the things that venture funds can help you find, a good name or two to add to your management team. Don't think it is unnecessary, they are doing that for a good reason, name recognition is important to investors. A Bush on your board is worth two birds in the hand any day.

In an unequal world the damned lies spoken by the right wing include a statement by Senator Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate's Finance Committee. Grassley said "It takes people with money to create jobs". The truth is that people with money don't particularly want to create jobs, just more wealth and that makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is how blind both sides of this debate are to how this tax cut will impact our society. Yes it will raise the inequity of our societies' distribution of wealth, the Left is right about that. Yes it will free more money for investment the Right is right about that. But what it will do that is particularly pernicious is increase the power and influence of huge corporations in our society. That is a shame when we are fast approaching a Fascist style of Democracy. This is fast becoming a nation where corporations have most of the power. The citizens are mere voters to be manipulated in a struggle between two mammoth parties for who will receive the greatest bounty from their corporate sponsors. That is inequality, inequity and iniquity all rolled into one. God bless you, our troops, our voters, our protestors, and rich and poor alike and grant them all the clarity to change this nation into one where equality matters as much as equity and iniquity is punished not rewarded.