WARREN D. GRANT: Nobody will work for no profit

Page two would like to inform Mr. Garner (Patrick Garner guest column, “Capitalism, Christianity and charity,” April 12) that probably 80 percent of Dougherty and surrounding counties do not have the intellect or the reading ability to consume any information that you have been trying to shove down our throats.

You mentioned that B.J. Fletcher “pays her workers relatively low wages, who in turn do the work for, and allow her to become a wealthier person as a result.” Did you investigate anyone before making this assertion? Did you contact each and every one of her employees, asking them how much she pays them?

I didn’t think so.

If she pays them, don’t you think they should work for her? Surely you don’t think she’s going to pay them and have them work for someone else.

As for making her a wealthier person, I sure hope the hell she makes money off of her employees. I don’t know of a business in this country that doesn’t make money off of its employees. That happens to be the point. Are you delusional or do you really believe what you write? The basis of capitalism is that someone has a desire to improve themselves and start a business, hiring employees, making a product and selling it for a profit, thereby being able to pay themselves, their employees, for the raw material to make the product, and the making of that product. And it’s for a profit. Nobody is going to work without a profit.

If the “millions more trapped in generational poverty with limited mobility” had of gotten off of their duffs and gotten an education, worked hard and improved their own lives, then maybe B.J. would have been working for them. Just exactly where would her employees be if she shut the doors on all of her businesses? Where would her workers that are receiving “relatively low wages” be then?

And while we’re at it, what’s this “byproduct of labor not receiving the fruits of their work”? Are they not getting paid for their work? Do they not buy a car, boat, house, food, clothing, etc.? Are these things not coming “from the fruits of their labor”?

Mr. Garner, how much do you give to charity each year? What are you doing for the community?

“Business that are worker-led pull in more profit that top-down management business.” Helloooo. What do you think they do with the profits they make? The top management in the “worker-led” businesses makes more than the shipping clerk. You think people in this country that are needy are someone else’s fault? B.J. and other businesses pay the price for having 35 percent of the population (as of 2012) on welfare, as well as I do. I pay for their 10 cell phones and their Cadillac Escalades.

Yesterday, I watch a woman pull out her Peach Card and pay for $151.87 worth of groceries. The meat in her basket is by far better than what I get, and I’m helping pay for her being lazy. There is not one community in America that does not have a problem with people being “needy.” My question is, whose fault is it? Apparently you think it mine, B.J.’s and everybody else, but certainly not yours.

Mr. Garner, ever since the beginning of time, there has been haves and have-nots. You and nobody else will ever change that except Jesus Christ, but then again I get the feeling you don’t believe in him. Even if you don’t believe in the Bible, read it for its historical value. I think you have one, as you’ve quoted from it before, and you will note that there were poor, rich and in-between.

My suggestion is to put your money where your mouth is and get out and help these people that B.J. is helping instead of trying to get someone else to do it. And I further suggest that you move back to Switzerland or some other county, like maybe Russia. You could even get them to turn the clock back 50 years so everybody there could be the same, starving and without heat in the winter. But the Mother Country was taking care of them.

Warren D. Grant, of Albany, is an Illinois native who has resided in Georgia for two decades and is a regular letter writer to The Albany Herald.