"I Don't Resent Bezos, I'm Rooting For Him"

That was the headline of a USA TODAY column by Nicole Russell.  She is a columnist in the paper who has four kids and she lives in Texas.  I've read many of her columns and this one like many of them, is right on the money.

I have rarely posted on something like this but back in 1989 I sent a letter to the editor of a paper after reading a column by Richard Cohen, who was a columnist for The Washington Post for 43 years. The article was titled, "Lee Iacocca, Truly a Man For Our Time." Iacocca was an author, engineer, and executive working at Ford Corporation and he revived Chrysler Corporation.  He also raised hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Cohen criticized Iacocca for becoming rich and supposedly lacking in performance. It was a typical hit piece on how bad rich people supposedly are. I wrote, "In this age of critics and knocking achievement instead of recognizing and praising it, perhaps your next article, Mr. Cohen should be, 'Richard Cohen, truly a man for our times.' I look forward to reading that article and comparing it with Lee Iacocca's achievements." 

Russell praised Jeff Bezos and other very successful people by saying, "Billionaires aren't the villains people often imagine.  They're one reason a busy mom like me can order household essentials or school supplies in minutes and spend more time with my kids."

She said that close to 80% of households in our country buy from Amazon and nearly 200 million people have PRIME memberships. In her column she explained, "Many of America's billionaires have built products and services millions of us willingly use because they make life easier, faster or better. Amazon didn't force its way into American households; consumers invited it in because it solved problems and delivered value."

It's not just the value of their products and efforts, but millionaires and billionaires also employ millions of people in their businesses.  I enjoyed reading another defense of successful people, there should be more columns and articles written like this.

One more thing: a few weeks later Nicole Russell posted another column and said this, "For days, my inbox filled with seething email, and I was tagged in social media posts full of personal and professional smears-all for defending Bezos and the company millions of Americans use every day."

She double-downed on what she originally said and she is absolutely right. There are way too many misconceptions on how people create wealth.  I sent her an email telling her I wrote this blog and I hope she takes a look at this.