Apple is the world’s most valuable company today, but in 1997 it nearly went bankrupt.Thanks to a $150 million dollar investment care of Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs was able to acquire the resources necessary to nurse Apple back to health.Jobs, Apple and a world soon-to-be reliant on Apple’s products were all very lucky thanks to Gates’s wealth being so immense that he could risk an enormous sum on a formerly great company that many left for dead.What’s important about Gates is that he had $150 million to lose.

Gates’s intrepid investment speaks to the crucial importance of the rich to economic progress.Precisely because they’re rich, they have the means to invest differently than most of us do.Apple was no sure thing back in 1997, and evidence supporting the previous claim is that it took an investment from the world’s richest man to save the company.

Millionaires Invest Their Money

Thank goodness for the rare individuals who can uniquely direct their wealth to companies running on fumes, but also to ideas with high potential that, by virtue of having high potential, also have strong odds of failure.  Because the rich have money to lose they can take risks that the rest of us can’t, and the economy gains immeasurably.

The Post was saved by billionaire Jeff Bezos, Carlos Slim saved the New York Times.

The problem is that policy types from the left and right don’t necessarily see it that way.  Washington Post editorial board member Catherine Rampell sees it as unfortunate and irresponsible that President Trump “is hellbent on passing a massive tax cut for the rich.” And while Trump perhaps doesn’t know why such a tax reduction would be great, Rampell should.Rampell as mentioned works for the Washington Post, and because she does is likely more aware than most of the modern difficulties experienced by the newspaper industry.The Post was saved by billionaire Jeff Bezos, Carlos Slim saved the New York Times, and one can only hope that one or a few experimental billionaires will direct their untaxed wealth toward the Los Angeles Times.  If Rampell hasn’t picked up a copy of the latter recently, she would likely find doing so illuminating for a read of what was once the world’s most profitable newspaper revealing what the Post might have become absent Bezos.

Instead, Rampell oddly argues that Trump’s proposed tax cuts are problematic given her belief that “at some point the U.S. government will have to make good on its accumulating debts, through some combination of future tax hikes and spending cuts.” Rampell’s point seems to be that tax cuts now just mean future tax increases to pay for today’s alleged profligacy.But why? How does Rampell know this? Will “bond vigilantes” holding dollar income streams that Treasuries represent force gargantuan tax hikes?That seems to be House Speaker Paul Ryan’s view, and perhaps Rampell’s.More and more a deficit hawk, Ryan wanted a longer-term debt-ceiling extension than desired by Trump for (among other things – please read on) “the credit markets’ sake.” Ok, but once again, why?