To the Editor:

This week we’ve heard from the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism at Western Carolina University, hyping the corporate dog and pony show at WCU on Oct. 5, preaching the morality of the free market.

According to Wikipedia: “The BB&T Corporation (Branch Banking & Trust) is the 10th largest commercial bank in the United States, based in Winston-Salem, with around $200 billion in assets.

“In late 2008 the bank accepted $3.1 billion in bailout money through the sale of its preferred shares to the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

“In May 2008, the BB&T Charitable Foundation had given 25 U.S. colleges and universities ‘several million dollars’ to fund programs promoting Ayn Rand’s work and economic philosophy.”

My question is, why would a business, whose goal is to maximize profit, give away several million dollars to 25 universities, especially right before receiving federal bailout money?

That money is hard at work at WCU and around the country, funding corporate propaganda, trying to convince us that behemoth corporations are looking out for our best interests. 

Since the recession (caused by the big banks, resulting in millions of Americans losing their jobs and/or homes), almost all of the U.S. economic growth has gone to the top 10 percent. Wages/buying power are stagnant, actually at early 1970s levels counting inflation, while corporate upper management bonuses rocket skyward. The only way working families survive is to go further into debt, and the big banks profit from that with their credit cards. It’s a vicious cycle for us, a profitable one for them.

To be clear, I am all for small c capitalism, mom-and-pop shops, honest competition and entrepreneurs. But when a company amasses billions of dollars, buys lobbyists and gives untold millions to buy politicians and installs propagandists at our universities, we have a fundamental problem that undermines our democratic republic.  

This is why I’m voting for Bernie Sanders for president, and other candidates who are willing to take on the big banks, big corporations and corruption in general. Our founding fathers did not envision us living in a corporate oligarchy. 

Dan Kowal

Franklin