Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 35
In Denmark all Danes are guaranteed a comfortable existence, but unless the fortunes
were made before the advent of the socialist state, no newcomers are easily allowed to
advance to the wealthy class. Further, Denmark’s government policies, like economic
entropy, tend to pull all those in that class down to the great mediocrity of socialism
where everyone must live equally, regardless of merit. The teeth of the law are taxes,
and the taxman sees to it that the law is applied. No sooner had my former father-in-law
reached his zenith, his own government despoiled him of everything he had created.
With his wife dead and his son psychologically broken, he was sent to live in a public
retirement home as a ward of the state. Several years later in April 1984, I last saw him
there. We finally made an unspoken connection that seemed to say volumes about the
ultimate tragedy of his destiny. It was my living proof that the place chosen to pursue a
dream makes a world of difference on whether the effort is worthwhile or not.
Lest it be conjectured that this was an isolated instance, the story of my daughter’s
student-host family in Copenhagen is valid corroboration. My daughter Kim, after
graduating from high school in Texas and wishing to find a bit of her Danish roots, in
1983 elected to do one year of prep school in Denmark. She found a wonderfully fine
Danish family willing to “adopt” her while she attended school. As opposed to her
maternal grandfather’s self-made fortune, her “adopted” father was building up a
business inherited from his own father. He had a successful heavy equipment
distributorship with a significant export component. His cousin was also in business with
him.
The company, or companies, provided significant profits but the heavy taxation to which
they were subjected left just enough for them to live at a level not much higher than
most of his employees, who were not at any risk. The cousin, being a bit more of a free
spirit than her “father,” found out that by residing out of the country most of the time he
could avoid some of the taxes. This he did, but he had to put up with the inconvenience
of being an absentee owner, which wasn’t good for business. Ultimately, the family was
taxed so heavily that the incentive to continue the struggle was not proportional to the
difficulties.
Despite the fact that Kim’s host “siblings” would have made great next-generation
managers, they chose not to preserve the company in the family. I believe that this was
another truncated dream. The principal cause for this disappointing end result was the
withering effect of accumulated frustrations with excessive government rules and taxes.
The dream of two generations of family work is now gone - courtesy of the hypertaxation
of the socialist state.
The fact is that the causes standing in the way of a successful pursuit of dreams may
come from totally unexpected angles. My good friend Saba Halaby, born in a well-to-do
Christian family of Jerusalem (The Holy Land), makes a good example of the
destructive consequences of what in the view of both parties to the Israel - Palestine
conflict is institutionalized terrorism. At the height of their business career, his parents
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