The joys of free markets.

Herman Cain, CEO and president of New Voice Inc., and the national chairman of the Media Research Center's Free Market Project, claims in an Op-Ed, which is really nothing more than a shamelessly self serving piece of corporate propaganda, that, "the most effective compassion comes from the private sector." Obviously, the idea here is that "individuals" and "corporations, "the "private sector," are really one in the same, bound together in a desperate battle to free themselves from the yoke of a federal government that seeks to "direct every aspect of American life, " while the media, when not pointing fingers, refuses to "recognize that corporate profits are used for corporate charity." (Oxymoron, def; Corporate Charity.)

A case in point: good corporate citizens such as Mal-Mart (Net income: $3.16 billion), often maligned by the media for making money, are opening up their wallets, to the tune of $15 million, (Well, they're looking underneath the cushions of the couch anyway...) to help those individuals in Louisiana and Mississippi work on building their dreams through the wonders of the free market economic system. Home Depot’s stocks might be sky rocketing in expectation of massive profits, but that's good, because what other incentive would they have to stock their stores to help rebuild if there wasn't a disaster to take advantage of?

And what about the oil companies, who the media continually vilify for making profits from soaring gas prices? Between Exxon/Mobil (earnings totaled $7.84 billion in SQ), Conoco/Phillips (Net income surged to $3.14 billion), Marathon and BP (OIL giant BP announced annual profits of £8.7bn, equivalent to £1m an hour), they have pledged over $11 million. Clearly, America's richest corporations are going "above and beyond to provide huge amounts of charitable assistance." The next time you're spending $50 to fill up at the pump, just think about that tenth of a penny that's going to the recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast.

Like Mr. Cain and all the corporations that provide funding for his media "research," Americans are optimists and as long as we "enjoy the incentives---and charity---that abound in free market society," and continue to sacrifice at the pump it will become clearer to us that there really is no need for that $1 billion a day the government is spending on the relief effort.