The Foundational Problem

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It’s not that battery powered devices – or insuring vehicles – are bad things. There are people who are interested in and willing to buy such things. if there are enough people who are interested to make it worth offering those things, then it is worth offering such things  – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, either.

Offering things that people want is the very essence of capitalism. But capitalism is being undermined by corporatism. The latter is to capitalism what the government “asking” you for money is to being free to say no.

Corporatism is often confused with capitalism. More finely, it is used to confuse people about capitalism – and thereby cause them to despise capitalism when they ought to despise corporatism.

For instance, in a capitalist system, a capitalist is free to invest his money (or the money of investors he’s persuaded to invest their money) in his venture. He must then persuade buyers to spend their money on the thing he’s put on offer – such as a battery powered vehicle, for instance.

In order to persuade a sufficient number of them to buy the vehicle it is necessary to make it profitable for him and his investors to make the battery powered vehicle at a price people can pay and are willing to pay. In order to do that – in a capitalist system – the battery powered vehicle must be more appealing to buyers than the vehicles that already exist. This “more appealing” can be any of several things, including lower maintenance cost and forceful (and quiet) acceleration. The particulars don’t matter. What does matter – if this is capitalism – is that there are enough reasons to make enough people want to by the EV at a price that is commensurate with the cost to manufacture them plus a profit margin sufficient to make it more than just a break-even proposition.

Because if not, then why bother?

Capitalism is not fundamentally about making money. It is about creating new wealth.

In the example above, the investors have not only made a return on their investment – it has not come at the expense of anyone else.

Put another way, everyone gains. Including those who didn’t directly participate in the exchange, because the additional wealth created benefits everyone, ultimately. The wealth created by the selling of the product is available to finance other ventures and for the people who earned to spend on products and services produced or offered by others.

Now let’s consider the corporatist alternative. Instead of investing his own money in the development of a battery powered vehicle, the corporatist relies upon the government to coerce malinvestment in his alternative. This can take the form of – to use a real world example – “carbon credits,” which no one would freely invest in because there is no market value in them, aside from the pressure to buy them created by government to buy them as a way to offset some of the costs of paying the government. The victims of this form of wealth transfer/extortion pay the corporatist, who uses the wealth transferred/extorted to finance the development and manufacturing of his battery powered vehicles.

Wealth is subtracted from the net whole. The enrichment of the corporatist impoverishes those coerced into paying him for products (or services) they do not want  or need. Or for nothing at all, in the case of “carbon credits.”

The corporatist also relies on the government to impose regulations that create a “market” for his product, which can serve to inflate the stock value of his corporation (assuming a publicly traded company) because investors will deduce – correctly – that people will have to buy what is being forced on the market.

This is as far from “capitalism” as LA is from New York City. Wealth has not been created. It has been shifted – from those who had it and did not wish to part with it – into the coffers of the corporatist who had the pull (Ayn Rand’s word) to coerce the transaction. It is an example of the I win/you lose false paradigm that is often used to smear capitalism when in fact it is corporatism that leaves one person holding the bag and another a full bag.

Corporatism does more than just create winners – and losers – in terms of wealth transferred. It creates absurdities instead of efficiencies.

In a capitalist system, the guy who wants to make – and sell – battery powered vehicles has to figure out how to make them attractive enough to enough people in order to make them want to buy them.  It is not merely that he cannot rely on subsidies and mandates.

It goes much deeper – much farther back – than that.

Subsidies and mandates take the pressure off the manufacturer to appeal to the market. The one that would exist – were it not for mandates and subsidies. It is corporatism that has resulted in battery powered vehicles that are made with very little regard for their cost – or their practicality. Instead, they are made to appeal to the affluent people who don’t have to worry much about cost – and generally do not care about practicality, because they don’t have to.

Corporatist EVs are very much of a piece with Soviet vanity projects such as the Volga Canal that wasn’t much use for transport but was very useful insofar as burnishing Stalin’s image.

This brings up an interesting thing about corporatism, which is that it has much more in common with communism than capitalism in that it (corporatism) relies on state power and Grand Plans imposed by coercion to achieve its ends.

Capitalism is about free people pursuing their own ends via mutually agreeable exchanges of value for value, as defined by the individuals participating freely in the exchange. Put another way, it is the absence of coercion that defines capitalism. Buy this – or that – or not. As you wish. Offer this – or that – to those who may be interested in buying what you’re selling and let the price be determined by what the seller is willing to accept and the buyer willing to pay.

In summary:

EVs are not bad – and neither is insurance – when they (and other products and services) are offered freely and people are free to buy them – or not. But whenever anyone is coerced to buy or made to subsidize a product or service they do not want, do not use and do not wish to subsidize, it becomes extremely bad as both a moral and a practical matter.

Take away the coercion and it is certain that there would either be EVs that people wanted to buy because they were a better option – or there would be no EVs. As there ought not to be, if it is not feasible to make EVs that merit them being made. Insurance would cost less rather than more if you were free to not buy it. And insurance would no longer be a mafia but a legitimate business.

Corporatism corrupts everything – and gives capitalism a bad name in the process.

. . .

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40 COMMENTS

  1. Great article Eric.
    With our little company, I am fighting corporatism with everything I’ve got. And teaching our youth how to do it. We are winning more than we are losing.

  2. Bibi the Kike gifted Donald the Dupe a Golden Pager Calf, thank you, America for your unwavering support… and more bombs.

    When it comes down to nut cuttin’ time, you will have to bomb everything into submission.

    No other choice in the matter.

    Every army officer knows that any GI grunt on the battlefield is the smartest fighter on the block. Keeps you alive. Intelligence matters. Those are the draftees that are issued green underwear before being shipped to the combat zones.

    You are going to shoot at something somewhere. You don’t want to die.

    The army has a plan, you get stationed while enlisted.

    Figure it out.

    Nobody is that dumb.

    Except for Bibi.

    Thou shalt not kill

    War is just plain stupid. So is Bibi.

    Americans fall for it all. Too much pride, not enough humble.

  3. On balancing the budget go to the budget forecast from GovCo:

    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2025-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2025-BUD.pdf

    After you have it go to chart S4 on page 141. Total 2025 outlay is roughly 7,266 billion, revenue is roughly 5.485 billions leaving a deficit of roughly 1,781 billions.

    No matter how much you want it to balance you will have to slash it like a “newcomer” to Germany and cut benefits to voters. Once you consider politicians only exist to get reelected you realize you have a problem. The budget will only be balanced when We The People demand it, consequences be damned and we really mean it.

    And that my friends is the real problem; maybe not foundational but the real problem in my opinion.

  4. One problem with the “robber barons” is that what we “know” about them comes through a biased view of the media, and authors like Sinclair. Quoting Wikipedia, an unbiased source of course, even they allow this:
    “Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American author, muckraker, and political activist, and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California.” Does that say anything about his credibility?

    John D Rockefeller is reputed to have given to charity, in one year, more money than any individual on earth had ever possessed. Kerosene went from about $1.50 per gallon to $.05 under Standard Oil. (He can’t be held responsible for what his descendants have done.)

    One of Carnegie’s route to riches was that he determined a way to have steel mills pay him to haul away the dross from their operations and to extract more steel from that dross at a profit. He funded thousands of libraries with some of the profits. His credo: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”

    Doesn’t make any of them saints, but neither were most of them devils. And most of them did more for mankind than any politician (or fabulously wealthy jock or “personality”) any of us could name.

    • You are correct in stating that the “robber barons” did much for humanity, much more than politicians and other muckrakers.

      You also make a good point about the philanthropy of the “robber barons”.

      A question for you…

      WHY did almost all robber barons slash wages, pleading poverty for themselves? During their lifetimes, they could have easily paid their employees better wages but chose not to do so.

      I believe that philanthropy was used to “sooth their savage souls” and be a possible way for them to achieve a path to “salvation”.

      As I stated in my previous post, Henry Ford “broke the mold” by paying his employees a decent wage and establishing the 8-hour day, 40 hour workweek with two days off.

      During the age of Carnegie and Rockefeller, there was no real “middle class”. Most ordinary people lived a hardscrabble existence with never quite enough to “get ahead”.

      Best regards,

      • I can’t answer the question because I have no knowledge of their actual policies with regard to wages. Each of us only knows a little about a lot. I suspect you have done the research on that. I do wonder, even at lower wages, if most were not more prosperous than their parents, since the industrial revolution made goods available to them that kings didn’t have for most of history.

        JDR was a Baptist and might have worried about his salvation. Carneige was Presbyterian and therefore not concerned about that. Scotish Presbyterians were solidly Predestinationists.

        One thing though, through most of history there was no middle class. You were a King or a surf. There were the connected, the barons, dukes, etc. who were still the elite, what we would call “the upper crust”. Many clerics did well, too. For the most part, you were “upstairs” or downstairs”. Only a few lived as what we see as middle class. Most who did were tradsmen or artisans who lived in that middle ground, but those were a small part of the population. For the most part, even they were looked down upon. Cucumber sandwiches were not served to calloused hands.

        You and I were born in an opportune time. I going to call it the 18th through late 20th centuries. We are currently returning to the mean of all the ages before. I guess I have been “middle middle class” all of my adult life. My parents probably were, even though I remember several times when they were “flat broke middle class”. Right now, most of the middle class is truly in worse shape than that if you consider net worth as part of the definition. My parents were broke but they owned their house (which my father built with the help of the local teenagers and my uncles) and car (singular). Now, many are lving as if they are kings but have prospects of the surf if you review their credit card balances. One check away from the repo man.

        • Thank you for your concise response. It is appreciated.
          As to Carnegie’s supposed “sainthood, here you go…
          Yup Andrew was a real peach! https://timeline.com/dale-carnegie-militia-battle-striking-workers-c0fdc8a75527 He didn’t mind his workers being shot or tortured.. nice guy.
          Did you know? During the U.S. Civil War, Andrew Carnegie was drafted for the Army; however, rather than serve, he paid another man $850 to report for duty in his place, a common practice at the time.
          Great American.
          Les Standiford claims the Scot was a “brutal” employer, a “Machiavellian” who exploited his workforce and then gave away his money to salve his troubled conscience.
          https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/carnegie-was-brutal-boss-who-exploited-his-workforce-1-1391844
          In 1883, Standiford claims Carnegie used a drop in steel prices to argue with the Knights of Labour and the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers at his Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, for a 20% cut in wages.
          The alternative was that the plant would be shut down and the men locked out. The workers capitulated. But three years later the plant was shut down by Carnegie 10 days before Christmas when he discovered one of his rivals had achieved a cut in wages of between 15% and 20%.
          Standiford said: “Carnegie had his plant manager post a notice that the works would close for an indefinite period and that 1,600 men would be put out of work with the stated reason being plant renovation. But Carnegie had resolved that the real purpose was to drive out the unions, only non-union men would be rehired when they reopened the plant.
          “By February of 1885, with the men facing starvation and freezing temperatures and no money to buy food or coal, they agreed to come back in under individual contracts, their wages decreased by up to 33%. The union was crushed forever at the plant.”
          The book’s title, Meet You In Hell, is inspired by a comment allegedly made by Frick when he was passed a letter from the dying Carnegie, suggesting the two men should make up their differences.
          “Frick has always been blamed for Homestead but a letter written from Scotland by Carnegie said: ‘We are with you to the end.’ I think it suited Carnegie to take himself off to Scotland and let Frick take the flak,” said Standiford.
          Carnegie was born in 1836 in Dunfermline, Fife. His father was a handloom weaver and an active Chartist who marched for the rights of the working man. So when Andrew went to sleep every night knowing he had starved, beaten and killed his factory workers, he spent his $$$$ trying to assuage his conscience.
          Andrew is not a hero, hero’s don’t kill their employees by starvation and shooting!
          Despicable man, trying to pave his way to Heaven.
          Similar to Mr. Bloomberg who states that his path to heaven is assured by his good works.
          Gag me with a Gomulka please.
          Les Standiford claims the Scot was a “brutal” employer, a “Machiavellian” who exploited his workforce and then gave away his money to salve his troubled conscience.
          https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/carnegie-was-brutal-boss-who-exploited-his-workforce-1-1391844
          In 1883, Standiford claims Carnegie used a drop in steel prices to argue with the Knights of Labour and the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers at his Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, for a 20% cut in wages.
          The alternative was that the plant would be shut down and the men locked out. The workers capitulated. But three years later the plant was shut down by Carnegie 10 days before Christmas when he discovered one of his rivals had achieved a cut in wages of between 15% and 20%.
          Standiford said: “Carnegie had his plant manager post a notice that the works would close for an indefinite period and that 1,600 men would be put out of work with the stated reason being plant renovation. But Carnegie had resolved that the real purpose was to drive out the unions, only non-union men would be rehired when they reopened the plant.
          “By February of 1885, with the men facing starvation and freezing temperatures and no money to buy food or coal, they agreed to come back in under individual contracts, their wages decreased by up to 33%. The union was crushed forever at the plant.”
          The book’s title, Meet You In Hell, is inspired by a comment allegedly made by Frick when he was passed a letter from the dying Carnegie, suggesting the two men should make up their differences.
          “Frick has always been blamed for Homestead but a letter written from Scotland by Carnegie said: ‘We are with you to the end.’ I think it suited Carnegie to take himself off to Scotland and let Frick take the flak,” said Standiford.
          Carnegie was born in 1836 in Dunfermline, Fife. His father was a handloom weaver and an active Chartist who marched for the rights of the working man. So when Andrew went to sleep every night knowing he had starved, beaten and killed his factory workers, he spent his $$$$ trying to assuage his conscience.
          Andrew is not a hero, hero’s don’t kill their employees by starvation and shooting!
          Despicable man, trying to pave his way to Heaven.
          Similar to Mr. Bloomberg who states that his path to heaven is assured by his good works.
          The “robber baron” label is still valid…
          Best regards,

  5. Capitalism is a fairy tale. Sounds nice, but as long as I have lived it’s just a joke and something in the BS Mcgraw Hill school textbooks.

    Man I would like to go back to 9th grade and do the exercise where the class tries to balance the US budget. I’d kill to be that fly on the wall. The exercise was so pointless and brainwashing, but now days I bet the kids are like “Tariff and start mailing us checks, no gay rights in the 3rd world…” “Straight to detention for you!”

  6. And now the ultimate corporatist grifter, Elon Musk, has managed to place himself in a position where he is able to influence government policies – under the guise of removing government inefficiencies, no less!

  7. I gently disagree.
    When the USA was founded, the term was “commerce.” Free commerce. This is the correct starting point.

    Later, the same “chosen people” who invented Communism (Rothschilds, Marx, Engels) invented Capitalism. Communism was the best tool to dupe the Eastern Europeans. Capitalism was the best tool to dupe the Western Europeans and the Americans. Either way, the most wealthy and vicious group gains control of all.

    jewry loves to spew two lies and laugh at the mAsses arguing over which lie is truth.

    “Corporatism” is a distraction.

    No matter what system a country begins with, if jewry is allowed to accumulate wealth, they will end up in total control because they are united, secretive, deceptive, and vicious. They will worm their way into control of the media, the big companies, and the government — including control of the money system.

    This was done before all of us were born.

    Not opinion. Not belief. Verifiable facts assembled into knowledge.

  8. @Eric – Clinton unleashed the DOJ and David Boies on Gates, with the consent decree vacated only after Shrub took office and Ashcroft dropped the case.

    The poster children for Corporatism would be Obama and Biden with Buffett if you can find one.

    If construction ever finishes on the Keystone Pipeline, BNSF oil trains stop rolling.

    And if the oil trains aren’t on BNSF rails, chances are the tanker cars came from Marmon.

    Marmon tanker cars have the letters UTLX on the side, usually lower left facing the car.

    Look for the marking the next time you see a freight train.

  9. There hasn’t been true capitalism since a government was established after the revolt. This nation is so gas lit, it had better stay clear of any open flame.

  10. In a free market one can only succeed by serving people. If you make a product people want, at price people can afford and are willing to pay, you succeed. If not, you have to steal their money, and you are nothing more nor less than a common criminal.

  11. True capitalism, where you have a willing seller and a willing buyer, each acting of his own volition and free will, as a unicorn. It is extremely rare, and almost always found only in “infant industries” where a new market is being created where one did not previously exist.

    One of the greatest examples is Henry Ford, who literally started building cars in his garage, put his name on them, and sold them to the public. He built an extraordinary business empire in a very short period of time, but within 40 years his company had been wholly commandeered by the government. During World War II it ceased to build cars for the public and was directed to build airplanes and military vehicles for the government. It was no longer in any sense “free.” Ford had no ability to refuse to do so.

    The fact is that the government is the ultimate Mafia, if they want something you have got, they are going to take it, so you had better cooperate. Nice company ya got here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.

    Consequently the rational focus of the company then becomes lobbying the government to curry favor on things like taxes, environmental and labor regulations, restricting competition, etc. At a certain point almost everything becomes a political decision — how much immigration are we going to allow affects your potential market, your potential labor pool, wages, etc. Allowing MFN with Third World countries like China or eliminating tariffs with shithole countries like Mexico can increase your profit a hundredfold, as opposed to maybe eking out an extra 10% sales margin over your competition.

    At this point your company and your “market” is basically an adjunct of the state, and you have a corporatist system. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle.

    • Henry Ford couldn’t even give his employees a raise. He tried, Dodge sued him saying Ford had to operate his company in the interests of its shareholders instead of for the benefit of his employees or customers and Dodge won. Disgusting those Dodge brothers, no wonder they coin clipped two cylinders off their Ram 1500 engine and hoped no one would notice.

  12. The Pharisees were running a scam where when you entered the Temple for Passover you were expected to make a sacrifice. You couldn’t bring your own sheep or goat but had to buy one from the money-changers. Then it went to the Pharisee Inspector to ensure it wasn’t flawed and not worthy of sacrifice. If determined flawed, then you had to buy another one, which happened often unless you slipped a little something to the inspector. Jesus had enough of this and turned the money-changers tables over. Jesus was interfering with the skimm. Jesus had to go. Hence Jesus was determined worthy of sacrifice… the lamb of God.

    It’s been high time we all turn the money-changers tables and never buy their Climate religion, their vaccine sacrament, their corruption. We have 2-years at the most going forward. The last 3-weeks have given some hope and more exposure of the corruption of the money-changers is starting to have an effect even with the low information voter types.

    • Well said, Hans. Jesus’ actions in the temple were not an endorsement or encouragement of violence to resolve disputes. It was a warning to those that blaspheme God. Unlike the woman being stoned he didn’t just say, “Go and sin no more”.

  13. ‘This is as far from “capitalism” as LA is from New York City.’ — eric

    Killer simile — this is Eric strutting his authorial chops, to devastating effect.

    Corporatism is the Bill Clinton / Tony Blair ‘Third Way’ between capitalism and communism. It is inherently corrupt: the literal road to serfdom.

    And it’s all we’ve got, as Orange Onan confabulates a ‘world people’ Shangri-La atop half a million human skulls in wrecked Gaza.

    I walk 47 miles of barbed wire
    I use a cobra snake for a necktie
    I got a brand new house on the roadside
    Made from rattlesnake hide

    I got a brand new chimney made on top
    Made out of a human skull
    Now come on take a walk with me Arlene
    And tell me who do you love?

    — Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love?

  14. Warren Buffet bought the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, just kept all of the shares and removed BNSF ticker from the Big Board.

    Warren more or less stole an entire railroad at the price he paid.

    Went into the Berkshire Hathaway fold.

    BRKa is priced at 678,000 dollars per share. BRKa is up 674,000 dollars compared to the price back in 1987, one share of BRKa was 3990 USD .

    Warren bought See’s Candies. Gotta have it all says Warren. To a DQ for a Blizzard!

    For Berkshire, it is all financial. At 678,000 dollars per share, not many market mavens buying BRKa. More of a private equity than anything, not much market information for BRKa.

    BlackRock is a meddlesome financial raider too. Tries to pull a fast one on a utility. You sue BlackRock, put a stop to their nonsense and chicanery. If you do not, it spells trouble with a capital T. It is not fair!

    Corporatism is the word to use, corporatists take the fun out of everything.

    Boil that cabbage down.

  15. Hamilton begat Clay who begat Lincoln who begat pretty much every other president / congresscritter. All of whom ensured the fabric of America was frayed & eventually torn before the ink had dried on the Constitution.

  16. Much of this malinvestment also remains due to the Fed and infinite money printing, and more importantly ARTIFICIALLY SUPPRESSED INTEREST RATES.
    Cheap money for these “green” vanity projects – but only for the well connected- as noted is how it all starts.
    Look at all the current admittedly failing “green” companies like NorthVolt, Fisker, Canoo, Lion Electric, Nikola. Where did all those billions come from to begin? And it’s not like the money vaporized. SOMEONE got paid.
    We are watching a currency die in live time, and this “green” trash is making it perish faster.

    Oh yeah, and as a side note, isn’t “Private equity” now the termite in the walls in this house of cards?
    Every week now some well known brand consortium goes out of business and in the fine print they note this it was bought out by some PE firm 2 years prior.

  17. Stop calling it corporatism. It’s national socialism, no different than the third reich. It just took longer to get there.

    • Hi Ready.

      I believe that it was Italy that had Fascism and Mussolini called it corporatism. Germany had national socialism unlike the Soviet Union which had international socialism also called communism.

      Too many isms’ in the world; we just need freedom.

      • This is the quote…

        Benito Mussolini stated that “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

        • So as usual, it’s pure projection from the Dems when they label everyone who opposes them fascists. They and their RINO chamber of commerce establishment Republicans are the ones implementing a fascist economy.

      • “Too many isms’ in the world” – Landru

        The left loves to categorize and pigeonhole everything. That’s why all these species are going extinct. Someone got to name a slightly different looking Jackalope into its own species, so when it dies it becomes “threatened” even though there were ever only a handful of the beasties.

        If you can define it, you can study it. And if you can study it, you can get a doctorate in it. And maybe a book deal and a pundit spot on the cable news networks.

        • Sadly Ready, the Southern Jackalope was declared an endangered species a few years back so don’t get caught like my cousin Eddy did making Jackalope Pot Pie after his worm farm was foreclosed on many years ago. 🙂

          • The Jackalope (Lepus-temperamentalus) was once believed a fraud like that of Big Foot. A cross between a now extinct pygmy-deer and a species of early-rabbit, they are extremely shy unless approached. They do not breed well in captivity, hence the lack of a wide commercial market.

    • Respectfully disagree…
      It is more akin to fascism, where the government and business collude, keeping the real consumer and potential upstart companies out of the mix.
      Please keep in mind that the men who built industry had only one thing on their minds–the accumulation of wealth but only for themselves–no different than the financial “robber barons” of today.
      They were indeed robber barons who almost always slashed wages for those who made their success possible–their employees–always pleading poverty while living grand lives themselves. They cared not one wit about the welfare of their employees–only how much capital they could amass for themselves on the backs of these same employees. Wage cuts were not only common, but labor unions were brutally suppressed as well.
      One notable exception was Henry Ford, who KNEW that paying his employees a decent wage would come back to reward him in spades. Although not entire altruistic as assembly-line work was extremely tedious, his above-average wages probably did more to forestall support for socialism or communism in the USA than just about any other action. Although Ford’s high wage structure was put in place to reduce turnover, his writings did state that he wanted his employees to be able to afford not only his products but to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
      American prosperity did not filter down to the employees of the robber barons until Henry Ford broke the mold, instituting his $5 per day wage, 40-hour workweek and 8-hour workday.
      Free trade” is actually a “race to the bottom” which can only be detrimental to the true human condition. Expecting first-world wage rates to compete with third-world wage rates never works.
      I would hope that people would start to see that Henry Ford was absolutely correct when he blamed the banksters, vulture capitalists, and wall street types for the economic conditions, not only in the USA, but the world.
      People such as “Mitt” Romney whose only expertise is to disassemble viable companies and industries, selling off the assets individually to maximize their “profits” need to be exposed and “run out of town”.
      Adolf Hitler’s Germany recovered from the great depression much faster than the rest of the western world and was successful because labor in Germany was “monetized”–given intrinsic “value”, unlike what the mantra in business is still to this day, that “labor” costs must be minimized and that the “shareholder” is king.
      The internationalist banksters had to do something to “nip” the monetization and valuation of labor as it “upset the (existing) order–just what the “new world order” types want.

      • “Free trade” is actually a “race to the bottom” which can only be detrimental to the true human condition.”

        If you think that, then you must accept the need for a strong government to pull ‘misbehaving capitalists’ to order.

        Which of course is nonsense, because a business, in the absence of government coercion, MUST be able to compete, and if it treats its customers like shyte, it won’t last long.

        Meanwhile, it is absolutely certain that once you have that ‘strong central authority’ – i.e. government – in place, the vast majority of the corruption and bad behavior will inevitably shift there.

        The ‘free market’ may not be perfect, but it is by any means much better than the ‘strong government’ alternative.

        It is much, much better to keep the government as small as possible, and instead have independent judiciary and laws that protect the sanctity of private property as well as that of a contract freely entered into.

        That way, should you come across a bad business operator, you can sue them to oblivion. Which is a much better punishment than some BS ‘fine’ from their government buddies, who are benefiting from the donations that same bad operator has been giving them.

        • I agree with you 100% in keeping the government out of most business affairs. That being said, today’s corporations benefit from a “strong government hand”. If you asked the automakers whether they would desire that all government regulations on them should be abolished, they would most certainly say NO. You see, government regulation keeps outsiders and upstarts who don’t have the capital out of the business.
          On the international front, how do you expect well-paid American workers to compete with foreigners making one-tenth the wage? It just doesn’t work. It never has and never will.
          Trump is on the right track with tariffs as this country ran totally on tariffs until 1913 when the federal reserve (private) banking system and the income tax were created and established. With tariffs, it’s not the money, but “if you want to sell it here, make it here”.
          Best regards,

  18. We have socialism for the wealthy and capitalism for the poor and that’s why those elected never seem too interested in bringing back America as founded.

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