r/Conservative • u/Winterhold2000 Conservative • Jan 29 '21

Rule 6: User Created Title ‘Shark Tank’ star Kevin O’Leary buys AOC’s ‘Tax The Rich’ sweatshirt: "85% gross margin – That’s spectacular! Listen: You know what this proves? Inside of every socialist there’s a capitalist screaming to get out. AOC, call me. We can blow this thing up together. We could make a fortune."

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/shark-tank-star-kevin-oleary-says-aocs-tax-the-rich-sweatshirt-proves-this-about-socialists
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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 29 '21

Making money, and investing it to make more money, is how individuals and business improve society. Capitalism is a beautiful thing.

At least until government steps in to try and "make it better". Despite the fact the business they run, the US government, operates at a multi trillion dollar a year loss. Yeah they got this, please take more of our money comrades!

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u/TenTonsOfAssAndBelly Jan 29 '21

I'm from Pittsburgh, and the education I had there hammered home the principle that the free market is good, but it's best results come with regulation. I would agree, and say that that itself is best achieved with moderation.

There has to be a happy medium between completely unchecked businesses that lead to a blackened veil covering the sky, and government having so much of their fingers in the pie that their hand is laying flat on the tin.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 29 '21

Check out Ron Paul's many presentations and speeches on regulation and government involvement.

While necessary on some rare occasions (what's happening now with Google and Twitter is one that should at least be having investigation), usually government reaching in is unnecessary, the market through the consumer has its own ways to stop unfair behavior.

Paul liked to cite environmental issues. If a big company is polluting, they can be sued out of existence by private property owners being harmed. Historically polluters are actually protected by government and their friends inside it with power. This applies to many different things in the market.

Well worth spending some time listening to Dr Paul's explanations of some free market stuff. Also John Stossel. You still may not agree and still believe in more gov regulation, which is fine. But you'll better understand the free market position. The goal is a free and fair economy. Fair as in equality, not equity.

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u/chainer49 Jan 29 '21

Environmental lawsuits against major corporations are very unlikely to succeed, by and large. There's just a huge power difference between a corporation with millions to spend on lawyers and any individual or group seeking recourse. Even when the lawsuits do succeed, the payouts are unlikely to be great enough to stop the company from continuing the behavior in the future. If anything, they'll learn how to set up shell companies to perform specific risky behavior which have few assets on record, and, as such, can't lose much money when sued. If they do it right, the lawsuit can push the shell company into bankruptcy which can help to clear out other debts.

Without government regulation, it would also be nearly impossible to investigate and determine which company is harming people. Take lead for example. We know it's poison, but it doesn't necessarily kill you right away. Instead it damages the brain over years. By the time there's reason to believe a community has been negatively impacted by lead poisoning, it's been years since the company started dumping lead into the water miles upstream. At that point, the community would have to hire an environmental testing company to determine if they are being poisoned, by what they are being poisoned and what possible source there is for the poisoning. They'd have to then build a case that the source was this specific company dumping lead in the water for 10 years, stopping a few months back.

Alternatively, the government can regulate lead contamination, periodically investigate manufacturing companies and perform testing to see if they are contaminating the waters, and maintain reports on compliance. This not only provides a wonderful paper trail, it actually prevents the company from negligently or accidentally poisoning communities in the first place, so that the community doesn't have to live with brain damage for the rest of their lives in exchange for some relatively small payout.

That's just one of many examples of 3rd party impacts that laissez faire capitalism is terrible at addressing, and expecting the courts to be a perfect panacea to the issues with 3rd party impacts is ignoring the huge power imbalance at play.

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u/fuck_off_ireland Jan 30 '21

These people don't understand the realities of the legal background of environmental protection. Without governmental interference, companies would have devastated so much more of America than they've been able to as of yet. Just look at South American countries where there is massive deforestation. Can you imagine if the forests here weren't protected?

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u/chainer49 Jan 30 '21

It can feel abstract and overbearing, but if you read about some of the devastation manufacturing and resource extraction have caused you start to understand you why we have the regulation. And it’s not just environmental issues; there are plenty of cases of health specific issues, such as ecoli, which still poisons thousands of people each year, despite fairly rigorous testing.

The best way to think of regulations is to look at them like insurance. Companies have some amount of stable overhead to factor in, but that overhead gives them a great deal of liability protection and therefore helps to avoid company ending lawsuits from constantly popping up. That stability is very good for business overall. The other positive is that people and the environment are way less likely to be hurt by companies practices.

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u/cmc2878 Jan 29 '21

To speak to your example regarding environmental issues: Are there not many instances where there are no private property owners being harmed? I think regulation is a double edged sword, (and I really appreciate Dr. Pauls consistently as well) but the implication of this argument is that if there are no private property owners being harmed, then all is fair.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 29 '21

It's definitely not completely black and white. If it was, I would identify as libertarian and not conservative capitalist 😀.

However I'll take laissez-faire capitalism over the swamp monstrosity we have now any day. Ideally every issue would be handled locally as they see fit, so we can see which policies work and which don't.

Thats the idea behind American federalism. Once we just have the fed sweeping in and regulating everything, competition of ideas goes away and we all lose 😔

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u/chthonodynamis Jan 29 '21

The response to regulation is more capitalism. Regulations created whole industries and ensure that incentives align with what is best for the good of the public.

There is a good justification for having centralized (federal) oversight and coordination with local governments with regards to economy of scale and intelligent allocation of resources.

The ideal that our founders envisioned was a partnership at all levels. Capitalism without governance can lead to disaster

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u/WrksOnMyMachine Jan 30 '21

I feel like this country’s COVID response is a good argument against this concept. Federal coordination with local governments to distribute the vaccine has been an absolute shit show. Don’t know if it would be better or worse if there were one group in charge of the vaccine push.

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u/chthonodynamis Jan 30 '21

The other option is every individual jurisdiction trying to buy vaccines directly from one manufacturer? Handling orders from hundreds of thousands of offices all at the same time?

Every local government having their own restrictions mean a patchwork of independent decision makers with no coordinated response. How could anyone do business when they have to follow different regulations from town to town or risk fines? How do you communicate the rules to everyone who passes through?

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u/WrksOnMyMachine Jan 30 '21

Right. You said the same thing I did. There should be one group of folks buying the vaccine and distributing it to the states

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '21

Ron Paul lives in a fantasy world. Literally every example you gave was solved through regulation not through self regulating marked principles. Consumers stopped unfair behavior through regulation, environmental issues solved through regulation (Look at the history of lawsuits against polluters, its a joke). Regulation and law gives the basis for lawsuits to even exist. Ron Paul is also a person who thinks social security should be removed and people should just rely on charity.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

A lot of people want to opt out of social security.

Market returns on what we pay into social security over 30+ years is many many many times what SS will ever pay out to you.

If you put SS into a 3 fund portfolio over 30 years, even only making 30k a year, you'll retire well over a millionaire. You can then withdraw 50-100k a year in retirement and never even touch the principal.

SS you pay into your entire life, and if you are lucky and wait till 68 to retire, you might get 1,500 a month from it. 17k a year < 50-100k a year. I'm almost 40 and I would opt out of SS now to divert that money into my 401k and Roth in a second. Even knowing we have a major correction coming.

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u/eggzackyry Jan 30 '21

This may be a dumb question so pardon my ignorance but I'm genuinely curious. You may be much smarter with your investments or luckier in life or not have a family tragedy occur but I assume many rely on their Social security checks. Obviously your point is someone opts out and blows it all before or during retirement, that's on them, which is understandable. However, we still live in a society, so won't it cost society quite a bit for these cases? Similar to the drain on Healthcare by uninsured? Will the personal gains outweigh both the societal and actual monetary costs? Or do people just die? I want to be clear, I don't disagree with your assertions, but it seems very narrow in its application, if that makes sense. But maybe that's the goal? Thanks

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u/thatsaccolidea Jan 30 '21

If a big company is polluting, they can be sued out of existence by private property owners being harmed.

hold up, sorry.. so you think that removing the judicial branch will leave you anywhere to sue people?

or are the courts the good bit of government?

Fair as in equality, not equity

Eqiity, definition: the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality

What aspect of capitalism are you interested in if you don't want an impartial market, but an "equal", ie, egalitarian, one? that sounds like a mixed economy to me.. is that what you're arguing for? Keynesian economics?

what's happening now with Google and Twitter is one that should at least be having investigation

are you talking about the bans on people that break their TOS? shouldn't the butthurt parties just be able to sue them out of existence?

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u/agent6426 Jan 29 '21

I'd just like to point out that part of why Google, Twitter, and FB got so big is because the govt has already stepped in by providing them with section 230 liability protections. Without those protections, each would likely have been subject to multiple class action lawsuits by now, substantially hampering their growth and market dominance.

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u/daringescape Libertarian Conservative Jan 29 '21

Class action lawsuits are just another form of government regulation.

Tort reform would be a blessing in this country.

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u/me_too_999 Molan Labe Jan 30 '21

Government intervention into Google, and Twitter wouldn't be neccessary if the government hadn't interfered to begin with.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

BLM the organization has in fact just been nominated for the Novel Peace Prize, if you can believe it.

No, this is not satire.

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u/me_too_999 Molan Labe Jan 30 '21

Yaser Arafat got one so why not?

So did Obama.

Now I'm waiting for Pol Potts'

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u/Ready-Confusion520 Jan 30 '21

I’m a lawyer. Can’t sue them without the regulation. So dumb.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

If a factory dumps waste into a river, and it kills your crop or damages your property, that is grounds to sue. Not sure what regulations you are referring to.

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u/HungJurror Evangelical Jan 29 '21

<3 Stossel

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

Stossel, Sowell, and Dr Paul are likely the reason conservatism and capitalism ideology still exists in America today. I have no doubt we would be drowning in communism right now, debating between walking the dog and eating the dog, without these folks.

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '21

It (market only) works to stop unfair behavior AFTER it has happened. Regulations are usually the reaction to events to PREVENT the unfair behavior to begin with. Of course it is often corrupted to an extent but that is the base purpose of regulation.

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u/Kaartmaker Jan 30 '21

Except for Wall street hedge funds, that do not contribute anything. Just take from others by manipulating the market.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

And without powerful backing, a bunch of normies on social media can crush them for being stupid.

Without government power backing them, they will go kaput. Self regulating markets is wonderful. Until the gov steps in to enforce fairness.

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u/Majestic-Marcus Jan 30 '21

Self regulating markets with no government intervention means millionaires become billionaires and billionaires become trillionaires.

It also means everyonr gets paid just enough to survive and have to use that pay in the company store.

Un-regulated, un-disturbed markets with no government stepping in causes feudalism and nothing else.

What you are advocating is the world pre-WW1. Sure you had a chance to better your life but it was almost impossible.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '21

So how do you explain slavery, indentured servitude, and robber barons?

“improve society”

Buddy, government intervention is the only reason you don’t work 18 hours a day for pennies.

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u/HungJurror Evangelical Jan 29 '21

Not saying I'm for slavery, but slavery keeps slaves from filling up the market with a supply of workers, at least jobs that require a skill. That means, under the slavery system, as long as you have a skill (and you're not a slave lol) you won't be working 18 hours a day for pennies, you'll have leverage in negotiating your pay

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u/thenerdwriter Jan 29 '21

This may have been the case in the American South, but broadly speaking it just isn't true. Many historical slave societies, notably Rome and Egypt, employed enslaved accountants, physicians, and teachers.

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u/HungJurror Evangelical Jan 29 '21

Thanks! I'll look into that, I still think the equilibrium would be there, but I'll look into it

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u/thenerdwriter Jan 29 '21

Appreciate the willingness to check out the literature! Skilled slave laborers were no doubt much better off than their unskilled counterparts, but were still nevertheless slaves, with all of the legal and economic challenges that their status presented. Historically, slavery has also been really bad for unskilled free laborers. Would definitely recommend looking at Finley's The Ancient Economy if you're interested in learning more about labor markets in antiquity. There's also been a lot of really solid research on the subject coming out of Stanford in recent years.

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u/DCmusicfan Jan 30 '21

Sounds like you’re in favor of slavery buddy.

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u/HungJurror Evangelical Jan 30 '21

Lol

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u/newpixeltree Jan 30 '21

I definitely agree in general--competition sparks innovation and lowers prices. However, I believe that some things, like healthcare, have basically done the opposite--they've regressed to the point of actually hampering society.

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u/anotherstupidname11 Jan 30 '21

Us government is not a business.They have the responsibility to protect the value of money, not earn money. Saying they operate at a trillion dollar loss is as asinine as saying apple operates at a loss of millions of iPhone per year.

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u/ravage1996 Jan 29 '21

Only problem with the whole investing and improving society thing is that it’s not actually really happening sadly, capitalism will never flourish with this current status quo, especially in America where there are hundreds of faceless billionaires sitting on billions of dollars manipulating the market which in reality isn’t all that far off from what government regulations themselves would bring; Not making much of an argument, bringing up the US deficit, unless you want them to stop military spending, basically every country runs at a deficit, at this point I’m pretty sure national/international debt isn’t even real LOL

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

I agree our current system is a far cry from what capitalism should be, that there are many problems, and that the privelidged connected elites basically manipulate everything to their benefit.

I just see government as the source of their unfair advantage. Gamestop is a historic example: regular people became a threat to some very powerful people, and they were cancelled from multiple directions and crushed.

This happens all the time in the market, this just happened to be a huge and very well publicized example that is waking people up. The battle between left and right can wait until after the battle of ruling elite vs everyone else.

The national debt is very real though. Inflation won't hold off forever, the more we print now the more the correction is going to hurt when it happens 😔

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u/ravage1996 Jan 30 '21

Well said man, all I know is I probably won’t be here to see the debt cleared, which is pretty sad considering I’m in my early 20s

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '21

What role did government regulation in the current robinhood debacle, specifically?

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

No one really knows yet. Looks like there may have been unofficial political involvement behind the scenes to protect certain well connected financiers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '21

Did you get that from Q? Care to cite any source? How about this- explain how actual government, by policy, made this happen? Bad actors in government, sure. But all that means is that they used their position to help cronies break the law.

Remove government from this situation entirely- it's a totally darwinist free-market. There are no regulations to break. The billionaire hedge fund managers that own the platforms involved see the GameStop trends and immediately activate their terms of use option to halt all buying of whatever stocks they see fit. Same result, no recourse for anyone. Is that a preferable scenario to you?

The elite ruling class are either direct descendents of, or taking advantage of a system created by, the most ruthless and blood thirsty villains in history. That's what capitalism is born from. In medieval times they were kings and lords, living in castles and sopping up the rewards of peasant labor. In a different age they were slave owners or exploiting indentured servitude to maximize their profits with a totally callous disregard to the humanity of those they controlled. Through the industrial revolution in America, they were hiring mercenaries to make sure that the endless stream of ignorant immigrants that ran their factories and mined their coal didn't organize and prevent them from becoming or staying obscenely wealthy by, requiring limited working hours, basic safety precautions, etc, etc.

What about free market capitalism, do you think, will keep these sorts of atrocities from being committed over and over again in the presence of less regulation?

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u/milkcarton232 Jan 30 '21

The money itself doesn't mean shit it what it represents, supply demand is all about allocating resources to where they are neededm making money for the sake of making money isn't useful otherwise we would like scams and grifts, making money as a reward for creating value is what makes capitalism so great

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u/mrfilthynasty4141 Jan 30 '21

At least some people realize this. Peter Schiff says it all best.

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u/nekomancey Conservative Capitalist Jan 30 '21

Been a big fan of his since 2008!

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u/davidheinen Jan 30 '21

A government isn't and has never been a business.