Posted on 06/16/2021 4:28:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Everywhere, people trash capitalism.
But what they think they know about capitalism is usually wrong.
My new video debunks some myths about capitalism.
"No one ever makes a billion dollars," complains Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "You take a billion dollars." In other words, capitalists get rich by taking money from others.
That's nonsense, and Myth No. 1.
People believe that myth if they think that when one person wins, someone else must lose. It's natural to believe that if you think there is a finite amount of money in the world. But there isn't.
Free markets increase total wealth. Competition encourages entrepreneurs to find new ways to release more value from both people and resources.
Because capitalism is voluntary and consumers have choices, the only way capitalists can get rich is to offer us something that we believe is better than we had before.
That creates new wealth.
Steve Jobs became a billionaire. But by creating Apple, he gave us more: millions of jobs and billions of dollars added to our economy.
Research shows that entrepreneurs only keep 2.2% of the additional wealth they generate. "In other words, the rest of us captured almost 98% of the benefits," says economist Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
"I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires," he adds, "Because that means 100 new people have figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off."
But former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says we should "abolish billionaires." He wants some form of wealth tax to hold their wealth down. "Entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos would be just as motivated by $100 million or even $50 million," Reich claims.
But Mitchell points out that if their income is limited, "Maybe they just take it easy ... retire ... sail a yacht around the world ... consuming instead of saving and producing."
I want them saving and producing! Billionaires have shown that they're good at cutting prices or improving products or both.
As Michell puts it, "I'm not giving Jeff Bezos any money unless he's selling me something that I value more than that money."
Even if they don't -- even if they run out of ideas -- their wealth is useful.
One reader called me "a complete moron" for saying that. He argues that "more money in the richest hands means money sitting in the bank doing nothing."
But that's an ignorant view of banks. Because banks loan that money out, they enable other people to buy homes, start new businesses and get educated.
Still, I hear that "the rich are getting richer, while the poor get poorer!"
That's Myth No. 2. Yes, the rich got lots richer, but the poor and middle class got richer, too.
"I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires," he adds, "Because that means 100 new people have figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off."
But former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says we should "abolish billionaires." He wants some form of wealth tax to hold their wealth down. "Entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos would be just as motivated by $100 million or even $50 million," Reich claims.
But Mitchell points out that if their income is limited, "Maybe they just take it easy ... retire ... sail a yacht around the world ... consuming instead of saving and producing."
I want them saving and producing! Billionaires have shown that they're good at cutting prices or improving products or both.
As Michell puts it, "I'm not giving Jeff Bezos any money unless he's selling me something that I value more than that money."
Even if they don't -- even if they run out of ideas -- their wealth is useful.
One reader called me "a complete moron" for saying that. He argues that "more money in the richest hands means money sitting in the bank doing nothing."
But that's an ignorant view of banks. Because banks loan that money out, they enable other people to buy homes, start new businesses and get educated.
Still, I hear that "the rich are getting richer, while the poor get poorer!"
That's Myth No. 2. Yes, the rich got lots richer, but the poor and middle class got richer,
I’d be happier if the extremely wealthy weren’t trying to depopulate the planet and establish a global government based on tyranny.
I don’t begrudge people money. But rule by the rich is a bad thing.
um... its no fun to be rich if everyone else is rich too, its only nice when you are richer than others. It’s all in your head.
The chief with a bead necklace in a primative society thought he was pretty cool because he had something others didn’t and everyone envied him... until the Europeans arrived and suddenly, instantly, he felt poor, even though before he felt rich.
The Builderburgers are very real.
Global aspirations are anti capitalist.
Simply because of the draconian authority AND DEMOGRAPHIC WARFARE used by the builder-berger One wORLD ASS HATS LIKE Bill Gates and Fow Xi.
Donald Trump is my type of rich man.
And you non America First plicks?
NO FREEDOM?
NO PEACE.
I’d be happier if FReepers knew how to post articles without embedding repetitive text that makes them exhausting to read. I have up on this one about halfway through it.
Ditto
Correct. You become a billionaire because you create something that millions of people find useful. Gates, Bezos, and Zuckerberg for all their faults did this.
The problem in the modern world is you can do all this and never leave a desk in Seattle or San Francisco. You no longer need to interact with common people. They are all nerds with utopian visions and little real world experience, and they use their money to inflict utopian experiments on the rest of America.
All this gobbledygook from a congressitter with a degree in Economics ?
This statement is enough evidence of what passes for the modern education system, and graduation.
Her university must be so proud .. ? ../s
“Still, I hear that “the rich are getting richer, while the poor get poorer!””
And the middle class pays for it.
The poor are richer than they are said to be. When someone is “poor” he gets generous benefits: money, home, telephone, food, internet. The value of those benefits is not counted, and he is nevertheless called “poor.”
The “rich” person earns a high salary, but around half of it is taken by the government and given to the “poor.” The “rich” person is still listed as being rich and is eligible for no benefits, but rather higher taxes.
Someone estimated the sum total of benefits available at around $40,000. Pretty good, for not working. Meanwhile, the person “earning” $80,000 has about $40,000 stolen in taxes, and so dresses up in the morning and goes out to work, while the “poor” person smokes who-knows-what, engages in indiscriminate sex, drinks himself drunk and watches Oprah.
Both get about $40,000. One is hated, the other is worshiped by the left.
Money is data, which is why most of it can be stored and processed by computers. At its root, money is data about energy. All economic activity requires the consumption of energy. Prices are proportional to the cost of that energy. Economies are powered by energy. Make energy more expensive or harder to access and everyone’s quality of life is reduced. Free markets are extremely energy efficient. The way to get rich in a free market is figure out how to use less energy than your competitors. Rewards go to those that consume our limited supply of energy the most wisely. Economics and energy consumption is the same thing.
We have the richest poor people in the world. And yet they complain that the rich don’t pay their fair share. Pathetic.
John, its called free enterprise
I started a full time job after graduating high school at 17.
I am now 81 & I still have an accounting client.
I NEVER had a poor man sign my paycheck-—HOWEVER—I did have a number of very hard working self-employer people sign it.
NO BILLIONAIRES either.
The problem is that when you get to a billion, pride and vanity do the devil’s work. All of a sudden, you stop focusing on serving people and start becoming a Bond villain. You lose touch with people and just listen to elitist pap that is thinly disguised eugenics. And these guys LOVE socialism because they get to use their wealth and power over others without their consent.
Surely, CCG, you aren't suggesting that 'rule by the poor' would be better?
Then I can assume you have nothing in your home that BG has ever had a hand in; right?
No; from a critter that was VOTED into office by folks with barely a grasp of economics.
Read later.
Then I can assume you have nothing in your home that BG has ever had a hand in; right?>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s right.
What I have is in spite of big government and their whore lawyers.
I have been pursued most of my life civilly and so far they got bumpkiss.
And so I rest in the near wilderness. Life is great.
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