“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” – No Country for Old Men
How many clickbait articles does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer will shock you.
First: thanks everyone for the comments last week, agree or disagree, it was an epic comment section with over 5,000 words of well thought out commentary.
One of the things that I think we all have to realize is that the thought process and institutions that got us into this situation are the thought processes and institutions we have to reform because that’s how we got here. This is the same logic used by the Founders when they created this place.
I am first and foremost for things that make the family strong, and the virtue that comes from being observant is absolutely one of those things. The Constitution isn’t agnostic, though it allows you to be.
I am furthermore very much in favor of limited freedom. Well, limited how? You know, pesky things like murder should be outlawed. Does no-fault divorce with alimony and child support make women “freer”? Yes. But it’s horrible for our nation.
And I am for a mostly free market. Should marijuana be legal? Probably not. Should Google™ be able to change its search algorithm with the express intent of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House? Also, probably not.
Should every corporation be able to live forever and go into any line of businesses, leading to Facebook™ buying competitors just to keep relevant?
Yeah, no.
What’s the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and your wife? Zuck knows more about you.
Below are some great points that I had to condense. I tried with utmost sincerity to try to trim them fairly, so they didn’t lose context though I fixed a few typos. Keep in mind if I had kept all the bits, this post would probably end up doubling to around 7,000 words, and ain’t nobody got time for that. Comments are in bold italics, responses are mine.
Free market capitalism only works in a very homogeneous society with a shared and enforced set of Christian values, along with churches strong enough to enforce said values.
John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Freedom, and free market capitalism, really only works with a moral and religious people. Everything else quickly turns into some form of tyranny. Or tranny. Or both.
I disagree – the free market can and has flourished in many locations through history, see Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings. Now, combining the free market with a mostly free society? Yes, that requires a virtuous people, with a shared virtue founded in a shared religion.
The worst is altruistic people without religion: those are monsters.
Kipling, Gods of The Copybook Headings, and It’s Different This Time
Ahh, when you get the smug feeling that comes from your altruism but somebody else pays the price.
the absolute number one reform on corporations that needs to happen is not on the list though: this is removing the liability shield. The shareholders of a company must be liable for the actions done in their name, as well as for the debts of the company, and they must be actual people, not other corporations. the debts are easy to prorate over the outstanding shares. the liability for damages or criminal activity, however, must be shared by all shareholders.
In researching this, although not all shareholders may have been liable, the managerial class of the corporation were legally and criminally liable at least for a time in the country. I was surprised! And, for the same reason you suggest.
Restricting corporations sounds great, but how could it be enforced? More .gov, more bureaucracy, more laws, more grift. Rather than strongarm huge national and international entities, think of ways to incentivize the local aspect. We don’t need any more .gov regulation mucking up our lives.
Just devolve it back to the Several States, it would be a rather simple Constitutional amendment. Oh, and have the Several States select senators to protect their rights. Much of this nonsense happened after senators became “super congressmen” with longer terms.
Sorry, looks like this picture has a piece of Schiff on it.
Corporations only exist because of government powers. They could not exist without the government enforcing their existence 24 hours a day. If the government were to simply no longer recognize corporations as legal entities, they would disintegrate in seconds. So changing the terms of that government support is not anything out of imagination.
Yes. And there is historical precedent. And don’t forget that AT&T being broken apart didn’t cause the world to explode even though they had a Death Star© logo.
The corporations MAKE the laws.
This is very, very true. I reference the exact stats a little lower in the post, but if the Elite is for a regulation, then it happens. Look at the endless hordes of illegals: this was chosen by both sides. Either could have stopped it, and either could stop it today. But the Elites have bigger pocketbooks.
Chain stores outcompete mom-and-pop stores. Customers prefer to buy from them. Why are you objecting to what customers have decided they want? It is not obvious that patronizing chain stores is contrary to customers’ interests.
Your policy prescription reads like the envy wish list from local pharmacists who can’t compete on price and selection, and demand government ban their competition.
At one point, I agreed with your statement wholeheartedly even though I’ve never been and never will be a pharmacist. Customers do prefer lower prices. Larger big-box stores can get those by several ways: a good one is lowering the cost of goods delivered to the store via increased efficiency, a bad one is offshoring all manufacturing in critical industries. But the impact on the community is not zero sum. Profits that would stay local aren’t local anymore. That has a cumulative effect. If you really want big box stores and they’re 50% locally (in-state) owned with a specific mandate, and there are strategic tariffs? Maybe we’re both happy and life is better.
Never put a catheter into a pharmacist, you’re just left with a harmacist.
The next comment went point by point, but I skipped a few points (length):
- Require corporations to be chartered as separate entities in each operating state.
And here we have the restriction that really silos the states from each other. I don’t know – CAN this be done at the state level, or would this require federal action? - Require a percentage (greater than 50%?) of local (think, people living in the state) ownership in each corporation.
If the preceding point can be done, so can this. - Sharply restrict lending by out of state institutions.
Ok, I know there’s a federal law on this – the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking Act. - Tiered sales tax based on company size: the bigger, the higher, which reflects the value these companies are taking out of state.
Let’s add income taxes in here too, and combine this with points 1-6 above, and create a new legal entity – the “Domestic Missouri Corporation” (for example), which must have 50%+1 local ownership, a 50 year limited life, collects no sales tax, is exempt from as many state regs as reasonable; and income derived from a DMC is taxed at an extremely low rate by the state (if at all), and liquidation distributions from a DMC (at the end of the 50 year life) are exempt from state taxes. DMCs can be banks, and are then exempt from most state-level banking regulations.
There was an awesome longer comment talking point by point about the legality at the state level of doing this that I excerpted above. Yes, it would require an amendment to the Constitution, because the Supreme Court (activist in the Robber Baron days) essentially nationalized corporations, primarily to protect the railroads (many of the court cases that changed the status of corporations from limited to infinite dealt with railroads).
Our local railroad has a good training program.
The big corporations collude with the government to use your tax dollars – stolen from you at gunpoint – to subsidize their costs.
A point I missed, thanks for bringing it up. This is a particularly insidious trap – and it creates more input for the victim machine that is the GloboLeft – they import millions to undercut wages, profit strip an area, but are in favor of subsidizing the low-wage Potterville they’ve created. People who depend on the government want . . . more government. And (as noted by another commentor, they also look to have local communities give them a tax break, or even tax citizens to get them to pay for capital expansion (new stadium, anyone?).
. . . lots of corporations make contributions to local interests. WalMart posts these inside their store. In my neck of the woods, Family Express does lots of community support. On a national level, Thrivent does all kinds of stuff. All you need to do is ask. They approve even marginal stuff, though I know of no cases of them funding LBGTOMFG crap.
Back before the Boy Scouts went woke, I was a Cubmaster. We went to Wal-Mart® and asked for contributions for day camp, even offering ad space. “No.” No large, non-local business contributed. Local businesses did. My experiences only.
I don’t disagree with any particular point, however, no set of laws will ultimately protect you from a group who A) is reasonably intelligent, B) is entirely unscrupulous and C) instinctively works together against outsiders. The only thing to do with a group like that is not deal with them and exclude them if at all possible.
Effectively, we are currently ruled by such a group. Until we are rid of them, these laws would grant temporary protection at best.
This is a significant problem, but it’s one that exists, well, everywhere. Look at Indians (dot, not feather) that get jobs at Microsoft©. What do they do? They get on the hiring side and only hire additional Indians. The same can be said of other groups that are insular – a friend works for a Mormon corporation. He noted that non-Mormons can get jobs there, but never C-suite positions. And, yes, Jews do this too and have been exceptionally successful at it. One of James O’Keefe’s targets noted that at Disney©, there was no way that anyone but a Jewish person could get a top job.
Under a decentralized set of solutions as we’ve discussed, it is simply very, very difficult to concentrate that much power.
There’s a highway to hell but a stairway to heaven, which may be a commentary on the expected traffic load.
As an entrepreneur myself, I think all you really need is #1: Restrict corporations to a limited life span, at which time they have to divest. . . . (or) . . . Just make them play by the same damn tax rules. That’s probably sufficient.
How about we replace most taxes with tariffs?
Your great ape brain firmware wants to blame the competing outside tribe instead of traitors who look like you, but that group is called “middle class WASP voters”. That group has such a large percentage of the votes that no other group can force any policy onto them. Why then are there so many policies made against their interests? Are middle class voters mostly a bunch of non-player-characters whose minds are programed by the mainstream media? If so then voting can never work.
But policy after policy has been shoved down the throats of the middle-class WASP voters. Who voted for unlimited immigration? Here’s Turchin:
“The political scientist Martin Gilens . . . gathered a large data set – nearly 2000 policy issues between 1981 and 2002. Each case matched a proposed policy change to a nation opinion survey asking a favor/oppose question about the initiative . . . .
“Statistical analysis . . . showed that the preferences of the poor had no effect on policy changes . . . . What is surprising is that there was no – zilch, nada – effect of the average voter. The main effect on the direction of change was due to the policy preferences of the affluent. There was also an additional effect of interest groups, the most influential ones being business-oriented lobbies. Once you include in the statistical model the preferences of the top 10 percent and the interest groups, the effect of the commoners is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
Given inflation, the poor are revolting. No surprise, soap is expensive.
I will say that communities becoming dependent on the corporations is a problem as well. Again, example here in New Home: We have two very large corporations in town and one just down the road that are likely substantial employers for this entire region. If they go, it will have a huge impact.
There is a place for larger corporations with longer lives. But they need to be sharply held to task. Why is Facebook™ still so big? They bought all potential competition when the competition was still small. Facebook® as Facebook™ is fine, but when they want to just buy other corporations to make themselves invulnerable? No. But someone needs to make aspirin and airplanes, and Bayer® and Boeing™ can do that. Maybe if Boeing had maintained a focus on airplanes they wouldn’t suck.
One (of Denninger’s suggestions) was to eliminate the ability for large investment firms like Blackrock and Vanguard to vote proxy shares on the mutual funds of their customers. This gives them ginormous power to influence the country which is why we have DEI (among other things). With this power it becomes easier to vote themselves even more control. To stop this, the actual owner of the stock (even via a mutual fund) should be the one who votes the shares or else the votes are forfeit. That would deflate their power tremendously. I would go a few steps further though, and limit their ability to invest in certain areas (real estate for example).
Yes. BlackRock® should be neutered.
Why wouldn’t you trust Dr. Anthony Fauchi?
Undertake to lay your finger on that clause in the Constitution which gives government that authority and power.
“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;” – this is the literal and exact purpose of the article. But note, this uses the proper word “among” meaning that Massachusetts couldn’t blockade Vermont if Congress said “no”. It does not mean “within” which is the source of the mischief. States are, however, given the power, and had it, and restricted the formation of corporations to a legislative event because they were so frightened of unbridled corporate power.
At the beginning, when the Founders were still around, most corporations existed for large, well-defined purposes for a limited amount of time, and couldn’t own things that didn’t meet that purpose. This isn’t my idea, it was the Founders.
Yes. It was and is misused horribly. But it is applicable here.
Corporations get too big, and live too long (list of dead corporations)?
Yes. Just because Sears© cratered as it was looted doesn’t mean that BlackRock© or Facebook™ or Google® should be allowed to wield unlimited power, either financial or via information restriction on the public. The power of the corporation in public life can and should be limited by limiting their reach, lifespan, and ability to work across business sectors.
BTW, how did Smoot-Hawley do at saving American jobs?
Don’t know, ask China in 2024 – we’re not 1930 America. At that point(1930) we had a trade account surplus. Now? Not so much, and it’s a race to the bottom. A $5 tariff per $700 (at the time) iPhone™ would have swung the production cost to favor the United States. By 200%. Countries can (and do!) strategically target markets so that they can “corner” the intellectual skills and know-how to make strategic goods. Domestically produced F-35? No way, there are parts that in 2024 have to come from China, and the timeline for competency in that tech is measured in decades.
And how is NAFTA really working out for the economy?
I shot the tariff, but I did not shoot the subsidy.
Penalize companies for outsourcing jobs overseas, and you might be onto something. But don’t subsequently bitch when American cars and medicines cost 20x what the same products cost overseas, where they’re made in sweatshops, and are uncompetitive in the rest of the world for the same reason.
That’s making my point for me: we used to be able to do that – the P-51s flying off the assembly line and into Europe was because we had the capacity and the know-how. Germany could figure out how to make cars. And in what industry (exactly) are we 20x less efficient?0
I’ve been thinking a lot on this lately. Do communities really benefit from cheaper prices at stores like Walmart or DollarStore if all they are is conduits sucking money out of local communities? Or, banking at MegaBank Corp when the local bank is owned by shareholders in the community?
I know a guy who owns a bank here in Modern Mayberry. Has a nice house that he had built. By local labor. Bought the concrete at the local plant, owned by locals. He also volunteers his time to lead a civic group. Make him a branch manager of MegaBankCorp© and he’d be buying a crappy house, and too tired to go out and help out after dinner. But, hey, with MegaBankCorp™ your interest goes to New York!
I’m guessing (hoping) this discussion is really just JW’s way of pointing out the dearth of anyone having read Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations, which came out the same year as the Declaration Of Independence, and therefore being wholly ignorant of how liberty works in a country not controlled by the state, cannot come up with one reason (out of any five hundred) why government control of any markets is asinine and stupid in the extreme.
Adam got a lot right theoretically but also wrong practically. Yes, it would be silly to grow grapes in Greenland, but comparative advantage says not. We’re not talking about grapes, though. And, Smith was against tariffs, but the average tariffs went up as high as 60%. During our industrialization phase up until 1930 or so, the average tariff was 50%. Average. And they made up 95% of federal revenue – so much that we didn’t need an income tax.
Adam Smith was against those, so we can see the United States was very weak and not an industrial powerhouse. Oh, wait.
Socialists would be fine using the invisible hand to change a lightbulb, but it would have to be somebody else’s bulb.
Bonus points: When the government also decrees that the national minimum wage should be $20/hr, how many of you will venture to local restaurants to buy dinner out?
I’m against minimum wages. Boot the illegals out, restrict legal immigration, let the price float while defanging .gov as well as .com. Yes, government is a dangerous servant and a cruel master, but so are Facebook™, Google©, and BankAmerica®. Defanging both of them isn’t a bad idea.
So you’re okay with a government corporate entity living forever, but the idea that private citizens could have the same ability and right to incorporate scares hell out of you? And when, exactly, are the masters of that government held liable for the consequences of their actions?
Governments end. We have successive congresses, and successive presidents (elected or not). Putting all of them on trial like the Spartans did after their terms (limited!) end is maybe not a bad idea – it would be fun to watch Clarence Thomas in charge of such an event. I think the bigger problem is the regulator class, which should be mostly eliminated by actually following the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution.
That would probably make her Schiff her pants.
Thanks for participating in this little thought experiment. Again, it’s clear that the concentrated power of government is bad. It’s also clear that the concentrated power of corporations can be just as bad, since they appear to inevitably twist themselves into anti-competition behemoths that want to control governments, import endless streams of illegals, and support Leftist causes – hence, the GloboLeftElite.
Sadly, as our manufacturing has all but disappeared, we’ve also had to lower our expectations in regards to quality of goods produced. It’s amazing how many items that I purchase now don’t even work properly right out of the box. Appliances that used be expected to last at least 15 years, will barely make it 5 yrs. My wife had a fairly new Samsung refrigerator that she paid quite a bit for and wanted it fixed. The sales rep said good luck getting any support from the company and even if they did help, it would just break again in a few years. The goods may cost less, but it’s not saving money if I have to buy 2 appliances to cover the same lifespan that I used to get from one good one.
Same with our dryer. Guy said, “no use fixing it, these are horrible.”
Most refrigerators use the same compressor. The compressor design changed several years ago, and the new one is known to fail quite quickly. The company keeps using the known-faulty compressor it because it’s a few cents cheaper.
I am furthermore very much in favor of limited freedom.
“Freedom” as a general rule for everybody implies not infringing on anyone else’s freedom.
Should marijuana be legal? Probably not.
Attempting to limit other peoples’ behavior to match your church’s rules is one of the thought processes and institutions that got us into this situation.
Should every corporation be able to live forever and go into any line of businesses, leading to Facebook(TM) buying competitors just to keep relevant?
Yes, unless you’re a Russian commie with a five year plan for industrialization. That approach has such a great track record.
The worst is altruistic people without religion: those are monsters.
Because everybody needs to belong to your church, and believe in your articles of faith without evidence, and you’ve got a sword handy to make sure they interpret the Koran properly.
Just devolve it back to the Several States, it would be a rather simple Constitutional amendment. Oh, and have the Several States select senators to protect their rights. Much of this nonsense happened after senators became “super congressmen” with longer terms.
“Just”? As if this alteration of terms happened for no reason at all, with nothing driving it.
But the impact on the community is not zero sum. Profits that would stay local aren’t local anymore. That has a cumulative effect. If you really want big box stores and they’re 50% locally (in-state) owned with a specific mandate, and there are strategic tariffs? Maybe we’re both happy and life is better.
Because it worked out so great when Russian commies upended the economy to make farmers do industrial metalwork in small home shops. Why are you literally trying to replay the Soviet Union?
But policy after policy has been shoved down the throats of the middle-class WASP voters.
A secret ballot without soldiers reviewing your vote means no group can shove anything. Your claim about shoving is factually incorrect; without your claim about shoving, your entire argument collapses. The middle class WASP voters have freely and without compulsion demanded these policies.
Nobody needs to belong to my church, because when the SJWs invaded it I left it. Most of the other points are actually covered above, and you’ve got my email if you’d like to continue the convo. Enjoy!
Mr. Wilder,
Here – let me do your job for you. (I know you are suspicious – nobody offered to do my job for me, at least until I took over payroll.)
Here is a meme for you – a Rod Serling “Imagine if you will” meme: “Trying Free Market Capitalism, which has never been tried before.” Some may think it has – maybe the Middle Ages? Nope, skilled labor was regulated by Guilds. “Guild” and “Guilt” are very nearly the same word. Is that just a coincidence? Actually it is, but ignore that for now.
Between tariffs and taxes, and regulation of all sorts, even the colonies / US never tried true free market capitalism. It has been imagined to work – consider “Freehold” by M.Z. Williamson (though in an email exchange he doubted it would ever be tried). Minimal law, minimal taxation, and the option to take any case at law to a duel.
But what about product safety – doesn’t that demand regulation? Not really, not if we actually required people to be held responsible for what they do, intentionally or negligently. First step to do that, get rid of the idea that money will mitigate all harms. Sell somebody eye wash that blinds them – and they can sue for money as if that is just. And to be sure we require them to have insurance. What if they don’t, and can’t pay? Then we forgive them through bankruptcy. Unless they are here illegally, in which case we sign them up to vote and give them food stamps too.
Justice would be the Code of Hammurabi, “an eye for an eye.” Yes, to try true free market capitalism, we need to try free market tort reform. Cause harm, and they can sue you to compel performance, enslave you , or they can place a lien on your body organs. Maybe their eye can’t replace yours, but it probably can be sold on the market for one that can. Or a heart, or liver…. With your organs on the line, you might be more careful! And for the bleeding heart liberals out there, we could allow the use of anesthesia during the seizure. Who says I am not compassionate?
Just another reader,
Chris
Oh libertarians. Now I know how former Marxists feel.
I like that kind of compassion.
“Free market capitalism only works in a very homogeneous society with a shared and enforced set of Christian values, along with churches strong enough to enforce said values.”
I didn’t see the original comment but that alone is just flat out silly. Homogeneous, high trust, yes. Christian values? I think the OP might be confusing Christian values as found in the Christian scriptures with “Judeo-Christian” values.
This is just your reflexive anti-Christian hate.
There is no such thing as “Judeo-Christian” values, any more than there are “Jainian-Confucian” values or “Muslim-Hindu” values.
Unfortunately some only have experience with the unichurch. Not Christianity.
No, free market capitalism works in lots of locations. Just more extensive contracts and lots of visits from enforcers.
“at Disney©, there was no way that anyone but a Jewish person could get a top job.”
Lies! All anti-Semitic lies. It’s just like saying that Jews have great influence on American policy and especially foreign policy. Jews are only around 2% of the population, so how could they possibly have the votes to “control” anything?
Yes, please explain in physical detail exactly how that offshore Chinese person is standing in the voting booth with me with his hand on top of mine, taking my voting choices away from me. Explain how the politicians I choose don’t have a great influence on American policy and especially foreign policy, and some other mechanism does?
Run along, child. The adults are talking here.
The answer is that voters are mostly a bunch of non-player-characters whose minds are programed by the mainstream media. Whoever controls the mainstream media controls the vote outcome. Which means the fundamental argument that voting is a poll is bogus. Voting is just malware attacking preexisting genetic human political instincts to push the “legitimate” button.
Those are your two choices: 1) current controllers of the mainstream media can’t be blamed for imposing bad policy because they’re only 2% of population, or 2) voting never worked as advertised, and everybody who you were told was looking out for you, wasn’t. In early US history the mainstream media was controlled bY WASPs, and you didn’t hear WASP mainstream media warning ‘no we can’t ratify legislation by voting, because most White male property owners are just empty vessels we fill up with our church sermons’.
Who pays for the politician. And, if you need a footnote for the quote in the post, it’s at my original article.
Hey, I’m just the reporter.
A couple problems have relatively simple and related solutions.
* Corporations are required to only focus on the current and next financial quarters, and to only be concerned about their stock price and dividend shares.
* Investors are counted as owners, and have a say in the operations of the company.
* Corporations are required to have a board of directors, who, although they do no work and probably know nothing about the company, have a major impact on its operations. Not to mention their exorbitant salaries and benefits packages.
Eliminate these laws, and you’re halfway there.
10 4 the problem being the uniparty that votes on them is bought by them.
I only see one way forward.
That’s a good start.
Mr. Wilder,
Here – let me do your job for you. (I know you are suspicious – nobody offered to do my job for me, at least until I took over payroll.)
Here is a meme for you – a Rod Serling “Imagine if you will” meme: “Trying Free Market Capitalism, which has never been tried before.” Some may think it has – maybe the Middle Ages? Nope, skilled labor was regulated by Guilds. “Guild” and “Guilt” are very nearly the same word. Is that just a coincidence? Actually it is, but ignore that for now.
Between tariffs and taxes, and regulation of all sorts, even the colonies / US never tried true free market capitalism. It has been imagined to work – consider “Freehold” by M.Z. Williamson (though in an email exchange he doubted it would ever be tried). Minimal law, minimal taxation, and the option to take any case at law to a duel.
But what about product safety – doesn’t that demand regulation? Not really, not if we actually required people to be held responsible for what they do, intentionally or negligently. First step to do that, get rid of the idea that money will mitigate all harms. Sell somebody eye wash that blinds them – and they can sue for money as if that is just. And to be sure we require them to have insurance. What if they don’t, and can’t pay? Then we forgive them through bankruptcy. Unless they are here illegally, in which case we sign them up to vote and give them food stamps too.
Justice would be the Code of Hammurabi, “an eye for an eye.” Yes, to try true free market capitalism, we need to try free market tort reform. Cause harm, and they can sue you to compel performance, enslave you , or they can place a lien on your body organs. Maybe their eye can’t replace yours, but it probably can be sold on the market for one that can. Or a heart, or liver…. With your organs on the line, you might be more careful! And for the bleeding heart liberals out there, we could allow the use of anesthesia during the seizure. Who says I am not compassionate?
Just another reader,
Chris
There are many good ideas here that would improve our lot for a while if they were implemented. I saw only one that addressed the root problem, IMHO.
In any society that has concentrations or power (and that is every civilization), be that religious political, economic, or military, there will be some who are attracted to its use. About 2% of humanity are sociopaths. More of them will be focused on attaining that power than the ‘normal’ people who have other interests. Over the years they will populate the positions of power with themselves and others like them because they understand each other. After sufficient time (250 years for a democracy) the power structure will be corrupted to a point it no longer functions, and then will collapse. This is where we are.
Until such time as we can identify and limit the activities of the sociopaths among us, we will be unable to design a civilization that will be stable in perpetuity. There are types of societies that are more resistant to this problem than others, but they all have their costs.
Decentralize so the only thing they can control is dust.
Fail.
Sorry, but there it is.
Trying to restrict corporations still flies in the face of long-settled law, and grants Leviathan behemoth powers hitherto unheard of.
Total fail, and injects cancer super-cells into government.
Jefferson and Madison would shoot you themselves, personally.
Antitrust gets you nowhere. Except injecting those same cancer cells into the DoJ.
On the theory that what we really need is more lawyers on the government’s payroll suing businesses.
So Fail, again.
The point of the interstate commerce clause is to promote interstate commerce, not strangle it.
So, as we warned you, -300 points.
And fail.
Also, the current SCOTUS would eviscerate you, then set fire to the pieces big enough to light on fire.
Then launch the ashes into the sun.
Then go after your family.
We can (and should) prohibit exporting capital out of the United States, except at confiscatory (say, 75% to start) rates.
Companies, foreign or domestic, who invest $1 into the country for every dollar they take out – monitored with tender loving care by the kind and understanding folks at the IRS – also works.
Both entirely legal under U.S. law.
Protectionism with tariffs was one of the causes that started the first revolution.
Doing it again started the Depression.
You could look it up.
As far as thinking we make things in America, get in your car (made with mostly foreign parts and labor) and take a drive from Massholia to western Ill-a-noise. Count the shuttered factories (and entire towns) where nothing is made anymore.
We don’t make TVs, radios, sound equipment, video equipment, cameras, computers, phones, or most of the assorted paraphernalia or accessories. BestBuy could change it’s name to TokyoMart, SingaporeMart, or VietnamMart, without a peep.
The list of things you buy besides food that aren’t made here, and haven’t been since you were a teen, would swamp this blog.
If it weren’t for military contracts, this whole country would have been exported overseas by the late 1980s.
Outside of food items, it’s easier to find wolves and buffalo in America than a product in any store, including at a mom-and-pop, that sports a “Made In America” tag. For that matter, most of the owners of mom-and-pop stores weren’t made in America either. (Which is a topic for another ten or so posts.)
That horse left the barn, the barn was taken apart and sold for parts, and the land turned into a golf course or cemetery long, long ago.
You want to pass a law that requires 100% made in America parts in everything?
Go ahead on.
You might see a home-built disc player or TV happen before you die.
And they’ll cost $2500 each.
But if you want to do that, go ahead.
When no one can afford made in America goods, see how the people will love you.
When there are no jobs, because no one’s buying those products, check how strong the walls and gates are in your castle.
You won’t need to check the lights, because the torches coming up the road will take care of that in no time.
About all you can do legally and sensibly, is stop-loss on actual capital.
Which is becoming more worthless by the day.
And spirals straight to being as valuable as Zimbabwean dollars the minute you slam those barriers.
That’s why this mission was tilting at windmills long before you started, and equally as doddering as Don Quixote.
You have one small chance: stop inflating the currency. Turn it around.
But that brings recession, makes American dollars buy more of the cheap goods with which we make our way, whether we like it or not, and makes American products too expensive in the rest of the world.
Except food.
Which no one here will be able to afford, because their money here will go farther, and food prices will drop, but they’ll be mostly unemployed, because most people don’t work on farms, or on jobs that support them.
We’ll grow wheat and corn; some few people will process it and ship it, by train, truck, etc. Some few people will make the equipment to do that to. Those folks will eat, and be able to afford going to the movies, or watching TV. So those industries will help a few more people.
But no one’s beating down the door to get an American lawyer in Bangladesh. We’ve outsourced most of Silicon Valley to Asia. Our movies already cater to foreign tastes, not domestic ones, so those will grow even more foreign to Main Street America.
The whole thing could only be de-constructed a bit at a time, just like it was built.
Anything else just brings about the inevitable collapse building a house of cards guarantees anyway.
Buckle up, and brace for impact.
In the time you were trying to plug leaks on the Titanic with zero chance of success, you could have built a boat out of the wood doors.
Which is a much better plan in the short run, and the long run.
Oh, and those eeeeeevil corporations?
They were built when trusts were busted, and “robber barons” punished, for the crime of making profits on making railroads, steel, and oil production and delivery more efficient.
All that got you was roads, bridges, dams, power plants, factories, roads, and cars to drive on them, which opened up most of the countryside.
Screwing with the “robber barons” hereabouts got you the Federal Reserve, multinational corporations, and your current predicament. Feel better now?
Kind of like how heroin was invented to get people off of morphine, and methadone was made to get people off of heroin, and fentanyl was to keep people from getting hooked on methadone.
When you stop turning to government’s teats as the mother’s milk of making the country better, you stop making retarded babies.
Any “solution” that starts with government intervention is nearly always wrong.
Folks should write that on their hands with permanent markers, lest they forget.
And anyone saying “there oughta be a law” should probably be tarred and feathered.
The first time.
Recidivism should carry a far harsher penalty.
You requested me to show my work, and here is Jefferson on corporations, letter to George Logan, on November 12, 1816:
“I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.”
So, he’d likely clap me on the back and say, “John Wilder, you’re right! Want some wine?”
You could’ve looked it up. 😊
Point of order: the Constitution says regulate, not promote.
No, forced commerce with Blighty caused the Revolution. The United States immediately put tariffs in place.
“If it weren’t for military contracts, this whole country would have been exported overseas by the late 1980s.”
Thanks for making my point for me. Not only did we export the factories and the capital and the jobs, we also exported the “know-how” to make things. Will it take time to bring it back? Sure. Two decades, maybe three.
And as for government intervention, it does it all the time. Let’s just make it work for the American citizens rather than Wall Street. I’m actually looking to remove laws.
And Jefferson has my back, not yours.
Ex-presidents’ commentary carries no weight. It’s interesting, certainly, but ultimately moot.
Also, no one’s arguing for “aristocracy” of corporations. Simply that when two or more citizens combine, their individual rights don’t magically become zero.
The courts got this concept right, which is how you got here.
Regulate: “to make regular” not “strangle by taxing to death”.
Be careful what you play with, or inadvertently mis-define.
I mention that because you might want to glance at the word (“regulated”) in the Second Amendment, for reference, and accidentally grant to Uncle Government the God-given right to tax weapons right out of your hands.
You could have looked it up. 🙂
It was the monkeying with commerce in multiple ways that helped ignite a revolution.
The colonies were not only forced to trade with Blighty, they were forbidden to trade elsewhere, and forbidden to develop their own industry and corporations to promote them.
Stifling competition and corporation was exactly the problem.
Hmmm.
The retaliatory tariffs helped to instigate the War of 1812.
If both sides had tried a little laissez faire, rather than the Brits still being butthurt a generation later that they lost in the first place, it likely wouldn’t have happened.
What you’re suggesting is as obnoxious as “affirmative action”: reverse discrimination, as if two wrongs could ever make a right.
The answer isn’t compensatory government interference, it’s removal of it to the greatest extent possible.
You want government to monkey with something: have them export freedom and liberty.
Get all those Turd World countries’ populations clamoring and demanding a living wage, a 40-hour work week, child labor laws, equal rights, Big Macs and color TVs, and they’ll be too busy dealing with internal upheaval to compete with America by shipping us metric f**ktons of cheap crap, for the next century and more. But they’ll get it right, with a little pushing and shoving.
If that means we spread a little treason in those countries, and subvert some dick-taters via more concrete means, so be it. France did it for us. It’s time we were France to liberty and actual democratic republicanism worldwide. Not to benefit Standard Oil, the United Fruit Company, or the Bechtel Corporations of history, but to benefit Joe Average, along with secondarily benefiting Pedro Average, Wang Average, and Tambu Average.
When workers in other countries cost as much as workers here, and production in other countries costs as much as production here, for the same reasons, the wealth pump you’re worried about shuts down, hard, and everybody wins.
That’s how you level the playing field, overthrow dick-taters, lower the Turd World birth rate, stop countries like China and India from raping the planet, and get free and fair trade worldwide.
Not by proto-fascism.
Which is every government attempt to screw with markets and/or run them “because Uncle Government Knows Better Than You”, since before the pharoahs.
You’re flirting with the Dark Side, Luke.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
You can’t overthrow the Emperor by allying with him.
And that’s what you’re trying to do, however noble the rationale.
What chickenshit corporations are most scared of is 7 billion other workers they’d actually have to compete against fairly. Which, yet again, brings us back to “Fear leads to…“. You know the rest. And that’s why they’ve tried to use government regulation as a cudgel, both at home and abroad, to stifle competition. It’s just as wrong when they use it, and government is always the problem, not the solution.
You should know that in your bones, man.
You want to use government in its original, limited, and founder-intended fashion??
Apply a dictatorship tariff on foreign countries’ sweat-shop goods, and grade them on their free markets. Meaning their politics as much as their production.
Expressly approved in the original documents.
Multinational wants to import sweat-shop goods here?
No problem. Import tariff equal to the exact price difference as retail on US goods.
China either undergoes a political revolution, or they become Zimbabwe by next year.
QED
Countries get more free, fair, and open?
Tariffs are lowered, same-same.
In the meantime, US goods are fully competitive.
So corporations here have to respond to innovations in countries that have gotten their tariffs down to nothing.
Thus no home-team monopolies, either.
“Butbutbut…that would make some countries retaliate, and hurt our exports!!!”
Yes, it would.
Thus inducing corporations to push the government to nudge those countries harder towards more freedom, both economic and political, out of enlightened self-interest, almost as if the Founders wanted to get EVERYONE on board with having all men enjoy the same inalienable rights of mankind.
Almost as if they meant every word they penned in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill Of Rights.
Whodathunkit???
Bonus: democratic republics don’t make war on each other.
And 95% of the casus belli, including the entire reason WWII started, is gone overnight.
Germany was being crushed economically.
Japan was being economically strangled too.
Italy, run by Italians, was dead broke.
All three deserved pariah status for political reasons, but had they been helped and nudged back to freedom, they would have found prosperity, instead of lurching into ever-worse dictatorship and despotism, requiring millions of casualties, billions of dollars in wasteful expenditures, and nuclear weapons to get their attention.
Solve their economic woes by injecting them with free market virus, and you can make 150 other liberty-clone countries.
Not peace and freedom happygas, but peace because of freedom.
Pax Propter Libertatum, Felicitatum Omnibus.
Argue against that, if you can.
Turns out Adams, Jeferson, Franklin, and Madison were some pretty smart folks, after all, and may have had some wee idea about that upon which they set out to accomplish.
Best wishes.
Ex-presidents’ commentary carries no weight. It’s interesting, certainly, but ultimately moot.
But, you brought Jefferson into this 😊
I mention that because you might want to glance at the word (“regulated”) in the Second Amendment, for reference, and accidentally grant to Uncle Government the God-given right to tax weapons right out of your hands.
You could have looked it up. 🙂
Out of my cold, dead hands.
It was the monkeying with commerce in multiple ways that helped ignite a revolution.
The colonies were not only forced to trade with Blighty, they were forbidden to trade elsewhere, and forbidden to develop their own industry and corporations to promote them.
Stifling competition and corporation was exactly the problem.
Hmmm.
And who had the biggest corporations and monied interests? There’s an argument that the Revolution was based on overthrow of both government and corporate power.
The retaliatory tariffs helped to instigate the War of 1812.
If both sides had tried a little laissez faire, rather than the Brits still being butthurt a generation later that they lost in the first place, it likely wouldn’t have happened.
Mebbee.
The answer isn’t compensatory government interference, it’s removal of it to the greatest extent possible.
I don’t have tattoos, but that would be one I would consider getting.
You want government to monkey with something: have them export freedom and liberty.
Get all those Turd World countries’ populations clamoring and demanding a living wage, a 40-hour work week, child labor laws, equal rights, Big Macs and color TVs, and they’ll be too busy dealing with internal upheaval to compete with America by shipping us metric f**ktons of cheap crap, for the next century and more. But they’ll get it right, with a little pushing and shoving.
I’d really love to make that work, but I really don’t think most of them want it. That’s why Pakistanis from Blighty go back and fight in Syria when they could have their curry and TV. The biggest thing that changed my mind on this is my family structure posts based on Emmanuel Todd. Who I’d love to have dinner with.
What chickenshit corporations are most scared of is 7 billion other workers they’d actually have to compete against fairly. Which, yet again, brings us back to “Fear leads to…“. You know the rest. And that’s why they’ve tried to use government regulation as a cudgel, both at home and abroad, to stifle competition. It’s just as wrong when they use it, and government is always the problem, not the solution.
You should know that in your bones, man.
A good second tattoo.
You want to use government in its original, limited, and founder-intended fashion??
Apply a dictatorship tariff on foreign countries’ sweat-shop goods, and grade them on their free markets. Meaning their politics as much as their production.
Expressly approved in the original documents.
Multinational wants to import sweat-shop goods here?
No problem. Import tariff equal to the exact price difference as retail on US goods.
China either undergoes a political revolution, or they become Zimbabwe by next year.
QED
We’re getting somewhere.
Turns out Adams, Jeferson, Franklin, and Madison were some pretty smart folks, after all, and may have had some wee idea about that upon which they set out to accomplish.
Best wishes.
Again, we agree about more than we disagree about. I’d love to have a long steak dinner and discuss all of this late into the night. I think we’d come to a 95% agreement. But the 5% is what’s fun to debate.
Cheers!
I’m pretty sure the 95% includes putting government back into the box it came in.
I’m also 95% certain Pandora’s name was stenciled on the outside.
It does. And it is.
Isaiah 5:8
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
Leviticus 25:8-10
And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. [9] Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. [10] And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
There is some other good stuff where that came from, such as thou shalt not apostasize, blaspheme, covet, lie, steal, fornicate, murder…that harshes a lot of mellow in this current world.
Thankfully, it ends well:
Micah 4:1-4
But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. [2] And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. [3] And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. [4] But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.
Best Regards,
Stefan v.
Well quoted.
I get the desire to limit imports, but tariffs are a horrible way to do it. The supply/demand curve is what it is. Only so many goods will be purchased at any given price. Generally, higher prices means fewer goods purchased. Bill Gates probably could not care less if the price of cars doubled. Who is harmed by such a policy? You know. You see it all around.
To the extent tariffs work, they transfer money from the people at the bottom who are still able to afford the price plus the tariff, and transfers it to government, who buy more bullets and barbed wire for the camps.
Well, we neuter the government, but also it pulls money away from those that would set up the factories overseas for $4 an iPhone. It would have taken only a $10 tariff and those iPhones would have been made in Alabama or Arizona or Montana.
Has anyone ever been able to neuter government?
In a prior life, I helped companies offshore their manufacturing. It was never about the goods being a few bucks cheaper. Often it moved to West Germany where per unit costs were a little higher. It was always fear of uncertainty — will the next Administration ban your operation outright, like incandescent bulbs, or regulate it into oblivion, like oil?
A secondary concern was the ideologically zealous legal system, from Johns-Manville’s persecution over what no one thought was a dangerous product (asbestos) through Hooker Chemical disposing of waste using the best practices known (Love Canal) and right up to present-day’s New York’s persecution of Trump over real estate deals.
Pushing the costs onto the working class to benefit the parasite class does not help.
So what they were afraid of was government run amok, after it broke out of its original straightjacket of limitation.
Thanks for making my point for me.
If they’d limited themselves to simple tariffs based on other countries playing fair, they never would have budged.
The exact impetus was less government doing what it was mandated to do, along with metastasized government busybodying in realms it was expressly forbidden to intrude upon.
Constitutional limits FTW.
QED
We did with England.
Bill Gates sweats a 5¢ increase in price, because he (unlike you, apparently) understands that price and demand are alternate inverse relationships, and every nickel increase costs him XX customers.
Econ 101 fail. Adam Smith wins again.
Gates didn’t get where he is by being economically ignorant, nor would he stay there that way either.
If computers from overseas were prohibitively priced, his market for software for them crashes in weeks, and it would be years before local manufacturing could rise to meet the demand.
If you think he or any billionaire isn’t acutely aware of where their own bread is buttered, I have a bridge for sale for cash, and cheap.
The late Sam Francis and his mentor, James Burnham, argued that the US underwent the managerial revolution the the 30s. The American form of this involved the deep state managerial class (represented more by the democrats) which ascended to power during the New Deal, but also the corporate managerial class (represented more by the RINO members of the GOP) which ascended due to the separation of ownership and control (something Adam Smith warned about). To break the corporate managerial class is just as important for liberty as breaking the deep state. Corporate Limited Liability only dates back to the mid 19th century for investors. There is no fundamental reason it should continue.
Agreed on all points.