Transcription
When I look at the two biggest economies in the world, the US and China, um I see those as countries that have won through innovation. When you look at the countries that have run socialism, obviously you see innovation pull back. So innovate I you there are graphs that will show this. have shown one so many times. Just the number of billion-dollar companies that the US has created versus anybody else.
Literally, you can aggregate every other country in I don't I don't think that's like innovation. I I don't consider like a billion dollar company to be innovative in and of itself cuz like there's a lot of there's uh there are a lot of billion dollar companies now that are just um you know they're they're I don't necessarily think their output is that innovative. Like Uber is a great example of this. Uber in and of itself is a disruptive force. It's very uh I mean it's it's a billion dollar company. It's not innovative.
Yeah, I think it's it was it was innovative in the not in the sense that like they were able to build out a new technology. Uh it was innovative in the sense that uh it created uh a massive gig economy of of you may not like the output but in terms of innovation they they saw that oh everybody now has a phone in their pocket drivers and people alike. We can completely dis disrupt this system by putting these things together. Yeah.
So from that perspective, it feels like you may not like the outcome, but to say that it wasn't innovative feels very strange. So it's it is innovative in the sense that like you said, it's disruptive, but it's actually taking a but it made my life better. Yeah, it but it's taking So there's again we go back to the multiple numerous ways to skin a cat. Black cat, white cat, as long as you're catching the mice, it doesn't matter, right? But there are differences here where like your life could be.
Have you lived in uh other countries in the past at all or no? Where where have you lived if you don't mind me asking? London. So you lived in London. Uh London is not necessarily the best example of this but like you lived in a system where there was public transit. You I assume took uh public transit at times. You privatized it.
Yes, I know. Which is why it's it's bad now. But there was by the numbers it's better. So they do twice as many trips at roughly the same level of consistency as when it was privat uh made public and that like if you look at across Europe you see that over and over and over. So Sweden privatiz or public makes public the telecom system only to reverse that realizing without the market forces you just get a degradation of service. This is why we protect against monopolies in the US.
I was going to say I have the exact opposite I have the exact opposite assessment of the situation where I think that privatization and uh at first looks like a better thing and it's sold as like uh innovative but then inevitably it leads to private companies corner cutting and and actually giving a a worse service overall. Whereas not being beholdened to uh endless profit seeeking allows some of these systems to thrive because ultimately it's not supposed to be for profit. It's supposed to make sure that people are transported. It's like the US postal service, right?
So not supposed to be for profit. I get why you say that, but when you're dealing with the realities of the human psyche, it's like you have to do something to incentivize people to work that hard, take those huge risks. And that always becomes the part where I think people are not being honest about how hard it is to build and scale a company. And so there's this idea a as my read of socialism goes something like this. The miracle is redistribution versus the miracle is being able to create a system that outputs something more valuable than its inputs. And I've spent the last 25 years of my life trying to do that. Sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, but it's always brutally difficult. And so the question becomes why would I put myself through that? And the reason that you put yourself through it is you're playing a game where it's like ah I can win like I can really make something that the world loves that people are like man you've made my life better and that feels awesome. I've been able to maximize my talent and intelligence in a way that matters. So meaning and purpose means a lot to me. I control my own destiny so I have autonomy.
Yeah. You have autonomy. You're you that's the reason why you want people to become entrepreneurs so they have autonomy. I have autonomy in my life as well because I I guess technically own and operate and I'm the sole laborer of my own business, right? And I want people to to have your editors are going to be hurt to hear you say you're the sole laborer. Your editors will be hurt to hear you say the soul laborer. I'm like the keyman and if I wasn't actually streaming like there is not another person out there who is working that I'm paying uh so that they can stream and then uh we ship off that uh footage to the editors right like if I were to stop streaming then my editors would also not be able to make any money in the process because the business would not uh generate any sort of revenue you're right though you're absolutely right I do have editors um I also have a cooperative uh uh owner cooper operative owned podcast as well. But the point I'm trying to make is that if I stopped streaming or if I stopped podcasting, like the these businesses would fall apart in and of itself. Um, but I want everyone just like my editors have uh to to be able to have autonomy in and to have a say in uh the the process of of making things. Uh and I think that actually helps with the efficiency or helps build better, more innovative products down the line um in ways that we can't immediately foresee.
I agree. But why is the government the right way to make sure that happens? Well, the government simply acts as a a regulatory mechanism here. it. This isn't to say that like everything should be state-owned enterprises, but I think that even if you have a private structure, for example, like in many European social democracies, as long as you don't allow uh the the uh profit-seeking aspect to take complete control over uh whatever the services you're providing or whatever the goods that you're creating, then the government should uh implement certain regulatory checks to ensure that there is still this balance where workers do have uh fair wages, better benefits packages and that the market is heavily regulated because it's already heavily incentivized through the form of subsidies. But we demand nothing in return in western liberal uh democracies for said subsidies in most circumstances. We just kind of give uh people money. We give companies money and we're like do whatever you want with it. We trust you to make the right decision with this. I think when we do this uh subsidy process, there should be certain demands that the government is making. You have to ensure that all of your workers have a living wage. You have to ensure that you're not like employing children. You know what I mean? You have to ensure that uh they they get uh paid time off, paid family leave. I think these are perfectly reasonable demands that the government should make from their
what happens when take minimum wage, right? where uh you want to increase it as much as possible, you want a quote unquote living wage. Uh but when you do it, you get adverse from where I'm sitting consequences like it increases the rate at which people automate uh that people have a harder time getting entry- level jobs because as an entrepreneur, if you're making me pay somebody, you know, twice what I would otherwise pay them for that entry- level position, it's not an entry-le position anymore. So now I'm going to look for somebody that's worth that amount of money. This is where labor unions come in. Um, labor unions are supposed to ensure that even in the process of automation, you don't actually end up firing people. That automation is not used as a as a uh mechanism to displace the existing labor force as we talked about already, but instead it was to lower the burden of the existing labor force. So that
how do you reconcile though that the average consumer wants everything as cheaply as possible? they seem completely blind to the fact that they as a worker are the reason things aren't cheaper. Uh so it's like I want cheap goods, but I also want a much higher minimum wage. And that tension, which I honestly think the vast majority of the public is unaware uh of where that problem comes from. Like how do we reconcile that?
I think in a weird way, we're kind of seeing a version of that with Donald Trump right now who's like bullying companies to ensure that they eat the cost of the tariffs. Not sure exactly where this is going to go, but like Do you like that? Um, I I dislike Donald Trump heavily, but that is one aspect of his administration that I was like genuinely shocked by that like companies are openly admitting that they're currently eating as much as the tariffs as they possibly can, which means that there was room, there was some movement to uh to to shed away uh some of their profit rates uh in an effort to even improve uh workplace conditions and improve uh the the uh benefit structures or compensation uh that they are offering their regular workers. They just had never done so because there was no intimidation coming from the executive whereas right now there is intimidation coming from the executive. So they're basically just eating away uh as much as that uh as much as the profit as possible and then in return, they're giving that in the form of tariffs the entry tax back to this administration. God knows what they're going to do with that money. I don't think they're going to actually uh use it for anything good. And that's a a totally separate problem. But on on principle, it seems like there is more money to move around in in a lot of these companies than we actually previously thought and and they're showing that reality right now.
Okay. So, is this a black hat, white hat thing for you where you don't mind the executive intimidating companies as long as it's yielding an outcome you think is more Oh, for sure. I I actually Well, I wouldn't say this about Donald Trump because like I said, who knows what like there's a better way to do this because it's not technically a redistributive policy if you don't redistribute the wealth at all. It is taxes though, right? Like Donald Trump has implemented this broad sales tax which is a regressive tax. I'm not in favor of it for that reason, but he has been able to implement this and it hasn't even turned into a broad regressive sales tax yet because companies are seemingly not actually increasing the costs uh in the ways that we thought they would. I think it's still going to happen down the line. it's impossible for them not to, but the the very fact that they haven't done so in the interim implies that uh they did have room for uh they did have more room to to lower their profit rates without taking too significant of a hit. And I think in the best in the best regulatory system, the the same intimidation would exist by the state, but in the direction of of taking instead of giving it, you know, as an entry tax, uh taking some of that money and and telling the companies to to give it back to their workers so that they have more.
What would you want to see Trump spend the tax the additional tax revenue on? So many things, but uh he's just not going to do that. But uh I mean you got surely there's a thing I mean healthcare, infrastructure, uh education, there are so many areas of need. I'm not even going to say improvement at this point. Like areas in dire need of of uh resources that they're not getting. Rural hospital networks are completely eviscerated at this point. And it's only slated to get worse with the new uh triple B bill that he passed through with $800 billion of Medicaid cuts that are going to come after the midterms that is going to rip apart the the existing network of like rural hospitals, hospitals that uh rely on Medicaid uh to to serve uh their their patients are no longer going to have this financial uh they're no longer going to have uh patients that are able to pay for their hospital bills at all. So it's going to destroy what remains of rural hospital networks in this country. Uh that's devastating and I think we should be moving in the opposite direction on that. Um abolishing uh the interest of profit from healthcare in its entirety because it's an inelastic it's an inelastic demand good. Um so either you need heavy market intervention from the government or no no uh market intervention whatsoever no market whatsoever in that process.