Up until approximately 1890, economists understood that a key part of the economic system is what are known as rents, or ‘free lunches’. This means unearned income or excess profits. They recognised that a key goal of economics should be to eliminate rents. Recent economic theory does not talk about rents very much – there is an incorrect assumption that all income is earned. The people and companies who receive excess wealth from rents are usually described by the media as wealth-creators, but this is partly propaganda. Many of them are ‘rent-seekers’ (also known as rentiers) – people who know how to take money from the system because they understand how it is rigged.
The current system is now dominated by rents. This includes monopoly profits, offloading costs onto others (externalities), asset-price inflation; crime, a rigged international system, tax manipulation, resource extraction; regulatory capture; and power imbalances allowing for exploitation of staff, customers and suppliers. This article will focus on one particularly important rent: government subsidies.
The Biggest Welfare Scroungers are Big Business
A subsidy is when a government provides some assistance to a business. This can take many forms. Giving a company a tax-break is a subsidy. If a government does not charge tax on aviation fuel, this is a subsidy to the airline industry. Purchases of weapons by the government subsidise many high-tech industries. Sending your soldiers to protect oil pipelines is a subsidy to the oil industry. When the U.S. and British Governments lend money to poor countries and insist that it has to be spent on exports from U.S. or British companies, this is a subsidy to those companies. Government spending on research which leads to profitable products sold by private companies is a huge subsidy.
It is estimated that the British Government gives out over £90 billion each year in corporate subsidies, and the U.S. Government spends at least $800 billion subsidising the biggest U.S. corporations each year. This has helped to finance the development of the aerospace, biotech, nuclear, electronics, synthetics, space communications, mineral exploration and many other industries. The Government, and therefore the taxpayer, covers much of the costs and takes many of the risks, then hands the profits to private companies. Many of the recipients of these subsidies dominate their industries, make big profits and pay large amounts to shareholders and senior executives. America’s oil, gas and mining corporations are among the most profitable in the world, yet they receive tax breaks and other subsidies worth billions of dollars. The big agricultural companies, particularly rice, wheat, corn, cotton and soybeans, receive some of the biggest subsidies, totaling approximately $30 billion each year in the U.S. One-tenth of the farms, usually the biggest, get three-quarters of the subsidies. Similarly, studies of European farming show that most of the subsidies go to a small number of the biggest farms.
In Britain, a 2013 report entitled “The Great Train Robbery” showed how private rail companies took big subsidies from the Government and paid substantial amounts to executives and shareholders. The billionaire Richard Branson received almost £3 billion in subsidies for the West Coast Line between 1997 and 2012. Shareholders took over £500 million in dividends. Without the subsidies, the companies would have lost money. In fact, there were additional, hidden subsidies, that amounted to £30 billion for all of the train companies.
Most advanced nations have similar systems of government support for big business. They have subsidised almost every major corporation at some point, and many of the world’s biggest businesses would have gone bust in the past if they had not been bailed out by their government. The academic, Noam Chomsky, uses the expression “really existing capitalism” to describe this system based on government support for big business. Others use the term ‘crony capitalism’, or ‘socialism for the rich’.
Business as an Extension of Government
The connection between governments and some of the biggest corporations is so strong that it can sometimes be hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Many personnel move seamlessly between business and government, in a system known as ‘revolving doors’. The software that enables Google to search through trillions of items on the internet is the same technology that enables the U.S. spy agency, the NSA, to illegally analyse trillions of items of electronic communications. The U.S. government provides huge assistance with research to help make U.S. companies dominant, and government-to-government lobbying to enable them to gain a foothold in other countries. Many big companies obtain guaranteed contracts with the government. Noam Chomsky has explained that these contracts are yet another form of government subsidy. This even involves funding things for which there is initially no demand, such as early electronic components, like transistors after World War Two. This is particularly noticeable with military contracts, aeroplanes and technology companies. Governments often overpay for these contracts by large amounts.
Chomsky has been writing and speaking about the role of government in supporting big business for many years, but has been mostly ignored by the mainstream. However, Mariana Mazzucato wrote a book in 2013 called “The Entrepreneurial State”, which has attracted mainstream attention. In it, she debunks the myth that private business is the source of most innovation, pointing out, for example, that in the U.S., 75% of new drugs come from state-funded investment and research.
Crony Capitalism is destroying the U.S., Britain and Many Other Countries
The close relationship between government and corporations can take many forms. If governments choose to use their power to limit the worst excesses of business, then business can be forced to operate in a way that primarily benefits society. This has been the case for many years in some European countries, and perhaps Britain and the U.S. were closer to this system during the years 1945-1970. This might be described as a mild form of capitalism.
At the other extreme is crony capitalism, where government can be ‘captured’ by business, through revolving doors, campaign financing, lobbying and corruption. The key aspects of this system are as follows:
- Huge global companies pursue their own profits, irrespective of the downsides to society.
- They have too much influence over politics and regulation, so the government helps them extract ever more wealth from the economy.
- They have the power to exploit customers, suppliers, staff, governments and the environment.
- They effectively operate outside the law. They are able to commit crimes with no punishment worse than a fine.
The U.S. and Britain in the 21st Century are examples of this type of extreme system, and some other advanced nations are heading in this direction. U.S. presidents and their corporate cronies openly rig the economy to benefit themselves. In Britain in 2020, there was widespread evidence of corruption in the awarding of contracts for personal protective equipment. The more extreme this system becomes – the more government is captured by big business – the more wealth the rich are able to extract, and the more problems we see. For example, millions of people were already using food banks before 2020, and that number has increased hugely during the coronavirus lockdowns.
Even mainstream commentators, such as the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, have commented on how the relationship between the Government and big business has changed for the worse. Crony capitalism is destroying our societies.
What Should We Do?
Executives and shareholders of the biggest companies want you to believe that big companies are dynamic risk-takers who deserve immense rewards if they are successful. Once we recognise that these risks are removed or reduced because of government support on a huge scale, we then have to question whether these companies really do deserve big profits.
Recent research has indicated that many millionaires are created in industries that receive big subsidies from government, so we must also question whether executives or shareholders really deserve their immense rewards.
Those who say they believe in markets might say that the government should have no role in choosing which parts of the economy to support. Our policies should therefore be to end all subsidies to big business, or at least to aim for the minimum system of subsidies, as part of a group of policies that aim to minimise rents.
However, such a simplistic approach ignores the positive contribution that government support for business has provided to society. The U.S. might not have the technology dominance that it has today without its history of Government investment in technology. In situations where subsidies provide large benefits to society, perhaps we should keep them, but find ways to ensure that no-one is able to extract enormous wealth from this system. In future articles we will look at possible solutions in specific industries where subsidies play a huge role, such as banking and pharmaceuticals.
We also need to recognise that subsidies are just one aspect of a more complex relationship between business and government, and that this relationship is highly corrupting. Changing it requires much deeper reform. We would have to try to end, or at least minimise the effects of corporate lobbying, corporate funding of political parties and elections, regulatory capture and revolving doors. We would also have to make substantial changes to the legal system to stop big companies getting away with committing crimes. If we do nothing, corporate lawyers and lobbyists will continue to gradually change the system more and more in favour of big companies. I don’t think there is a ‘magic bullet’ solution, just lots of changes to remove the rents that big companies currently receive. If you have any ideas that might bring about substantial improvement, let us know.
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Twitter will become even more of a walled garden if Musk takes it. ‘Truth’ will become even more of a commodity.
I don’t care, it’s a private network, the owners can do what the heck they like with it, but just so you know, Musk is NOT a fan of free speech. A tiger does not change its stripes.
Oh, and WILL – MUSK IS NOT A LIBERTARIAN.
The only thing I have agreed with him on is his anti-lockdown stance. But if you want to know the REAL reasons he took this stance, let me know.
Describe the “walled garden” please, just so I know what to look out for.
I beg to differ.
Twitter, Facebook etc were precisely free speech platforms until the time of Brexit and Trump when all of a sudden the establishment discovered what free speech looks like when there is a real market place of ideas.
Before social media the establishment and the owners and managers of newspapers and TV channels had a privileged position and an outsized influence.
They want to restore their power and remove the free market place of ideas. They believe in free speech only so long as their own speech is louder than everyone else’s so that they can control narratives.
The last two years have really shown us how many tyrants walk among us.
Looks like this is a question of when a private company becomes so influential that it should perhaps start curbing its own instincts to “do what heck” it likes. The fact that that it can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it should. We’re all permitted legally to do many things that would upset others, but we don’t do them; we self-limit. Massive corporations could take a simple lesson from that straightforward principle.
Can you show me on the doll where Musk commoditised your truths?
“I don’t care, it’s a private network, the owners can do what the heck they like with it”
That doesn’t make it right or sensible and … Twitter presents itself as a public network. Perhaps all media companies with over a certain circulation / membership should have an in your face disclaimer when logging on? Something along the lines; “This is a private network and we censor views we do not agree with”
You mean the world’s richest monkey killer/torturer/overgrown brat don’t you?
Whatever he is, Musk’s certainly no libertarian, and if you cling onto this belief you are going to be gravely disappointed. A few tweets about the Canadian truckers isn’t any proof positive either.
Further, he can’t stand competition or criticism (two key libertarian qualifications), and seemingly bought Twitter because:
a) It is a de-facto monopoly.
b) To advance his perverted fixation with transhumanism and mass conciousness (see monkey killings), and clearly sees it as giant experimental platform whereby he can experiment with various mass subliminal mind bending techniques – bought at a bargain price (for him) of course.
One can only hope a rival quickly springs up, overtakes Twitter, and annoys him greatly so he can only throw his toys out of the pram, again, before too much real damage is done.
Eat yer heart out Howard Robard Hughes Jr.
On the other hand why do true libertarians want to use Twitter anyway?
Exactly. Few people see Mr Elon Reeve Musk for what he is. Nice to see you’ve not been fooled!
Thanks to my upbringing I could always tell Stork from Butter…. or was it the other way around? Whatever, my mother would always use it to keep her hands smooth when washing dishes, and Ariel bio-gravy would make Sunday meals a treat.
You’ve taken drugs (legal ones) and undergone surgery (or probably will one day) which have been subject to animal experimentation.
I’m not a fan of Musk, but nor am I a particular critic of his. I learned a lesson from Trump when, prior to his election I thought he was just the lesser of two evils. It only took me a few months to figure out he largely meant what he said and began ticking off his manifesto.
Disliking competition and/or criticism are not a prerequisite of Libertarianism. In fact, it’s the freedom of the individual to be upset and offended by other which is an underpinning of Libertarianism.
Because it’s the biggest game in town does not make it a monopoly, de facto or otherwise. There are numerous other platforms one can join, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Truth Social etc.
That’s a pretty fair description of what the left are accomplishing on Twitter right now with the possible exception of transhumanism. But only because the left doesn’t build or create anything. Meanwhile, whilst Must is experimenting with it, the WEF are openly promoting it.
Been tried. They only attract right leaning participants although open to any political persuasion. The point is to free up Twitter from leftist censorship.
If the richest man in the world throws his toys out the pram, perhaps you should ask why, rather than describing him as an “overgrown brat”. He’s not the richest guy on the planet for nothing.
See: mileswmathis.com/musk.pdf
I just did. Loony Toons.
No evidence of anything in there other than they guys obsessive hatred of Musk.
It’s a few months since I read that paper, and I do not remember it as containing any particularly substantial evidence, but, starting with the knowledge that Elon Musk is seriously dodgy, I accord it reasonable credibility.
Anyway, you’ve got those ideas, now, and can revisit them, in your mind, as other things come to light.
If you doubt Musk is dodgy, are you able to explain the arguments, that I linked in this other comment [1]? I fail to see the “Loony Toons”, there.
In other words, it’s just someones rantings. There is no evidence of anything in it whatsoever.
Being that you have provided no evidence to support that statement so far, it would be helpful if you could provide something concrete to demonstrate he’s dodgy.
Clearly you have no concept of how the evidential process works.
Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t don’t develop my thought processes from the vindictive rantings of an obsessive.
I saw your earlier post, and deliberately ignored it after viewing the video. The video has no credible provenance. We can all post wacky theories purportedly debunking rational science, climate change alarmist’s do it daily, and the video falls into that category.
It doesn’t seem as though the video’s producer is a Rocket Scientist……
“deliberately ignored it”
You don’t give yourself a proper chance, do you?
Ah, I see. It confirms that he’s dodgy because you know that he’s dodgy.
Roger,
That is not a correct interpretation of what I wrote.
I’d give it a couple of points as witty put-down, but witty put-downs are not going to facilitate anyone’s apprehension of the genuine reality of our circumstances.
With you on this. Mr CovidiousAlbion hates lots of people. First thing I’d like him to do is explain why Thatcher was a “fascist”. I’ll admit I couldn’t read on after that, but maybe, if he produces a convincing argument against Thatcher, I’ll read some more of his rant. That said, got to agree with him about Zuckerberg!
Clive,
You are writing on the basis that I, an occasional poster of comments on this web site, and the author of the piece(s) I linked, are one, and the same, person.
You have, as far as I am aware, no means to determine that we are not, but I can honestly state that we aren’t, and the contrary is, objectively, hardly a reasonable assumption for you to make.
Mrs T. was a complex person, but I liked what she said about society [1], which was not something I would expect to hear from a fascist.
“As usual, this is an opinion piece”.
Great to flag up so early on that it wasn’t worth reading in full.
Because you are interested no-one’s opinion save your own?
(“in” omitted, sorry!)
Nuance isn’t your strong point, is it? The experimentation you reference has (allegedly) been necessary to develop life saving medical advances. Even then there are those that would claim otherwise, but let’s assume your statement is largely correct for the sake of the exchange. The resulting medical procedures were aimed at saving lives or giving quality of life. In stark contrast Musk’s experiments are off the chart trans-human medical freakery, following in the footsteps of the 1930s/40s Nazis – and will doubtless be generously funded by the MiC. This isn’t clever, it’s criminal.
It might be monkeys today (although even that is itself ethically problematic) but after millions of UK citizens were deprived of protection under the Nuremberg Code by this Government, and effectively became Big Pharma’s gene therapy Guinea Pigs, this will be humans tomorrow.
I’m sure if WW2 turned out differently Josef Mengele would have been a widely lauded billionaire. Perhaps he did become a secret billionaire in Brazil (as the USA made sure it procured all the experimental records, and would doubtless want to consult from time to time)? But if one is mega rich, one is beyond criticism, right?
And because it’s alien to you, transhumanism couldn’t possibly serve a useful purpose.
I’ll ignore the rest of your post other than to say, everything is possible. Is Musk a deranged, dictatorial Nazi? Hardly, he doesn’t conform to the usual political animal desperate for control of nations. He’s a businessman for Pete’s sake.
And when you exhibit some nuance, you can be sure I’ll recognise it.
Not one that has any value outside of tatty sci-fi paperback books and the increasingly deranged military blue sky thinkers. Let the intelligentsia at Rand Corp volunteer their sons and daughters. Musk seems to have watched eXistenZ at an impressionable age, and unfortunately (for all those monkeys) failed to grasp it was just pulp entertainment.
You show no signs so far of even knowing what it is – but don’t let that stop you. Ignorance of subjects certainly didn’t hold Musk back.
The one thing he did, which changed my poor opinion of him, was taking his Skalectric toy car business out of Californiaca and moving it to Texas.
Whilst he is getting more wealthy on the tax payer, anyone who has upset the Snowflakes on Twatter like he has is on my team.
BFF,
I have no genuine insight, in this, but I did once read a piece, which I found credible, making the case that Mengele was framed. I believe it reasonable of me to mention this, since the word, “sceptic”, appears in this page’s URL.
Musk thinks Putin is richer. Anyway, how do you measure rich at that level. I am sure there are several who regardless of calculated wealth actually control more.
I don’t for one moment think Musk is all heart but I’d like to see someone who advocates an increase in population, free speech and democracy given a chance.
Good evening Gentlemen.
Twatter…. Burn it to the ground.
Why?
Should we burn every other social media platform to the ground as well, including this one?
Twatter is financially supported by the US Govt.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/15/twitter-responds-to-elon-musk-proposal-by-creating-poison-pill/
Grow up an smell the Earl Grey.
The last refuge. No named authors/journalists. No contact details whatsoever other than an email address.
“Grow up an[sic] smell the Earl Grey.”
Now now Mr Red Hot, I am a great fan of yours, but please do not disparage Sundance and his Treehouse.
For instance have a look at today’s piece about Duckduckgo selling it’s soul to Biden and his handlers.
The search engine I (until recently) used has gone over to the dark side.
This isn’t a social media platform. And in answer to your question, yes we should burn it down. Social media is a cancer upon on primate brains.
You are wrong, and if you are right, you won’t be replying to this cancerous comment, will you?
Red-hot, I’ve been with you after reading CovidiousAlbion’s codswallop, but not sure why you don’t agree with TheBluePill that social media is a “cancer”. Surely it is; the world, with all its shortcomings, was a better place without it.
If you believed that, you wouldn’t be commenting it.
Wow, didn’t take long for the Musk-haters to hijack the thread.
Suck it up chaps.
I don’t really know why people dislike the man. Perhaps they know something I don’t. All I know is that the guy is tremendously successful at starting and running businesses.
I would think the prudent thing to do would be wait and see what he does – if he manages to get total control of Twitter – before judging him.
We Brits largely despise success and are desperate to knock people off their pedestal.
Twitter is a cesspool of left wing censorship right now. Musk would have to go some to make it worse than it is.
I no more despise success than I do Russian ballet.
And what’s with the we? … Sweeping statement that aims to tar the Brits?
“largely” was used deliberately.
This may give you a few clues: mileswmathis.com/musk.pdf
Dear God, what a lot of tripe. Musk is a Jew? So what? Margaret Thatcher was a fascist?
This guy’s a fringe lunatic.
That author (if he is really an actual person) gives quite an appearance of being obsessed with Jewish people, or, rather, Phoenicians. However, if you read enough of him, his real point is about large, interrelated, families being dominant across commerce, media, and government. He makes quite an impressive number of connections – though I don’t suggest I’ve verified any. Take George Clooney and Rosemary Clooney, as a fairly trivial example, or Anderson Cooper at CNN being the son of Gloria Vanderbilt [1].
Maybe Jewish people are overrepresented amongst the powerful, but though this would not, necessarily, be an issue, per se, we should not let that possibility, or reality, whichever it is, distract us from the great problem of power being concentrated within an elite.
I am wary of reading anything into your nom de plume, but, throwing caution to the wind, momentarily, I venture that this may interest you: https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/when-scotland-jewish/
Isn’t the term ‘six degrees of separation’?
My family can be traced directly back to landed gentry (as many of us can) of only 150 – 200 years or so.
So why aren’t I stinking rich?
Perhaps they are, but I believe Israel has the highest IQ of any nation. That would certainly explain a lot.
How about the representation of Christians in the corridors of power? Is anyone counting them as diligently as Jews are counted?
I have no idea what you are trying to illustrate with your Chicago Jewish News article. That Jews moved to Scotland? As the Scot’s were prominent in building Hong Kong? Utterly meaningless.
Whereas some of us can only see illiterate peasants stretching back for centuries.
Billionaires are not our friends.
Got a Tesla Draper?
Billionaires generate wealth and employment. They innovate (well some do) and without them we would still be in the dark ages.
They also use their disproportionately massive resources, and their associated capacity for risk-taking, to stifle competition and suppress the innovative capabilities of others, both legally and illegally, and both deliberately and concomitantly with the straightforward furtherance of their gargantuan business interests.
Wealth going to wealth is virtually, if not actually, a natural law. Over time, a few dynasties own more and more of the world.
Never assume that these billionaires created their own fortunes, starting out with no more than the average guy. Upon researching them, most turn out to be from well-established, powerful, families.
Nothing mankind has ever achieved has been without risk.
Musk alone has spawned innovative businesses to support Tesla in both research and supply.
One of those needs to be proven, the other is a legal right in most civilised countries, innocent until proven guilty.
The continuing cry of the perpetually jealous over hundreds of years.
“Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver’s cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver’s family.” (Wikipedia)
“Orpah Gail Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother.[27] Her mother, Vernita Lee (1935–2018), was a housemaid.” (Wikipedia)
Larry Ellison (Oracle Corporation) was born in New York City, to an unwed Jewish mother. His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. (Wikipedia)
I have lots more if you wish.
I did not suggest I have anything against risk taking. My point was, merely, that the billionaires can easily take risks of a scale completely beyond everyone else. I hope you can see what effect that has upon ordinary people’s ability to compete.
“One of those needs to be proven” – Actually, I cannot think of a specific example, at the moment, but I am sure there have been multiple prosecutions of cartels.
“cry of the perpetually jealous” – That it may be, but the problem is no less real, or significant, for it. Your argument, I am sorry, is no more than ad hominem.
“Andrew Carnegie …” – If these biographies are genuine, they amount only to counterexamples; You are not disproving the hypothesis. Rags to riches is a heart-warming story, and compelling motivation, for the plebs, to stick within the system. It’s also human nature, I think, to wish to ascribe one’s success to one’s own abilities, and to garner the admiration of others, on that basis. You are, probably, right about the “perpetually jealous”, and nothing arouses jealousy more vehemently than another’s unjustified success. Seeing people, whom we perceive as similar to us, do extremely well, on the other hand, somehow vindicates us, and our own existence.
Carnegie, Winfrey and Ellison couldn’t afford to take risks judging by your reasoning.
Cartels are not individuals.
As you persistently display your envy of the wealthy, it’s hardly that.
Oh really. https://www.inc.com/business-insider/billionaires-who-went-from-rags-to-riches.html
I didn’t post them as heartwarming stories. I posted them as examples countering your sweeping generalisations.
Mike Ashley (and his empire of tat) take a bow! You’re no longer a lying deceitful exploiter of cheap labour, zero hour contracts and appalling working conditions after all. Instead it turns you are a true innovator of the ‘pile ’em high sell ’em 70% off‘ barrow boy variety. I am so sorry for misunderstanding your commitment to generating wealth for others.
I suppose I shall have to extend this grovelling apology to even those on the other side of the not so well defined border line between organised crime and honest (sic) entrepreneurship.
Dark ages indeed! That’s where we were heading before unions started fighting back against exploitation of workers and child labour in the 19th century. Oh, I’m sorry again!! We can’t hold such views on this increasingly Ayn Rand inspired ‘I’m more to the right than thou’ reactionary-fest. Now let’s all wheel out some token racism just to prove how tough we are – just like the commenters do in Breitbart or Guido, eh? Ahh, that feels better – now we really are becoming more like Nietzsche’s superman.
If one insists on measuring worth by extreme wealth then one must remember to not be too hard on oneself. Making money is relatively easy. Making big money requires a few greased palms and rule bending. Making a real lasting contribution? Now that is hard, especially in this age of random cancellations (and no, it isn’t just the so called left involved in this woke revolution).
Whether you like it or not, your obsessive envy of wealthy people does not change the fact that even Mike Ashley employs lot’s of people which enables people to keep roof’s over their heads.
Were conditions so bad under Ashley (as reported by various MSM which we all know lie for a living) no one would work for him.
‘Pile it high and sell it cheap’ The motto of the founder of Tesco from memory.
If you can’t define it, it doesn’t exist.
No, the dark ages were where we were.
No, people began fighting back. Unions emerged from the struggle, few of them paragons of virtue.
Where have I ever said you are not entitled to your opinion?
WTF are you smoking?
Now off on some fantasy loony toones trip.
Precisely where did I discuss race?
Which I never did, but let’s carry on anyway.
I guess that’s why you’re on here exhibiting your vicious envy instead of being somewhere making money.
Perhaps enlighten us all as to what lasting contributions you have made from which you can make that statement.
Delighted to be enlightened as to where and when those from the right have wholesale ‘cancelled’ the left on the scale Google, Twitter and FB have.
As I said before, you have no grasp of nuance. I have no envy of wealthy people, but you clearly do – as it appears to be the only yardstick you are able to grasp. Wealth is not measure of worth, it is not a measure of quality, and it is not a measure of contribution.
Predictable pedantics from a cornered self declared individualist. Without collectivism there would have been no worker’s rights or working class education – suck it up (as you are so fond of saying). The factory owners could pick off dissenting workers one by one, as they had law, police and money on their side. They couldn’t so easily take on a union of the like minded.
The irony is that it is the mega rich that require collectivist elitist supporting networks to succeed – banks, governments, media. The mega rich stay mega rich because their companies and banks become too big to fail, and their friends in government divert taxpayer subsidies their way. That’s not risk taking entrepreneurship, it’s crony capitalism.
PS: Musk didn’t invent the rocket; he couldn’t even build a model of one, as his ridiculous submarine demonstrated.
I never said you did, but many otherwise worthy commenters BTL have sadly felt obliged to whenever they perceived their right wing credentials are questioned. Try reading rather than reacting.
Really, you say that despite the fact that Musk’s wealth is at the centre of every comment you have made?
Oh boy you ARE obsessed by envy of the rich – and see it all around you where it doesn’t exist.
Why? Are you envious of me too – or just curious? It certainly isn’t a good look!
Right and Left long ago vanished, or were too busy admiring billionaires to notice? The Graun supports the Tories etc, etc… All parties have been neolib & centrist since 1997 – just some are better at it than others. If the Right has any lingering nostalgic meaning now it is perhaps only among old, excluded and increasingly bitter boomers. Or are you envious of the young woke folks as well? Tsch, tsch!
Biggest lot of drivel I have read in a long time. Not worth responding to in any detail.
You really need to grow up or get off the sauce.
What bothers me is that the SpaceX exploits appear fairly obvious frauds.
The notion of controlled landings of the “reusable” boosters is patently absurd. Do those things have massive gyroscopes in them, to keep them upright??? [1, 2]
The light fall off issue, on his Roadster, is pretty irrefutable (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vChhPT3_Itg), and, for those who study photography, there are a couple more quirks discussed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWg-iLBrQxA
The SpaceX missions are endorsed by the mainstream media and NASA, all of whom must be aware of the total incredibility. Why should we think a Musk takeover of Twitter would improve anything? He seems to have friends in the usual high places.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwTbrcjMd40
2. http://mileswmathis.com/bezos2.pdf
The comments on this article are a perfect approximation of twitter. Arguements and one upmanship, bickering and bull**it. It’s worse on twitter because you’re forced into smaller snipes having less characters, but at least it takes less time to read I suppose.
Buy it, burn it, bury it.
Well said. It simply isn’t possible to argue that social media has in any way improved life on Earth. The argument above, about the benefits or otherwise of billionaires, illustrates the point perfectly; clearly, both arguments are valid – billionaires create wealth/provide employment etc, but they can also be irresponsible, hubristic, uncontrollable, maniacal. Yet the participants above, who I’m sure elsewhere are sensible people, become entrenched in defence of their original statements, and simply fail to modify their opinions where modification is clearly reasonable. They waste their talents and their voices are lost in the howling wind of resentment and bile.
I am not a big fan of “social media” but arguably the comments section on this site is a kind of “social media” and we’ve found it beneficial.
You mean: all the comments except yours.
That’s two-upsmanship. Return serve.
Irrespective of whether Musk buying Twitter would actually increase freedom of speech or not, I find the reaction to his move from the employees and some existing shareholders interesting. What do you think the reaction would be if Toby Young announced he was going to buy Twitter (and for the purposes of this thought experiment, imagine he was rich enough)?
Twitter is kind of a shithole tbh.
When I was a lad truth existed in isolation. It didn’t require a majority vote from a self-selected group of noisy people.
Wow: you must be as old as me!
I lived through the Hong Kong flu outbreak in the winter of 1968/69 in the UK, which killed many, many more people of all ages than the Rona and during which the NHS and the economy at large weren’t shut down. There was no media hysteria and no internet.. Wonder if these two issues could be connected?
Personally, if Elon Musk wants to reform Twitter, then he should set up a rival platform and not try to reform the cess pit of twitter. Because what nurtures freedom of speech, is competition by free-speech platforms which will always destroy the profitability of censor-platforms like Tricker and fascist book. Free speech cannot be imposed, it flourishes when it is not controlled.
Well there are GAB and Telegram, but they are not mainstream and probably never will be. We need mainstream platforms to be unmoderated so that almost everyone bar extremists on both ends are exposed to each other’s ideas. At present, lots of people use Twitter who probably don’t realise it has a progressive agenda, same with Facebook, Google, YouTube. Those are the people who need to see different ideas.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/msnbc-blast-past-its-our-job-control-how-people-think-not-elon-musks
Twitter is for twats – always was.