Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Stossel: In Defense of Capitalism" video.

How is someone free to pursue their own happiness when they need three jobs just to survive? How is someone free to pursue their own happiness when they cannot afford the most basic of healthcare for their families and they know that they are just one minor accident away from being wiped out? How is someone free to pursue their own happiness when the corporate vampires have their foot across their necks legislatively and financially? How is someone free to pursue their own happiness when they are too poor to acquire the skills or education that can lift them out of poverty?
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@YourLocalMemeAndAnimeDealer "What about when there wasn't a lot of red tape ?" Then workers were exploited. They died in the workplace. They were poisoned. Dangerous machinery chewed them up. They worked ridiculous hours from a young age. They were seen as nothing but a disposable resource.
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Uttre nonsense. Birth control, education, better healthcare, a livable minimum wage, affordable child care, affordable homes, restictions on predatory lenders, control on bank speculation with our money - all ideas from the left that unequivocally and demonstrably improve the lives of the poor, and I could go on. The fact that you found 50+ people stupid enough to nod their heads at your nonsense is a sign of just how badly education is needed.
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@chrisw9534 "Who needs three jobs in order to survive?" People living in cities with high rents and below a living wage. Employees at Walmart or McDonalds for instance. "This has been a problem for humans since the dawn of humanity." So were wild animals eating you, high infant mortality and tuberculosis. Humanity moved on and these things were largely eliminated. The fact that you can say "Some people fall ill. That's life. " without also asking "So how can we minimise that suffering" pretty much tells me all I need to know about you. "One way to do that would be to reduce the power and influence of government. You okay with that?" The libertarian fantasy. I really wonder if you guys have seriously contemplated this at all when you spout this argument. WHENEVER there is less regulation, companies exploit it to the detriment of the public. Polluted rivers, dangerous work environments, poorly tested products, less concern for investors. In a deregulated world, the ONLY winners are the business owners. Where have you EVER seen less regulations on corporations leading to greater consideration and better behaviour? "That would be a better solution than to have the government punish everyone else in order to inefficiently "help" those people." Again, as selfish as you are short sighted. In study after study, a larger, better educated labour force means more money to put into the economy. I know that you'd love to seal yourself up in a fortress on your own private island, but when you do, and it's attacked, or you want to use the public roads, or a tornado wipes you out, don't turn to the rest of us with a sad expression and your hand out begging for help.
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@dune469 In ANY civilised society, the welbeing of its members is the primary objective of governemnt. In this particular instance, the two positions: profitability and social wellbeing are not mutually exclusive. The problem is, corporations are not satisfied on a reasonable return on investment; they want ALL the money and to hell with the wellbeing of society. They are like vampires who are quite happy to drink us dry to our death so long as there are more cattle to kill later. When companies switched from being being owned by a few, to entities that had to return profit to investors, that was when things went to shit.
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@MilwaukeeF40C You make a very fair point about over-regulation. I see it a little like being a social justice warrior - those guys started off with noble intentions: equality, protecting animals, kids and the planet, but the more successful they became, the more they majored on minors, and now they're reviled by many people. That is simply the pendulum nature of human interaction. We should beware of it, but it's no reason not to aspire to reasonable conditions. You ask "What happened to all the shoe shine stands? What happens if you decide to repair small engines in your garage? What happens to kids who sell lemonade?" The children running them could afford to go to school, safety legislation ensured that people who may not be qualified were acting as mechanics, and safety standards said that you had to be certified safe to make food. Arguably, the latter two were overreaches, and you could doubtless have an interesting conversation with lawmakers about why those things became harder. "figuring things out during industrialization. Before that, people had it no easier for thousands of years being peasants and nomads. The wealth people earned doing dangerous shit in the early industrial revolution did far more to allow people to improve their situations, and enable children to NOT work as they had for thousands of years, than any government regulation. Business owners actually figured out that children aren't that productive as technology advanced." Absolutely disagree. Employers would HAPPILY be still sending children down into dangerous mines for a $2 a day if they could get away with it. The fact that they did so for thousands of years shows how little they care about people. It was the growth of democracy, worker empowerment, and a government that represented the majority, not just the ultra-wealthy business owners that brought about change. And now we're about to hit the robotics revolution, where companies will again show their absolute contempt for social wellbeing in the interests of saving a few dollars. "People who live in cities aren't deprived at all." Demonstrably untrue. In almost every first world city on the planet, blue collar and low skilled workers labour under high rents, high living costs, high rates, high services costs and more. It's worst for working colass families who have lived there for multiple generations and seen these cities grow around them. "Cities have a tendency to be expensive. Housing shortages are always caused by government." Only if you consider that preventing developers from throwing up shanty towns on every square millimetre and ghettoising every city is a bad thing. Otherwise, you could reasonably argue that housing shortages are caused by a range of factors including gentrification, the focus of corporate activity in the cities, and land sparcity. "ICC and CAB." I'm getting cricket and taxis...
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@chrisw9534 Employees at Walmart are paid low wages because there's no minimum wage regulation. Employers will ALWAYS exploit staff at the low end of the skills market. If the government did NOT subsidise Walmart, they're switch to part time contracts, and if that didn't work, they'd switch to migrant labour, and if that didn't work they'd automate. There's no scenario where Walmart voluntarily pays more because they're bloodsucking scum.
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@chrisw9534 "Employers want to keep good employees, " Nope. There are a limitless supply of fantastic employees. Employers will replace good employees if it saves them a couple of dollars a week. We just saw it in gaming - Activision Blizzard just has their best year ever then immediately fired almost a thousand highly skilled employees. Why? because a workforce that can be hired on demand is more economical than one which must be paid in between projects. Another example, in Britain there has been a massive switch to zero hour and part time contracts where employees are granted no vacation, sick pay or worker rights. Another example, Trump just gave GM millions of dollars then they shut their plants and moved to Mexico where manufacturing is cheaper. At almost every turn, employers demonstrate ZERO loyalty to staff, putting the bottom line ahead of human beings.
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@chrisw9534 This was started by employers. A job used to be for life, then employers started shipping jobs to India, the Phillipines and Mexico. When staff realised they were wholly expendable, their loyalty evaporated.
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@matrixman8582 And yet Britain has the fifth largest economy on the planet with a minimum wage, and the rest of Europe by and large does fine with one too. I'll cede to your knowledge of Keynsian economics because I don't know anything about the subject. Interesting reading though.
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@YourLocalMemeAndAnimeDealer What specifically about Reagan era US are you suggesting demonstrates that, and which policies produced that outcome?
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@Syncopator Yes, that's very true.
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"Is your life being wrecked by the super rich?" Yes. Next stupid fucking question. My tax rates are higher because the super rich avoid paying their fair share. Wages are lower because the super rich get there by exploiting the working class. The environment is fucked because the super rich get to buy off the government, ensuring that they circumvent regulations that harm their profitability. Tens of thousands of people a year are shot so that the weapons manufacturers can keep making profits. The super rich have undue influence across all areas of society.
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@chrisw9534 A fair share in my mind would be a flat rate - 20% on every dollar earned in America, over a living wage regardless of income. No deductions, no offshore registrations, no creative accounting. There may be some truth to your theory about immigrants although ISTR reading that the effect is less prononunced the further north you go, yet wages are still depressed. Wages are also depressed because many states have no minmum wage and almost ALL employers exploit their work force if they can. Wages are also depressed because employers are constantly outsourcing to countries with cheaper labour. "If you're complaining about crony capitalism, then the last thing you should want is for the government to have more power and be more influential. " This is SUCH a cop out. The problem is corruption, not government. You might as well has said "If you're complaining about thalidomide, the last thing you should want is to vaccinate your children against measels." Ah "guns don't kill people - people kill people". How original. Crime is no lower in Europe, Asia, or Canada, yet murders - especially by gun - are orders of magnitude lower. The USA has a mass murder every day, school shootings monthly if not weekly, and regular murders by cops. All of these would be much harder without guns. Yes, there are millions of law abiding gun owners. There are millions of law abiding men walking around but you still wouldn't allow your child to go off with a stranger would you? The NRA is a business, and its business is to increase the sales of the arms industry. I have great sympathy with any law abiding gun owner. I think that they SHOULD be allowed to own guns for protection (even though statistically they are more likely to be harmed by their own gun). I simply think that there should be tougher regulations.
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@matrixman8582 It can be cheaper, but when you're living hand to mouth, any price is too high. As for the things you say government makes MORE expensive, you may be right, but it's CORRUPT government that makes them more expensive, not a genuinely representative government. And if you think those things would be better without regulation, past experience shows you to be wrong. Just look at that thing with the AIDs drug and Martin Skrelli's company. He was free to set the price at whatever he wanted, but what did he do? He increased the price by 15,000% and gouged people on life-saving pharma. "Min wage hurts the poor and helps big business. Left wing Keynesian policies foster debt bondage and speculation" please demonstrate these assertions.
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@MilwaukeeF40C "Pay for your own stuff or beg. Nobody is entitled to any economic outcome." That's an immensely short sighted perspective. You work on the fallacious assumption that YOU will always be able to do so. You are just one disaster, one emminent domain demand, one change of consumer trends away from losing your ability to support yourself. In a compassionate society, most of its members will be able to afford minimum services such as food, rent, healthcare, and basic services without begging. America is the only country in the first world that has yet to figure that out and it's not a better country for it - far from it.
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@MilwaukeeF40C Simply saying "it is not" is no argument. In YOUR ideal world, people who couldn't get a job or earn enough would be reduced to begging or theft, neither of which is acceptable. But what happens if neither of those produces enough money - should they simply starve? Also, well done, you've just increased the crime rate by a million percent.
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@MilwaukeeF40C He didn't have an artificial monopoly. It was a drug that did not justify a lot of competition. In a world of no regulation, a few big players eliminate all competition then gouge as hard as they like. And as I said, past experience of no regulation has already showed you to be wrong.
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