Friday, August 31, 2018

Tucker Carlson Attacks Rich Entrepreneurs Including Bezos, the Walton Family and Kalanick

Tucker "I hate the rich" Carlson

By Robert Wenzel

This is just bizarre.

Tucker Carlson spent an entire monologue attacking rich entrepreneurs and then said he is pro-free market. With free market friends like this, who needs Marxists?

In the clip below, he starts off stating that Bezos is worth $150 billion and according to Carlson this
means he should pay his employees "well but he doesn't."

Of course, what Bezos does is pay employees the going free market wage. Otherwise. they wouldn't work for Amazon.

Carlson then makes similar charges against the Walton family (Walmart) and the founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick. He even dredges up the absurd claim that Uber drivers lose money when they drive (SEE: MIT's Bizarre Published Study That Claims Uber Drivers Make Only $3.75 Per Hour).

Carlson also makes the delusional claim that these companies are monopolies, when in fact Walmart and Amazon are direct fierce competitors against each other who compete on almost every level with little else to compete with other than low prices! Does Carlson not understand this?

How can Carlson be so misled? He is apparently getting data from the New Food Economy organization. Carlson mentions TNFE in the clip below.

The organization features this picture of lefty Cory Booker on the front page of its website:


Carlson also makes the argument that the government is subsidizing the above-mentioned companies because some employees are also on welfare. There needs to be much more work digging into this claim but to the degree this problem exists the solution is to end welfare! Carlson never proposes this in the clip but instead makes the claim that "Big corporations are the backbone of the Left." Thus, leaving in the air the possibility that the corporations need to be even more heavily regulated. Something, I'm sure his new friends at TNFE don't mind at all.

Here's the nightmare clip. 

Somewhere, Marx is cheering.


Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of

13 comments:

  1. "Why is only Bernie Sanders talking about it?"

    Because the rest of us are not insane like your friend Senator Sanders or you, Tucker, dear.

    Robert, sometime ago Tucker became a Trump-boy and started to spew out economically-illiterate nonsense during the time he was a host in the weekend edition of Fox & Friends. He's no friend of the Market.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never got this criticism. Presumably, people on welfare are among society’s most vulnerable. And yet somehow it’s a problem to employ them? Would the world be better off if they weren’t working?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. If you care for the least well-off, you should either (a) cheer for those entrepreneurs who offer to give up some of their profits to employ these people, or (b) personally make an offer to these people and pay them what you are arguing others should pay them.

      (I leave aside the issue of entrepreneurs living off crony subsidies, because I don't think that is what statists are generally arguing in this debate.)

      Delete
  3. Tucker is your typical conservative. He hoists his flag to what ever the current agenda a Republican President is proposing. Just like he was an apologist for GW Bush.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I believe Carlson is a Libertarian. So corporate subsidies are fine? Either yes or no? I think he is saying no .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom, you are getting confused over whom it is who is being subsidized, here. People in the labor market are willing to work for a lower wage because they know they will still be eligible for welfare. It is true, that welfare offsets the employer's cost of labor but the problem is not the employer, it's the welfare. To the extent that Tucker's objections have any validity at all, it is to the extent that the employers endorse and promote welfare as a government policy.

      Delete
  5. Not necessarily sticking up for Carlson, but the people he attacked are State cronies...not "free-market" about these individuals. Not sure what the issue is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are not cronies (at least, not in the sense of this particular issue) unless they endorse and promote welfare as a government policy. Welfare is a trap for the poor, a distortion in the labor market, and a windfall for employers.

      Delete
  6. Conservatives have principles, they just don't believe in them. Liberals have no principles but believe them with every fiber of their being.

    ReplyDelete
  7. According to my quick calculation of Bezos' stock in Amazon, it's over $160 B, so I'm guessing the $150 B was from some earlier calculation. So, he's supposed to sell his stock and give the proceeds to his employees?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, how far do you want to take this?

      Would the valuation be at these levels without financial repression ie Fed intervention?

      Have you read some these explaining how they lower their costs and obtain business? I'm no expert but it does not sound like free market capitalism.

      Amazon Isn’t Paying Its Electric Bills. You Might Be

      The company’s rate discounts have pushed up utility costs for everyone else.
      By Mya Frazier
      This sort of thing is becoming a pattern.
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/amazon-isn-t-paying-its-electric-bills-you-might-be

      “Everybody Immediately Knew That It Was for Amazon”: Has Bezos Become More Powerful in D.C. Than Trump?

      The deal for an obscure $10 billion Pentagon contract suggests the extent to which Jeff Bezos is gobbling up the swamp—without the guy in the White House even batting an eye.
      https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/has-bezos-become-more-powerful-in-dc-than-trump/amp

      The Dark Side of Amazon
      Both began as promising free market Jedi — but have become Sith Lords of crony capitalism.
      But money earned through the free exchange of goods and services apparently wasn’t enough for either of them. Power — through connections in DC — was the irresistible temptation that led to the Dark Side.

      Amazon — like Tesla — is becoming a crony capitalist operation that depends on government more than the free market. But the scale of Amazon’s rent-seeking dwarfs anything Tesla has managed so far.

      But the currently pending DoD contract is worth more than nine times as much as the previous deals. And it would add an estimated 50,000 workers to Amazon’s payroll, who would essentially be government workers — since those workers would be working mostly if not exclusively on government-contracted business.

      Amazon would become — is already well on the way to becoming — just another Swamp Thing.

      Not surprisingly, Bezos is actively looking into relocating Amazon’s government-related operations to the Swamp. Three locations inside the Beltway are under consideration. Once relocated, this Dark Side Amazon Swamp Thing will have every incentive to lobby even harder for more government money.

      In time, Amazon could easily become a mostly government-dependent operation.

      https://spectator.org/the-dark-side-of-amazon/


      Hard to bet against them with low cost of funds, etf's, and monopoly power but maybe paying their own way might be a start?

      Delete
    2. If the government did not monopolize and cartelize the utilities markets, the utilities would be faced by customers having more alternative choices and would not be able to cut such sweetheart deals with Bezos, and spurn everyone else.

      Delete