Friday, August 31, 2018

A Further Comment on Tucker Carlson's Attack on Jeff Bezos, the Walton Family and Travis Kalanick


By Robert Wenzel

Here are some comments appearing at the post, Tucker Carlson Attacks Rich Entrepreneurs Including Bezos, the Walton Family and Kalanick:
I believe Carlson is a Libertarian. So corporate subsidies are fine? Either yes or no? I think he is saying no
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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.
It is positively bizarre to call general welfare a special subsidy for Amazon, WalMart and Uber.

The three pay market wages. If welfare is eliminated, they would then have to pay whatever the then
going market rate would be. If anything, welfare likely increases wages for the three since it keeps millions from seeking warm body wages/jobs since they can sit at home, fat and happy, collecting welfare checks.

As far as these firms being "state cronies," Amazon appears to do significant business with the government but that does not appear to be the case with WalMart or Uber.

What is really going on here is Tucker, and some libertarians, are being sucked in by a very sophisticated union attack on the three. All three firms resist unions aggressively.

The subtle message that Carlson is promoting is that these firms should pay more because they are being subsidized. And the next step is government regulation to get them to pay more, since they are already paying market wages.

Above market wages is exactly what the unions want for non-union firms, to make it more difficult for them to compete. So yeah, there is cronyism going on here. Union cronyism to get governments to act against market operators--and the union propaganda machine is sucking in Carlson and some libertarians.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of
EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. 

More about Wenzel here. 






7 comments:

  1. This is a great post RW. The troubling rise of American populism transcends the left-right dichotomy.

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    1. Just like the fact that they hate welfare until you suggest to take away their social security and medicare, then their tune changes real quick.

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  2. However, could his argument be that these businesses advocate for government assistance? If so, he has a point.

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  3. Bob, once again I think you are ahead of the curve. I mean WAY ahead of the curve. This doesn't take away from the commentary at all. Just pointing out how sober it is. People are caught in the individual ticks right now.

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  4. Its just confirming the idiocy of the populace at large even if they fool you by the ability to speak and function.

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  5. i.e. Collectivist crazies all trying to steal from each other.

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  6. This confirms the death of perception of true market driven value across the board. Its like labor enjoys the same artificially driven price points as precious metals.

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