The Crony Capitalism of American Corporations Never Ends
It's hard to say who started it all, but Adam Smith warned us about all this when he stated in "The Wealth of Nations," that free-market capitalism was a wonderful thing as long as there was not an incestuous relationship between big business and big government. No, that wasn't a direct quote but it was something along those lines of thinking, and he was right. Ayn Rand showed us exactly the same sorts of problems and how they played out in her famous work "Fountainhead" and so we shouldn't be surprised, I'm definitely not, but I'm a little disturbed about how fast it has moved in recent years, and how flagrantly out in the open it is.
It seems that no business or corporation is able to make a ton of money without changing the rules, bypassing the rules, cheating, or spending millions of dollars on lobbyists in Washington DC. If you've ever wanted to predict what will happen in an industry - just follow the money in advance - follow the funding by lobbyists to various congressional campaigns. The higher up on the totem pole the more money that that legislator will get. The more committees they are on, and the more involved they are, or the longer they've been there, the more money they get.
While some entrepreneurs and industrial capitalists are thrown in jail, others seem to skirt the rules or change them later getting them off the hook for anything they may have done in the past, while the other guy sits in jail rotting. I Have a case in point; recently, the FBI went and arrested folks engaged in offshore Internet gambling because it is illegal, plus, folks were using these things to launder money, and they were obviously hurting the legitimate gambling casinos made of brick and mortar.
In the future, it will be legal as long as you are a big corporation with lots of lobbying cash, spiff the right Congressman, and you can get rules and regulations passed in your favor to operate your business the way you wish. There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal recently on August 16, 2012 by John Letzing titled; "Zynga Puts Real Money and Gambling Lobby," and of course they are doing this for one reason, they hope to make a huge amount of money through online gambling once the laws changed. No, they aren't the only ones trying to get the law to change, as some of the legitimate casinos consider it a real good idea to make increased profits.
It could also booster Zynga's stock price which has seen better days, all at a time when Facebook has reported that it plans to do online gambling in the UK (where it is legal) as a way to eke out some revenue and prove that Facebook is actually a legitimate business that can make money and not just another "dot com" in the information age with lots of clicks but no profits.
So I ask; is that really the answer? I wonder if in the future large corporations will figure out that they'd like to get into the business of selling drugs, so they will lobby Congress to legalize drugs and change those laws too?
Of course, those are all rhetorical questions, but my job is to get you to think, and if businesses can't make a profit doing what it is they do, surely they will find other venues and strategies, but it seems unfortunate that the answer is to change the law, create barriers to entry, and give lots of money to politicians to serve your will, so you can make a profit. Is that the new business model, is that all the better we can do in America?
There's nothing wrong with free-market capitalism, the problem is we are practicing it, rather we've got a bunch of hanky-panky and nonsense going on, and it's time we got back to reality.
Indeed, if Zynga can find a way to allow governments to tax online gambling, and collect the revenue for the government for that tax, then the legislators just might let them do it, because the government at this point our government can't seem to balance its budget, or figure a way to stay in business either, talk about the collusion of the century? And back to Adam Smith, he was right wasn't he. Please consider all this and think on it, glad to have entertained you today and got you to expand your mind.
It seems that no business or corporation is able to make a ton of money without changing the rules, bypassing the rules, cheating, or spending millions of dollars on lobbyists in Washington DC. If you've ever wanted to predict what will happen in an industry - just follow the money in advance - follow the funding by lobbyists to various congressional campaigns. The higher up on the totem pole the more money that that legislator will get. The more committees they are on, and the more involved they are, or the longer they've been there, the more money they get.
While some entrepreneurs and industrial capitalists are thrown in jail, others seem to skirt the rules or change them later getting them off the hook for anything they may have done in the past, while the other guy sits in jail rotting. I Have a case in point; recently, the FBI went and arrested folks engaged in offshore Internet gambling because it is illegal, plus, folks were using these things to launder money, and they were obviously hurting the legitimate gambling casinos made of brick and mortar.
In the future, it will be legal as long as you are a big corporation with lots of lobbying cash, spiff the right Congressman, and you can get rules and regulations passed in your favor to operate your business the way you wish. There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal recently on August 16, 2012 by John Letzing titled; "Zynga Puts Real Money and Gambling Lobby," and of course they are doing this for one reason, they hope to make a huge amount of money through online gambling once the laws changed. No, they aren't the only ones trying to get the law to change, as some of the legitimate casinos consider it a real good idea to make increased profits.
It could also booster Zynga's stock price which has seen better days, all at a time when Facebook has reported that it plans to do online gambling in the UK (where it is legal) as a way to eke out some revenue and prove that Facebook is actually a legitimate business that can make money and not just another "dot com" in the information age with lots of clicks but no profits.
So I ask; is that really the answer? I wonder if in the future large corporations will figure out that they'd like to get into the business of selling drugs, so they will lobby Congress to legalize drugs and change those laws too?
Of course, those are all rhetorical questions, but my job is to get you to think, and if businesses can't make a profit doing what it is they do, surely they will find other venues and strategies, but it seems unfortunate that the answer is to change the law, create barriers to entry, and give lots of money to politicians to serve your will, so you can make a profit. Is that the new business model, is that all the better we can do in America?
There's nothing wrong with free-market capitalism, the problem is we are practicing it, rather we've got a bunch of hanky-panky and nonsense going on, and it's time we got back to reality.
Indeed, if Zynga can find a way to allow governments to tax online gambling, and collect the revenue for the government for that tax, then the legislators just might let them do it, because the government at this point our government can't seem to balance its budget, or figure a way to stay in business either, talk about the collusion of the century? And back to Adam Smith, he was right wasn't he. Please consider all this and think on it, glad to have entertained you today and got you to expand your mind.
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