Scott Galloway, founder of L2, appeared on MSNBC with Stephanie Ruhle. It was clear they concluded that corporations wanted socialism for them in good times but capitalism for the rest.
Corporate socialism & capitalism for the rest
I continue to be more impressed with Stephanie Ruhle like I am with Ali Velshi as they generally attempt to push the limits of journalistic integrity the best they can within the constraints of the corporate media. Here she almost hit a home run. Then again it’s important to note that Ruhle is a former Bloomberg employee who has an international business degree from Lehigh University. Her time spent studying in Guatemala and Kenya may have given her the very noticeable sense of empathy those indoctrinated by our economic system in American business schools fail to have.
The dialogue between Ms. Ruhle and Galloway points out the major defect in the capitalism we practice in America at the detriment of most Americans.
“Go higher up the economic food chain and you actually have healthcare workers who are getting their pay cut, who are working in hospital systems owned by private equity giants like KKR,” Ruhle said. “You’ve got health care professionals course suffering. Yet those private equity giants who are supposed to be in a position where they take all sorts of risks and when you take a risks you could get lots of upside but you risk facing great downside and right now the government is stepping in and curbing that downside. We’re having capitalism on the way up and self-imposed socialism on the way down.”
Galloway’s response did not disappoint.
“You’re absolutely right Stephanie,” Galloway responded. “It’s rugged individualism and capitalism and the hunger games on the way up and then on the way down it’s a lot of call signs by CEOs that we’re in this together and sort of a Hallmark Channel like socialism.”
Scott Galloway then really got into the meet of the hypocrisy of our system
“We need to decide if we’re capitalists meaning that if you take incredible risks there’s incredible upside but if you could use 96% of your free cash flow to buy back stock thereby inflating your compensation in the compensation to the CEO and the directors and you don’t have any cash when a crisis hits should you be in fact be allowed to fail. And what private equity and CEOs are trying to convince us of right now is they’re conflating equity destruction with job destruction. And the reality is — and I know this personally — when your company declares chapter 11 a lot of times there isn’t job loss there’s just a wipeout of equity. So all of a sudden we’re in this together. We need to decide if we’re capitalists meaning that equity gets wiped out on the way down or if we’re socialists. But if we’re gonna be socialists and let’s be honest socialism a lot of people say that’s a better alternative. Five of the seven happiest nations in the world have socialism. If you want your universal pre-k, you want your universal health. But let’s not have capitalism on the way up and then when we hit a crisis we have the worst type of socialism. We have cronyism and that is the people with the most representation in Washington the people with the most economic power decide all of a sudden that we’re in this together and as soon as the markets start going back up you’re gonna hear talks about capitalism and rugged individualism.”
Please listen to the entire video and give me your thoughts.
This was a week brimming with discussions on economic systems. I decided to write another article after several conversations comprising my wife on bottled water, my daughter on Appalachia and idealism, an uncaring capitalist, a Marxist who thought I was not sufficiently “socialist” in my recommendations for economic change, and from someone who does not know what to believe. I invite you to read the article titled “Does my bottled water story make you want this real economic change now?” and comment. I want to do a Politics Done Right program not only on the article but on your thoughts if I get any (anonymously of course).
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