Capitalism gone wild...
Thursday, May 8, 2008 | Jason Jovine
I decided that I had to write this article because capitalism in the U.S. has become so annoying that I need to vent about it. It has gotten to the point where I can't even go to the bathroom, anymore, without some annoying retard standing there waiting for me to finish so that he can offer me a towel to wipe my wet hands (I do wash them, you know) or a mint for my breath or something. It is getting out of control, and it's happening so subtly that most of us aren't even paying attention to it.
When I go to Starbucks and many other establishments, they have their tip jars out, expecting us to tip them for simply doing their jobs. Do you all remember the good old days when you gave a person a tip because they provided excellent service?
Everything costs money nowadays. Everybody has his hand out. Capitalism has totally gone wild!
The cause...
Look, I could go on and on about how businesses have carte blanche in our society. Businesses RUN OUR COUNTRY, folks. They get away with murder, literally. Shouldn't it be illegal to smoke? How can the government allow poison to be sold to its people?
Drug companies exercise major control over the FDA. They get their drugs approved knowing that there will be problems discovered down the road, but they look at peoples' lives like they're just business decisions. They do a cost/benefit analysis of the situation before the drug comes to market, and they know that when they get sued for their bogus drug that it will still cost less than the revenue that they made from the sales of that drug (e.g. Seldane, fen-phen, etc.,) so it is still profitable.
They even sold out the kids. In schools, they have soda and snack machines that get the children hyper and moody, and then they tell the counselors and teachers that these kids need drugs to calm them down (e.g. Prozac, Ritalin.) Don't they have a great racket going?
If you want to change the kids' diet and don't believe that they should take these prescriptions, then you are considered a bad parent because you are not doing what they want you to do. They have a word for it, folks; it's called 'neglect'.
Are you really the one who is guilty of neglect?
What about the oil companies? George Bush gave them a multi-billion dollar tax credit not so long ago. Did they really need it? Don't they make enough money already?
He claims that we are fighting a war on terror. If we are really in a war on terror, then why are we buying oil from the terrorists? We are the ones funding the terrorists. Why don't we do what Brazil has done? Brazilians use very little fossil fuel, if any. We have about a 13 trillion dollar economy. Why can't we?
We can't because the military companies and the oil companies have too much power. There is too much money involved. If we completely stopped buying oil from the Middle East, then they wouldn't have the money to purchase their so-called "weapons of mass destruction".
What about the credit card companies? The Bush administration passed a bankruptcy law a couple of years ago that makes it harder for the people who need a fresh start to get one. This was a gift to the credit card companies.
Now, let me ask you something. If, God forbid, you got seriously ill and fell on some really hard times and racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and and you couldn't eliminate it, rather you would be paying it back for the rest of your sick life, how would you feel? Ladies and gentleman, this is happening every day. What's next - debtors' prison?
Ladies and gentlemen, whether it is Ultimate Fighting (UFC) on televison where they show people beating the hell out of each other or the other above examples, capitalism has gone wild! If you are not paying attention, you may wake up one day and say, "What the hell happened to this country of ours?"
I know that I will get some love and hate mail about this article: I expect it. All I ask is that if you criticize me, just make it constructive. Fair enough?
Don't get me wrong, capitalism works because people are intrinsically selfish by nature, and capitalism rewards selfish and sometimes deviant behavior instead of cooperation with one another. I will just say that ANY extreme, whether it is our version of capitalism or North Korea's version of socialism, is not good, and we are headed towards capitalism version 2.0, and fast.
Could this be one of the reasons that the Middle East is so frightened about our exporting our values to them?
Until the next time, folks, spend your hard earned money wisely.
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Jason Jovine
Chief Investment Officer
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