Is Capitalism A Force For Good? #479

is a topic that we feel is important. We want to talk about capitalism in a way that we feel like it's fair, while at the same time, we're you know, we're addressing the fact. We know that this isn't gonna be one of those episodes where at the very end you're going to have like your three things to do.

We're hoping that this is going to be an episode that causes you to think, because ultimately, we believe that the attitudes that you have about something as fundamental as capitalism will impact how it is that you interact with different businesses and with the world around us as well, and maybe even that desire or not to start your own business someday kind of how you view the system that we all kind of live in. To a certain extent,

matters in in your actions. Actually, it is going to be somewhat deterministic in how you move about in the world. But Matt, before before we get to that, let's I just saw this great article from our friend jd Roth who writes it Get Rich Slowly, and it was all about speaking up for yourself. And I think this is like one of those things that maybe we don't do

enough as consumers. Basically, he had someone come out to his house to repair a leak in the roof, and he they had told him, Hey, it's gonna cost us this much to come out, and then this is our hourly rates. They were out there for at most I think you said, two hours, and then the bill he got along at all. He was shocked. It was like and so um. He at first was just kind of upset.

I wasn't sure what to do about it, but he decided, you know what, I'm gonna speak up for myself and he ended up calling the company and the bill was without you know, him having to really even harangue anyone, cut in half essentially and to to something that made made more sense commensurate with the labor that actually was involved in fixing his roof. And it just made me think, like, there are so many times that that happens, and maybe we bemoan it quietly or we're upset about it, we're

frustrated on the inside. But so much of the time, the way to go about getting something fixed, uh, when when something is wrong, when we have been overcharged or underserved, is to reach out to that business and to tell them and ask for them to fix it on our behalf. That's right, Yeah, we need to advocate for ourselves. And like you said, he didn't have to like go, you know, stay in front of an appeals court or something like that.

It was literally a phone call. But I think that's honestly the biggest uh disconnect or not disconnect, but that's the hurdle that keeps us from moving forward and doing something uh that would allow us to cosse some of our money back. Is that if there isn't like a button to click or an app where you submit a complaint or something like that. If those things don't exist, it's almost as if there's no path forward. It's like, what do I do? It'm I supposed to actually pick

up the phone and call this company. And a lot of times, yes, that's exactly what we need to do. And I loved he He actually started that post talking about the fact that he hates confrontation. He does not like to confront people to ask questions that we don't necessarily need to be asked. But in this case, his money was on the line, and I was glad to see him, Yeah, advocate for himself, and that is something

that we need to do more of ourselves as well. Yeah, and it's it's certainly uncomfortable at times, but when our money is on the line, we we have to we have to be willing to speak up, to push back, to ask the question at least, can you explain this bill to me a little bit further? You don't even have to get hyper confrontatefrontational, you know, I don't think j D j D did. I think he questioned where why the bill was as much as it was, and like, well,

what was the actual work done? Because they were just here for a couple of hours, And so asking those gentle questions, even as you're starting to prod in the beginning, can help the company realized, wait, we screwed up, we build you the wrong amount, and we will fix it without you even having to make a fuss, and so sometimes you do have to take it to the level

of confrontational. You do have to maybe make a post on Twitter or or you do even in extreme circumstances, have to like pick it out in front of a company in order to get a problem resolved. But most of the time a simple phone call will clear things up pretty easily. That's right, man. Let's go ahead and introduce the beer that we're going to share during this episode. Uh, it is a bourbon barrel brick kiln. This is a

beer by Jackie Os. Looking forward to drinking this one and sharing our thoughts on this one at the end of the episode. Yeah, especially this one. Jackieo's is one of my all time paper brewis at this point, and so they are. Yeah, they're awesome. Should be a good one. All right, Well, let's let's get onto the provocative question that they do. It is capitalism a force for good?

And this question made me think for some reason about the movie and the book Moneyball, And um, yeah, if you've read that book, if you watch the movie, Brad Pitt Brad Pit was in it. Yes, that's right, Jonah Hill, I think and I read the actual book because I'm kind of a baseball nerd, and I found it fascinating and and Michael Lewis is just such a great writer.

But if you've read the book or watch the movie, you have probably acquired maybe a new understanding of the word underrated, because that book basically details the true story of baseball general manager Billy Bean how how he changed the face of the game of baseball by starting to amass players who had certain characteristics that were kind of

boring but ultimately led to more team victories. That's right. Basically, he was drafting and training for players who took a lot of walks, like that's one way of saying, instead of the the sexy or features of baseball like home runs and stolen basis, he realized that those don't actually pay off when it comes to victories as much as

guys who can take walks. And so he got these really undervalued players who had actually add a lot of value to the team, even though most of baseball said, yeah, we'll basically give these players to you because they don't fit the mold of a traditional baseball player that were used to see. And so that that group of underrated players actually ended up taking the Oakland. A's basically from

from worst to first. And Matt, I think similarly, capitalism is it's it's kind of like the baseball players that Billy Bean was finding. It's this system that has at least in recent year, has been a little more denigrated. It's been undervalue maybe, And so yeah, you and I we think that it is a force for good and we're going to kind of make the case for that in today's episode. Yeah, quite another quick example that I

can think of that's not sports related. It's basically like taking care of your teeth, right, Like you can get the fancy toothpaste, you can even get a nicer toothbrush, like one of those fancy ultra sonic toothbrushes. You can even get like some of those super fancy water jets. I don't even know how much those things cost, but all that being said, you can do all of those things, or you can get somedental floss, which is like the most basic thing, and flash your stupid teeth. It's gonna

win every single time. It is not pretty, but it gets the job done. I feel that way again similarly as the you know, Billy Bean, floss is just this underrated thing. But it does get the job done every single and it makes a big impact. And so yeah, that's this is a big reason why we're talking about capitalism during this episode, because I mean one of the other things too, is we feel that it's become in vogue recently to hate on capitalism. We're seeing socialist tendencies

actually growing in our society. Uh. And you know, we're gonna do our best here to present a nuanced take here, because it's not like we're saying that unfettered capitalism is going to be like this glorious pinnacle of humanity or anything like that. But the stats show that only half of younger Americans actually view capitalism fondly. However, as recently as two thirds of people felt that way. Uh. And

some of that pivot is understandable. It seems that young adults, they might be tending towards the socialist viewpoint for reasons of security. You know that that might make sense. The job market has evolved quickly. We'll all likely work a bunch of different jobs in a variety of different sectors over our working lifetimes. Uh. And that might be anxiety inducing our parents, their parents, our grandparents, you know, they

didn't have that same experience. But just because that reaction might be a understandable it doesn't mean that we think gravitating away from capitalism is best. Okay, So I think we should define our terms then, Matt, while we're starting out here, we should maybe say what capitalism is and what matter. And capitalism was essentially founded by Scottish economist Adam Smith. He wrote the book The Wealth of Nations, which most of us learned about as we were studying

history in school. And the literal definition of capitalism is, and I quote, an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. It's the production of goods and services based on supply and demand in the general market.

But there's also the reality that even before the terms free market and capitalism came into our vernacular, before we we knew what capitalism was, that free trade has been this basic human instincts, right even before physical currencies were created, before we can trade things back and forth with metal coins or you know, paper currency, right exactly like what we learned about when we talked with Jacob Goldstein, people were trading agricultural goods back and forth, like grain or cattle.

And when it comes down to it, capitalism is kind of more like the lack of a system than a complex structured one, and so really it functions around individual needs and then the subsequent ingenuity that comes along attempting to meet those needs. That's right, And you know when you see ingenuity, Basically what you're talking about here is competition. And we feel that that is core to the capitalist system.

Because here's the thing, like we're not saying that, like we're not we're not anarchists, right, we believe that there is a certain amounts of law, like the rule of law needs to exist in order for there to be healthy competition, and that actually helps foster robust capitalists. Yeah, exactly, because if you don't have any laws, then competition just leads to death as people are literally clabboring each other for the scarce goods. And so I wanted to quickly

provide a foil to capitalism. Let's mention the Scandinavian countries. Everybody likes talking about those, uh your motherland. Yeah, I feel like there's been a lot of discussion in recent years about Sweden, Denmark, about Norway, uh, the favorite of those your country, and how these like quote unquote socialist

countries are basically like the gold standard. Many have said that the U S should actually aim to be more like these countries, and interestingly enough, we don't completely disagree here, and that's because these countries aren't actually all that socialist. Sure like, they definitely have higher tax rates, they've got a stronger social safety nets. But when we're talking about economic freedom, most of these countries have ranked higher than

the U S in recent years. Here's the thing. The governments in these countries, they don't own the means of production, which is what socialism actually is. Uh. And so if you're looking for that type of economic system, you're gonna have to look back in history to the USSR, or more recently to Venezuela and Cuba. Those aren't countries where most of us want to live. Uh. But interestingly enough, these Scandinavian countries, they seem to prioritize free markets better

than we do here in the US these days. But that's just an interesting note because it seems that these SCAN and Navy in countries have prioritized free markets recently better than the USS. Yeah. I think it's an important part of the conversation because those countries have admirable qualities, and there is a lot to admire about some of those Scandinadian countries, what they've been able to produce, and the happy people that they've been able to produce overall.

And it's interesting to see that actually capitalism has been a robust part of that, and and more so lately over the past couple of decades actly, there have been a lot and we can link to an article too from recent magazine where John Stossel details how skinn how Sweden in particular, has changed over the years to looking more like the United States than the traditional Sweden of

the six season seventies. And uh, yeah, this isn't to say that there's more overall economic freedom in Scandinavian countries than there is in the US. There are still lots of government run services, but they also have the taxes to fund them. And so while the US has a tax to GDP ratio of somewhere in the range of it's closer to forty five percent over in the Nordic countries. So more of your paycheck, a good bit more of

your paycheck is going to fund those social services. And that's not to say that those countries are worse off. It's okay to have different countries doing different things. We think it provides a nice balance to the world. You know, folks who want to take it easier can move to Norway, although I think the immigration policies there are are pretty tight. Uh. And if you want to, I might be able to get in just because of my ancestry, but it's because of your name and if you want to duke it

out then you know. That's what the US does really well. And companies like Apple, Google, forward Visor, and Delta, they have all flourished under the capitalist system. That these are all US companies that haven't only just made our lives better, but like I mean, they literally have made the entire world better exactly. Yeah, when you look at some of these companies, um, many of them make more money overall outside of the United States than they make inside of

the US these days. And Matt, you and I were obviously not not all knowing beings, but I'm guessing that these companies might not even exist if it weren't for the capitalistic work that exists in the US that lead them to flourishing. We probably wouldn't have Netflix or eBay either. Yeah, these are companies again, like, can you think of one company from like a Scandinavian or Nordic country, Like you probably can't think like Nestley in Switzerland there maybe I don't.

I don't even know, though it sounds kind of like an American company, like like Nordic track that doesn't count either, But it is interesting to see the privatization that has happened over time in some of these countries. Spotify, I believe, where of a British company or they maybe they might even be a Swedish company. Actually, yeah, yeah, And so again, why are we talking about this because we normally stick to personal finance and now we're gonna be getting more

into the broader field of economics with this discussion. But because we live in a free market economy, we feel that it's important to know how it functions so that we can thrive inside of it. And maybe this episode will help you to understand just the societal waters that we are all swimming in. And another reason we feel compelled to talk about capitalism today is because of just the changing perceptions by many that free markets aren't actually good.

We think that they are, uh, And so we're going to discuss that and more right after this break. All right, we're back, Matt. Let's keep annoying our listeners talking about capitalism here for a second, and kind of it's not annoying. This is this is an important converence. Yes, I agree,

I think it is. And and you know you and I again, this is not necessarily the normal route we take, but we feel compelled to discuss this because when knowing the water that you're swimming in and knowing kind of how a capitalist system operates and what's good and what's bad about it, We're gonna cover both of the sides of the coin here on today's think about it and talk about it in a way that's just fair and

well rounded. Yeah, because it's trying to do here because like you you mentioned before the break, like perceptions have changed around capitalism, um and quickly really and even just

the last ten to fifteen years. And perception tends to define our reality, Like how we view things influences um the way that we interact with the world around us, and and and it seems that we as a society have developed developed like um what I would define as a bipolar approach towards capitalism and then generally, and then towards big businesses specifically, because when Americans are are surveyed, the stats show that we don't trust businesses very much,

at least that's how we respond to folks that do the polling. Roughly eighteen percent of folks who were asked whether they trust big businesses said yes. So that's um a paltry some of people. Most of them are like pretty low approval ready, Yeah, no, I don't trust business

at all. But at the same time, some of the biggest businesses out there are actively adored, Like folks love their iPhone and they use Google products or or search on a daily if not in hourly basis that we're fascinated by Tesla cars were amazed at the fact that

Costco can sell a fully cooked rotist or chicken. For There's this disconnect between the way we think about big businesses broadly and then the way we interact with them in our our daily lives totally man and unfortunately, I feel like it's like at the core, like what's at the root of this is selfishness, right, because we think, oh, well, I want to enjoy the things that I want to that I like to purchase or the services that I like to participate in, but generally speaking, when it comes

to these large businesses, I don't trust them. Like it makes me think of uh, Like, if you've identified that housing affordability as a problem, basically, like what it comes down to is that there is not enough housing here in the United States, especially as there are more and more folks who are looking to buy homes. And so one of the most obvious solutions is housing density. Right,

we're talking about condos, we're talking about apartments. But that same person who might be like, oh, yeah, that's what we need, they might be the same person that goes to a community meaning where they're proposing some apartments on the corner and they're in their neighborhood exactly. Yes. And so there's this cognitive dissonance here, and that is the biggest thing that we're trying to address head on here

during this episode. And I think it's a good way to put it, because I think there there's like one thing that we do with our wallets, with our habits, with our actions, and there's another thing that we're saying with our mouths or thinking with our brains yea, And we would argue that what we're doing with our wallets really reveals where our part is when it comes to

these matters. Um and another sort of I guess argument here for capitalism is that, like country, to a popular opinion, the purpose of a business it's not necessarily to make money. That might be mind blowing to some people and they're like,

what are you talking about? Of course that's the reason businesses exist, like money, Well, profits are necessary of course in order to run a business, but the primary reason businesses exist is basically to provide value, right And so for instance, if this podcast doesn't provide enough value for you, like you're gonna find another money podcast to listen to. Maybe you'll listen to like true crime, Like I just said, I hate Joel so much. I'm done with money podcasts altogether.

Like the same is true with like a grocery store

right around the corner, you know, I love Aldi. Is Aldi taking an advantage of their customers or are they providing a valuable service because I might not personally shop at fresh Market myself as an individual, but they certainly aren't taking advantage of anyone as long as folks have the option, and there are lots of options because of the competition you talked about earlier, Matt, And there's just so many examples we could come up with here, like

as to companies that are per binding value, that are that are changing things in a way that are making things better for us as individuals, Like why have so many how do money listeners switch to Mintmobile? Well, part probably because we have they're good competition. But but it's this fairly new company really on the scene that's offering better service and lower prices than the old school cell

phone companies. People are starting to realize specifically lower prices. Yeah, it's like it's like the same service, uh, for the best price exactly. So instead of paying fifty bucks a month, I'm paying fifteen and I'm getting really the same exact product. And so, yeah, that is capitalism at work. Or why are folks leaving big banks for online banks with better features?

Also capitalism and competition and all the things that we love to talk about that we're trying to convince people to switch over to exactly, And and this is just all voluntary really, like nobody's forcing you to do this. Nobody's holding a gun to your head saying like you must switch to Mintmobile. We're suggesting it, and you you know, many of you have taken advantage, but you don't have to if you're like listen, I love paying a hundred

and twelve dollars a month to Verizon. More power to you keep doing it, like you don't have to make the switch. You don't have to buy stuff on Amazon if you don't want to. Either you do it or lots of people do it, because that business has created an immense amount of value, and I think that value was made even more apparent during the pandemic. During the last two years. You can find almost anything you want, it's priced reasonably, and that shipped your home in this

ridiculously short period of time. I mean, I think that's a big part of it is that capitalism is not coercive, and really it's up to us to decide how we want to interact with these with these companies that are vying for our dollars. That's right. At the same time, though, let's make sure that we are approaching capitalism from you know, with a balanced perspective, because it's important to realize that free markets they can't fix everything. Um capitalism has broken

a lot of things on the road to progress. Uh. And this is a specifically, this is a force known as creative destruction. UH. So for example, as PCs and as computers were invented and then adopted by the masses, typewriters they went away almost overnight. Smith Corona is an old typewriter company, and they began to lose millions of dollars a year, uh, completely upending a legitimate business that

employed a lot of people. But that destruction, it unleashed just a torrent of creativity which gave rise ultimately to tens of millions of new jobs. Uh. The same thing is true with Kodak and the advent of digital cameras. They even invented, I think one of the first digital cameras ever, I think the first digital camera created it. But but they assumed that it was going to cannabalize their film business, which is what Kodak was. I mean, it was obviously the bulk of their profits. And so

what they do They didn't release it. They stuck it on the shelf, and of course we all know how that worked out for Kodak specifically. UH. And so creative destruction it causes targeted harm in the short term, but it also creates way more opportunity for everyone in the long run. That's right. Yeah, we're all happy that we have digital cameras now, even though at the time Kodak was like, ah, this is like the worst thing that's

ever happened to us. At the time, it's a threat, but over the long haul, it's something that they could have gotten behind, and you know, they could have been the leader and in digital camera. And some businesses do in this process of bringing better ideas and your better services and goods to the world. Right, and um, let's talk about to Matt, just the creative destruction thing is

important to mention. It's important to say that there are certain specific pockets, uh certain industries and certain locations that are negatively impacted as creative destruction takes place. I mean, you can look at Detroit as a prime example. But here's the thing. You can find things wrong with with any system. You know, has capitalism exploited different groups of people over the years. The answer to that question is yes. And is there such a thing as chrony capitalism? Um, yes,

that's that exists. To some businesses have benefited from the political relationships that they've formed, meaning they get preferential treatment thanks to cozy relationships with elected officials, and we would say that is a form of capitalism that is not pure and not good um and it negatively affects other companies, like some some companies are trying to protect themselves, protect

their company through political means. And you can also, at the same time, you can point to a bunch of different businesses that aren't great representations of the free market, or or even businesses that have actively caused harm to lots of people. I'm thinking of Enron or Farinos like those are companies that you don't want to mimic, You don't want to go by their playbook, because they lied, cheated,

they were deceptive, and you know that. But you can also, at the same time easily point to other economic models, and I would say flaws that exist in those are even more severe than the ones that exist in the

capitalist framework, and so those examples they don't negate. We would say the overwhelming human progress that's been achieved thanks to free markets, and I think we could at this point share some stats, Maddie even about just how far we've come in the last two and or fifty years, largely thanks to the free market system flourishing across the world, just longer lifespans, greater wealth achieved, and and really like

people just having more choice in their lives totally. And what we're getting at here is the fact that I mean, oftentimes, when there are bad players in a system like capitalism, it's not because necessarily of the system. It's because of individuals.

And what we're arguing here is that with any system, they're gonna be folks who screw things up for everybody else the benefit though, you know, and we're gonna get to this, I think maybe here in a little bit we'll talk a little bit more about just the self cleansing aspects of that capitalism provides. Uh, the companies that you mentioned and Ron there knows those are both companies that don't exist anymore because of the way the market works.

In that way, it's self corrects. But like you said, there are certain sectors where the free market can run a muck, where it can cause a lot of damage. I'm specifically thinking about the the Volkswagen emission scandal. I think that was a few years ago. But you know, public companies, they sometimes they lie or they cover up their misdeeds in the pursuit of profits. That's not okay, And those examples give capitalism a bad reputation. And of

course we do need public goods and services. Like Amazon as a private company, they can't fix the nation's infrastructure problems, right, Uh. They they need public roads and bridges to even have a business. And so we believe that a certain amount of government services and regulations, public utilities, uh, these things

are all definitely necessary to prevent abuses of capitalism. But that being said, these laws, these regulations, they should not keep us from prioritizing free markets in most of the areas in our lives. Yeah. Man, I think another argument maybe is is that there's less individual security in a society that's more steep it in capitalism, like like we

are here in the United States. There's some truth to that argument, um, but I think it's important for us to mention what happens if the government doesn't step in in in some of these occasions. Well, it turns out that we have an incredible array of nonprofits in this country too, and Americans are very very generous people. In fact, when you look at the rankings, we ranked number one

in worldwide generosity over the past decades. So yeah, when Americans prosper under the capitalist system, they tend to share the wealth that they accrue with others in need. And you know, while the US doesn't necessarily have as strong of a safety net as some other development stations, there's still a lot of government aid for folks who are in real need. And so yeah, I guess the question could be asked, do we need more of that? Do

we need more government programs? Do we need more money going into the hands of the most needy in our society? That is a worthwhile debate. That's something that I think we would probably admit in some instances there is more money needed flowing into the hands of individuals who need help in our country. But we I think we can have that debate while still appreciating the free market system that we've got and how much it has done for really all of us. It's that rising tide that's lifted

all the boats totally. Yeah. And actually, you know, while we're talking about the social safety net, job security, like that's something else that comes to mind, because you know, we were just talking about creative destruction, how job security, how it's not guaranteed in a capitalist economy. That might definitely be seen as a major downside to capitalism. But do we really want a government to prop up companies,

let alone you know, entire industries that aren't succeeding. I'm sure a lot of folks would say no, like, that's not what we need, And unfortunately that means individuals are going to lose jobs in the moment. But I think that the responsibility lies with us as individuals plus our generation. You know, like we've also learned that the best way to actually earn more is by switching companies, getting a

new job. And so do you really want the you know, like the soul crushing monotony of working for the same company, doing the same thing for thirty years in an industry that's you know, kind of fading away. I'd be like us continue to podcast when nobody listens to podcast any more years from ti, Like, what's what's the point? Uh? Like, some folks might want to you know, like, some folks

might like that consistency, and that's totally fine. Folks might not want to change, but there's also a room for more individual advancement because of capitalism and the options that people actually have. Yeah, man, I feel like that's really true. And I feel like, yeah, we've tried to give some cons and talk about the downside of capitalism, but we have destruction that capitalism is causing. It's actually good like

the long run. So it's it's I mean, it's it's almost like a picture of bush or a tree getting pruned. It's like, yeah, it hurts in the moment, like it's not a good thing. It's not something that the tree likes or the plan enjoys. But in the end, if that means this tree is going to be healthier, if it means that this vegetable plant is going to have bear more fruit because of you know, in a way we can kind of call it discipline, that's being you know,

provided to this organism. That's how we see creative distruction exactly. And so yeah, and our attempts to denigrate capitalism, I think still I said good things about it, but we have some more reasons that we actually think capitalism is a great thing. And um, we will unapologetically tell you what those reasons are and we'll get to them right

after this break, dude. So it totally feels like we're just making out with capitalism, like Matt and Joel, they just love capitalism, and again we want to reinforce that we don't think it's perfect. There are there are some shortcomings that it has. I can see it's releasing some shirts that are like I love capitalism or something like that. Um,

I don't know if I'll go that far. I don't know if I would even wear that, Like, I don't because it's just I don't know, Like there's a difference between em bray seen something and saying that this is the best thing ever, as opposed to giving it like the tip of the cap, like it's something that we are grateful for and it's something that we're most everybody listening to this is benefited and is currently partaking in

the capitalist system. But obviously there are some unintended consequences. Uh. And those I mean because of that, I think we try to avoid talking about capitalism in our you know, within our culture. But that being said, let's go ahead and dig into it. Maybe a few more reasons that we feel that capitalism has been so successful. Uh. And I wanted to mention how the economist Tyler Cowen he he calls the U S a nation of weirdos. Uh. And I mentioned that because, like many other countries, have

more of a reticence towards innovation. Specifically why that is that's tough to answer. But the way in which our country was founded alongside you know, the melting pot of talented humans, it's just created such a diversity of thought and talent and that has all led to extraordinary innovation here in the US. Uh. You know, like we prize this unique individuality. Uh. And it's you know, it's great for the most part, but you know that sometimes gets

out of hand. I'm thinking about how oftentimes celebrities they get idolized, um, and the wealthy they get way more attention than they probably should be getting. But one of the consequences, you know, is that this lionization also leads to more risk taking, which ultimately does benefit us all But bottom line, the US, it's always been known as the land of opportunity, and it's no wonder that nearly

fifty million immigrants actually live here. Yes, I agree, So I think I think that how welcome you we are to immigrants and how they have people from all over the world have been able to prosper because just under this system has been is something worth holding up as like one of the reasons that capitalism is so great. Another reason, Matt, you mentioned this earlier. You hinted at this, the self cleansing nature of capitalism, and I think it's

like the best part of capitalism. Yeah, it's great, it really is. And it's one of those things that in the moment, like you said, can be painful for certain companies or for certain people who work in a specific sector. But yeah, did you know one at one point that my Space was considered to monopoly. I think that tells you all you need to know about like how capitalism works, because I bet a lot of our listeners like, huh,

what's my space? If you don't remember Tom from my Space, Like you're not doing it right, okay, like Matt and I we had or you're just you're younger than this because we're geriatric millennium. We journaled on zanga dot com back in the day. I bet most of our listeners don't remember that site either spell it with an X and so yeah, these are these are companies that for a while they had their moment in the sun, and today they either don't exist or nobody knows that they exist.

Apple was the fifty six largest company today there number one, and so yeah, are they gonna be there for forever? I wouldn't bet on it, Like just like I wouldn't have bet on my Space being number one for forever. At the time, Amazon was the largest business in today their number four, and yeah, I wouldn't bet on them being the top dog for decades to come either, although right now in the current moment, it feels like they

will be. But yeah, a free market where we as consumers have the option to vote with our time and our money, it dictates the businesses that make the cut, and and those businesses that make the cut, it's just ever evolving and changing list. It's not always the same companies that continue to thrive year after year. Let's right, Yeah, capitalism, it's that refiner's fireman and so on the other side of the coin, Toys r US they spent twenty four years on the fortunate uh, and then they filed for

bankruptcy a few years ago. Why well, largely because of Amazon and the changing landscape for buying toys. The most powerful companies are not guaranteed their place on top, and they rarely stay there for that long. They must continue to innovate otherwise they die, and that makes room for just these smaller, more nimble companies with better ideas, who can implement those ideas in ways that we feel are

going to make the market even better. Economist Thomas sol said that capitalism, actually it might be more actually be described as consumerism and not consumerism in the way that we traditionally talked about it here on the show, and that's because it's consumers who call the tune and capitalists are the one who have to learn to dance to it. When you think about it that way, I feel like that we've got way more power within the system than we normally assume that we do. That's a good point.

I think sometimes we feel like it's our capitalist overlord to determine everything that's going to happen in this society, when really it's up to us as individuals too we determine whether those businesses fail or succeed. We have way more free will and options than we realize. Yeah, and that brings us to another great aspect of capitalism is

that it decentralizes power. So when we view it through the lens that you were just talking about, Matt, it really does appear that capitalism is truly the most democratic economic system that exists. It's not one dictator or government officials a small group of elites in Washington, d C. Calling the shots. And it's not even the companies who are deciding what's best for us and we just have to take it. It's us as individuals who are making decisions for what is best for us for our families.

The market really knows better than the smartest folks out there, even the conglomeration of those folks. And yeah, when I think of products or institutions that I'm the most frustrated with, oftentimes it can be when the government is involved. So true DMV getting a built building permit, it took me three months to get permits for my and I had to go through an almost six month long process just

to get plans approved. And I'm not saying that those aspects of government aren't needed at all, although I will say it was over the top and there was no need for the extended time frame that it took me to have a really small change to my home approved, especially when I was following the existing line of the

house the way it was built and constructed. But but it is interesting how we are often served better by the companies we choose to do business with rather than the government who we are sometimes forced to do business with by no choice of our own. Yeah, you're not thinking about the great customer experience that you had with the I R S when it comes to tax season, that's right. I mean, how many millions and millions of

tax tax returns to tax? Yes, have they still yet to you know, there's still refunds due to millions of people that that have not received them. And you know, obviously pandemic. We're gonna give them a little bit of grace and short staff. But at the same time, like it's just it's it's worth pointing out those inconsistencies. Absolutely, it seems that these are all areas where some privatization could definitely help. And yeah, in the end, we we

feel that markets are the best system for defining value. Uh. You you know, you can't make a profit, you can't increase your profits without adding to the value that you're injecting out into the world. And another thing to capitalism, it's not the zero sum game. The more people who find purpose in creating value, the more that we are

all going to benefit. There are entire industries that are going to exist in ten years that we're not even aware of now, and those wallby industries in areas and companies who we are giving our money to, or think about the guy we want to give our money to, right and think about the guy who created wordle on a whim and he sold it to the New York Times for more than a million dollars. Yeah, that's all well, yeah,

that's what we know. That's all seven figures. But just think that, like, he created something in his spare time and somehow it's worth that much money. And that was something that the New York Times didn't know that they needed to add to their arsenal a word games, and that was something that the world didn't know that they wanted. But that's the beauty of kind of ingenuity and capitalism, how that can be brought to the masses through just the general act of creating something and trying to add

value to the world. And I think, really you just kind of can't argue with the results that capitalism has created. Like, um, it's raised the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people, for billions of people around the world, and countries that are more recent converts. Let's say, we've seen substantial changes in very little time to the standard of living of everyday folks. Makes me think of, like Matt, when I went to Thailand, uh like five or six

years ago. It was astounding to see like how well their economy was doing, how well ordinary individuals were worth thriving inside of that economy as they're like kind of really beginning a ramp up into a more free, free market economy. And what I had heard before I went there from people that had gone decades before, was that

there was so much poverty. And it's not that there wasn't any, but I saw not nearly as much as I expect did, And I feel like so much of the progress has to be attributed to what's happened with just their economic system and be more open to capitalism in general. That's right, dude. You know, I kind of mentioned this earlier because this episode it doesn't have a clear takeaway. You know, this isn't seven Ways to Save

Money this week. It's not that kind of episode. But even still, we hope that we've been able to just put capitalism in a different light. You know, we think it's important to consider all the different angles to this economic system that we're a part of. We hope that it doesn't feel like we've just been kind of hitting you over the head with with the textbook of capitalism, but we do. We we we did want to talk about the benefits that we have all received from capitalism.

But ultimately it's sort of like when we're talking about how there's always like those there's always gonna be some some bad apples in the basket, right, They're always gonna be individuals who make it seem like the system that we are currently in isn't working out. But ultimately we feel that it does come down to the individual and the choices that you make and the things that you pursue and how it is that you spend your time

your money. Uh. And so while you know this is one of these episodes we're zooming out, we're looking at sort of this larger pool of water that we're all swimming in, or really it's not even a pool. I mean, it's like an ocean. We're talking about our country's economy. Even still, we feel that so much of our own individual outcomes come down to what we do as individuals. Yeah, man,

I think we can rail against the system. We can rage against the machine, or we can kind of say, all right, this is this is the reality we live in this free market society. How do I, as someone who has these gifts, participate in this market economy in

a way that provides value? And I think when you think about it like that, it might actually completely change the way you view your job or your desire to start your own business, because you're like, you know what, if I can provide value in this way, I can serve a lot of people and at the same time make a living for for my family. Um, that is the beauty of this system is that that there is

boundless opportunity. You can create the opportunity and there's a lot of room to run in the capitalist system for anybody who wants to serve their fellow human And the great thing is it can make you a living as well. So, um, that that's kind of how we view capitalism. And uh, we hope you stuck around to the end and learned a lot during this episode because we're just kind of we're just kind of nerdy dudes too, and we we like thinking about this stuff. So, and that being said,

if you completely disagree with us. We would love to hear from you, and maybe you know, on the subsequent Friday Flight episode here in a couple of days, maybe we'll talk a little bit more about it. If you have a different opinion. If that's you, definitely reach out to us, shoot us an email at how the Money Pod at gmail dot com. That's right. We always love hearing from our listeners. All right, let's get back fellow the nerds who might happen to have a different perspective.

That's right and well and all right, so we're gonna get back to the craft beer that we had on this episode. But you and I talked before this we started recording this episode, and we said, man, isn't it crazy that the United States has It's not that there aren't great beers in other parts of the world. There certainly are. But we have per capita like more great beer than any other nation in the world. And if the United States were was a communist country, what kind

of beer would we have? Not we definitely would not be drinking this beautiful barrel aged barley. Oh my gosh. We we definitely wouldn't have the variety that we have here. And we're certainly lucky to have this beer again. This is a bourbon barrel brick kiln by Jackie O's What were your thoughts on this one? Okay, so this again one of my favorite breweries, and this is a top notch beer and and it might be I would say, adventures say it's maybe the best barley wine I've ever had,

at least top three. This is a really really good beer, and barley wines are. The problem with that with me is that I don't drink barley win is enough to like even like really remember like what the top barley Wins I've had are. I remember one of the Goose Island annual releases. It was legit that was probably not the year that they screwed him or something like that. That was a long time ago. But this one was

a little sweet. It was slightly boozy. Had had some oak, some vanilla and some raisin notes called on dude raisin all the way like dried, yeah, just dried fruit like that with some nice creamy notes tongue at the same time.

And it was it was delicious. You know. Actually, when I think, uh, one of our favorite local breweries Monday Night they back in the day, they had this beer called uh speaking of the economy and whatnot, that was called Las Fair And if they still had that beer, maybe instead of a Force for Good, which we had recently, maybe we should have had Las Fair on. But I

think that's fair that they that they retired. I think it was if I remember correctly, I think it was a barley wine that they aged in red wine barrels. But anyway, it sounds tasty. I mean, I don't know why I'm talking about it. I can't buy it anymore. It's not a beer that they make. But I completely agree. As I thought about how to describe this beer, obviously all the notes that you mentioned, but Fatty stood out to me as well. It felt like it was just

like this decadent. It was like, I don't know, like if you even a nice piece of toast and maybe just like a touch, like like you're just putting the butter on thick, you know, and you're eating and just like this is like luxurious. That's what I was thinking as I was rinking this. It. I don't know, it just had like this depth. It had this umm, a velvety sort of oh my gosh, totally yeah, and not just completely in the texture, but just in the flavors

and how it all came together. It actually kind of reminded me of a Belgian quad as well, because of like the you know, like the raising kind of fig flavors going on, but it didn't have that Belgian funky yeast flavors going on. It's almost like an American quad. If that exists. I don't think it does, but I'm certainly glad that you and I got to enjoy this beer. Again. This is by Jackie Ohs. And if you ever come

across their beers, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Pick one up, yes, pick one up, or three or five like there, they make really good beers. So all right, mat, that's gonna do it for this episode. For listeners who want show notes for this episode, go to our website at how to money dot com. And again, please do send us an email if you have a counterpoint, we'd love to hear it from you. Seriously. How do I

pod at gmail dot com? All right, man, So that is going to be it for this episode until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.