Rick Kelo - Should we Fear a Large Company?

Rick Kelo

Fear-mongering politicians have campaigned for generations on how they are necessary to keep the intangible boogey-man "business" at bay.  Economists tell us that isn't the case at all.  In fact, the Public Choice school of Economics revealed... and earned some half dozen Nobel Prizes for doing so... that in actuality the State is "captured" when it begins competing against business.

Why shouldn't we fear the large powerful business?  Rick Kelo sits at a unique intersection of perspective as an economist, pacifist and a Classic Liberal philosopher.  He points out that, "Competition in the marketplace prevents what people actually believe would occur with one company becoming "powerful."  What politicians who campaign against business won't tell you is that no business can get a dollar from your hand unless you voluntarily give it to them, but not so with that politician," says Richard Kelo.

Rick Kelo points out this is why we see powerhouses like Microsoft go from controlling the internet browser market to only holding 20% of it in just a matter of a few years.  Especially if a country has free trade.  Government interference (like tariffs) stop lower priced foreign competition from serving its purpose.  The wealthy in one society cannot accumulate enough power to rig the market under capitalism.  Their only avenue to do so is the approach the Public Choice school discovered: by using a special interest lobby to get government to intervene against the free market in the form of different kinds of favors.

Rick Kelo speaks on the value of Imports

Rick Kelo

Very often politicians demonize imports.  President Trump campaigned successfully on claiming he would retaliate against the Chinese for sending "cheap" imports into America.

Not so fast says Rick Kelo.  As a former economist, financial analyst and a veteran Chicago tax recruiter, Rick Kelo has looked at the economy through a number of lenses and thinks he sees something different about imports that most over-look.

"Between 55% - 60% of our imports are things used to produce a finished good in America.  The impression when people hear "imports" is that we're talking about a bunch of cheap Chinese t-shirts, nothing could be further from the truth," Richard Kelo points out.

If we obstruct imports, say by putting a tariff on Chinese imports at the port, then we raise the cost of things American manufacturers produce.  That tariff raises the common, working-class, blue-collar American's bill at the cash register.  It does not hurt the Chinese, it hurts us.

Famous economist and Nobel Laurette Milton Friedman agreed with Rick Kelo when once famously pointed out to a room full of politicians that, "Exports are the cost of trade, imports are the gain from trade.  Whatever you export you lose the ability to use.  It is what you import that you gain."

Rick Kelo shares "Does Capitalism Exploit Workers?"

Rick Kelo points out that when people enter into a peaceful, voluntary exchange where both parties have the right to say no to the trade, then exploitation is impossible. 

The very word exploitation was created in the 1830s by a French Socialist named Saint Simon, Rick Kelo mentions.  Prior to Simon's writings that word did not exist.  However, the very definition of the word exploitation excludes voluntary transactions:

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as:

"The action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work."

There can be no unfair treatment in a voluntary trade since if either party felt the trade was unfair they merely wouldn't enter into it.

Rick Kelo asks "Has Our Economy Gone Off the Rails?"

America was founded on the Classic Liberal principles of a limited federal government, with most decisions reserve to the states, and a list of clearly defined rights that could not be infringed.  Has the growth of the State as a proportion of America's economy taken us off track from the structure under which America enjoyed most of the growth our quality of life now rests upon?

These are important questions to consider as election season begins.  Rick Kelo has a few thoughts on this topic.  Rick Kelo is a small business owner, and a former economist and financial analyst.  Educated at West Point in his undergraduate studies, then later in Chicago, Rick Kelo's range of formal education in engineering, finance, and economics coupled with working experience in corporate finance, then later as a Chicago tax recruiter, gives him a unique perspective on these issues.

We should consider every election cycle if our government has gone "off the rails" from its original intent.  We now have a political class that rules under the guise of capitalism, but is increasingly fascist: it rules to the benefit of itself and its big business backers at the expense of most Americans (in their capacity as tax payers).  When a big business backer takes a loss, a normal part of the profit & loss system of capitalism, then the political class bails them out or declares that business "Too Big To Fail."

Meanwhile, remember to consider the plight of small businessmen like Rick Kelo, the President of TaxScout, Inc.  Small businesses, and most vulnerable of all - startups, now have an outside chance of making it big as that has become increasingly harder under the huge regime of government regulations in place.  Regulations exist to prop up the profits of existing big businesses at the expense of the entrepreneurs.  For example, it is obvious that under the Affordable Care Act no clever entrepreneur could ever navigate the regulatory hurdles necessary to enter the health insurance field.  Only the existing mega-insurers with departments of lawyers already on staff can figure out how to navigate it.

Richard Kelo

Rick Kelo on the Collapse of Venezuela's Co-Op Socialism

American Socialists like Bernie Sanders often claim they merely want workers to own part of the business.  Profit sharing, etc.  For that reason they often state publicly that they merely want a society made up of co-ops.  Of course these statements should be obvious lies since workers are free to buy stock in most of the large companies in this country already as they are publicly traded.

Rick Kelo

Still, we should examine co-op Socialism says Rick Kelo.  Kelo is a Classic Liberal thinker, and like most Classic Liberals, a Pacifist.  "Americans are already able to voluntarily and peacefully choose to go work at a co-op, found a co-op of their own, or buy stock in most large companies," says Richard Kelo.  "The fact many workers don't do those things is discounted by Socialists, but to the economist those are rational human actions.  People are very good at finding ways to buy things that are important to them.  If they don't prefer to own parts of the various major employers then they should be free to make that choice."

American Socialists had long championed Venezuela because the Venezuelan Constitution mandates worker co-operatives.  To Rick Kelo though these are nothing more than the proverbial Animal Farm, "Buying into a worker co-op in America is completely voluntary and peaceful.  A co-op in a Socialist economy isn't the same thing.  Workers are mandated to work at the co-op and have a portion of their pay seized to fund its ownership," Kelo points out.  "You can't really compare voluntary co-ops in capitalist economies with the forced co-ops in Socialist ones," he concludes.

Turns out Kelo is right.  In the summer of 2016 Venezuela began forcing the "worker-owners" in the nation's co-ops to work... at the barrel of a gun:

A new decree by Venezuela's government could make its citizens work on farms to tackle the country's severe food shortages.  That "effectively amounts to forced labor," according to Amnesty International, which derided the decree as "unlawful."  In a vaguely-worded decree, Venezuelan officials indicated that public and private sector employees could be forced to work in the country's fields for at least 60-day periods, which may be extended "if circumstances merit."
Source: CNN

Rick Kelo Discusses Religious Freedom

Every individual person makes their own moral decisions.  However, says Rick Kelo -  a West Point graduate, tax recruiter and social thinker - there are really two types of morality.

"There's the morality people use to govern their own individual choices as they go through life," says Richard Kelo.  "Then separately there's the morality that pertains to our interactions with other people.   The problem is when people try to take things they've settled on as personally moral and force other people to adopt their choices as the way we all interact with one another in society," he continues.

The Wedding Cake
Consider the now-famous example of the prejudice wedding cake baker who refuses to make cakes for same sex weddings.  What is the proper way to view this?

According to Kelo if we use force to compel the cake baker to make a cake, then we are imposing our own personal morality on him.  Instead, says Rick Kelo, "In the relations between people we have to remember to view our fellow man as someone to be persuaded.  To be reasoned with and convinced, but not to be coerced and forced to live his life by our personal code of morality."

In interactions between people we must remember not to steam-roll people who don't think like us.  The world is big enough for more than one wedding cake baker.

Rick Kelo

Rick Kelo Speaks on Venezuelan Socialism

When Hugo Chavez re-wrote the Venezuelan Constitution he called for a Socialist society made up of worker-owned cooperatives.  As Venezuelan Socialism collapses all around us Rick Kelo feels this is an important point to drive home.  Especially because American Socialists like Bernie Sanders often try to disguise their agenda by claiming they merely favor an economy of worker co-ops.  If we tasked them with writing a socialist constitution it would come out exactly like Venezuela:

Article 118:The right of workers and the community to develop associations of social and participative nature such as cooperatives, savings funds, mutual funds and other forms of association is recognized. These associations may develop any kind of economic activities in accordance with the law. The law shall recognize the specificity of these organizations, especially those relating the cooperative, the associated work and the generation of collective benefits.
The state shall promote and protect these associations destined to improve the popular economic alternative.

Article 308:
The State shall protect and promote small and medium-sized manufacturers, cooperatives, savings funds, family-owned businesses, small businesses and any other form of community association for purposes of work, savings and consumption under an arrangement of collective ownership, to strengthen the country's economic development, based on the initiative of the people

Rick Kelo points out the deception of Socialists,"Co-ops already exist freely in capitalist economies.  You can see farming, banking and other types of co-ops in most towns around America.  So the claim we need Socialism in order to get co-ops is ridiculous on it's face."

Rick Kelo - West Point grad and Tax Recruiter

Rick Kelo on the 2 Ways to Organize Society

None of us is an island.  We all spend every waking moment of our lives as an individual, but also living in a society of individuals.  This is an unavoidable aspect of human existence.  So how should we best organize our interactions with one another?

Rick Kelo, a West Point graduate and outspoken liberal philosopher notes that there are ultimately only 2 ways to organize the economic activity of huge groups of people.  They're either:

1. The voluntary way, named Capitalism
2. The coercive way, named Socialism.

In the voluntary way, says Rick Kelo, consumers voluntarily choosing which entrepreneur most meets their needs.  The consumer decides which business owner will become rich and successful and which will fail. 

The only other way to organize society is by violence, coercion & force as the substitute of peaceful, voluntary cooperation.  For a government to seize private property and declare it their own as Venezuela did to their nation's oil or the USSR did to Russia's farms.

Rick Kelo

Rick Kelo Considers Economic Mobility

Rick Kelo is concerened that most Americans are unaware, due to the problem-inventing / fear-mongering from politicians who need something to promise to fix in order to get votes, that economic mobility in our country is very high.

Rick Kelo

Someone born into the lower class, which in economics refers to the bottom quintile of income distribution, is more likely to reach a higher income quintile than they are to remain in the lower class they were born into, notes Richard Kelo.

Rick Kelo also noted that many of the persistent & gripping effects of inter-generational poverty stem from interventions against the market.  The governmental welfare apparatus has become literally a machine for producing poor people & keeping them poor due to the fact it is loaded what public choice economists call 'perverse incentives.'  The government monopoly on schools is just as bad.  Ask yourself this: when you go into a poor neighborhood you will see many fancy cars.  You will not see any fancy schools.

The difference?

Cars are provided by markets, schools by government.