Cenk Uygur

I'm like, what part of capitalism is a no bid contract? You can't negotiate drug prices. That's the most anti-free market thing I have ever heard. It's almost like communism for corporations. They get everything and you get nothing, right? So it's preposterous. It's awful. And it kills the free markets and it's killing this country. And it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment.

Yeah.

No, they're not all guilty. So let's make a bunch of distinctions here. So first of all, can you, first of all, are they quote unquote guilty? No, they're doing something that is logical and natural, right? So if you're a company, do you want to pay higher taxes or lower taxes? Of course you want to pay lower taxes, right? Do you want to have higher employee costs or lower employee costs?

Of course you want lower employee costs, right? So, but the government needs to understand that and protect us from that power that they are going to exercise to get to those results. And if you think free markets is there is no government, you read it wrong. Go back and reread Adam Smith. He says you must protect against monopoly power.

If you do not protect against monopoly power, you will have no free markets. And he's absolutely right. So second distinction is between small business and big business. That's why Republicans will always be like, oh, we're doing this for small business. That's why we got the biggest oil companies in the world, $30 billion in subsidies. What happened to small business, right?

So I run a small business. And so if people were to say like, Hey, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than five employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, et cetera. There's some logic in that because businesses have different stages of growth and they have different interests and different needs in those stages of growth.

And we want to facilitate small business growth. because that's great for the economy, that's great for markets, freedom, et cetera. But the bigger corporations, even there, there's a third distinction. It isn't that there are certain industries that are worse. There's just that there are industries that are better at lobbying.

So anyone who like right now, number one donor in Washington, a lot of people make a mistake. They think it's APAC or they think it's the oil companies or the banks. No, it's big pharma. Okay. And who has the most power in this country? Big pharma. So we can't even negotiate the drug prices. I mean, look, guys, think about it this way. That's like saying, okay, here's a bottle of water.

And normally in the free market, that would cost about a dollar, right? And for Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, no, I'm not charging a dollar for that water. I'm charging $100. And the government has to say, yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Of course, sir, we'll pay $100.

That's why it's compared to communism, because I can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to the free market than drugs. You, the consumer, have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That's insanity, let alone the patents, let alone the fact that the American people pay for the research and then they make billions of dollars off of it and we get nothing but robbed by them.

So it's about lobby power. Oil companies have huge lobby power. Defense contractors have huge lobby power. It's not that they're more evil. It's just that they have figured out the game better, and they have basically taken the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and snuff out all competition.

So, Lex, first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense, not, oh, I don't like this industry or I don't like this company. Or, hey, this company is not doing that much lobbying at this point. They will later when they realize what's going on. So, for example, in my opinion, APAC has totally bought almost all of Congress.

And so now other countries are going to wake up and go, wait, you could just buy the American government? So APAC is going to spend about $100 million in this cycle. and then they're getting $26 billion back. So every country in the world is soon going to realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, get them a tremendous amount of money, and just buy the U.S. government, right?

But for corporations, they've already realized that on a massive scale, right? So for example, in the two industries you gave, automotive. So in New Jersey, about a decade ago or so, One of the most powerful lobbies is car dealerships. So at the national level, you got pharma and you've got defense contractors, et cetera. At the local level, guys who have huge power, number one is utilities.

Number two is real estate. And then car dealerships are hilariously among the top, right? Because it's local businesses that are, you know, financing the politicians at the local level. So they passed a law saying that you have to sell through dealerships, but Tesla doesn't sell through dealerships. And it was intended to bully, intimidate, and push out Tesla out of the market.

They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country. So does that make any sense in a democracy? Of course not. Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium? You can sell it any way you like. That's the most anti-free market thing possible. Why? It was just total, utter corruption. But it's perfectly legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery.

So then what happened in that case? So then Elon came in. and gave campaign contributions and reversed it. So now we're in a battle where it's an open auction, right? Different companies are buying different politicians and then they pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, et cetera. So now let's look at tech.

Um, in the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in policy or almost any money in politics. So what happens? They're getting hammered. They get pulled into congressional hearings and Facebook's got fake news and oh my God, all this trouble from Facebook. Then Facebook does the logical thing. Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches. Okay.

So then they hire a whole bunch of Republicans consultants. They go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats. And then all of a sudden we're no longer talking about Facebook at all. And Facebook are angels. And now we've turned our attention to who? Facebook's top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works. Okay.

And by the way, then Donald Trump goes, oh, TikTok's big dangerous company. They're working with China. Okay. And then Jeff Yaz comes in on this cycle and part owner of TikTok, and he doesn't want TikTok banished, of course, right? So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars. Trump turns around the next day and goes, we love TikTok. TikTok's a good company, right?