i'm a minute in but I personally have felt that the gig we have now ain't the capitalism that I signed up for. I keep thinking of the quote that a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him by. it's all turning me into a socialist. which I am not, but this system is bloody broken.

Great interview, although as pointed out in some of the other comments it seems to me that all of the issues outlined here are largely downstream consequences of the fed's easy money policy. M&A can only be done at this level with cheap borrowing and low rates. The immense profits used to buy politicians and write friendly legislation to drive out competition can only be done because of easy money. The effects of the plunge protection team, QE, and negative real rates all drive up asset and stock prices further enriching these giants. Additionally a lot of these firms can only get so big in the first place because they become wall street darlings (facebook, google, amazon, tesla etc), which borrow tremendous amounts at nothing, a source of capital which smaller competitors simply don't have. In a world with no interest rate manipulation and endless fiat money printing, a lot of this comes crumbling down.

The title of the video is misleading, Capitalism is an idea, and the one that societies need, other thing is that between the system growths some bad grass, which is what Jon means

The only problem is that this book and information won’t be distributed to a wider, mainstream audience. It grapples with the global economy’s #1 enigma, the US Philips Curve, and cuts to the core of Western democracies and values and the drift since Teddy Roosevelt’s time. Has a more impactful synopsis been so neatly bound, recently? A mainstream For Dummy’s version could be dynamite. The only disappointment was the soft ending... don’t worry, a generational leader will come and save the day soon! Yeah right... pitchforks instead of Trump votes is the most effective action.

I live in Israel, 10 years ago we used to pay 10-15 times more for cellphone services, then we had a law passed which removed regulations regarding entry to the market, and after new firms entered, our cellphone bills went from 100$ equivalent to 10$ today. The state has heavy regulations regarding mergers and acquisitions, and essentially you will not be able to sell a controlling stake in a large firm to your competitor.

Fast talking Tepper is a wealth of sharp analysis.. Bright AF and well seasoned in the fundamentals that guide markets. I am a trade union official and he offers a great deal to workers bred cynical by the regulatory capture that has seen competition stymied by wage reducing monopolies.

Excellent interview! This is a serious problem which has caused a lot of social problems and I am hopeful that Jonathan Tepper's efforts will increase awareness and ignite the flame for all of us to get involved and make change happen.

A really good piece. Jonathan Tepper has thought deeply about a very serious problem, and is erudite and articulate about it. It's far from a new problem. Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of Nations "“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The fact that Washington aids them in doing so is troubling, Mr.Tepper is clearly right in both diagnosis and cure. And kudos to Roger Hirst for a first rate job as an interviewer who had clearly done a lot of preparation and asked some probing questions. I really enjoyed this.

I have been saying for years that more entrepreneurship and competition is needed. More free market forces and more capitalism not less. However, the surveys in the US say that most adults prefer socialism now. One of the major problems, and I know this very well living outside DC for many years, is how difficult it is to compete in many industries. Bureaucrats, rules, regulations and red tape make it a nightmare for small players who have good ideas and could innovate to even think about competing. And then there's the cost of obtaining patent protection. The patent issue is a complicated one. There's free market Libertarian patent lawyers like Stephan Kinsella who think that all patents should be eliminated and companies should compete on other grounds. Like providing superior customer service, better value for the product or service, etc. Kinsella argues that patents in many industries are actually drastically slowing down innovation. Also, a dirty secret is that many federal government bureaucrats in the DC metro area now make close to double (or more than double) what the average private sector entry level job makes with Cadillac health insurance and a nice retirement pension. Many of these bureaucrats also cannot be fired even for committing a felony. Basically they have to be caught in hidden video by a Project Veritas undercover investigative journalist bragging that they are intentionally doing something else on the taxpayer's dime and/or committing a felony. And then that level of shame and embarrassment might be enough to get them fired by their federal government agency. But it is very, very tough to get a substantial raise in many private sector jobs nowadays without working over 60 hours per week and having no life outside of work. And if you work 60-100 hours per week for many years in a row the odds are that your health is going to fail after awhile.

No question that Mr. Tepper is exceptionally brilliant. However, I find it bizarre that regulation is both the problem and solution to eradicating cronyism. "Better bureaucrats" is not the solution because any system that gives economic power to a political class will always remain vulnerable to corruption. The solution is the complete separation of politics and economics, which is in fact what capitalism actually is. Laissez faire capitalism is a redundant phrase and, as Kashyap S. notes, has never been fully implemented. That, IMO is the solution.

Find it interesting that there was not one in the interview nor comments below, an utterance about central banks and the monopoly on legal tender via laws. Cut out price of capital monopolies and you are striking at a large point of the source.

I am a fan of Tepper but I see the synopsis lacks any mention of the fact that capitalism and specifically, the idol of growth at all costs is largely responsible for the complete degradation of the natural world. Can anyone tell me if he bothers to address this issue or is this simply a discussion of the flaws of a human construct and its potential effects on other human constructs?

Great interview! The questions were well thought through and positioned well. I think we need to give thanks to the production editor of this video. It seems very seamless, but I suspect that a lot of time was made in editing this video. Thank you so much, RealVision! Another home run!

What do you guys think of CVS health merger with Aetna for 70 billions? Is CVS going to create healthy competition against Amazon in the future? Thoughts?

Shall US avoid “Social Democrats” willing presidency and senate in 2020 - it should be credited to Jonathan’s timely book. Hopefully it opens enough eyes to the real root cause of inequality and save us from looming populist and subsequent disaster...

The only thing wrong with capitalism is that it has never been tried yet. People need to look up definitions before writing whole books on a topic.

Great interview!

Great questions Roger.

Highly relevant topic these days. Great interview!!

Excellent interview

Thanks for that one! The pendulum will swing back and then swing back and then... Don’t try stopping it, move with it, as one should, especially in times when it just so seems to hang weightless in midair, ready to reverse and smash you in the face

Very well done! Tepper said that Warren Buffett "is a monopolist at heart." Virtually all people who run large for-profit enterprises are, too. That's the irony of capitalism--it needs competition to provide a price-setting mechanism, but the players strive to increase market share and minimize competition.

Roger is a great interviewer in that he asks intelligent and penetrating questions then lets the interviewee answer without interruption.

Just excellent!!! We are truly in a place in the US today where corporate monopolies are gaining ground rapidly. This has been happening for a while and the crony capitalism and government corruption is the reason. Unfortunately neither Republicans nor Democrats will address this issue. Therefore collapse is the most likely outcome as political change will now only come by social disturbance and / or 3rd party challenge. Indeed the political monopoly of the 2 parties in the USA are in fact a greatest "duopoly" out there. Not enough people are asking where this is all leading but I know many RVT viewers are just as concerned as I am. I hope folks are preparing for the coming generational and social conflicts......

Very good, would like Real Vision to have more interviews with authors on markets, macro economics, and related sectors? Would you consider Edward Griffin author of The Creature From Jekyl Island? Thank you, Mike

The four freest economies in the world (https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) are in order: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland. All except NZ are also the richest countries in the world, far richer than the US, with significantly higher average salaries and much higher average net worth. Free market capitalism works. US-style crony capitalism does not.

If the problem is government regulation creating artificial monopolies, artificial barriers to entry as well as corporate welfare, isn't saying "we shouldn't allow for..." (here he says 'below less than 6 players' per industry) the proposal of a government solution? Wouldn't the right approach be to simply limit the power of government to be involved at all? Strangely, he seems to understand this perfectly in "Is Regulation the Answer?", but forgets about it in "The Golden Era" where high antitrust enforcement is the go-to strategy. A monopoly, or a group of corporations controlled through horizontal shareholding, which raises it's prices in a free market increases its vulnerability towards the competition. Logic would suggest that with limited government involvement the competing market would then regulate itself.

Excellent interview - good to see someone outlining an intellectual case in favour of "little guy" capitalism.

I wish all my graduate econ courses are taught in this fashion. Very engaging discussion. Great job guys.

Trump's latest tweet (01/05/2019): "Drug makers and companies are not living up to their commitments on pricing. Not being fair to the consumer, or to our Country!" Timely indeed.

Amazing interview. One thing that seems to be missing or at least should be briefly mentioned is nature. The bigger the company is, the more power they have to extract relentlessly from natural resources. They can exploit politicians and pretty off destroy Mother Earth for their own benefit. This problem obviously goes beyond just big corporations but the type of capitalism we have right now definitely exacerbates this.

Don’t want to beat a dead horse, but now that I’ve gotten to the end, I have to say: this was truly excellent. Thank you, Jonathan, and well done Roger - thoroughly enjoyed this interview.

Brilliant and makes complete sense. Thanks guys.

Brilliant and very important

Tepper is sincere in his beliefs, but it somehow feels wrong to introduce more regulation (how many companies in an industry, what is defined as an industry, who can buy and not buy what in an industry) to solve problems caused by a lot of regulation in the first place.

This is without a doubt one of the best interviews ever on RV. It also just goes to show how true free markets are the key to prosperity.

Wow! Jon absolutely knocks it out of the park. He is incredibly articulate and very informed. The increasing trend toward monopolization is concerning and I am glad RV brought one of the best minds in to discuss the topic. It seems to fit into the macro puzzle quite brilliantly. Keep it coming!

Good content, unfortunately hard to hear audio podcast until summary at the end .

The best comment for me is that regulation needs to be simple. I would add regulation needs to be transparent. This is extraordinarily difficult. Both sides of the legislation try to tie the hands of the other side with complexity. It would be a benefit if there were monitored feedback loops to tell if the legislation is working and how it might be changed. DLS.

Very powerful. A clarion call. Either reform happens or something potentially much more ugly. I wish Gabriel Kolko was still alive. I remember reading his history of regulatory capture, The Triumph of Conservatism, back in the '70s. Jonathan has taken the analysis to the next level.

Great interview. He's done the best job of articulating the problem with crony capitalism of anyone I've read recently. Big change coming over next decade.

incredible

Why does he need a pen, when there is no paper?

All credit to Jonathan, who is both a very clever, and caring strategist, for highlighting and articulating so well a problem that most of us have sensed has existed for a very long time. I really hope his book, as well as the publicity he gains through videos like this, results in many more honest people recognising the extent to which crony capitalism has grown, to the point where it could conceivably soon kill the golden goose, resulting in a potentially worse world for everybody. Unfortunately you only have to read the history of capitalism in the US to (for example "The Creature from Jekyll Island") see that the problem had been growing out of control long before 1982, and goes all the way back to the industrial tycoons of the 19th century in oil, banking, steel and other major industries, resulting in effectively some thirty or forty very wealthy families essentially controlling everything directly or indirectly. This of course ultimately resulted in the infamous DC swamp, with almost every major American politician of the last century having to bow to the will of this powerful group. As a glass half full man, I would love to think that excellent insights like Jonathan's might eventually help rid the free world of this cronyism, but realistically it will be extraordinarily difficult and probably require too many honest as well as brave politicians, prepared to genuinely effect the will of the people they are supposedly representing instead of their real crony masters. Happy New Year!

All

Poignant and salient thread from Stacy Mitchell on Amazon's strategy and tactics that directly reinforce the points being made by Jonathan in this interview. https://twitter.com/stacyfmitchell/status/1081176811659243520

Sadly, America has become a corporate lie. Over 100,000 "special interest" lobbyists help negotiate the retroactive payouts. The system works for 0.001%, while the rest of Americans are pissed at paying taxes for our third-world government, infrastructure, education and healthcare. I do think we will have blood on the streets before things change for the better. The good thing is Americans are pragmatic and hopefully that's not too rough of a period. The risk is this debt crisis strangles us in slow motion and it takes decades for that change to happen.

As a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, love this man and he's spot on. And look at where Amazon put there two new headquarters - the global seat of politics and lobbying Washington, DC (effectively) and the global seat of finance and money (i.e. the global seat of politics and lobbying) NYC. All those people hoping and wishing it'd be Dallas or Nashville, hah, yea right. They're playing the monopolist game.