Free market only means the ability to trade with anyone you want. It's a very broad (low resolution) term. Bailouts don't enter into the definition. They exist at a higher resolution.
@@dragons_red rigging the game is still rigging the game it indirectly affects the ability of others to trade if there's a bunch of massive companies being bailed out every time they fail
5:45 I fucking love watching an older History Channel show and seeing Trump appear. Almost like the media completely turned against him after he challenged the establishment.
I remember this documentary series, "The Men Who Built America." Oh sure, it repeated some of that same old tired commie agitprop we hear all the time, but besides that it was a surprisingly even-handed, "warts and all" documentary on the various people responsible for a lot of things we take for granted today, from Vanderbilt to Ford.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Ronald Reagan
@@matthewphelps5136 Imagine being so feeble-minded that you forfeit some of your most closely held principles just because someone made an attempt on your life. It is no excuse. It is weakness. Reagan would have been a true unassailable legend if he didn't run a second time.
@@WhiskeyPatriot can't win em all i guess, but people only got worse when it comes to not being pragmatic about things how else did biden get elected? well, then again he didn't really, seems more like it's the ones who count votes matter more than the ones who votes to paraphrase stalin lol
I remember Bill Gates wanted to keep his business out of lobbying when Microsoft first started. Until the government kept extorting them to lobby the government by putting with laws and regulations on his business. Now they ain't going back.
@@vyor8837Can't keep the charade up forever, bud. Microsoft and basically every big tech company can only last so long as long as the market is free. Regulations can only be pushed so hard before the common people say "enough." And once that happens, sufficiently powerful fish will eat them up.
@@vyor8837 Faint praise when their competition is fucking apple, who continuously tries to trample consumer rights and sell overpriced Asian slave labor products. Besides, not like Microsoft wouldn't do the exact same thing if they could get away with it. In fact they pretty much already do.
Fun fact: The "Wild West" wasn't actually so wild, at least not as much as is depicted. You couldn't just go up to someone and shoot them in cold blood, because you'd be arrested for murder and most likely hung, same as any time in history where society actually functioned. The true danger of the Wild West was in the badlands, between bandits, wild animals, and diseases, all of these are still issues to varying degrees, admittedly the former is not as common as the latter two, but you still hear of stories of lone drivers being held up by gangs roaming the countryside from time to time. But that's a big reason as to why everybody was armed in the Wild West. EDIT: Then I realise that Razor basically already covered everything I said. Ah, well, I'll still leave the comment up, I suppose.
I think I heard him, but I was scanning comments too. So good post seeing it in text helped burn that home. Little house on the prairie was a shoot not a work.
This is exactly what drives me nuts about healthcare here in the US. Go into any hospital and ask them what an average bill for [insert random service here] is. You will get weird looks. Tells me all I need to know about how little free enterprise there is in it.
People from the US tell me that I don't know what I am asking for when I want private healthcare in my country because it is so bad in the US (it has problems but not nearly as bad as they think) and then it turns out they've never heard of certificate of need laws
In some states it is literally illegal for medical practitioners to advertise their prices. I don't even know what the leftist justification is for that one, but it's one of the most blatant examples I know of them actually wanting things to be overpriced and inaccessible so the govt can swoop in and give away "freebies" in exchange for votes.
INSURANCE: For the MRI, it will cost $3000 and insurance will cover half of that. MRI FACILITY: It will cost you $800 out of pocket for this MRI. ME: ... wtf.
@@breadandcircuitry this checks out with what I've heard from others as well What I don't understand is all this medical debt people in America get in to. What are they having done? Why don't they have insurance? I feel like a lot of stuff isn't essential and that a lot of people could have insurance if they worked more or got a different job. An I out of line? These are genuine questions I have been on Medicaid my entire life so never had to think/worry about this stuff
Same here, public school was boring as fuck but Razor can cover an entire textbook’s worth of material in 20 minutes. Of course, government needs to waste kids’ time so that teachers and book publishers can justify year-long amounts of work every year
@5persondude the text book scams in college are hilarious. They only have to change 1 or 2 paragraphs in an already existing book to call it the newest edition and charge hundreds of dollars for it per student lol. Everything organized is a scam these days.
Razor has a gift. His storytelling ability is amazing. If I had teachers like Razor and Dankula teaching English and History, I likely would've never wanted to skip class, probably would've gotten A Honors.
Look at Kodak... a defacto Monopoly in cinema for almost 100 years refused to see the digital writing on the wall is little more than a nostalgic brand now.
Fujifilm is still a thriving corporation, though. They just opened a massive campus out here in my suburb. Fujifilm is pretty much the sole supplier for any filmmaker who wants physical stock.
@@fruitiusmaximus925 They saw the writing on the wall and pivoted so hard that now it's a large conglomerate that does much more than physical film or photo supplies, it does medical imaging (digital), biomedical research and production of biochemicals (aka stuff produced by genetically engineered bacteria) and high density magnetic tape storage for SAS backup racks among a bunch of other things. Most of their revenue and investments aren't in the legacy film supplies anymore and haven't been for a while
The biggest monopoly, and the biggest corporation out there, is the State. Corporations are just how the government touches the economy in every way, without it seeming like they're actively doing it. There's no daylight between Amazon, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Walmart, or any other major international corporation and the United States federal government. Acting in tandem, passing laws to keep out competitors, which they disguise as "safety" or environmental "protection". It's all just a complex ruse. And government education ensures that it will continue indefinitely.
Which is why they promoted the feminist movements - get the women into work with the men - means more taxation, but also leaves typically the children at the mercy of said education system that all but ensures the process' sustenance in abundance.
In all honesty, every single one of those organizations is probably part of the biggest weapons industry in our country, the Military Industrial Complex. Because it feels like they are all producing weapons in one form or another for the US or our allies.
@@The_Phoenix_Saga The main reason was to double workforce and depress wages. Double the supply and the demand falls drastically. Now instead of 1 parent staying home to keep the house in order they both work yet household income is identical. Then go home to keep the house in order while eating fast food cause they don't have the energy or time to cook at the end of the day.
You know, one fun example of the issue with governments and monopolies is AT&T. To oversimplify a bit, back in the day AT&T was given generous government subsidies to provide phone service to small towns and remote homes across the country, which in most cases meant that it was your only option for phone service. Naturally this resulted in AT&T absolutely dominating the telecommunications industry since they had large chunks of the country entirely reliant on them for service. Eventually congress decided that AT&T was too big of a company, so what they did was break it up and instead of having one nation wide monopoly you ended up with several regional monopolies that weren't directly competing with each other. The real fun bit is that AT&T just ended up reacquiring most of the post break up companies and still gets government subsidies for providing service.
Yep. I worked with an old guy that was one of the engineers for Bell labs back in the 70s. They had all the phone features AT&T introduced in the late 80s and early 90s to compete with Sprint and MCI from back before he started working there. AT&T just decided not to release them as there was no competition so improving service to keep and acquire customers was not a priority.
@@breadandcircuitry I remember Southern Bell here in Florida before they got busted up. It seems like they gave special consideration to local businesses around here, Bell did. There was a nice strip mall called Bell Plaza with a Chuck E Cheeses (maybe it was a Showbiz Pizza) and a theater and ice cream shops. Bell is gone, the family friendly strip mall became a ghost town shortly after, renamed decades ago, and the whole place is a giant branch of the USPS now 🤔
I recently had to do a class on anti-trust and anti-bribery for my company. The entire time I kept thinking was "Hey, this sounds like Biden and his family."
If Raz0rfist had a second history channel where he talked at length about historical subjects, I would binge it daily. Can't ever get enough of that eloquence and wit.
A man like him working with Simple History or The Fat Electrician would be great. If him and Sargon of Akkad took over Extra Credits somehow, I'd love to hear them narrate AND write over subjects.
If you've ever stepped foot into Grand Central Station, that alone should make you a fan of Vanderbilt. Absolute beauty I had to stand around like an idiot near the center and just take it in when I saw it for the first time, looking from the outside doesn't do it justice.
There is only one monopoly - government - the monopoly through which other monopolies are possible, since they could not exist in the absence of government.
@@MrNickPresley those only work BECAUSE of government authority and their monopoly on violence. regulation means nothing if you have no way to enforce it
@@MrNickPresley no earned authority and authority that is given voluntarily is fine. It unearned and illegitimate authority by use of force that is the problem
98% of so-called monopolies are more accurately government-sanctioned private/public "partnerships", or in plain-speak, government-chosen/backed enterprises. One of the key reasons Amazon is so big is because the government grants them special favors in exchange for Amazon building and managing the computer server infrastructure the US government runs itself on. Very few are actual natural monopolies (meaning the free and open market only wants/supports a single provider by having a razor-thin margin of profit verses expense to operate which would mean any competition would put more than one provider out of business), such as in the form of roads, electricity, telephone lines, water lines, most other infrastructure).
De beers was a natural monopoly, I say was and not is because the same market forces that give it its monopoly also took it away so it doesn’t have a monopoly on the diamond market anymore and it’s been that way since the 2010s iirc
In a free market monopolies are rare and short-lived. The only persistent monopolies are government itself and the smaller economic monopolies they create.
@@BurnDoubt it’s technically fascism with less steps. fascism would have complete control of all markets. this is only worrying about a handful and hoping they come out on top. it’s basically like “Rent Fascism” vs “Own Fascism”.
I recall a story some years back about a man I think from Kentucky who wanted to start a moving company but was required BY LAW to get permission from the other moving companies in the area before he could open up, citing "protection for the consumers" who might get swindled by newcomers to the market
It would be buffalos and teepees waiting for another Big Fish waiting to devour it. Unless you're talking about the slave-based, asshat conglomerate of the Confederacy.
@Samuel Marinov, he waged an unconstitutional war against his own people without congressional approval costing the lives of 800,000 Americans and leaving twice as many maimed for life.. All over TAXES.. that's right.. Taxes, not slaves like you've been led to believe. The south had every right to secede but Lincoln had them blockaded and he instigated the bloodiest conflict on American soil. As if that wasn't enough, he also suspended habeas corpus and has anyone who criticized him jailed. He shut down 300 news pundits and had 14,000 journalists jailed as political prisoners as they were deemed threats. This is just a tip of the iceberg. Razor has a video on this very subject that has come out recently. He explains how bad Lincoln was in far greater detail than I ever could.
@@dravenocklost4253 It’s true! It’s true! It’s really really true! It’s true! It’s true! Oh what are we to do? A dragon, a dragon! I swear I saw a dragon!
And that’s why people and companies are scared of competition Even though competition can also mean pushing for better and something even greater, I still remember that
They're like the Beatles, it's just one guy moving fast to make it seems like there's more than one person. Anyone can tell the Beatles was just Ringo.
Monopolies take form in 3 ways: 1. Most common. Lack of service. Usually it's due to a lack of investment devoted to servicing these areas so the people of the area only have 1 option, thus monopoly. If you live outside of a major metroplex and have health insurance or internet, there's a good chance you're living under a defacto monopoly. Monopolies so egregious the customer doesn't even realize it. 2. Cronyism/Corruption. This one is obvious enough. When the people in the enomforcement mechanism of state power and the people in the industry work together to maintain elevated prices so they both benefit. These would be the 'robber-barons' that leftists scare-monger, while supposed "anti-statists" never acknowledge these can only occur because of state permission. 3. Benevolent monopoly. This would be the unicorn. The monopoly that emerged purely for market forces. They would need a price low enough to prevent others from wanting to enter the market. Customer service good enough no one emerges to challenge the company out of resentment. Supply chains that are already as efficient as possible with such knowledgeable and forward thinking management that everyone is having their needs met while never having an over supply. Does this sound unreasonably utopian? That's because it is. This never happens, but would be the form of a monopoly that naturally emerges without state force.
We do have a 3 in real life: Steam. Fact is Steam holds a monopoly because they invest so much of their time being a platform for games that most people cannot compete without reaching their level of investment.
@@grimnir8872 Steam isn't even a real monopoly though, just a majority shareholder. GOG and Epic Games also exist in said marketplace, for better or worse.
The reason we don't see, or rarely see, 3's in real life is that while a company might manage that for a time, the slightest screw up ends it. Be it a bad PR decision, a poor investment decision leading to raising prices, or missing out on some innovation in their own industry? It's rare for a Unicorn to remain in that position for any length of time because if they make any significant slip up, they lose their hold. Steam survives, but so does GoG and Valve knows full well if it tries to pull the kinds of things Epic Games does, they would lose their mighty fine position. Epic Games is no threat to Steam, heck it's a benefit to them, a living example of how bad Steam could be and thus makes Steam look better by comparison. GoG is a better store than Steam, but until Steam screws up, there is little market share movement. Again however, if Steam screwed up, GoG will be there to grab as much market share as they can each time. (If they're competently run at that point in time, which isn't guaranteed.)
It's worth pointing out that #1 and #2 are joined at the hip. One of the ways communities address lack of service is to guarantee a 'temporary' monopoly to whoever makes them the best deal. Then they spend money to guarantee that their monopoly isn't all that temporary.
I worked at a facility that made the filler for antacids. It's literally just maltodextrin with some humidity added to make it clump, and then sent sifted to get the right size clump. However due to government regulations it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 years to get FDA approval to manufacture it. And that's after you've spent a huge sum on the equipment and facilities. Government regulation creates monopolies, not prevents them.
Me: "lets get rid of regulations to end monopolies!" Statist dweebs: "but if we end regulations we will go back to the wild west!" Me: "I already said I was in favor of ending regulations. You dont have to sell me on the idea."
Razor must have been listening in at my office. Just yesterday, one of my coworkers was complaining about the mail system and how the government needs to step in more, not realizing the only reason we have the shipping luxuries we have today are because of private businesses, not government programs
The Postal Workers who deliver the mail are called letter carrier's. They went on strike in the 1970s and they had The National Guard deliver the mail for a short time. The National Guard told the Nixon Administration we can't do this job. After the letter carrier's went back to work a provision was put in by Congress saying they can't strike. The overall quality of the Postal Service has gone down thank the federal government for that. They have been taking money from the postal service to feed government pork programs instead of letting the postal service put the money back in the service to update it hire more people and keep it going.
@@georgesykes394 you should look up the American Letter Mail Company. It was a private company that blew out the United States Postal Service. Offering lower rates and even free local delivery. The ALMC was forced out of business by the Federal Government. Ensuring the state mandated USPS monopoly.
Yeah the postal service is utter shit the past decade. A package from across the nation used to take 4 days to arrive, now a package from one state over takes a week.
I grew up here in Florida and 40 years ago you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some citrus fruit. It was everywhere, in almost every yard. /s So glad Tropicana, along with help from the state, became the only f****** owners of oranges here /s
So did they kill every natural orange so only the ones without seeds grow? or do they got two types of farms, one for juicing and one for eating? I just never know but always worry about this dead world idea, seedless everything including human. Just one day scenario where nothing more can live or have a future. No more seed, they own them all and then somehow lose their big secret. Such an unnatural word so many want to create.
@@RTFLDGR It helped that they blamed citrus greening on the small and hobby growers when theoretically the big farms inattention is why greening is so entrenched.
Weren't the Wright brothers, post-Kittyhawk, trying to make their money by suing everyone else who made any money with an airplane? Patent troll vs crony isn't a fight where anyone really wants a winner, although it explains, in part, why everyone else used ailerons rather than flexing the wing to control roll.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area, prior to the forty’s it had privately owned mass transportation system of different streetcars , trains and ferries , I was told by older relatives you could literally go anywhere around the bay fast , easy and cheap. Then GM came in and bought up those privately owned businesses , why to sell municipalities buses. They did it all over the nation , so we went from a private suitable system to one run by the government that is only good at making tax dollars disappear.
GM and Ford both bought out subway plans and public transportation around the country in order to either shut them down, subways, and remove any quality of service to public transportation, making it unusable for most working citizens
@@leongolgo9950 Cyborg, not Star Trek Borg. Because we already got people Borging out saying resistance is futile trying to bring ya into the hivemind.
@@jayeisenhardt1337 Borg is slang in the Cyberpunk universe, it means someone with so much chrome that they’re barely human anymore. Adam Smasher is an example
I studied these concepts on my own in the 90s. This kind of thing is brain lubricant, and yes it’s a paradigm shift when you apply these ideas to your line of thinking. Massive respect to Razorfist.
@bastiat Yeah, but that would take money out of the pockets of the government, since you would become competition to their mega corporate cash cows. Thats why small businesses were shut down en masse during the whole "covid" thing for being "unsafe". All while the mega corp stores were allowed to stay open so more and more people would be forced to funnel into them just to get food and supplies. The government doesnt want people to be self sufficient, and so will not allow people to exist outside of their sphere of control.
@@basedbulgarian511 huh, did not know you were replying to i guess me, as the liato said build with whats there with a small amount of wark "trash" can be converted into useable materials dirt for example can be refined into useable (but usually low quality) clay by letting the heavy partiles diffuse from the lighter imputities in some semi deep water said imputies are usually on top of the water making draining them a mater of gravity and waters flow, speaking of water everyone needs to drink right charcoal is your friend i forget the layering order if its even importent but charcoal gravel/pepples and a fine sand layer with a small bottlenecked reed for water can filter out a lot of contaminets from water making it a bit safer to drink personallly i would boil that in a still afterwards to recollect the vapor to be extra safe. speaking of sand do you know sand often contains trace amounts of iron the other bits are lighter the the iron and can be used for their own stuff like glassworks, what you want is a bottleneck where water is flowing like a creek place a curved tile with some grooves in it (may need to experiment to find the right size to work with) where the flow is narrow and theres ok current wash the sand into the water current before the tile and the grooves will catch the heavyier bluish iron particles and the current usualy washes the unwanted bits downstream. something else neat wood ash know what thats good for? soap is one thing but you can also use it to make "cement" my memories fuzzy on that last one but it because woodash contains lye said ash can also be used as groot to stop your clayworks from shattering as often when fired. so why did i mention all this, simple clay can be made into brickwork or pottery to be sold. purified water can be also as it will always be in demand or used as an intermediate material for things like booze or soups. soap of course self explanitory unscented and such likely wont sell for much or well but once sented with flowers or other fragrent things will improve their selling potental. the materials are there but schools just dont got time to teach kids this stuff and with mass manufacture taking off a lot of this fell by the wayside.
"The federal government stalled progress in Naval development." Wait, so you're telling me it's not a coincidence that Cuba is still driving cars from the 50's?
Good to see someone who knows the Titanic HIT the iceberg on the 14th and SANK on the 15th due to the late hour of the day. Same thing with Abe Lincoln getting shot on the 14th and dying on the 15th also in April. I was born April 14th btw.
@@bigkingspeakerdwestemperor5068 Yes, I've been intrigued by the story of Titanic for years and have learned a few things along the way. 😏 And wow, happy birthday to you, sir! 🎈🎉
Monopoly love having so much regulation in their sector that no newcomer would ever be able to handle them all. The higher the bar of entry is, the happier they are.
As anyone who has played the game Monopoly knows, the game goes on forever as long as anyone else is trying to compete. The monopoly only happens once everyone else gives up.
That's because you're actually playing it wrong. A proper game of monopoly should take between 20-45 minutes (depending on the number of players) Unfortunately most people play the game with "home rules" which makes the game take a lot longer
Razorfist is basically the perfect blend of eloquence and edgy. The bro can speak like an edgy guy while still being classy. Ahh gotta love this man. I look up to him very much :D.
The zeppelin fiasco portrayed in the Iron Maiden song "The Empire of the Clouds" is another fine example of this. Two zeppelins were build in the UK, one by the government, and one by private business. The government blimp crashed and burned over mainland Europe and the privately built airship was maintained well and served the public for quite a while.
There is a lecture by Tom Woods from 10-12 years ago at Mises University where, besides the Collins vs Vanderbilt shipping lines, he also talks about Dow's battle with the chemical german cartels and the difference between government subsidized rail vs that started by an entrepreneur with no government backing.
Monopolies are only possible with the “help” of government. What the regulators (claim to the public) to see as chaos and greed therefore requiring regulation is nothing more than what is the natural life cycle of business: birth, growth, and death. Both parties on the monopoly love it because the business gets a guarantee of long life and prosperity because it’s partner can make up ever new and hard to interpret and therefore hard to follow rules and the government gets money in the form of fees and taxes (may as well call them what they really are: bribes) and control. Truly a marriage made in economic hell
I said to myself on the onset of read your title Razorfist: "There's only one monopoly, and that is the federal government trying dissolve our 50 state Republic to a one state 'Democracy'. Simply by capturing industry and eliminating competition and then captivating the electorate that 'capitalism bad'. Turing us into a private public partnership or otherwise known as fascistic state."
Speaking of White Star today is the 111th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. And talking of the Commodore, how did he get his start in shipping you may ask? He borrowed 100 bucks from his mother to buy his first ship.
I’d recommend reading “The Myth of the Robber Barons” by Burton W. Folsom Jr. It not only has the story of Vanderbilt, but destroys the stories about all the other “robber barons”.
The solution to the problem of monopolies, has been to split them into sub groups, separated in crafty ways which are still ultimately owned/controlled by those monopolies. Just confusing and uninteresting enough to deter the general population into paying attention or caring As an example: Every telephone/data communications companies today are all connected at the top of the ladder to the same few people who control it all.
The Robber Barons were good men. Ruthless businessmen to be sure. But ruthless businessmen who built hospitals, churches, libraries, schools and gave back to the country in spades. Absolute chads.
Awesome video, i wish schools actually worked and teach kids about regulations and how they usually benefit the top dogs of any industry, making it harder for real competition to arrive.
Fascinating! After seeing the steamboat story, I would be interested in the same sort of treatment given to the airlines deregulation in the 1980s, deregulation of electric power, (in Texas at least) and splitting up of the phone companies. When I lived through those events there was a lot of hand wringing and fear, but wow did the prices ever go down and did the services ever improve!
Compare and contrast with California's electric power "deregulation" which, when you look at the particulars, inevitably gave rise to Enron (and very much deserves the square quotes, since while it was a change in the regulations, it wasn't really a removal of them.)
Behind every "Monopoly" is a popular company and government enforcement that enables it. Dial back that government enforcement and you'd see less monopolies, not more.
Correction, the USS Monitor, the first ironclad built and used by the union navy, was built and sailed only 2 years after the Civil War began, and very shortly after the VIRGINIA, not the Merrimack, was built from the remains of the Merrimack. ( Edit for clarification, the USS Merrimack was scuttled then raised to become the Virginia)
If the government could be trusted I'd be ok with subsidies, problem is the only people that get into government are the ones who have no talents and morals. I'm a libertarian by force. I want to trust my government but they make it impossible.
As a fan of Gilded Age history, could you cover the political machine in regards to Tammany Hall's corruption in building the Brooklyn Bridge? It's another great lesson in government fuckery with infrastructure projects and a show of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
5:03 to quote the wikipedaia When Vanderbilt returned from Europe, he retaliated by developing a rival steamship line to California, cutting prices until he forced Morgan and White to pay him off. He then turned to transatlantic steamship lines, running in opposition to the heavily subsidized Collins Line, headed by Edward K. Collins. Vanderbilt eventually drove the Collins Line into extinction.
I agree with pretty much all the points you're making! That's why it sucks that you used a screenshot of my profile when talking about "half-assed armchair historians" when my goal with that video was to shine a light on a fleet of ships that previously had not been discussed on RUclips. You misinterpreted the point of my video, especially the part where I explained how the government subsidies were one of the main reasons his, Arctic and possibly Pacific, were lost, and his over reliance on subsidies were the ultimate downfall of the Collins Line. Since I was called out though, let me call a couple things out, too - Lusitania wasn't attacked because she was carrying ammunition on board; that was the convenient excuse Germany gave after the sinking because they knew at least the general public would somewhat sympathize. Also, the ship at 13:44 isn't the Collins Pacific; it's a different ship of the same name.
It wasn't really a "call-out". That was reserved for Bright Films, who I used a clip of in this video. It was more to demonstrate that most videos dealing with the Collins Line simply omit the Vanderbilt Line from the history entirely. Something that your video most certainly did. Even though they - not Cunard - were the ones to put Collins out of business. Sorry you got lumped in, all the same. It wasn't an intentional sleight. I actually enjoy your videos quite a bit, and I dig that you covered the now-obscure Collins Line at all. When I reference the Lusitania being made a target by their carrying of munitions, I'm referring to the fact that the Lusitania appeared in the German Admiralty's list of valid targets. Willi Jasper's book "Lusitania: The Cultural History of a Catastrophe" makes clear the manifest was information of which the German U-Boat captains, Schweiger included, were well aware. It's an interesting book.
Suggested reading for those who want to dig into this more: The Myth of the Robber Barons, by Burton W. Folsom. This is the real history of The Gilded Age.
5:54 I actually remember seeing and hearing this very line about Vanderbilt from a History Channel documentary I watched back in the early 2000s when I was in Nigeria. They mentioned how he got his early start and destroyed his competition by his business savvy and ruthless drive. He's pretty cool and I had no idea about his larger fight against monopolies and anti-free market forces.
Government is the only monopoly I worry about. I'd rather it be divvied up amongst organized crime groups. You know what actual criminals are gonna do.
Monopoly originally meant a right granted by a king/state. It was only changed to imply "natural" monopolies recently after the natural monopoly theory gained traction. Turns out it's just a theory and natural monopolies are basically impossible. You have to use violence (the state) to acquire and maintain a monopoly.
Cornelius Vanderbilt is going to be one of the names I focus on in historical studies from now on, if a guy can beat competitors who were directly receiving large subsidiaries from the National Treasury with his own business and asset management... I want to know about Him.
I hear there is a problem in the ports and unloading times too. Time to bring back blimps/zeppelins and try to make them whales of the sky. Shipping big air style? I wonder if that is feasible now. Instead of international waters, international sky and an air-airport. lol Dream first, then think if it's possible. If it isn't, how could it be made to be possible.
The USPS, an industry owned by the US Government, actually used to be profitable on its own terms. Then the government started regulating it. In fact, not only was it profitable, it also formed a union entirely on its own and had above average pay and benefits across the board while being the single most trusted part of the government by the populace in polls. This was despite the government already stepping in to stop it from flying its own planes because air lines were complaining they weren't able to make money off of it. It is currently in shambles, and also currently experiences more government regulation and control than any other point in history. I'm sure these two facts aren't related in any way, shape, or form.
The Federal government did that to the USPS for retribution for the USPS strike in the 1970s and which they made the government look Stupid. And also typical of government it's working, self reliant, and profitable let's fuk it up.
@@Andum48 in the same vein of jew/jewish? iron, or just irony? although i used "vein" i don't think there's jew ore, if anything an old WW2 hoax story about lamp shades would challenge too, i do know of a wood type called yew though,
One Other tool in our arsenal is the Open Source projects especially in AI. And Predictably The Big corpos are already clamering for regulation. But This is probably one of the times were its already to late for them and the best part Its there own falt. I am Currently running Large language models on a 450$ graphics card and they are good maybe not as good as GPT4, YET. But good enough to get the job done and more importantly completely Free and Uncensored.
People don't realize that companies like walmart and amazon aren't monopolies, they're oligopolies. The difference is that a monopoly controls the market while an oligopoly controls supply chains.
2 things. 1) I don't believe that there's ANY issue where government interference has helped. I've always believed in deregulation. 2) (and this is an aside) I don't understand why Tim Pool hasn't talked one iota about James O' Keefe's new story, as he claims to be a friend. This story is very important, and needs to be shouted from the highest mountains. Thanks razor for at least acknowledging it!
I'm a small business owner feeling the immense and unfair pressure . Don't try to get into the alcohol industry unless your dead serious about seeing it through.
Too big to fail is a ridiculous tern that has been spewed lately in regards to the economic woes of big corporations but too big to function is a term that should apply to our govt.
The Union Navy did in fact use the Vanderbilt. With her speed and large gun armament she was deployed into the Atlantic to search for Confederate raiders, in particular the Alabama, that were destroying Union merchant ships. She spent a year searching for the Alabama. A couple of times the Vanderbilt would arrive at a port the Alabama had left only a few hours earlier. She later took part in the attacks on Fort Fisher in North Carolina.
Exactly. Regulatory Capture is a booming business for politicians and keeps competition as low as possible in the economy. Most big industry CEO's love regulation as it guarantees them a healthy 8 figure salary every year due to an uninterrupted steady growth of earnings stream.
Just to get ahead of certain people, the reason that passenger trains in the United States are so horrible is because of the 1971 abomination known as Amtrack. There is no incentive or desire to just make trains run better when most of the funding comes from you and I in tax money especially when most of the money goes to the line on the East Coast. In short, ending Amtrack might well make passenger trains better.
The fact that "government bailout" is a term that exists in our lexicon is proof enough that we do not have a free market.
This is the Libertarian version of “Real communism has never been tried!”
@@elijahtiemens5532 No it isn't
Free market only means the ability to trade with anyone you want. It's a very broad (low resolution) term.
Bailouts don't enter into the definition. They exist at a higher resolution.
@@dragons_red rigging the game is still rigging the game it indirectly affects the ability of others to trade if there's a bunch of massive companies being bailed out every time they fail
And GMC still churns out the same garbage, while laying off employees and asking for bailouts
".... the economy is so bad, cartels are laying off Arizona politicians" LMFAO 🤣
yeah, get some lotion for that burn, it's gonna smart. 🤣😂
Much truth to this: Gov Hobbit just vetoed a bill declaring drug cartels to be terrorist organizations.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You know, even I'll admit, the cartels deserve better. 😆
Typical government. Freeloaders with state sanctioned privileges.
5:45 I fucking love watching an older History Channel show and seeing Trump appear. Almost like the media completely turned against him after he challenged the establishment.
I remember this documentary series, "The Men Who Built America." Oh sure, it repeated some of that same old tired commie agitprop we hear all the time, but besides that it was a surprisingly even-handed, "warts and all" documentary on the various people responsible for a lot of things we take for granted today, from Vanderbilt to Ford.
@@z3r0_35 Agreed. It was a fairly enjoyable show tbh
Loved that show. The one Billy Ray Sirus did on the south was also good.
Sorta how they turned on Vanderbilt.
Indeed.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan
If only he wasn't so anti-gun
Yeah he was great at projection
@@WhiskeyPatriot In his defense, getting shot and almost dieing might change one's perspective. But yes, he wasn't as pro gun as I would have liked.
@@matthewphelps5136 Imagine being so feeble-minded that you forfeit some of your most closely held principles just because someone made an attempt on your life. It is no excuse. It is weakness. Reagan would have been a true unassailable legend if he didn't run a second time.
@@WhiskeyPatriot can't win em all i guess, but people only got worse when it comes to not being pragmatic about things
how else did biden get elected?
well, then again he didn't really, seems more like it's the ones who count votes matter more than the ones who votes to paraphrase stalin lol
Microsoft begging for more regulation is like that one kid on the playground making up new rules when he’s losing at his own game
... since when is microsoft losing anything?
I remember Bill Gates wanted to keep his business out of lobbying when Microsoft first started. Until the government kept extorting them to lobby the government by putting with laws and regulations on his business. Now they ain't going back.
@@vyor8837Can't keep the charade up forever, bud. Microsoft and basically every big tech company can only last so long as long as the market is free. Regulations can only be pushed so hard before the common people say "enough." And once that happens, sufficiently powerful fish will eat them up.
@@AndrewChumKaser Microsoft has objectively the best products on the market right now.
@@vyor8837 Faint praise when their competition is fucking apple, who continuously tries to trample consumer rights and sell overpriced Asian slave labor products. Besides, not like Microsoft wouldn't do the exact same thing if they could get away with it. In fact they pretty much already do.
Fun fact: The "Wild West" wasn't actually so wild, at least not as much as is depicted. You couldn't just go up to someone and shoot them in cold blood, because you'd be arrested for murder and most likely hung, same as any time in history where society actually functioned.
The true danger of the Wild West was in the badlands, between bandits, wild animals, and diseases, all of these are still issues to varying degrees, admittedly the former is not as common as the latter two, but you still hear of stories of lone drivers being held up by gangs roaming the countryside from time to time. But that's a big reason as to why everybody was armed in the Wild West.
EDIT: Then I realise that Razor basically already covered everything I said. Ah, well, I'll still leave the comment up, I suppose.
Imagine that, criminals were punished quickly, a real deterrent unlike our alleged criminal justice system aka catch and release.
Roaming the badlands sounds more and more appealing by the daily tbh.
I keep telling people that you know all of those outlaws' names because those were ALL of the outlaws.
I think I heard him, but I was scanning comments too. So good post seeing it in text helped burn that home.
Little house on the prairie was a shoot not a work.
@bastiat where is my handmounted flamethrower ? :(
Anyone else want a "Razor fists history" Channel? I think that would make me happy
Fistory with Professor Razor has a ring to it
Imagine watching The History Guy and The HistoryHolic back to back... talk about yin & yang!
+100
yes it would be great to see razorfist take down the dan carlin monopoly
@@atlanteum The History Guy and Armchair Historian would be a better combo.
This is exactly what drives me nuts about healthcare here in the US. Go into any hospital and ask them what an average bill for [insert random service here] is. You will get weird looks. Tells me all I need to know about how little free enterprise there is in it.
People from the US tell me that I don't know what I am asking for when I want private healthcare in my country because it is so bad in the US (it has problems but not nearly as bad as they think) and then it turns out they've never heard of certificate of need laws
In some states it is literally illegal for medical practitioners to advertise their prices. I don't even know what the leftist justification is for that one, but it's one of the most blatant examples I know of them actually wanting things to be overpriced and inaccessible so the govt can swoop in and give away "freebies" in exchange for votes.
Imagine being Canadian and having to deal with that dumpster fire of a healthcare system.
INSURANCE: For the MRI, it will cost $3000 and insurance will cover half of that.
MRI FACILITY: It will cost you $800 out of pocket for this MRI.
ME: ... wtf.
@@breadandcircuitry this checks out with what I've heard from others as well
What I don't understand is all this medical debt people in America get in to. What are they having done? Why don't they have insurance? I feel like a lot of stuff isn't essential and that a lot of people could have insurance if they worked more or got a different job. An I out of line? These are genuine questions I have been on Medicaid my entire life so never had to think/worry about this stuff
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
-Milton Friedman
ii doubt the government could do that in 5 years unless they are doing it for glass making but that's just me.
He gave them too much credit.
@@TheManofthecross yeah your right, 3 years
🤣🤣🤣 He’s not wrong.
@@TheManofthecrossthey’d find a way to
I unironicly love history class with Razorfist 😀
Same here, public school was boring as fuck but Razor can cover an entire textbook’s worth of material in 20 minutes. Of course, government needs to waste kids’ time so that teachers and book publishers can justify year-long amounts of work every year
Same
@5persondude the text book scams in college are hilarious. They only have to change 1 or 2 paragraphs in an already existing book to call it the newest edition and charge hundreds of dollars for it per student lol. Everything organized is a scam these days.
Razor has a gift. His storytelling ability is amazing. If I had teachers like Razor and Dankula teaching English and History, I likely would've never wanted to skip class, probably would've gotten A Honors.
Aye Professor Razor always delivers.
Look at Kodak... a defacto Monopoly in cinema for almost 100 years refused to see the digital writing on the wall is little more than a nostalgic brand now.
E girls and hippies ALONE keep that company afloat
Fujifilm is still a thriving corporation, though. They just opened a massive campus out here in my suburb.
Fujifilm is pretty much the sole supplier for any filmmaker who wants physical stock.
@@fruitiusmaximus925 They saw the writing on the wall and pivoted so hard that now it's a large conglomerate that does much more than physical film or photo supplies, it does medical imaging (digital), biomedical research and production of biochemicals (aka stuff produced by genetically engineered bacteria) and high density magnetic tape storage for SAS backup racks among a bunch of other things. Most of their revenue and investments aren't in the legacy film supplies anymore and haven't been for a while
@@marcogenovesi8570 I'm sure they have. No way could they support opening such a massive new campus on the revenue from a hobbyist product.
The biggest monopoly, and the biggest corporation out there, is the State. Corporations are just how the government touches the economy in every way, without it seeming like they're actively doing it.
There's no daylight between Amazon, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Walmart, or any other major international corporation and the United States federal government. Acting in tandem, passing laws to keep out competitors, which they disguise as "safety" or environmental "protection".
It's all just a complex ruse. And government education ensures that it will continue indefinitely.
Which is why they promoted the feminist movements - get the women into work with the men - means more taxation, but also leaves typically the children at the mercy of said education system that all but ensures the process' sustenance in abundance.
I don't even have to be ancap to mostly agree on that.
In all honesty, every single one of those organizations is probably part of the biggest weapons industry in our country, the Military Industrial Complex. Because it feels like they are all producing weapons in one form or another for the US or our allies.
@@The_Phoenix_Saga The main reason was to double workforce and depress wages. Double the supply and the demand falls drastically. Now instead of 1 parent staying home to keep the house in order they both work yet household income is identical. Then go home to keep the house in order while eating fast food cause they don't have the energy or time to cook at the end of the day.
This☝️
You know, one fun example of the issue with governments and monopolies is AT&T.
To oversimplify a bit, back in the day AT&T was given generous government subsidies to provide phone service to small towns and remote homes across the country, which in most cases meant that it was your only option for phone service. Naturally this resulted in AT&T absolutely dominating the telecommunications industry since they had large chunks of the country entirely reliant on them for service. Eventually congress decided that AT&T was too big of a company, so what they did was break it up and instead of having one nation wide monopoly you ended up with several regional monopolies that weren't directly competing with each other. The real fun bit is that AT&T just ended up reacquiring most of the post break up companies and still gets government subsidies for providing service.
You gotta love it
Plus, Bell Labs was basically put into the ground from this.
Yep. I worked with an old guy that was one of the engineers for Bell labs back in the 70s. They had all the phone features AT&T introduced in the late 80s and early 90s to compete with Sprint and MCI from back before he started working there. AT&T just decided not to release them as there was no competition so improving service to keep and acquire customers was not a priority.
@@breadandcircuitry I only remember Bell Labs because of the transistor.
Other than that I can't remember a single thing about them.
@@breadandcircuitry I remember Southern Bell here in Florida before they got busted up. It seems like they gave special consideration to local businesses around here, Bell did.
There was a nice strip mall called Bell Plaza with a Chuck E Cheeses (maybe it was a Showbiz Pizza) and a theater and ice cream shops. Bell is gone, the family friendly strip mall became a ghost town shortly after, renamed decades ago, and the whole place is a giant branch of the USPS now 🤔
I recently had to do a class on anti-trust and anti-bribery for my company. The entire time I kept thinking was "Hey, this sounds like Biden and his family."
I'm going to assume you kept this thought to yourself
@@k96man Luckily for my big mouth, the class was entirely online.
@@leonardwei3914 I start toobin in online classes as i turn my camera off
GOOD times
If Raz0rfist had a second history channel where he talked at length about historical subjects, I would binge it daily. Can't ever get enough of that eloquence and wit.
I second the notion
Wit? He isn't witty.
A man like him working with Simple History or The Fat Electrician would be great. If him and Sargon of Akkad took over Extra Credits somehow, I'd love to hear them narrate AND write over subjects.
@@bradenmerriman5206Yes he is lol
When I clicked on a razorfist video I didn't expect to walk away as a Vanderbilt fan
Me neither.
Similar to how I feel about FDR v. Teddy.
The way many of these people, actual pioneers, have been painted by our education just shows me we really have no education, 100% indoctrination.
If you've ever stepped foot into Grand Central Station, that alone should make you a fan of Vanderbilt. Absolute beauty I had to stand around like an idiot near the center and just take it in when I saw it for the first time, looking from the outside doesn't do it justice.
Look at his genealogy and other things to bring you back down to earth.
There is only one monopoly - government - the monopoly through which other monopolies are possible, since they could not exist in the absence of government.
One might say that the monopoly of violence is the one true monopoly from which all other monopoly is derived.
@@JPG.01 .thats government for you.
@@JPG.01 Nah, that’s authority you’re thinking of. It’s government overstepping and regulations that monopolies are derived from.
@@MrNickPresley those only work BECAUSE of government authority and their monopoly on violence. regulation means nothing if you have no way to enforce it
@@MrNickPresley no earned authority and authority that is given voluntarily is fine. It unearned and illegitimate authority by use of force that is the problem
"The most dangerous words you can hear is Im here from the government and ive come to help"
- *Ronald Regan*
And yet he willingly worked for the government as president no less.
98% of so-called monopolies are more accurately government-sanctioned private/public "partnerships", or in plain-speak, government-chosen/backed enterprises. One of the key reasons Amazon is so big is because the government grants them special favors in exchange for Amazon building and managing the computer server infrastructure the US government runs itself on.
Very few are actual natural monopolies (meaning the free and open market only wants/supports a single provider by having a razor-thin margin of profit verses expense to operate which would mean any competition would put more than one provider out of business), such as in the form of roads, electricity, telephone lines, water lines, most other infrastructure).
De beers was a natural monopoly, I say was and not is because the same market forces that give it its monopoly also took it away so it doesn’t have a monopoly on the diamond market anymore and it’s been that way since the 2010s iirc
Sounds like fascism with extra steps
In a free market monopolies are rare and short-lived. The only persistent monopolies are government itself and the smaller economic monopolies they create.
@@BurnDoubt literally is
@@BurnDoubt it’s technically fascism with less steps. fascism would have complete control of all markets. this is only worrying about a handful and hoping they come out on top. it’s basically like “Rent Fascism” vs “Own Fascism”.
I recall a story some years back about a man I think from Kentucky who wanted to start a moving company but was required BY LAW to get permission from the other moving companies in the area before he could open up, citing "protection for the consumers" who might get swindled by newcomers to the market
That was on Stossel's channel. A few states have laws like that. They require you to demonstrate a need in order to protect the existing businesses.
I hear it's really bad in hospitals and other Healthcare facilities.
It's maddening to consider where America would be right now had the Federal Government never gained its stranglehold over the nation. Thanks, Union!
I'd argue Europa.
where America would be if we didn't have to babysit the black race.
It would be buffalos and teepees waiting for another Big Fish waiting to devour it. Unless you're talking about the slave-based, asshat conglomerate of the Confederacy.
@@basedbulgarian511They were key figures for sure, but the groundwork they used to push the agenda forward was installed by Lincoln and the Union.
@Samuel Marinov, he waged an unconstitutional war against his own people without congressional approval costing the lives of 800,000 Americans and leaving twice as many maimed for life.. All over TAXES.. that's right.. Taxes, not slaves like you've been led to believe. The south had every right to secede but Lincoln had them blockaded and he instigated the bloodiest conflict on American soil. As if that wasn't enough, he also suspended habeas corpus and has anyone who criticized him jailed. He shut down 300 news pundits and had 14,000 journalists jailed as political prisoners as they were deemed threats. This is just a tip of the iceberg. Razor has a video on this very subject that has come out recently. He explains how bad Lincoln was in far greater detail than I ever could.
If I were a High School History teacher I would show this video and drop a quiz on it right after. Then get fired and move out to the wild wild west 😅
"Competition is a sin"
John D. Rockefeller
That is an actual quote, holy crap look it up guys
I just typed in the quote itself by itself*
@@dravenocklost4253
It’s true! It’s true! It’s really really true! It’s true! It’s true! Oh what are we to do? A dragon, a dragon! I swear I saw a dragon!
"Competition is a sin"
-Teachers union
And that’s why people and companies are scared of competition
Even though competition can also mean pushing for better and something even greater, I still remember that
"Vanderbilt will become so synonymous with shipping that his nickname will be Reylo."
Styx cancels his live stream, and razorfist uploads, coincidence, I'm sure 😂
You got that backwards. This is styx, dude.
Gets the noggin joggin,, don't it?
@@jonathannelson103 you know now that i think about it i've never actually seen them in the same stream.
They're like the Beatles, it's just one guy moving fast to make it seems like there's more than one person.
Anyone can tell the Beatles was just Ringo.
@@someguy4252 Razor did an election stream I think for 2018 and Styx showed up for it.
Monopolies take form in 3 ways:
1. Most common. Lack of service. Usually it's due to a lack of investment devoted to servicing these areas so the people of the area only have 1 option, thus monopoly. If you live outside of a major metroplex and have health insurance or internet, there's a good chance you're living under a defacto monopoly.
Monopolies so egregious the customer doesn't even realize it.
2. Cronyism/Corruption. This one is obvious enough. When the people in the enomforcement mechanism of state power and the people in the industry work together to maintain elevated prices so they both benefit.
These would be the 'robber-barons' that leftists scare-monger, while supposed "anti-statists" never acknowledge these can only occur because of state permission.
3. Benevolent monopoly. This would be the unicorn. The monopoly that emerged purely for market forces. They would need a price low enough to prevent others from wanting to enter the market. Customer service good enough no one emerges to challenge the company out of resentment. Supply chains that are already as efficient as possible with such knowledgeable and forward thinking management that everyone is having their needs met while never having an over supply.
Does this sound unreasonably utopian? That's because it is. This never happens, but would be the form of a monopoly that naturally emerges without state force.
We do have a 3 in real life: Steam. Fact is Steam holds a monopoly because they invest so much of their time being a platform for games that most people cannot compete without reaching their level of investment.
@@grimnir8872 Steam isn't even a real monopoly though, just a majority shareholder. GOG and Epic Games also exist in said marketplace, for better or worse.
@Grimnir Is Steam a brick and mortar store? No? Well, there ya go the issue. No property rights.
The reason we don't see, or rarely see, 3's in real life is that while a company might manage that for a time, the slightest screw up ends it. Be it a bad PR decision, a poor investment decision leading to raising prices, or missing out on some innovation in their own industry? It's rare for a Unicorn to remain in that position for any length of time because if they make any significant slip up, they lose their hold. Steam survives, but so does GoG and Valve knows full well if it tries to pull the kinds of things Epic Games does, they would lose their mighty fine position. Epic Games is no threat to Steam, heck it's a benefit to them, a living example of how bad Steam could be and thus makes Steam look better by comparison. GoG is a better store than Steam, but until Steam screws up, there is little market share movement. Again however, if Steam screwed up, GoG will be there to grab as much market share as they can each time. (If they're competently run at that point in time, which isn't guaranteed.)
It's worth pointing out that #1 and #2 are joined at the hip. One of the ways communities address lack of service is to guarantee a 'temporary' monopoly to whoever makes them the best deal. Then they spend money to guarantee that their monopoly isn't all that temporary.
Now I know why the Vanderbilt football team is called The Commodores you learn something new everyday
I just love when people act like America hates monopolies. It doesn't. It LOVES monopolies when said lopies SERVE the state.
You'll need to define 'America' a little more rigorously before I can evaluate that sentence.
I worked at a facility that made the filler for antacids. It's literally just maltodextrin with some humidity added to make it clump, and then sent sifted to get the right size clump.
However due to government regulations it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 years to get FDA approval to manufacture it. And that's after you've spent a huge sum on the equipment and facilities.
Government regulation creates monopolies, not prevents them.
And as long as politicians can be bribed, you'll see regulations continue to worsen
I think adolf hitler would didagree with you on that one
@@onemanarmysswampparty
Well there's a paragon of truth and virtue, lol
How on earth does getting malodextrin with water approved take 10 years? What eats up the time? Safety, environmental, or something else?
@@IslandersFan100all three
Me: "lets get rid of regulations to end monopolies!"
Statist dweebs: "but if we end regulations we will go back to the wild west!"
Me: "I already said I was in favor of ending regulations. You dont have to sell me on the idea."
A time where revolvers, lever-actions, and Gatling guns can be ordered through the mail and shipped to my door? Yes, please!
Also dynamite could be purchased at the local hardware store. Those were the days...
@@wishuhadmyname now let me put on my bedsheet with 2 holes on it
Back to the Wild West? Yeeee-HAAAA!
💥💥💥💥💥💥🔫
@@mgeiger2341 I know, right? I wanna be able to buy dynamite that easily.
Razor must have been listening in at my office. Just yesterday, one of my coworkers was complaining about the mail system and how the government needs to step in more, not realizing the only reason we have the shipping luxuries we have today are because of private businesses, not government programs
The Postal Workers who deliver the mail are called letter carrier's. They went on strike in the 1970s and they had The National Guard deliver the mail for a short time. The National Guard told the Nixon Administration we can't do this job. After the letter carrier's went back to work a provision was put in by Congress saying they can't strike. The overall quality of the Postal Service has gone down thank the federal government for that. They have been taking money from the postal service to feed government pork programs instead of letting the postal service put the money back in the service to update it hire more people and keep it going.
@@georgesykes394 you should look up the American Letter Mail Company. It was a private company that blew out the United States Postal Service. Offering lower rates and even free local delivery. The ALMC was forced out of business by the Federal Government. Ensuring the state mandated USPS monopoly.
Yeah the postal service is utter shit the past decade. A package from across the nation used to take 4 days to arrive, now a package from one state over takes a week.
Tell him it's a shame that Spooner isn't around anymore to fix the problem, again.
I grew up here in Florida and 40 years ago you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some citrus fruit. It was everywhere, in almost every yard.
/s So glad Tropicana, along with help from the state, became the only f****** owners of oranges here /s
So did they kill every natural orange so only the ones without seeds grow? or do they got two types of farms, one for juicing and one for eating? I just never know but always worry about this dead world idea, seedless everything including human. Just one day scenario where nothing more can live or have a future. No more seed, they own them all and then somehow lose their big secret.
Such an unnatural word so many want to create.
moreover, there is a certain port in FL where tanker ships from other places pump non-FL OJ into Tropicola stores. tankers and tankers of it.
@@RTFLDGR It helped that they blamed citrus greening on the small and hobby growers when theoretically the big farms inattention is why greening is so entrenched.
I also like the difference between the Union Pacific Railroad and the Great Northern Railroad. Or the Wright Brothers versus cronies like Langley.
Weren't the Wright brothers, post-Kittyhawk, trying to make their money by suing everyone else who made any money with an airplane? Patent troll vs crony isn't a fight where anyone really wants a winner, although it explains, in part, why everyone else used ailerons rather than flexing the wing to control roll.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area, prior to the forty’s it had privately owned mass transportation system of different streetcars , trains and ferries , I was told by older relatives you could literally go anywhere around the bay fast , easy and cheap. Then GM came in and bought up those privately owned businesses , why to sell municipalities buses. They did it all over the nation , so we went from a private suitable system to one run by the government that is only good at making tax dollars disappear.
GM and Ford both bought out subway plans and public transportation around the country in order to either shut them down, subways, and remove any quality of service to public transportation, making it unusable for most working citizens
No Razor if we remove regulations we will live in Cyberpunk/Shadowrun dystopia ... It took all my willpower to not die of laughter after I wrote that.
We already are in a world run by corps. We just dont have handmounted flamethrowers or keeb magic.
Fuck yeah! Borg me up!
@@leongolgo9950 Cyborg, not Star Trek Borg.
Because we already got people Borging out saying resistance is futile trying to bring ya into the hivemind.
@@jayeisenhardt1337 Borg is slang in the Cyberpunk universe, it means someone with so much chrome that they’re barely human anymore. Adam Smasher is an example
Hopefully, this video contributes to a paradigm shift how we as a nation discuss economics.
I studied these concepts on my own in the 90s. This kind of thing is brain lubricant, and yes it’s a paradigm shift when you apply these ideas to your line of thinking. Massive respect to Razorfist.
until the left loses control of most media, most people will have a stunted understanding of economics.
It's not an accurate framing of the debate, so I doubt it
@bastiat
Yeah, but that would take money out of the pockets of the government, since you would become competition to their mega corporate cash cows. Thats why small businesses were shut down en masse during the whole "covid" thing for being "unsafe". All while the mega corp stores were allowed to stay open so more and more people would be forced to funnel into them just to get food and supplies.
The government doesnt want people to be self sufficient, and so will not allow people to exist outside of their sphere of control.
@@Andum48inaccurate how?
The biggest threat to a big Corpos is someone smaller being able to legally sweep the rug out from under their corporate hegemony.
so would the secound be everyone going ah fuck it and making things themself?
@@basedbulgarian511 build from the ground up with what you have.
@@basedbulgarian511 huh, did not know you were replying to i guess me, as the liato said build with whats there with a small amount of wark "trash" can be converted into useable materials dirt for example can be refined into useable (but usually low quality) clay by letting the heavy partiles diffuse from the lighter imputities in some semi deep water said imputies are usually on top of the water making draining them a mater of gravity and waters flow, speaking of water everyone needs to drink right charcoal is your friend i forget the layering order if its even importent but charcoal gravel/pepples and a fine sand layer with a small bottlenecked reed for water can filter out a lot of contaminets from water making it a bit safer to drink personallly i would boil that in a still afterwards to recollect the vapor to be extra safe. speaking of sand do you know sand often contains trace amounts of iron the other bits are lighter the the iron and can be used for their own stuff like glassworks, what you want is a bottleneck where water is flowing like a creek place a curved tile with some grooves in it (may need to experiment to find the right size to work with) where the flow is narrow and theres ok current wash the sand into the water current before the tile and the grooves will catch the heavyier bluish iron particles and the current usualy washes the unwanted bits downstream. something else neat wood ash know what thats good for? soap is one thing but you can also use it to make "cement" my memories fuzzy on that last one but it because woodash contains lye said ash can also be used as groot to stop your clayworks from shattering as often when fired. so why did i mention all this, simple clay can be made into brickwork or pottery to be sold. purified water can be also as it will always be in demand or used as an intermediate material for things like booze or soups. soap of course self explanitory unscented and such likely wont sell for much or well but once sented with flowers or other fragrent things will improve their selling potental. the materials are there but schools just dont got time to teach kids this stuff and with mass manufacture taking off a lot of this fell by the wayside.
I have a whole section of US History I teach that uses the Collins v Van D as its central point of Free Market success. Well done, sir!
Bro, you need to add James Hill and the Great Northern Railroad.
"The federal government stalled progress in Naval development."
Wait, so you're telling me it's not a coincidence that Cuba is still driving cars from the 50's?
Razorfist collects $400 when he passes GO!
He will never buy into the lefty hell holes of boardwalk and park place though.
Your mom collects $10 when she passes blow.
He better get more than just $400 or I call communist b*** s***.
And today is April 14th, which is the day Titanic struck the iceberg. Perfect timing, Razorfist! 🚢
Good to see someone who knows the Titanic HIT the iceberg on the 14th and SANK on the 15th due to the late hour of the day. Same thing with Abe Lincoln getting shot on the 14th and dying on the 15th also in April. I was born April 14th btw.
@@bigkingspeakerdwestemperor5068 Yes, I've been intrigued by the story of Titanic for years and have learned a few things along the way. 😏 And wow, happy birthday to you, sir! 🎈🎉
WoW that's some timing.
And Lincoln got his brains blown out.
@@worldofdoom995 sic semper tyrannis indeed
Monopoly love having so much regulation in their sector that no newcomer would ever be able to handle them all. The higher the bar of entry is, the happier they are.
As anyone who has played the game Monopoly knows, the game goes on forever as long as anyone else is trying to compete. The monopoly only happens once everyone else gives up.
That's because you're actually playing it wrong. A proper game of monopoly should take between 20-45 minutes (depending on the number of players)
Unfortunately most people play the game with "home rules" which makes the game take a lot longer
Razorfist is basically the perfect blend of eloquence and edgy. The bro can speak like an edgy guy while still being classy. Ahh gotta love this man. I look up to him very much :D.
Unfortunately his vids can be total trash, like his Lincoln vid
This autosocial shit is as mentally ill as it is worthy of mockery.
He needs to drop his persona.
@@bradenmerriman5206 he can't, he also can't stop being wrong, his Lincoln vid for example
Really enjoying these Razor Rants History videos lately. Entertaining and interesting subjects
Fistory
@@oz_jones well as long as no one has to assume the positon eh?
Monopolies cannot exist in a free market, without government
The zeppelin fiasco portrayed in the Iron Maiden song "The Empire of the Clouds" is another fine example of this. Two zeppelins were build in the UK, one by the government, and one by private business. The government blimp crashed and burned over mainland Europe and the privately built airship was maintained well and served the public for quite a while.
The day America realizes it's no longer actually a free market economy already, is the day it can finally get back to being one.
The day States' citizens stop calling the federation their government is a member of "America" it'll start acting like one.
There is a lecture by Tom Woods from 10-12 years ago at Mises University where, besides the Collins vs Vanderbilt shipping lines, he also talks about Dow's battle with the chemical german cartels and the difference between government subsidized rail vs that started by an entrepreneur with no government backing.
Monopolies are only possible with the “help” of government. What the regulators (claim to the public) to see as chaos and greed therefore requiring regulation is nothing more than what is the natural life cycle of business: birth, growth, and death. Both parties on the monopoly love it because the business gets a guarantee of long life and prosperity because it’s partner can make up ever new and hard to interpret and therefore hard to follow rules and the government gets money in the form of fees and taxes (may as well call them what they really are: bribes) and control. Truly a marriage made in economic hell
I said to myself on the onset of read your title Razorfist:
"There's only one monopoly, and that is the federal government trying dissolve our 50 state Republic to a one state 'Democracy'. Simply by capturing industry and eliminating competition and then captivating the electorate that 'capitalism bad'. Turing us into a private public partnership or otherwise known as fascistic state."
Speaking of White Star today is the 111th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. And talking of the Commodore, how did he get his start in shipping you may ask? He borrowed 100 bucks from his mother to buy his first ship.
I’d recommend reading “The Myth of the Robber Barons” by Burton W. Folsom Jr. It not only has the story of Vanderbilt, but destroys the stories about all the other “robber barons”.
The solution to the problem of monopolies, has been to split them into sub groups, separated in crafty ways which are still ultimately owned/controlled by those monopolies.
Just confusing and uninteresting enough to deter the general population into paying attention or caring
As an example:
Every telephone/data communications companies today are all connected at the top of the ladder to the same few people who control it all.
"Bigger catchall than Lizzo's maxipad". I cannot unsee that image. Excuse me...........
The Robber Barons were good men. Ruthless businessmen to be sure. But ruthless businessmen who built hospitals, churches, libraries, schools and gave back to the country in spades.
Absolute chads.
It''s funny how large governments and regulation didn't stop the Monopolies we have right now from forming did they?
I'm always astounded that a murder can be this brutal and still go on for over 18 minutes.
Awesome video, i wish schools actually worked and teach kids about regulations and how they usually benefit the top dogs of any industry, making it harder for real competition to arrive.
Except schools aren't run for the benefit of students, or even parents. They're run for the benefit of the governments that fund them.
Fascinating! After seeing the steamboat story, I would be interested in the same sort of treatment given to the airlines deregulation in the 1980s, deregulation of electric power, (in Texas at least) and splitting up of the phone companies. When I lived through those events there was a lot of hand wringing and fear, but wow did the prices ever go down and did the services ever improve!
Compare and contrast with California's electric power "deregulation" which, when you look at the particulars, inevitably gave rise to Enron (and very much deserves the square quotes, since while it was a change in the regulations, it wasn't really a removal of them.)
"healthcare is expensive because of capitalism!!" Capitalism is when the government is the biggest actor in the market
Behind every "Monopoly" is a popular company and government enforcement that enables it.
Dial back that government enforcement and you'd see less monopolies, not more.
Cornelius ate their fries, sipped their shake and smooched their girls and made them watch.
I drink your milkshake!
Correction, the USS Monitor, the first ironclad built and used by the union navy, was built and sailed only 2 years after the Civil War began, and very shortly after the VIRGINIA, not the Merrimack, was built from the remains of the Merrimack.
( Edit for clarification, the USS Merrimack was scuttled then raised to become the Virginia)
Vanderbilt's story would make for a fun movie. Too bad it'll never be made. I wish Raz0rfist would give a reading list for redpill books sometime.
I know I try to write down books he mentions in the rants and I greatly appreciated it when he posted the books he read for the Lincoln Rant
@Mr Cliff do you have a list of the books you've wrote down so far?
If the government could be trusted I'd be ok with subsidies, problem is the only people that get into government are the ones who have no talents and morals.
I'm a libertarian by force. I want to trust my government but they make it impossible.
Cornelius Vanderbilt. What a fucking legend.
Razorfist, doing more educating than a lot of Professors out there.
Listening to Razorfist to learn real history that was omitted in my education last century is great. Keep it up.
As a fan of Gilded Age history, could you cover the political machine in regards to Tammany Hall's corruption in building the Brooklyn Bridge? It's another great lesson in government fuckery with infrastructure projects and a show of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
5:03
to quote the wikipedaia
When Vanderbilt returned from Europe, he retaliated by developing a rival steamship line to California, cutting prices until he forced Morgan and White to pay him off.
He then turned to transatlantic steamship lines, running in opposition to the heavily subsidized Collins Line, headed by Edward K. Collins. Vanderbilt eventually drove the Collins Line into extinction.
I'm no ancap either but there should be as close a separation of state and economy as state and church.
Finally, a rant I've been truly anticipating. Now people will realize the superiority of Parcheesi!
I get to be the top hat
@@jeremycarnes1656 there's no top hat in parcheesi jeremy
I want the car piece
@@letsgosteelers68 there's no "I" in "team" either but I still managed to make it all about me
@@letsgosteelers68 there is if you went to the same daycare i did when I was little damnit lol
I agree with pretty much all the points you're making! That's why it sucks that you used a screenshot of my profile when talking about "half-assed armchair historians" when my goal with that video was to shine a light on a fleet of ships that previously had not been discussed on RUclips. You misinterpreted the point of my video, especially the part where I explained how the government subsidies were one of the main reasons his, Arctic and possibly Pacific, were lost, and his over reliance on subsidies were the ultimate downfall of the Collins Line.
Since I was called out though, let me call a couple things out, too - Lusitania wasn't attacked because she was carrying ammunition on board; that was the convenient excuse Germany gave after the sinking because they knew at least the general public would somewhat sympathize. Also, the ship at 13:44 isn't the Collins Pacific; it's a different ship of the same name.
It wasn't really a "call-out". That was reserved for Bright Films, who I used a clip of in this video.
It was more to demonstrate that most videos dealing with the Collins Line simply omit the Vanderbilt Line from the history entirely. Something that your video most certainly did. Even though they - not Cunard - were the ones to put Collins out of business. Sorry you got lumped in, all the same. It wasn't an intentional sleight. I actually enjoy your videos quite a bit, and I dig that you covered the now-obscure Collins Line at all.
When I reference the Lusitania being made a target by their carrying of munitions, I'm referring to the fact that the Lusitania appeared in the German Admiralty's list of valid targets. Willi Jasper's book "Lusitania: The Cultural History of a Catastrophe" makes clear the manifest was information of which the German U-Boat captains, Schweiger included, were well aware. It's an interesting book.
Suggested reading for those who want to dig into this more: The Myth of the Robber Barons, by Burton W. Folsom. This is the real history of The Gilded Age.
5:54 I actually remember seeing and hearing this very line about Vanderbilt from a History Channel documentary I watched back in the early 2000s when I was in Nigeria. They mentioned how he got his early start and destroyed his competition by his business savvy and ruthless drive. He's pretty cool and I had no idea about his larger fight against monopolies and anti-free market forces.
Government is the only monopoly I worry about. I'd rather it be divvied up amongst organized crime groups. You know what actual criminals are gonna do.
Why criminals?
Monopoly originally meant a right granted by a king/state. It was only changed to imply "natural" monopolies recently after the natural monopoly theory gained traction. Turns out it's just a theory and natural monopolies are basically impossible. You have to use violence (the state) to acquire and maintain a monopoly.
Cornelius Vanderbilt is going to be one of the names I focus on in historical studies from now on, if a guy can beat competitors who were directly receiving large subsidiaries from the National Treasury with his own business and asset management... I want to know about Him.
Razorfist would you do a rageaholic cinema on jet li or Jackie Chan movies?
Yun-Fat and Yen first
What better way to learn about monopolies than a history lesson about shipping companies.
I hear there is a problem in the ports and unloading times too.
Time to bring back blimps/zeppelins and try to make them whales of the sky. Shipping big air style?
I wonder if that is feasible now. Instead of international waters, international sky and an air-airport. lol
Dream first, then think if it's possible. If it isn't, how could it be made to be possible.
The USPS, an industry owned by the US Government, actually used to be profitable on its own terms. Then the government started regulating it.
In fact, not only was it profitable, it also formed a union entirely on its own and had above average pay and benefits across the board while being the single most trusted part of the government by the populace in polls. This was despite the government already stepping in to stop it from flying its own planes because air lines were complaining they weren't able to make money off of it.
It is currently in shambles, and also currently experiences more government regulation and control than any other point in history. I'm sure these two facts aren't related in any way, shape, or form.
The Federal government did that to the USPS for retribution for the USPS strike in the 1970s and which they made the government look Stupid. And also typical of government it's working, self reliant, and profitable let's fuk it up.
Trying to run an economy off government funding is like trying to fill in a hole by digging out the sides.
These history videos of yours needs to be shown in every classroom across the country.
If it weren't for Government making certain companies monopolies we'd be living on the moon by now
There is a lot of irony in this post.
That and welfare was chosen over nasa funding.
ah well, I guess I can get the same effect by identifying as a Lunarian.
@@Andum48 in the same vein of jew/jewish?
iron, or just irony?
although i used "vein" i don't think there's jew ore, if anything an old WW2 hoax story about lamp shades would challenge too, i do know of a wood type called yew though,
Well we probably are, its just not for us peasants. We dont deserve to know such things
One Other tool in our arsenal is the Open Source projects especially in AI.
And Predictably The Big corpos are already clamering for regulation.
But This is probably one of the times were its already to late for them and the best part Its there own falt.
I am Currently running Large language models on a 450$ graphics card and they are good maybe not as good as GPT4, YET.
But good enough to get the job done and more importantly completely Free and Uncensored.
Monopolies: AKA markets so riddled with government regulations that only a handful of businesses with political connections can operate in them.
People don't realize that companies like walmart and amazon aren't monopolies, they're oligopolies.
The difference is that a monopoly controls the market while an oligopoly controls supply chains.
2 things.
1) I don't believe that there's ANY issue where government interference has helped. I've always believed in deregulation.
2) (and this is an aside) I don't understand why Tim Pool hasn't talked one iota about James O' Keefe's new story, as he claims to be a friend. This story is very important, and needs to be shouted from the highest mountains. Thanks razor for at least acknowledging it!
Finally, someone points out that the wild west wasn't wild and was much safer than it's presumed to have been.
I must say, I've really been enjoying these history-time rant videos. Hoping there's more where this came from.
TRUE history, as only Professor Razorfist can impart it. Keep 'em coming, Razor...we need all the truth we can get.
Last time I was this early, we still trusted government.
So, never?
Shit, when was that?
Lol you trusted the government?
First time, huh?
@@JaxMerrick That's the joke!
I'm a small business owner feeling the immense and unfair pressure .
Don't try to get into the alcohol industry unless your dead serious about seeing it through.
Government involvement results in higher cost, lower service, increased corruption, and decreased innovation.
Too big to fail is a ridiculous tern that has been spewed lately in regards to the economic woes of big corporations but too big to function is a term that should apply to our govt.
The Union Navy did in fact use the Vanderbilt. With her speed and large gun armament she was deployed into the Atlantic to search for Confederate raiders, in particular the Alabama, that were destroying Union merchant ships. She spent a year searching for the Alabama. A couple of times the Vanderbilt would arrive at a port the Alabama had left only a few hours earlier. She later took part in the attacks on Fort Fisher in North Carolina.
Exactly. Regulatory Capture is a booming business for politicians and keeps competition as low as possible in the economy. Most big industry CEO's love regulation as it guarantees them a healthy 8 figure salary every year due to an uninterrupted steady growth of earnings stream.
The CSS Virginia, unfortunately, only terrorized the Yankee Fleet in Hampton Roads.
Just to get ahead of certain people, the reason that passenger trains in the United States are so horrible is because of the 1971 abomination known as Amtrack. There is no incentive or desire to just make trains run better when most of the funding comes from you and I in tax money especially when most of the money goes to the line on the East Coast. In short, ending Amtrack might well make passenger trains better.