Why Capitalism is the Only Moral System - Yaron Brook Q&A Session

all right questions yeah what would you say what would I say to Bill Gates of that opportunity to talk to him stop listening to Warren Buffett I don't know if you know but Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have become very good friends and Bill Gates views Warren Buffett as a father figure and one bob is the second richest man in the world of the third which is something like that way and Warren Buffett is very very corrupt intellectually he is a student of a philosopher famous American faster than any of John wall's I know if you're familiar with John wall's so 1 Buffett's this is one Buffett's explanation for his wealth I got lucky I got lucky so he believes that it's luck and it wasn't anything to do with his ability you know his anything he doesn't believe in free will at the end of the day so he believes that he had the right genes the right parents and was born in the right century take advantage of those genes and those parents to make the money that he did right he didn't choose anything and Bill Gates as being very influenced like this and and WAMP of it as a consequence always advocates for higher taxes out of guilt of course he always finds ways not to pay them but he advocates for them and Bill Gates has learned from him so he used to be much better and and over the last 10 15 years he's been under Warren Buffett's influence and has become I'd say stop feeling guilty take pride in your achievements which I think he has any way you can tell he's got us he's got a certain vibrancy to him just like Steve Jobs used to have he got a sense that this guy he's knows some way but eat but at the same time he feels guilty split he's contradict there so what it what a shame I don't mean it anything what I'd really tell Bill Gates just thank you you know cuz whatever I pay for all the Microsoft products I bought all those years and it's not that much because I'm an apple guy happy since 1989 it was hard there were years where it was very hard to be an apple person um but I would say thank you because whatever I pay for those products it's a fraction of the value I got from them and I think if we all had that attitude and we told the the very successful businessman thank you I think the world would be a much better place my question is actually also about Bill Gates you were saying that if he wasn't focused on charity and he was just producing it was before he would be helping more people but isn't that just up to him and you're assuming that he feels guilty but maybe this is just what he wants you and he said I preface that by saying yeah I preface that by saying that when you watch him talking about his charity it's kind of okay when you're talking when you watch him talking about investment he lights up he lights up so I'm guessing I don't know him but I think it's a pretty good educated guess given the culture given everything and given the Justice Department went after him and given all the trials that his attitude is I need to do the charity to be to be a good guy but I love the investing and what I'm saying is drop the Unown guilt if you if you really did something bad you should feel guilty about it but if you did something good you shouldn't feel guilty about doing something good he feels it you can tell any speeches when he talks about it like warren buffett so yeah he's got a right to do whatever the hell he was with his money right he could burn it it's it's his money hey but there's an industry of political light and what I think is morally right and morally I think he's going to cry in a sense that he's not living to his full potential he's not doing what he really wants to do he's doing it based on a feeling of unknown guilt based on false morality yeah I'm going to go that way how do you integrate it's in there sorry how do we do with externalities like yeah the environment are like brewing so the primary way to deal with externalities is to internalize them the problem of externalities is that too much of our space is public but if everything was private and I like you know go all out say if the rivers were private then nobody would pollute them because nobody pollutes my backyard right because we have we have law that is well-established 400 thousands of years hundreds of years that says you can put your garbage in my if I own the river you couldn't pollute the river or if even if I owned a chunk of river this law that deals with all these things it's sometimes messy and complicated but there's a legal system exactly for that if a factory over here spews stuff into the air that I can prove causes me harm I'm getting sick I have legal recourse against them and if it's lots of factories clearly spewing out something that's causing harm to people and their lawsuits in this medical proof then sure the government steps in and bans that because the government's responsibility is to protect individual rights and if they'd violently my right by poisoning me then they need to stop right but that requires proof that real harm is being done to real individuals right and that's not what happens today what happens today is speculation about maybe this thing might one day be damaging to somebody and it would probably require precedent in a court of law where there's actually you show evidence and a court would afterward yes this is poison and then the government would take into account and maybe ban the product so that's how you would deal with the bit I mean honey let me let me say this and you guys are young and most of you you we live in the cleanest environment in human history we live longer Thea lives than any human beings have ever lived on planet Earth the air you breathe even in industrial Rotterdam is cleaner than the air your ancestors breathed on farms where there was horse dung and menorah everywhere and they couldn't afford to clean who could afford hood money to clean in London in the 19th century in the streets what do you think was in the streets in London 19th century was the main mode of transportation horses what did they ever been to Disneyland in Disneyland whenever parade of horses there's a guy on the back who runs after the horses and every time they poop he scoops it up and puts it in the bag right nobody scooped the list done and the streets of London it piled up which means the racks were there it was filthy and it's stunk and when we lived in caves we bunch would you think that smoke was good for you this is like amazing the air quality we have today do you know why Europeans drink beer because the water used to be so filthy that they couldn't drink water so they had to create a liquid there was not it was drinkable that did not have all the bacteria then what it did and you know why the Chinese drink tea because tea makes sure that you boil the water because the water wasn't guaranteed to be safe it was guaranteed not to be safe today you open the faucet and you drink at least in the West Wow clean water it's amazing right so stop worrying about the environment it's great it's doing really well in America the more trees now than there were 200 years ago and let me tell you this is it this is a simple economic truth you guys recycle paper everybody that everybody knows cycles paper I mean you a lot right you're killing trees the more you cycle the fewer trees there will be the more you cycle paper the fewer trees there will be now I know that's mind-boggling but think of it this way if we stop eating chicken tomorrow would it be more chickens in the world or less chickens in the world less cuz people would not farm chickens they would all die because we're not using them they wouldn't use them so when somebody goes into a plot of land and chops down trees right I usually do it I don't have a marker anyway somebody chopped down trees and they have to decide how many new trees the plant they look at expected demand for wood products in the future and if expected demand for wood products in the future is declining because of recycling they turn that land at the farmland or they build homes on it that they build a factory they don't plant trees but if they think demand for reward is going to increase in the future because when are recycling then they're going to plant new trees then they were there before every tree that shut down in a world that consumes wood a new tree is planet so the number of trees in the u.s. today is higher than it was 200 years ago cuz we consume more trees so what about the animal we know that over 60 because there's no private property in the Amazon nobody owns those trees nobody has an incentive to replant them because nobody can make a profit off of them and it's exactly this issue since they can't sell the trees what are they going in doubtful to use that land for something that they can make a living off of which is what farmland because they're starving because the the indigenous people who have been because of the states in Brazil they've been impoverished but imagine if those if the Amazon was privately owned then the private owner could decide what to do with it but if there was demand for trees which there is they wouldn't burn them down burning them down is a stupid thing to do it'd be more trees in the Amazon not less every time you use cycle paper you're destroying a tree i-it's not funny this is reality which nobody will teach you but this is economics 101 it's a renewable resource therefore it's the number of it increases as we use it more like chicken the more we eat there are more chickens there are in the world less wheat the fewer chickens are in the world you know you know they're trying to save elephants in Africa and I can traverse Kenya Uganda one of the places they're actually being successful in saving elephants are they doing it yeah providing and it's an economic incentive to have lots of elephants and one way is hunting there are other ways to do it but otherwise poachers go in and they kill the elephants illegally but they still do it you can ban the killing at all of its they still good but if you make it legal then suddenly people have an incentive to have more elephants and to save the elephants that's the reality elephants will disappear unless we privatize them yeah yeah you want spotted owls by some and by a forest and put them there now they'll be safe because their be yours and I won't have a right to take the [ __ ] you we know how to protect that right yeah and back thank you we get back to to Bill Gates once more oh sure what am i favorite topic and I was just wondering like you said like Bill Gates cute I changed a little possibly like four or five times yeah again look like if we incentivize or like enables 50,000 people by us charity to do the same like winning that provided by the result yeah but that's not the that's not what charity does what charity does what's that doesn't be yeah what does it then because like he is going to give like my donated numbers but thanks of thousands of people the newest devices and the newest like educational stuff just to to be able to your work with Deming create from there on like if he was investing his charity primarily in education I would agree with you I'd say yeah that's that's probably really good particularly he knew what he was doing which I'm not sure anybody does in education but if you knew what he was doing is creating entrepreneurs of the future sure but that's not what he's doing because that wouldn't get him the moral credit so that's a small part of what he does we are more credits he gets from doing what from flying to Africa and buying a malaria tents I'm not against that that's great these people will be dead if not for him good for him right he's helping tens of thousands but that doesn't change the world and the fact is that you want to see the next world changing technology it's in Silicon Valley it's in somebody your age starting a business that's going to be whether they call in their unicorns right the next year in a corner with it now you get that effect in education and I am a huge believer in privatizing education and getting entrepreneurs like Bill Gates engaged in it so that we can create so that more people have the tools to be able to create Microsoft's in the future absolutely that's a great investment but what he loves is finding talented people and helping them start companies and and create the next Microsoft and he'd be really good at it and it's a shame he's not doing more of that now I mean I don't argue about what Bill Gates you do with his life that's on my point my point is that he's not doing that for the wrong it's it's it's the unknown guilt is my point the tragedy of the fact that he feels uh known Gil what do you doesn't as money at the end of the day is Histories if he did it from purely the amount of guilt reasons then I mean if he if he decided to anything you know what I really enjoy going to Africa and and and helping these kids and I'm I'm really invested in this and I love these people and I want to help them and this is good then I would say good food Bill Gates but that's not the sense I get from him right that's not what he really wants to do okay so that may be finishing comes above like a result so what oh yeah no I'm all for your you know your selfish passion what is what is good for you not what is good for other people now if you do what's good for you if you do it's good for you rationally other people benefit I can't think of a profession in which but the standard is not other people the standard is you again you have one life on this earth make the most of it and making the most of it affects other people for the positive a society of selfish individuals is the most productive most wonderful society imaginable because everybody wants to deal with one another as traders win-win relationship so everybody's winning constantly or they don't deal with one of them or you walk away from the transaction and that's true impersonal like try try having a spouse and living your life with them on a win-lose relationship not gonna work very well love is the most selfish thing you will ever do in your life love is the most selfish thing imagine if it was selfless honey I'm marrying you tomorrow but it doesn't mean anything to me this is completely selfless you don't really make me feel that good I mean of course the reason you marry somebody is cuz they make you feel wonderful because they make you feel wonderful because they're adding value to your life more than any other human being on the planet that's love that's selfish yeah yes what is that movie does it only mean that being published yeah so it means that that the standard for morality is your own self-interest now that's not enough you have to articulate what self it just means you have to articulate a set of values and a set of virtues that match up if you think about what Aristotle did he tried to figure out this golden mean I don't really believe in that but you have to study it and you have to figure out the details I knew and does that and you know you could read that she's got a book called the virtue of selfishness where she does it and you can agree or disagree but the standard needs to be my life my flourishing as a human being and what are the virtues and values that lead to that I think I men's discovered them saved us a lot of work but instead of that the motivation being selflessness or running a mixture of the two in a why mix poison with good food I'm for good food and self-interest is good self being selfless is not good so what is well if it's rational if your what your desire is rational I mean it's a just look around you everything everything think of think of everything that works in in the city or even in this classroom and that was a rational mind that made them Essen Ali doesn't make any of this emotions doesn't produce a single thing in this room so human beings incredibly rational it's what makes us human not thumbs we are as Aristotle call is the rational animal that what's uniquely now the people act irrationally the people use the reason know if they haven't been talked to they don't expect it to because morality has nothing to do with how you live your life C minor Ali says if there's a commandment the commandment is think most morality say sacrifice enough to think to sacrifice sacrifice is easy so it's an emotion so M allow the a culture that is built around a morality that says reason is the most important thing in life think use your tool your mind elevates reason elevates thinking elevates rationality everybody can do it the question is does everybody do it and we need to make it important so that everybody does do it I think too many people don't use their mind and the sad thing about that is the life that they are wasting for themselves most people drift through life they're just cruise they're not happy not particularly unhappy they're just there and then look at that sake that's sad they could be you know really living I want you to really live it's fun and you only get one chance you don't get to what so make the most of it yeah love how do you think you can start something like that here in Europe because you know the United States morality more closer yeah it is a little bit clearer Europeans have a harder time although Eastern Europeans not so much because they know what the other morality taking the extreme is exactly like what it what it exactly means when when everything is shared and everybody is sacrificed they know what that means it's all about education it's all about talking it's all about writing it's all about speaking it's all about engaging with people there's no shortcuts in life there's no flip of a switch this is hard any intellectual battle is hard intellectual battle that's asking people to reconsider their morality after 2000 years of indoctrination very very hard even though Europe has abandoned the Christian religion it is embrace full heartedly the Christian ethics we are Europe is a Christian a continent in ethics and and what you're asking them is to give up on Jesus because I'm all ideal and I could say I can't say this in America because I'll Lynch me right this is advantage of Europe the mall idea we have is a guy dying the worst possible death imaginable this is like torture the worst torture you could imagine nailed to a cross not for sins he committed but since we do it that's really bad I don't like that so there's a lot a lot of work to do yeah yeah I've gotten more than okay probably right sorry yes but when they have a person who gets self-esteem and self-worth from achievement of stealing from others yep and the law says or Thomas Kelly yep is it moral to getting into prison yes absolutely so first of all if there's something wrong with this person he's abnormal he is he's sick in some way anybody who gets no it he's not being selfish and I explained why being selfish was primarily being rational and being rational means that like stealing and cheating does not provide self-esteem does not and you can read up in Psychology no this is this is not hypothetical when you read about our psychopaths people who lie steal and cheat and don't care right because I have know what people call consciousness they are miserable they are haters they don't enjoy life there's no you demon air there is no flourishing there is no happiness them as well pathetic human beings now in the movies we can create romanticized villains they're no romantic villains in real life villains are ugly miserable sad human beings that's because that's how we're built that's the nature of how human beings function it's because we rely on reason and if you don't believe me try it sometime and it has it's it's a is a this is the impact it has so now there are people who are sick that people enjoy you get pleasure out of torturing people and I consider them sick I could see them abnormal it's their responsibility of all of us to put those people away so that they don't hurt us the fact that they getting pleasure of some good thing is does not excuse our sacrifice in keeping them around so that they could torture house so you get rid of them you you put them in jail it's nobody would have qualms about doing that and you know it could be a mistake somebody could misinterpret like you do the selfishness means Langston you're cheating and they can go and do it I'm still gonna put them in jail I don't care if it's because they're bad people or because they misinterpreted you violate somebody else's rights you go to jail because rights are the fundamental principle which means no corrosion it's the fundamental principle in a social environment because that's the only way to protect the ability of good people to pursue their happiness to pursue the values that they have I don't care is my point no but I don't care if they get the pleasure but I also can tell I have the wisdom and I have the knowledge I'm a little older than you and I've seen the world and it does it does mean a lot actually because experience of life means a huge amount that's fine yeah I was when I was 24 I thought exactly like you do about about the fact that wisdom doesn't accumulate over time but it does it doesn't matter at the end of the day politically in terms of putting image L it doesn't matter whether they are happy or not if they violate rights they go to jail because my concern is with rational people and if he is interfering in the ability of rational people to they've realized by using force he goes to jail and but I can also tell you psychologically he's a miserable pathetic human being don't believe me that's fine I have no follow that um just an oscillation of two problems that the first four yes in the case of Enron I had the management of any one wasn't too unhappy with what they did or they were very little they were very unhappy but really they are billion yes so I don't know how I have you can be since when is money money a measure of happiness so let me give you an example that I know and we can talk about Enron too because I know a little bit about anyone as well Bernie Madoff everybody nobody Madoff then he might have created a pyramid scheme he stopped he stole this money he became very very walking off a billionaire but anyone guys what billion is there were hundreds of millions value it and he had this amazing pyramid scheme was living the good life and he was caught like all of them are caught like the any one guys were caught right and he says today in prison happier than he's ever been happier than he's ever been happier than much happier than he was when he was stealing the money why because when he's stealing the money a he had no self-esteem because he knew he was relying on deception in order to gain any kind of value which is the self-destructive but second he was constantly looking over his shoulder not because he worried about the police he was worried that his best friends would find out he was worried that his family was find out and indeed who discovered Brody made if it wasn't their stupid regulators who discovered Bernie Madoff his son who turned him in to the police and a year after son discovered he too committed suicide even after his son committed suicide he's still happier today in jail than he was before he couldn't sleep because he was constantly worried about being caught again not by the police by the people he was stealing money from he couldn't have a relationship with another human being why because he was like now I don't know how much a B this is an example of age right I don't know how many relationships you guys have had intimate relationships with other human beings sexual romantic and non romantic but if you lie that relationship will not survive not because the other person will catch it but because you can't look them in the eye because your relationship is built on a falsehood and you know it now the older you get the more relationship you have the more you can induce this particular truth one way in which we gain wisdom with age um but so money is nothing you know the Marxists believe that money is happiness money's not obvious I I could have got a PhD in finance I could have gone to Wall Street I mean millions of dollars I want to do that know what the money's not that important to me I'd much rather do this this is more fun than making money for me not for somebody else who each have our own values so I chose to be poor a poor a poor but then otherwise would be because of my values so it's not about money the N one guy's a they were caught they suffered enormously I know at least two of the guys but be these guys were using political types they weren't the kind of they didn't have the sense that you get from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or you know because they didn't create the world it was all haggling political haggling wasn't even business haggling you know it's like Donald Trump take out take a count example you look at Donald Trump can you say if Donald Trump has high self-esteem or low self-esteem very low very low why do you know because anybody criticizes him he's got like the thinnest skin if you have self-esteem and somebody criticizes you what's your response there's one of two options the person who criticized you is right and if he's right you should thank him because now you know better the second option is he's wrong and if he's wrong why do you care he's wrong not you you're right that's self esteem what do you have low self-esteem when somebody criticizes you you punch you in the nose that's the all Trump right now Donald Trump is no self-esteem he exudes this false confidence that that thin skin is an example of an unhappy miserable no self-esteem type of person you can tell these things about people it's not that hard and and you can see he's not a thinker I don't think he uses many of the cells inside them and it's partially why is low self-esteem yeah let's do that yeah why is inequality a bad thing I think any quality is wonderful think about what inequality represents right if we if you take a group like this group we're all different everybody in this room is different you go look different I'm sure you've all different talents and different skills you know you're gonna do things different it's how are you really teachers so you'll be great businesspeople some of you be great entrepreneurs you'll all be different some of you do technology some of you do healthcare I don't know right isn't that beautiful isn't that amazing and yeah you'll create different the world levels are well who cares what does that matter you're not stealing for one another loaf is created wealth is additive there's no fixed pie and if I get a big one you get a small one if I bake a big pie and you make a little pie why is that a bad thing and why do you have a right to take some of my big pie if I baked it it's mine so there's no social pie then we then divvy up is your pie in your pie in my pie in a pie that's the pies and we each have and we bake different flavors of pie different sizes apply different colors of pies like so my point my brother says inequality is a feature of freedom anytime you give people freedom they become unequal it's not a bug it's a feature so when we are poor when we're all equal when we want I'm free when you allowed us to be free we became all rich some richer than others wonderful as I said Bill Gates got seventy billion by making my life better I love billionaires who make it honestly I don't like the guys from Enron but I love billion is because they only way to make money is by making my life better that's great yeah because there are low yep there's never perfect information and one of the one of the beauties of markets is that markets work to reduce information inequalities so you get you get whole industries that are created in order to teach you about things that you don't know provide you information you don't know and when we you a strain markets we actually get more information asymmetries than when we allow markets to flourish but what do we do with people are not rational first we expect them to be rational see in the world we live in today we don't have that expectation I'm talking about a model expectation to be rational it's morally virtue to be rational but secondly if they're really not rational and I it depends on why they're not rational if they they really don't have the ability to be rational they're born with a defective you know or what do you call it now a challenge drain right they just don't have the IQ to be rational IQs a bad measure but whatever the number is whatever the measures then they're gonna rely on other people they can rely on charity they you know they have no choice they rely on other people anyway it's just in a welfare system we cause other people to help them and then a charity system people uh planned voluntarily and I think there's such a small number of those people that we would help them voluntarily because we're nice people the end of the day we're pretty benevolent selfish people are the nicest people in the world because you know what if I love my own self I love my life if I want the best life that I can have for me I look at you and I see reflections in a sense of me I see other human beings I love you guys because you have potential to make my life much much better some of you might kill cancer some of you might start a new business that's I will benefit from and even if you never did just the fact that you're alive is kind of cool there are other human beings out there I love it I mean we care about pets and plants we water the plan so we pet our pets hewing bees are much more interesting than pets we care about them a lot more so charity and this is again European thing Europeans don't do charity Americans are very generous why because the methods are free and the more selfish the more selfish you are and the more free you are the more charitable now if people choose not to be rational if people have the capacity but choose not to use it which i think is most people today that's their problem 99.999% of the people on the planet Earth have the capacity to be rational whether they choose to do it as a different question whether we incentivize them to do it is a different question whether we courage them to do it is different question but they have the ability to do it you don't need much and and and you know it's very demeaning to say all those people they can't think I can think but they can't think it's just not true people's like you for example changes over to over life up cultures affected but IQs not a good measure anyway I know people who measure low and IQ and a really smart so it's about do you engage your mind in dealing with reality and integrating the facts around you and everybody can do that again the different levels that's why some people really really rich and some people will be middle class some people realtively poor but in a free society people are relatively poor a relatively rich compared to any other society let's say the poor in America have air conditioning they have cars they have iPhones but they're poor because if you have a bell curve somebody has to be in the bottom 20% or the bottom 10% right but the bell curve is so far towards wealth did you know we have to go okay a couple of I haven't asked haven't taken any questions from here with any there weren't any oh okay yeah okay so you're next you go and then him there are many examples of the relatively free market doing very well why do you think that in the West were more moving away from a very capitalistic system of regulation for the reasons I my whole speech was about because we hold an ethical system is incompatible with free markets because we believe in the nobility of sacrifice and selflessness and we watch these businessmen and we say very model and we need to control them so it's not about the economics the economics there is no there's no question about the economics but it's about the morality we believe that people who are pursuing their own self-interest am all so we don't trust them we don't trust entrepreneurs we don't trust businessmen we want to control them we want to regulate all these measures are still fairly rational people so they should also say well you're making a weird assumption I I know a lot of politicians I've never met one who I would say was rational their power Luster's they want if people go into politics want to control you the kind of people we elect to politics so the kind of people want to control they want to manipulate they want to be overloads that's their psychology that's who they are that's right you don't you're drei way to meet a happy politician it's because when I'm motivated by by good virtues then are motivated by good stuff they're motivated by bad stuff know about power they're not about truth they're not about truth I don't know how politicians is about truth I mean it might be the exception stay here and they they're a few I'm not a big one Paul fan for a variety of reasons and I don't think you know if you look at politicians what they're about if you look at if you look at Hillary Clinton what did she want you what a power did she believe in anything really believe in anything no she won a power she loves the idea of being president of the United States and be able to pull strings and manipulate you guys that's what she that's what she gets her kicks out of not healthy kicks not happiness kicks you know perverted kicks hey and what is what is not a trump there's not a Trump you know what you see is what's this about this is about Trump being able to put his big name on the White House tiny thing honey hole climbing today is not about facts this stuff is not about Rapala station spending your money it's not about science say you know they're not interested in these things no that's what I tried to explain I tried to explain the selfishness is exactly the opposite of that selfishness is about being rational and pursuing rational values values that actually enhance human life and power does not power over other people does not enhance your life it actually makes your life worse not better power over reality over your reality being able to control your situation that gives you it gives you self esteem but if you are you are self respecting human being then you have to respect other people because other people need to be self respecting human beings as well having power over them is the meaning to them and by definition the meaning to you you can't have I can't say some respect is important universally but only I should have it that's not if you believe self respect is a universal value right reason is a universal value then you have to respect it in every human being around you and abusing other people undercuts your very argument about self-respect so you can't even respect yourself this is why people will power lustres again I'm not flourishing human beings yeah I respect them I leave them alone III just don't if they irrational they have no value to me because I not creating values right from side leaning alone I have no interest in it's not that I disrespect them aw yeah III do bad things to them I just they're not affecting me and and therefore I leave it alone but don't expect me to fund them don't take my money and give it to them right they choose to be rational fine let them go and live their lives so I'm not insisting everybody live like me I'd like them to I think it's good for you but you can live your life as long as you don't expect me to subsidize it I like you only let's take this and then we have to run oh my god a short a a short question yeah so uh I recommend you I mean a to bookseller c'mon what is my book called free market revolution another one is a book by John Allison um was it called you remember my name is a financial crisis on Ivar phonetically this is the outline this is a really quick outline what's that we all have events all these six incidents but here's the outline in 2002 the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan decides they don't want of a session they lower interest rate to below the rate of inflation negative real interest rates not today we think that's cool but in but but it's not good that created huge liquidity in the market lots of money slushing around artificially bubbly weight all of that money went into housing why did it all get into go into housing because the American government was heavily heavily heavily subsidizing housing through Freddie and Fannie and through the tax system and through the Community Reinvestment Act they were heavily subsidizing housing why did banks getting involved in really risky transactions that we're not going to last very long and they were going to lose money at some point because they had to fail so they knew that they would get all the rewards and when they failed the government would bail them out that's regulation that's a bad incentive and I could go on and on and on in the thousand different ways regulation caused this crisis there is nothing wrong with credit default swaps credit default swaps are fabulous they were abused they will abused because there was in said Basel - I'll give you an example Basel to waive credit default swaps ok credit default swaps example are wonderful instruments there's an insurance policy I've got a bond and I'm worried that there's some probability this bond will default because the company will go bankrupt I'll buy a credit default swap and if the bond defaults I get compensated for it nothing wrong with that they could have default swap market did not create the crisis it didn't cause the crisis didn't make the crisis worse I thought you meant the other one the knot the credit default swaps the collateralized debt obligations CDOs again there's nothing wrong with a CDO but they were done badly because there was an incentive to shovel out as many as possible because Freddie and Fannie will buying anything because they were being subsidized by their total by the gamma that they had to have I can't show up a certain percentage of all that you know low-income mortgages in the United States and so and every I can I've literally done a six hour or so in the financial crisis that I delivered every time you peel the onion on a different aspect of the crisis what you discover a bad incentives created by regulation bad regulations and in bad central banking and the other element is or what happened in no it is that the policymakers panicked Olson and Bernanke panicked and everybody saw them panic and they said if Olson abhinaya panicked that means the government doesn't know what it's doing that means we're in for a hard time and the market went like that it wasn't Lehman Brothers collapse that caused the market to collapse it was the fact that Olson went to Congress has said the world's gonna end unless you give me seven hundred billion dollars which in the law it says he can do whatever he wants with that's crazy so again there's a million examples of this but that's this the essential is government screwed up big time and that's the same causes the Great Depression if you go back to the Great Depression it was government to cause a Great Depression from beginning to end stock markets go down when stock markets go down a lot that doesn't cause a Great Depression unless the government reacted badly which is what the government did thank you I'll be this event will go to the Sports Cafe Gratitude rakes in to discuss this event furthermore I would like to say for starters that as potent of shoes for annuity this pitch will be our own ebooks necessary our own cube I think it's wrong smooth will do as well but we would like to have this discussion going on first of all thank you all for being at our first event and we delighted to see so many people interested in such a controversial topic it all started with folks at student solidity now you might be wondering what is rotterdam students for liberty so I'll give you guys a short introduction it's 20 promotes personal liberty don't fret empower students and social fence which I will talk about later and was not use for the VT is part of a global network which is called a cutie and they're actually three main principles that she tries to sell basically it's a social freedom which for example means that you can do when everyone to do without being constrained so say for example that to put two people to same sex should be able to walk hand-in-hand on the streets secondly intellectual and if you and lastly economic freedom for example new geriatric charity we should be able to pursue every job that was like without being constrained so students celebrity is a global network and has around 1900 local groups around the world every single Congress and must have students for liberty is one of them local groups and mr. celebrity actually provides a great opportunity which is called the leadership the local coordinator program and in local coordinated program they actually teach you leadership qualities and topics such as social change communication marketing activism really discussed in this English productive also from them you track me free to conferences which every local group of students ability organizes and in these conferences you will create a global network think about the same values the same interests as you have so others just limiting tries to focus on making academic events such as lectures debates and panels also I'm trying to leadership training as the coordinator program which you can apply Leadership Forum and some workshops and lastly the social events which are pub crawls weekend trips dinners so European students ability will also organize conference which you can pray and it's on 17th and then to watch so what is next we have a few events already coming up which is next week you'll visit the cinema to see the new movie not better even more and also again about the financial meltdown and you just ask the question about and will show here as well then bit nation which is a online nation without borders and I'm the person who made this site this is an absolute visit then worse than a confiscate and a free market bro show where there will be different panels and workshops talking about the world after Mexico from and much more so because we are a kind of a startup sort of Student Association we look for new people and maybe you can be thank you very much I am electronics I'm the president of the Jo dear Angus the Rotterdam range of the youth organization of the Dutch Louisville party I'm very proud where the work is resident students philippi on their first event organising great lecture by a young group whereas Rossum students for Liberty is dedicated to Liberty and concepts Jeffie lament is dedicated to influencing politics especially through influencing our model party one really important thing about our organization is that we are politically independent from our motor parts which means we can make up statements all the way we want which allows us to become sort of a moral compass for their politics and this can be quite handy because you know our little party can sometimes be quite conservative quite interested in more real politics instead of more Liberty minded to the issues and then the cost is paid off for our organization so for example in the 70s jod has allowed our country which was then ruled for mostly by Christian parties to institute this is first country in the world gay marriage is a legal thing nowadays we are slowly making moves towards convincing our model party to be legalized meet as a former that's progress we've managed to make some steps towards death the govt also is a very cosy organization I think we work Rosetta with some international people here no really implies to what we are about we have lots of drinks speakers will come to visit our city and talk with us these are often very prominent politicians like two weeks ago we had a Dutch former Speaker of the House Newt occur from miltenberg on miltenberg and in January we'll have to Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis and this is a really great opportunity to network with these people on a personal level because these people are often read and accessible we make them really approachable you're sitting in like this kind of setting with people are actually in power which is great networking opportunity I've seen lots of people have met internships or even jobs through these kinds of opportunities so to summarize it with the Jo VD he has to offer is or in-depth political activities great people to get to know I mean the staff is also a member so you get her into both the deals what we offer and we upgrade the networking opportunities within politics there's also another more external and more selfish reason we all love selfish things after this speech by a visit and this is what I built here this is the connect but it can give you all kinds of discounts in Rotterdam and bars clubs restaurants shops you name it normally it costs 15 euros if you become a member of the jury for just 5 euros we can give you one for free there is a limited supply so we quick about it if you want to if you want you to come remember if you are interested you can just speak to me here or drinks afterwards and or you can simply fill out one of these blue little portable shows you and will get you will get you going so there was most of my pitch I want to thank you very much for this thing and hope to see you very soon you

Channel: Rotterdam Students for Liberty

Views: 28,136

Rating: 4.7519875 out of 5

Keywords: capitalism, economics, philosophy, liberty, libertarianism, voluntaryism, ayn rand, erasmus university rotterdam, jovd rijnmond, ERA rotterdam, free market, trade, morality, individualism, students for liberty, european students for liberty, rotterdam students for liberty, lecture, q&a, yaron brook

Id: QNHjl6HkqAw

Length: 52min 45sec (3165 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 08 2017