For profit companies are just plain bad for America, and today there is another example.  Turns out that hybrid sales are down, rather dramatically.   This is because hybrids are more expensive and gas prices are lower.  First, why are hybrids more expensive?  Because companies can charge more because these vehicles get better mileage.  Yet, isn’t Americans driving cars with better gas mileage good for America?  So, exactly why should should these vehicles cost more?  Answer — capitalism and greed.

However, when gas prices were higher hybrids were sold for thousands of dollars over the sticker price.   Why were hybrids even more expensive at exactly the time when people needed to be buying them.  Answer — capitalism and greed.   Thus, capitalism’s greedy mantra is resulting in exploiting ordinary Americans and causing exactly the wrong behavior.  America needs consumers to be buying the vehicles with the best gas mileage in order to use less fuel, and not be buying automobiles with poor gas mileage.  Does capitalism care about that?  Absolutely not.  Even if gasoline cost $10 a gallon, those vehicles with horrible gas mileage would sell for lower and lower prices while the cars with the better gas mileage would cost artificially higher prices.  Capitalism always exploits.

Further, companies making big profits never results in more employment.  It only results in better returns for  shareholders.  In fact, even extremely profitable companies will lay off employees in order to be more profitable.  These companies are never concerned about laying off people and the implications toward the overall economy.  For example, wouldn’t it be better if more people were employed and they would spend their wages on buying more goods and paying taxes? Of course, but this doesn’t matter to all the companies that want to make more profits.

Over and over again, capitalism’s greed interferes with people doing the right thing.  The greed advocates call it ‘supply’ and ‘demand’.  Instead, capitalism always leads to destruction, and government must assert itself to help people counter the greed forces of capitalism.  For example, it should be illegal to sell hybrids for above the sticker prices, vehicles with poor gas mileage should not have lower prices, and high mileage vehicles should never have artificially high prices.  All of these things require government to intervene, and the ‘private system’ will always do exactly the wrong thing.

Similarly, capitalism will lay off people in the name of profit at exactly the worst time.  When the economy is struggling and it is important to have as many people employed as possible, capitalism will conclude this is the time to cut back on expenses — like people.  These companies will cut back to the extreme.  So far that it will take government to create ‘stimulus’ in order to create jobs — jobs that the ‘free enterprise’ system could never create because they are too busy contracting.

Even when companies completely fail, it will be government that has to save them.  Had the government not intervened, then the entire U.S. banking system would have ceased to exist.  This would have resulted in millions of people being unemployed.  Plus, no credit would result in millions of others losing their job.  In the end the government was the only thing that could intervene.  Sadly, when government intervene they wanted to maintain the same old stupid system that caused the problem in the first place.  All the banks should have been nationalized and the ‘for profit’ completely eliminated.

Capitalism is a failure.  It is great at creating unsustainable ‘bubbles’ that ultimately collapse.  Capitalism is great at enriching a few at the expense of the many.  However, capitalism will never create a sustainable model without oversight — and government is the only oversight there is.  Capitalism will always have people doing exactly the wrong thing.   When things are in short supply, capitalism will punish the masses and favor the ‘rich’ — every time.  When products are plentiful capitalism will crush suppliers and government will have to subsidize in order to avoid supply destruction, like subsides for farmers which have gone on for decades.   The free enterprise system causes these anomalies and it is always government that has to intervene.

America cannot afford to have the boom and bust strategy when it comes to basic necessities — things that people require for basic living.  Sure, let it boom and bust for the latest ‘nice to have’ consumer electronic, but not for food, housing, utilities, health care, and transportation.   Basic necessities should all be nationalized and never let the greedy capitalists get their hands on that. It is inevitable, capitalism will be replaced.

Unfortunately, until things change there is going to be lots more pain.

America is doomed.