WMN: t3_2kuu7n_t1_clqx6a8

[TITLE]

CMV: I believe society can put a cap on company profit percentages without being communist.

[b_art]

Or more laymen's terms: We can stop companies from making 1 billion percent profit, for virtually no reason, and without being "communist" as they say. Capitalism does not mean "con artist". Point being, I think it is vile and corrupt for someone to take a piece of sand and sell it to an unknowing person as a 5 lb. piece of gold. Who would do that you say? EVERYONE. The profits that most corps. make these days are insane, which is exactly why we have monopolies ruining the US and ruining the world. But in the midst of it all we have all these people (who I am struggling to not call idiots) who claim that putting a cap on profits would be "communist". How the hell is that communist? Especially in the face of this disgusting abuse of power? It's like saying "Let's not kill that guy running down the street murdering people at will, because that would be hypocritical" Wait, what?!? I'm not saying everyone should make the same pay, and I didn't say we should develop a damn cast system, I'm just saying cap these damn monopolies so they don't turn us into slaves, is that communist? I say not. You should say it's the opposite of communism. CMV! Edit: Also, I realize that this might be a bit of a rant, and if you have a suggestion of a better place to put this view, and/or if you have advice on reading material for this subject I greatly appreciate it (if that's allowed here, otherwise PM me). _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[ferrarisnowday]

I don't think this could be implemented. Let's say my company makes a $1B profit this year. The government considers that obscene and forcibly caps it at $100M. What do we do with the other $900M? Most likely the C-level execs and other higher ups would take it as salary, or it would be paid out to shareholders as dividends, or it would be otherwise hidden in the books somehow.

[b_art]

Yeah, I've pretty much given up on the profit cap at this point, but also glad that not everyone thinks I'm a communist just for trying to raise a progressive idea without much knowledge on the topic. My goal with this argument is to give more equal playing field to small businesses and start ups against mega corps. Perhaps I am wrong for believing that "there is only so much money to go around, and thus when big corps have all the money how can the small guy succeed?" but isn't it true? Amazon can advertise and market all day long with their capital, if I wanted to make competition for Amazon I would have a long, long road ahead of me, but not just because of their experience in that industry, because I could never beat them in marketing schemes, the ability to pay more for better staff, etc. It's all a matter of their capital wealth beating out the competition. Isn't that the same result as a monopoly? So how do we solve that problem and give others a chance to compete?

[ferrarisnowday]

I think the reality is somewhere between the two extremes. One extreme is thinking that a completely Laissez-faire market is the best option, and the other is that money and capital are zero-sum games, which is what you seem to think. Money could indeed be a zero sum game, but wealth and capital are not. For example, I am sitting around watching football all day, producing nothing (other than acting as a consumer by viewing ads). I could be out in my garage making a birdhouse or working a sidejob as an interior decorator or any of thousands of other things. That would be producing capital that did not exist before. The whole economy is greater than the sum of its parts (i.e. a bird house is worth more than the materials it's made out of). I'm kind of rambling here, basically my point is just that I don't think either extreme is true in reality. FWIW, Amazon as a company is only 20 years old. They weren't always the behemoth that they are now -- they overcame the very same obstacles that you are upset that they create for others now.

[irdiozon]

What exactly do you want to cap, and how do you want to cap it? When you say 1 billion percent, do you mean their rate of return compared to their business assets? If so, then an author who uses only a cheap computer can only make a small income. A painter can only sell their product for some multiple of the price of their brushes. Or do you mean markup on goods? If so, then how do you account for value that the seller adds, like combining and cooking ingredients or delivering a product a thousand miles from its source? Or selling services? Or do you mean the total amount of profit allowed per company? If so, then corporations that have a million shareholders will have no more dividends to pay than corporations with a thousand shareholders. If someone is selling sand and claiming that it's gold, that's fraud.

[notian]

If you put a cap on how much companies can make, you also have to put a cap on how much they can lose. The profits companies make are not in a vacuum. For example, in the tech world, for every Facebook there are 1,000 startups that took in millions of dollars in financing from the same investors that gave Facebook money, and pissed it into the wind. The profits are often offsetting losses elsewhere.

[natha105]

The problem with your plan comes down to the impact it will have on businesses. First profit is a concept that is difficult to nail down. There are a million ways to manipulate a company's profits (look at amazon which chooses to invest in itself instead of booking a profit). If you tried to cap company profits you would only be encouraging companies to play games with their revenues in order to ensure they fell under that cap. You would not cause them to change their fundamental business practices however. There are a lot of people (some very smart ones included) who think you can simply change the world by fiat - you cannot. Attempts to do so result in destructive unexpected consequences. Good governments attempt to guide the flow of capitalist efforts into productive and ethical pursuits by making some courses of action less attractive. Bad governments attempt to dictate how the economy will work and you might as well attempt to tell the ocean what color it will be for all the good it will do you.

[b_art]

∆ Good response. As with many other good responses I got here. I now think the problem lays more within taxes and/or compensation within the company, or maybe something else I can't imagine just now. To be clear, my rant is based on the difficulties new companies and small businesses face when competing against large corps and chains who have tons of capital and power. I find this unfair to start up businesses, and I think it is the same as a monopoly, because the point behind banning a monopoly was to allow competition... but not just competition from other wealthy and powerful people. Does that make sense? I think the point of banning monopolies was to help create a fair play field for all companies who can provide quality business to the public, thus increasing the demand for good products and competitive business while leaving freedom for workers to choose their company of choice based on personal and ethical goals as opposed to "which company has the money". It's an exhausting topic, please excuse me if I'm adding more confusion.

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[natha105]

thanks for the delta. But one thing to consider is that big companies have smaller profit margins than small ones. the companies you hear making huge ROI's are the small ones that have found a unique market niche. Bit companies turn big profits but in terms of a % of the company they are lucky if they are making 10%.

[Kman17]

I think you're mixing a few issues. The profit motive is good at creating efficiency and superior products for consumers *as long as there's competition & choice*. If there is no competition and no choice to purchase or not, it can rapidly become exploitative and destructive. That distinction is the case for nationalization and government (or hybrid public-private) running of the industry. You don't want people profiteering off of pain and death (war, health care, etc) - it generally creates the wrong motives. You don't want to create barriers to people advancing their opportunities (transit, education). You don't want basic resources (utilities, telecommunications) to be an unreasonable barrier to spending/investing elsewhere. The US has an unreasonable fear of "socialization" of a few of these industries and needs to learn a little bit from Germany / Scandinavia. But, presuming there is healthy competition and none of those motive issues at play, it's generally healthy to consumers. Plenty of companies make their money on high margin goods, which is *totally fine* for luxury items that you don't *have* to buy. So what if a high fashion house or high-end manufacturer charges you far more than the cost to assemble the item - you don't *need* it and can buy it from a commodity maker instead. Your choice to buy or not corrects their pricing. Yet you can have large companies with healthy competition that are good for consumers, but most of the profit is taken by the *very* top while wages for the average worker stagnate. That issue is best corrected by taxing the wealthy *individuals* at progressive rates, rather than the company itself. You don't want to un-incentivise the company from investing / hiring / etc, but instead limit short term greed by top exes and incentives them to plan for long-term health of their company. Increasingly high tax rates on the wealthy (that scale up & down according to amount made) mean diminishing returns on the amount they take for themselves - but doesn't ever eliminate the motive and ability to make more $. That money that's taxed at higher rates means more $ for education / infrastructure. It also corrects the inherent unfairness of the fact that it's easier to make more money once you have a lot of money. The first million is by far the hardest to make.

[b_art]

You hit a lot of the points that I actually had in my heart for this topic, thanks for being able to keep on track. If you have a bit more global experience and global view than you know that firstly, my rant here is a bit against the "old school American" who just screams out "Commie!" every time something of control or balance is suggested over any financial endeavour. And while as an American myself, I think this irrational fear creates a huge gaping hole in common sense which allows for possible further corruption, which was usually the reason we made business laws to begin with. Corruption vs. Healthy Economy. Perhaps my plight isn't with the companies' ability to profit themselves, but the compensation given back to the public. Like many here said already, if someone is willing to buy sand for the price of gold then so be it, but a problem remains when that "sand seller" is profiting like crazy off of the needs and/or ignorance of others, and then only to take the profit they've made and use it as a power device to control the public. Because as we all know, money is indeed power, and power corrupts. I believe that money is not the only form of power available to us, but really how much can you achieve against a plutocrat when you have 2 dollars left in your account at the end of each pay cycle. "The first million is hardest to earn", also a perfect example of what I am worried about. I am a business person myself and I find it extremely difficult to get by sometimes because of the economic situation. There is Problem A where your average person or company can not afford my prices because they are not paid well themselves, and Problem B where the competing company is, well, capitalizing on the situation. Small businesses suffer today. Will capping large companies help this? I guess not as you described it here, and thus you have actually CHANGED MY VIEW in that regard. Good work. And I'm happy that I'm not a full fledged communist for simply having some type of progressive idea, albeit wrong... but I'm trying. ∆ So what about raising minimum wage instead of just raising taxes. Does that not help the middle and lower class to support each others' new business endeavours and raise competition. Throughout my argument, I believe the overall meaning is this, to give MUCH more pressure to bigger corporations and thus making "the first million" a more achievable goal to the general public. Since this is currently not true, can you not say that WE ARE living in a certain state of monopoly? OK, so it's not textbook definition, but the resulting economic scenario is so close to the same scenario we were trying to avoid by banning monopolies, thus, isn't it just the same crime? So perhaps a combo of raising taxes for bigger companies and enforcing higher compensations to staff would help to balance? I don't know... maybe I'm lining myself up to be called a communist again.

[Kman17]

[STA-CITE]> So what about raising minimum wage instead of just raising taxes? Does that not help the middle and lower class to support each others' new business endeavours and raise competition? [END-CITE]Raising the minimum wage is fine and certainly better than nothing, but it does always kinda feel like a band-aid than fixing root cause. I mean, on one hand we have a lot of people just *barely* scraping by on unlivable wages - yet at the same time we have a major talent shortage in high-tech fields. I mean, it costs 80K to higher a programmer *straight out of school*.... which will sound obscene to some folks reading this, and totally not shocking to others. That points to a major problem with the poor not having the means to educate and advance themselves. If the time/cost of higher education is daunting, one is indebted to health care costs, and transit (your car, gas, etc) is to high on minimum wage... what would we have to rase the minimum wage to in order to get people the appropriate tools for advancement? Probably more than $10, $15, or even $20, unfortunately. I think it's hard to push all of those costs to the employer by artificially raising the price of a job. It then becomes optimal for the business not to hire. But if society as a whole (rather than individual employers) subsidize the costs of that stuff directly through taxation, then it again becomes optimal for the business to hire the person. In other words, properly socializing education/public transit/health care removes the obstacles that *necessitate* a minimum wage. If those three things were largely taken care of, would we be having a minimum wage discussion at all? Probably not. Minimum wage is just easier for the government to get passed. It's better than nothing. Also, I'm not sure why you're afraid of sounding like a "communist". I hear people talk like that *all the time* - but I do tend to spend the vast majority of my time in Boston & the West Coast. We've let the far-right vilify terms like liberal or socalized. Don't. Wear them proudly.

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[piepi314]

It's not about being communist, it's about whether or not it really serves a positive purpose. What's wrong with people buying something at an agreed upon price, regardless of the profit? People are willing to spend what they feel a product or service is worth. Sometimes that means the profit margins are huge and sometimes it means they are small. For example, you can easily pay $5 for a bottle of water at a sporting event that costed the stadium a dime to purchase. You pay for the convenience. In financial terms, the seller doesn't have to spend any more money, in this instance, to sell convenience, but the buyer is willing to pay for it. Why not allow that to happen? It can be incredibly difficult to determine how much a product costed a seller. Sometimes the costs are in research and development. For example, drugs and medicine often cost very little to manufacture. However, the research and development of these products takes long and costs a lot. As a result, we experience huge markups beyond the manufacturing cost. Also keep in mind, many of the so called "evil" corporations that you would want to protect society from actually function off relatively small profit margins. For example, stores like Warmart receive a lot of hate, but they have incredibly small profit margins. It really all comes down to what people are willing to spend. If I want to purchase something for $10 even though it only costed 5 cents to produce, why not allow me?

[BigWil]

So what exactly is it you're saying we should do? put a cap on how much a company can make?

[Raintee97]

You example isn't capitalism, it is simply fraud. You can't sell a five lb. bag of sand as gold. You can sell something for what the market will bare. There is a major difference between those two concepts.

[RuroniHS]

[STA-CITE]>Point being, I think it is vile and corrupt for someone to take a piece of sand and sell it to an unknowing person as a 5 lb. piece of gold. [END-CITE]And I think it is utterly idiotic not to know the difference between sand and gold. I cannot excuse consumers for their ignorance, especially in this era of easily accessible information. [STA-CITE]>The profits that most corps. make these days are insane, which is exactly why we have monopolies ruining the US and ruining the world. [END-CITE]A company making a profit does not lead to a monopoly. All companies but one failing or being bought out leads to a monopoly. Out of curiosity, which monopolies are you referring to and how are they ruining the world? [STA-CITE]>How the hell is that communist? [END-CITE]Well, I don't see it as communist unless excess profit is still allowed to be charged, but is subsequently taken by the government and distributed throughout the society. However, people would object to profit caps because it stifles the free market. In particular, this would be detrimental to small business owners; while large corporations can afford to take a profit hit in certain areas, small businessmen are greatly effected by even small losses. After all, mega-corps can close a store or two; the little guys only *have* a store or two. From this perspective, profit caps could actually *cause* the rise of monopolies as it wouldn't give the little guys any opportunity to get ahead. [STA-CITE]>It's like saying "Let's not kill that guy running down the street murdering people at will, because that would be hypocritical" Wait, what?!? [END-CITE]I'm not willing to say that accepting money that is willfully offered for a good or service is akin to mass murder. [STA-CITE]> I'm just saying cap these damn monopolies so they don't turn us into slaves, [END-CITE]Do you know the best way to cap company profits? *Stop buying shit!* I know this is an inconceivable notion for many Americans, but the real reason that our corporations are making "billion percent" profits is because our society is pathologically consumerist. We are people that want shit and want it NOW! More money = more better and we gotta look good in our fancy sports cars that can go 250 mph even though the highway speed limit is 55 mph. If consumers wanted to put a profit cap on corporations, they could do so in an instant simply by closing their wallets.

[caw81]

[STA-CITE]> We can stop companies from making 1 billion percent profit, for virtually no reason, and without being "communist" as they say. [END-CITE]There is no company that makes 1 billion percent profit. You have to give an actual number and define exactly how you would measure profit. By limiting profits as a percentage you limit what capital will go into risky companies. "I am limited to 5% return in this small but risky drug company producing new cure. But I can put it into a bond which gives me 4% with no risk, so why invest in the drug company? By limiting profits as a percentage you limit what companies are willing to do. "Once we reach the maximum profit in a year why should my doctor's office, the only one in town, remain open after June?" (If you charge 10% profit in the first 6 months, you can average out 5% profit in the full year, which is the limit) By limiting profits as a percentage you hurt poorer shareholders who haven't saved enough but rely on the returns to live off of, e.g. retired people have to live off of 5% return instead of, say, 8%. By limiting profits as a percentage, it still might be expensive to the consumer. Lets say you have an apartment for rent and the owner can only charge 5% over expenses. Someone rents it then subleases it for 5% over the 5% over expenses. This continues a few more times until the final person living in the pays 25% over the owner's expenses. These middle men even be the owner's wife, son, friend etc, and so effectively negates your intentions.

[angrystoic]

It sounds like you just agree with the principles of communism, and that's OK, no one is going to hate you for it (well, maybe some will). What you've done is present a fairly unconvincing argument to support the idea that profit caps are a good idea, but you haven't done anything to prove why it's not communistic. You need to be more clear about what you're arguing.

[b_art]

For starters, a lot of people can't wait to scream out "commie!" in a way that just feels so sweet, just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? In the same way that "bastard" or "jerk off" do when you are angry. And likewise, without having a second thought of what the actual words coming out of your mouth are, and also as so frequently, not even sure exactly why you were angry. Just good ole' fashioned abuse. rub the belly, feels good... So after understanding what communism actually is, having lived in a country restructured on communism and seeing what horror it can create... and perhaps even reading up a bit on words like "socialism" and "totalitarianism" and then knowing the difference between the actual meanings of these fancy words... you suddenly might come to realize that putting a cap on greedy controlling monopolies might be the type of change that we need, and furthermore - Has absolutely nothing to do with communism! A true Communist completely tears apart anything that enables a person to do private business, they enforce operation with complete selfless abandon to "the community". I was merely talking about a profit cap... mostly for greedy monopolies. See the difference? I think a profit cap would help put a leash on extremely greedy and power hungry people who otherwise don't see the difference in stifling several generations of potential genius and innovation. Because they only allow it to happen "under their terms", and not all people get along in the same way, so this really stifles things when so much is encompassed under one monopoly. Ultimately, this type of "extreme capitalism" ends up being worse than the communist it hated and tried to avoid. Better than modern socialism? Sure, much less corrupt I guess. But that doesn't mean you can't improve it.

[angrystoic]

I think there's an important distinction between the words "communist" and "communistic." Of course this one policy of profit caps does not make you a communist if you support it, nor does it make a society a communist one for enacting it. But I think you could say that it is "communistic" in the sense that it is a policy that seems to be in line with the principles of communism. As for the merits of a profit cap, I'm not sure I agree. A better approach might be to stimulate competition by addressing the barriers to entry issues, by regulating transparency, etc. It does seem a little "communistic" to give a government the power to tell a company that they can't operate freely, or otherwise to appropriate all profits beyond an arbitrary cap. I think everyone agrees that monopolies are bad-- but they are also essentially illegal. There is competition law, there are regulations to prevent this-- but to forcefully impose a limit on how much profit a company can make will present a lot of practical as well as ideological problems.

[BigWil]

there are virtually zero monopolies currently

[deRoussier]

Instead we have cartels, which doesn't just mean Latin American gangs, it means a group of companies working together to form what is essentially a monopoly. Think american internet companies. They can all suck and overcharge because they all suck and overcharge, and they can lobby any new competitors out of the market. I would be surprised if they weren't communicating about price fixing, etc.

[b_art]

Although I know I'm ranting a lot in this argument, I have to say thank you for pointing this out. Too many people are twisting my meaning of "monopoly", which is just ridiculous semantics, like worse than grammar nazis during a heated debate. The point is that smaller businesses and individuals are stifled from starting up their own businesses, as far as I'm concerned, that is the exact same ends of "monopoly" which such means have been banned legally. So giving it any other name, or swapping the strategy doesn't help the problem. Now I might be wrong in my argument, but thanks for support on this one semantic item.

[Gekko_the_Great]

[STA-CITE]>Point being, I think it is vile and corrupt for someone to take a piece of sand and sell it to an unknowing person as a 5 lb. piece of gold. Who would do that you say? EVERYONE. [END-CITE]Caveat emptor or as my namesake would say: "*A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place*."   [STA-CITE]>The profits that most corps. make these days are insane... [END-CITE]I'm sure the people who have those companies as part of their holdings, or their IRA's or 401ks, and who are counting on them to continue doing well so that they can retire one day, would disagree with you.   [STA-CITE]>...which is exactly why we have monopolies ruining the US and ruining the world. [END-CITE]No, we don't.   [STA-CITE]>But in the midst of it all we have all these people (who I am struggling to not call idiots) who claim that putting a cap on profits would be "communist". How the hell is that communist? Especially in the face of this disgusting abuse of power? [END-CITE]Because it's almost straight out of Bourgeois and Proletarians, which is the first chapter of... you guessed it: "*The Communist Manifesto*"   [STA-CITE]>It's like saying "Let's not kill that guy running down the street murdering people at will, because that would be hypocritical" Wait, what?!? [END-CITE]To which I reply: "Wait, what?!?"   [STA-CITE]>I'm not saying everyone should make the same pay, and I didn't say we should develop a damn cast system, I'm just saying cap these damn monopolies so they don't turn us into slaves, is that communist? I say not. You should say it's the opposite of communism. [END-CITE] Frankly, I'm not sure you have an accurate understanding of what a monopoly is; capping its profits wouldn't change anything, as profits have nothing to do with whether or not something is a monopoly. This is to say nothing of the fact that capping profits would suppress competition, which would, in turn, lead to the *creation* of monopolies.

[b_art]

I know the communist manifesto, albeit boring, I've been through it, and I get the point. But at what point do I say anything that sounds like I am attacking the bourgeois with a sickle? I just said cap them. A nice fancy little cap or hat would do fine. No need to chop the heads off. Very, very far from that. A cap, sir. Let's see about my understanding of monopoly: [STA-CITE]>noun: monopoly; plural noun: monopolies; noun: Monopoly > > 1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. [END-CITE]Hmm... yup, same as when I first read it in 5th grade. Good ole' education... This is exactly the type of miscommunication I was talking about actually. I really don't understand how you make these mental leaps that turn me into a hell raiser. I somehow suspect that it is those who profit off of "said system" that do mental gymnastics to make me look like an ass, when in fact, I am sincerely trying to help and/or understand myself what would be a better tomorrow. Do you think we have no room for improvement? How about a nice cap? You'd look good in it I bet!!!

[gamwizrd1]

I'm not sure if you're using "communist" correctly. Or otherwise you are mocking people who use it incorrectly? Either way, yes, putting a profit cap would not make us communist, because of the definition of communism. I'm not saying you're view is wrong or right, but that sentence is true.

[Gekko_the_Great]

[STA-CITE]> I know the communist manifesto, albeit boring, I've been through it, and I get the point. But at what point do I say anything that sounds like I am attacking the bourgeois with a sickle? I just said cap them. A nice fancy little cap or hat would do fine. No need to chop the heads off. Very, very far from that. A cap, sir. [END-CITE]And I quote: "*How the hell is that communist?*" That was your question, and I answered it. It's communist becomes it comes straight out of the communist "owner's manual".   [STA-CITE]> Let's see about my understanding of monopoly: [END-CITE][STA-CITE]> noun: monopoly; plural noun: monopolies; noun: Monopoly [END-CITE][STA-CITE]> the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. [END-CITE][STA-CITE]> Hmm... yup, same as when I first read it in 5th grade. Good ole' education... [END-CITE]So apparently you weren't very good with reading comprehension back then, as nothing in that definition mentions, or has anything to do with, profits.   [STA-CITE]> This is exactly the type of miscommunication I was talking about actually. I really don't understand how you make these mental leaps that turn me into a hell raiser. I somehow suspect that it is those who profit off of "said system" that do mental gymnastics to make me look like an ass, when in fact, I am sincerely trying to help and/or understand myself what would be a better tomorrow. [END-CITE]I think you're replying to the wrong person here, because I have no idea what you're talking about.   [STA-CITE]> Do you think we have no room for improvement? How about a nice cap? You'd look good in it I bet!!! [END-CITE]What you're talking about isn't "improvement", it's a step backwards into a system that doesn't work; if you really wan't a "better tomorrow", capping profits isn't the way to do it.

[Atheia]

This is why socialists are looked so down upon in the US. Because many of them have no idea how capitalism works. It was a pain to read this thread.

[Madplato]

[STA-CITE]> That was your question, and I answered it. It's communist becomes it comes straight out of the communist "owner's manual". [END-CITE]I'm not sure where Marx and Engels advocate for capped profits. That would've been weird, seeing as they considered most (if not all) form of profit illegitimate exploitation of the workers, which they wanted to emancipate. I doubt they ever considered "controlled exploitation" to be a better deal. Besides, profit is completely removed, not limited, from any configuration of "communism" you can find. As such, the idea of "capped profit" is completely unrelated to communism in any shape or form.

[man2010]

By limiting the amount a company can profit, you are limiting the amount of motivation companies will have to develop the best products. For example, if Google had its profits limited then do you think they would bother enhancing things like Android OS, or developing things like Google Fiber or Google Glass? If Google wasn't able to make insane amounts of money what motivation would they have to develop the products that they do which are used by hundreds of millions if not billions of people? [STA-CITE]> Point being, I think it is vile and corrupt for someone to take a piece of sand and sell it to an unknowing person as a 5 lb. piece of gold. [END-CITE]If someone is willing to buy a piece of sand for the price of 5 pounds of gold then why shouldn't someone be able to sell it to them for that price? [STA-CITE]> The profits that most corps. make these days are insane, which is exactly why we have monopolies ruining the US and ruining the world. [END-CITE]What monopolies are you talking about? [STA-CITE]> But in the midst of it all we have all these people (who I am struggling to not call idiots) who claim that putting a cap on profits would be "communist". How the hell is that communist? Especially in the face of this disgusting abuse of power? [END-CITE]I'm not sure about communist, but it would certainly stifle innovation. Unless you can find a better way to motivate people than money I don't see why companies would bother developing innovative products if they're limited in how much money they can make from them. [STA-CITE]>It's like saying "Let's not kill that guy running down the street murdering people at will, because that would be hypocritical" Wait, what?!? [END-CITE]What? How is this comparable at all? You're going to have to explain this a little more.

[b_art]

Thanks for a good response, as well as the other good responses coming in here. I see Google as a mesh of subsidiaries and it's hard to pinpoint a phenomenon like that. But we can say that Google has just as many endeavours (if not more) go out of business as they do succeed. What's to inspire them to provide so much more? Well how about "making money" ...? People need to pay rent, eat food? Isn't that the reason we work? I mean "honest work" of course though. My point is that once you've made enough money to take care of yourself and your wildest pet dreams for 1 million lifetimes over... isn't it time to put a cap on it and "share the opportunity" a bit? Actually Google would be the best example of Monopoly Gone Mad. As much as I love and respect Google, they do buy up anything that looks like competition, in a world where "software and technology" can mean anything from a spaceship to an ink pen. Yes, If someone is willing to pay 5 lb of of gold for a grain of sand, and they have the money, good on them, and better on the sand salesman. But when it seems forced, e.g. The Infamous Comcast, then do you not pity the purchaser? What companies? Perhaps I should say industries even... Start with human needs. Housing, Food, Medical, Dental... all outrageous when compared to average income. Then move into luxury items, same deal. The ends don't justify the means, and it gets harder and harder for an average person to open an honest business against chains and corps. Stifle innovation? I am on the shelf with your comment here, it's well put. However let me play devils advocate and suggest that "Intellectual Property Stifles Innovation", a topic frequently brought up and I believe to be true. Here you see the divide between "the profiteer" and the "the innovator". Point being, innovators NEVER stop innovating, regardless of money, they are like artists. It's the people "profiting" off of others innovations who would feel stifled. Which brings us back to the corruption and greed which I was defying to begin with. If innovators had more business leeway and less intervention from corps, they would be creating at a level far beyond what you see now. Start up capital is what's stifling inventors, and that start up capital is in the hands of the sand salesman right now. The snake oil salesman who fooled us into thinking we needed this product even. My last analogy there does need a lot of explanation I guess. Unfortunately, novels of explanation. Starting with the keywords "corruption and greed", moving on to "totalitarianism" and other like anti-democratic phenomenon which we learn to accept as the norm. My point would be, if you could see these "monopolies" (which is still a bad word in American English as far as I know, and illegal) as being the rampaging murderer, and common business people as the people on the street watching the murderer. ... Why are they not stopping this madness? A monopoly is an abuse of power, it bottlenecks the economy and creates blatant totalitarianism! Now back to my topic "Is fighting against this monopoly communist??" If you think so, you also think we should stand by and let the murderer have his way, because you don't want to cross that highly ethical line of hypocrisy.

[skatastic57]

This idea that innovators innovate regardless of money is not supported by evidence. Look at the Soviet Union, what innovations came out of communist Russia? What innovations are coming out of China? Sure they have lots of cheap labor and are (kinda) good at copying but what innovations are they putting out the world? The fact is that big innovation take teams and those teams need to be paid. You think any person has the ability to innovate the next generation of smart phone out of their garage? I don't think so, technology is too specialized and too precise to rely on the passionate inventor toiling for peanuts because he loves what he does.

[Sythin]

[STA-CITE]>isn't it time to put a cap on it and "share the opportunity" a bit? [END-CITE]Share the opportunity? We have that and it's called taxes. SO why would you cap somebodies profit and tell them to share it? Wouldn't you want them to have more revenue so that they pay more taxes and thus redistribute more wealth? I'm not really buying the sand/gold argument. I believe that everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for but I see your argument of it being forced. But I fail to see how profit caps would solve this problem. Shouldn't your frustration be targeted at laws regarding the definition of monopolies or false marketing. [STA-CITE]>innovators NEVER stop innovating, regardless of money [END-CITE]Except for all of the instances where their project costs millions or billions of dollars to create. Where will a person/company find the money to create a new factory or hire more designers and engineers to create a new product? Should a person who invested a lot of time and money into a product not be entitled their money? Let's say I build a machine for $1,000,000 and 1,000,000 people want it for $10 per machine? Why should I not be entitled to $10,000,000 (minus taxes)? It's my idea and I paid for it's design and production? My main argument against yours is that I don't believe a profit cap (which I'm not sure if you mean profit margin cap or profit cap) will accomplish what you want without destroying our current economy.

[man2010]

Lets continue to use Google as an example. If the original creators of Google had their profits capped, all Google would be is a search engine. There would be no Android OS, Google Chrome, Google Fiber, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc. The original creators could live off of the money they make from Google's search engine, so why would they bother putting in the effort to make any of this other stuff if they could continue to live comfortably off of their original creation? Continuing with this, I would hardly call Google a monopoly. What are they a monopoly of? They directly compete with Apple and Microsoft in many areas, as well as other electronics companies like Samsung, Motorola, Sony, etc. If Google Fiber continues to expand then they will be competing with ISPs. They compete with Mozilla with Google Chrome, and even compete with Facebook and Twitter in the social media market with Google+. How exactly is Google a "monopoly gone mad" when they have competition in every area of their business? I'm still unsure of what monopolies you're talking about that "run the world" because you haven't given me any examples. Are you talking about Comcast? Google? A different company? What monopolies run the world like you claim? Innovators need capital to continue to innovate. Lets say I come up with a brand new idea for a product that has the ability to teleport people from one place to another any way in the world. Now, creating a product like this would obviously be extremely expensive, which means that without funding my idea can never become more than just that; an idea. Lets say Google tells me that they will give me the funding to make my idea a reality and in return a give them a percentage of the profits from my teleportation idea. Without Google my idea would never become a reality, but with Google we both win as we both make money, and society benefits from my innovative teleportation device. Startup capital doesn't stifle inventors, it helps them turn their ideas into reality. I'm still confused about your final analogy because I have no idea what monopolies you're talking about.

[b_art]

Google is an awesome example to use against my argument because it is hard to see any wrong doing with Google, they provide so much to society for free and their innovations are top notch if not "the best", so with that I agree full-heartedly, but I do think that Google is a real modern phenomenon and the exception doesn't make the rule. Even still, I might find flaw in this argument. Google is actually a "perfect" example when you consider the monopoly. They eat up everything and take up all tech space. Do you think a UNIX based mobile system with developer friendly tools would have never come to fruition if Google didn't do it? As a matter of fact, with some research, you might come to find that it was already in the works, but Google took over, leaving a lot of other innovators in the dust and unable to continue with what might have been BETTER innovations for all I know. Same goes for Chrome (a web browser), fiber (also not Google's invention), webmail, etc. If Google was capped other companies would have taken these software and tech niches and maybe even have done better. I'm OK with Google though, for the exact reason you stated. They do actually fund awesome projects, and to date I haven't heard of any horror stories of corruption or such from Google. They are the exception to the rule I guess. So what companies are "ruining" (with an 'i' - ruin) the world? It's hard to say with a list, but I feel it in my bones from daily reading and daily plights. Salary to cost ratios are unrealistic across the board. Should I have to suffer daily because I am mediocre and not a genius? Should a doctor have to pull 60 hrs a week to maintain their nice home and yacht after so much education and years of experience? If opportunity for start up within a business sector was not in the hands of ONE entity, there might be a lot more to share. Yes, I guess Comcast and other ISP's are an example, as we depend upon networks for our modern world. I'm not going to go deep into commodities or oil because I don't want to get shot. Clothing lines are a real home dinger, pennies in the sweatshop factory floor turns into pounds on the showroom floor. Anywhere that you commonly know of exploitation and abuse basically, I don't see a need to make a concrete list, these things are quite out in the open.

[UncleMeat]

Heads up, iOS is also UNIX based.

[man2010]

What does Google have a monopoly on? They have competition in every area of their business. Just because Google is a big company doesn't mean they're a monopoly. Also, capping Google's profits doesn't mean that Google's innovations would have come from other companies. What motivation would companies have to perfect the types of products that Google has perfected? With profit caps companies could make products that are simply good enough as opposed to perfecting products that are extremely innovative and consumer-friendly. Capping the profits of one company doesn't mean that another company will automatically come in and create superior products as that company. Lets continue to use Google as an example. Google currently offers an extremely popular email service that is free of charge to many users with Gmail. Google also offers a free service to users that allows them to create word documents, spreadsheets, and slideshow presentations for free and share them with other people for free. Lets say Google never grew to offer these products because its profits were capped and it remained as a search engine and nothing else. What company do you think would create a free service which allows users to email each other as well as create and share different types of documents with each other? Google was able to create this service and offer it to consumers for free because it makes enough money with its other products to do so. With profits being capped, how would any company be able to offer free services like these? As for other companies that are "ruining the world", I don't see how profit caps applies to them. You used clothing companies making their products in sweat shops as an example. How would profit caps fix this? How would profit caps cause ISPs to improve their products and offer better services? I'm failing to see how profit caps would solve the problems that you are presenting.

[Amablue]

[STA-CITE]> We can stop companies from making 1 billion percent profit, for virtually no reason [END-CITE]In a capitalist system, if someone is making ridiculous margins like this, why wouldn't a competitor step in the space and drive prices down? What kind of examples are you thinking of here? Who is the real world analog for your sand salesmen?

[b_art]

> What companies? Perhaps I should say industries even... Start with human needs. Housing, Food, Medical, Dental... all outrageous when compared to average income. Then move into luxury items, same deal. The ends don't justify the means, and it gets harder and harder for an average person to open an honest business against chains and corps.

[Amablue]

[STA-CITE]> Housing [END-CITE]Housing prices are entirely dependent on where you live. High demand areas demand higher prices. [STA-CITE]> Food [END-CITE]Food is cheap, I don't know what you're talking about here. [STA-CITE]> Medical, Dental... [END-CITE]Medical and dental prices are high for a lot of reasons. Testing procedures and medications to ensure safety are expensive. The training is expensive and time consuming and stressful. Lots of other reasons too. Your sand salesman analogy isn't even remotely similar to doctors. [STA-CITE]> Then move into luxury items, same deal [END-CITE]Yeah, but those are *luxury* items. If you want low cost ways to entertain yourself, this is pretty much the best time to be alive in history. Traveling is relatively inexpensive and fast. There's all kinds of media you have access to for low or no cost, from music to TV shows and movies, to video games. What luxury items are overpriced, and if they could be sold for less, why hasn't a competitor swooped in and pushed down prices? [STA-CITE]> The ends don't justify the means, and it gets harder and harder for an average person to open an honest business against chains and corps. [END-CITE]When you go up against big businesses you're fighting against economies of scale. If you mess with this, you're messing with our economy's ability to be efficient.

[b_art]

Sorry for the late response, I've learned a lot in this thread and actually did change my view, but perhaps mostly out of realizing the faults in my articulation of it all. My plight is that small businesses are eaten up by big ones and/or can not take the competition. Current times tend to favour the big companies who have the capital and power to market better and hire better talent, this plus a bunch of other items which I won't get into, as they would likely cause me to put my foot in my mouth... but having dealt with many start ups before, I just know how hard it is to start a company from scratch with little or no capital, and most people think that's just how it should be - I simply disagree. All people should have a chance to start a business without a start up requirement of a million dollars. I still disagree with the subtle details on Housing, food, med, etc... assuming you want any type of quality existence, but maybe that's my personal problem and I do take your points well. Luxury Items, yes that is luxury, but going back to the original argument, is this "fair"? I agree that buying a software such as a game is cheap and can entertain you for endless hours these days, but that $9 game multiplied by 10 million downloads is quite a profit, especially since I only had to make the game once. It's like 20 lifetimes of profit. This is where I understand that I'm guilty of sounding a bit communist, but seriously, is there not something unfair with that type of profit? I'm not saying people should only get paid for blood and sweat, but a cap on your 20th lifetime of profit perhaps...? :) And the part which I am truly ignorant about here, and genuinely asking this question is: Doesn't this make things 10 times harder for the already hard working lower and middle classes? Being as how that 21st lifetime of profit could have gone towards their families' better education and upbringing? Sorry if I'm mixing things up, I feel my writing is poor today, but does that make sense? Also I don't understand what you mean by "economies of scale", I'll have to look that up, but if you can explain I'm all ears.

[NuclearStudent]

I would suppose something like water distribution, which is usually a guaranteed monopoly for the government and/or extremely difficult to enter and compete in because of infrastructure costs and disruption of community.

[Atheia]

It's a monopoly because it's more efficient for the government to run it, hence "natural monopoly." There's nothing coercive about it.

[HilariousEconomist]

Which are usually regulated by local utility commissions.