Thom Hartmann: Okay so who are the real vampires, you know, you’ve got vampire movies, and vampires all over the place, who are the real vampires? I would submit to you that we have some and they are by and large economic. We have with us Andrew Langer, he’s the president of the Institute For Liberty, a conservative think tank, InstituteForLiberty.org the website. Andrew, welcome to the show.
Andrew Langer: Thanks Thom. Are you gonna confront me about being a vampire?
Thom Hartmann: I, you know, I guess so. You’re, no I’m not suggesting that you are, but it seems to me that we’ve got, America now is, along with Singapore, the most unequal society among the top 60 fully developed, the top 60 developed nations in the world, along with Singapore, the most unequal society in the world. You know, setting aside little tiny nations that really pretty much don’t count and where the statistics are skewed in any case by the low populations. Somebody is making off like a bandit.
We used to have, you know, CEOs making about 30 to 1 in the United States from the time of the great depression until the time Ronald Reagan blew up the Eisenhower tax rates and the Nixon tax rates. And ever since Reagan cut those top tax rates from 74% down to 29% and they’re now around 33, 34%, maybe 35 whatever it is. We’re seeing these economic vampires emerge and that concerns me. You’re talking in your article here, or actually this wasn’t you, it was Kerri Toloczko?
Andrew Langer: Toloczko, yes. Kerri is our one of our senior fellows.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, at the Policy for Liberty. The real human tragedy attached to 4.1 million jobs lost since President Obama took office, I agree with you. But then it goes on to say capital must stay in America free of shackles on growth. How do you keep capital in America without some sort of government involvement which is what it seems from reading the rest of this that you guys are railing against?
Andrew Langer: Well, I mean, Thom, you know, there are two things. Number one, I would really want to at some point, you know, have the discussion as to what you mean exactly by economic vampires. I mean, what exactly the folks who are making lots and lots of money, what they’re, how that somehow sucks the blood out of those who are not. I, that’s one part of it. But the other…
Thom Hartmann: So you want to debate whether or not economics is a zero sum game? I mean, we could...
Andrew Langer: No, no, no, but to answer your question, let me answer your question first then we’ll go back to that.
Thom Hartmann: Sure.
Andrew Langer: The fact is that there are ways to keep capital here and one of the things is we gotta recognize that as a society we can’t go on without regard to the fact that we have a trillion dollar regulatory state that imposes huge costs on the ability of entrepreneurs to actually realize their dreams and employ the working families in America. And in fact, according to the Gallup polls, Gallup just put out a poll, I want to say 2 days ago, it went to the vast major of Americans who recognize this fact. We have to…
Thom Hartmann: Let me just give you a story of two nations. In the United States we, ever since Reagan stopped in 1982, stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act we’ve seen the average shopping mall go from being over 90% locally owned businesses to now less than 5%. And we know that whenever Wal-mart moves into a community, that within a 100 mile radius, over 150 businesses, locally owned businesses will go out of business within the first five years after Wal-Mart moves in. Those statistics are fairly well established.
In India, I said I was going to tell you a story of two countries, in India, it is against the law for a company to own more than two retail stores. So there are 12 million mom and pop retail stores in India and one Wal-Mart store. Now, how is it possible that India has, by government regulation, is protecting small businesses and in the United States following the policies that you, I think, think we should do more of, which is hands off laissez faire capitalism, we’ve turned into a monopoly economy.
Andrew Langer: Thom, well, Thom, let me answer your question. Because the fact is that by and large you have big businesses which gin the regulatory system to increase the cost of regulation so that it drives smaller businesses out of the market.
Thom Hartmann: How has Wal-Mart done that versus the local hardware store?
Andrew Langer: Well I don’t know, I can’t speak specifically to Wal-Mart but I can talk to you about instances in which the US Chamber of Commerce and some of the larger organizations out there, the American Chemistry Council, working in concert with big labor for instance have brought on an increased labor…
Thom Hartmann: Big labor and the American Chamber of Commerce? You know the American Chamber of Commerce is one of the leaders of all the efforts to stop the Employee Free Choice Act.
Andrew Langer: I submit that you read Tim Carney’s book and I can’t think of the title right now but Timothy Carney wrote a book on this very issue in which he outlines numerous examples in which you have larger businesses calling for increased regulation. The fact is…
Thom Hartmann: Oh yeah, I don’t disagree with that. Dow Chemical, the pharmaceutical companies are notorious for this, the chemical companies, to keep small people out of the marketplace, sure, I’ll give you that.
Andrew Langer: Look at some of the big, look at some of the bigger businesses, look at big pharma that was, you know, on board with the Obama healthcare plan which was going to…
Thom Hartmann: Right and here, Andrew, Andrew, maybe there’s an area where we are agreeing here, the InstituteForLiberty.org by the way your website. We’re talking with Andrew Langer. For example, when…
Andrew Langer: Thom, we focus on small business. That’s what we focus on. We focus on small business and entrepreneurship. We believe …
Thom Hartmann: Right, and yeah, I get that and I, and, you know, for example. When Monsanto started developing genetically modified organisms back during the first Bush administration and there were no rules on this stuff, they went to George Herbert Walker Bush and said, we would like your administration to regulate genetically modified organisms which essentially legalized them and also gave them a corner on the market. And the Bush administration did that. And in fact one of the guys who made those rules used to work at Monsanto, took a leave of absence, was an attorney for Monsanto, took a leave of absence, went to work for the, I forget which federal agency it was, wrote the rules and then left that agency and went back to work for Monsanto. This revolving door.
Would you agree with me that we should pass laws forbidding those kinds of revolving door escapades or whatever you want to call it, that lead to, I mean this is how these big companies do this stuff. That they, you know they buy off politicians, particularly Republicans, or they place their people strategically in agencies, and Republicans love doing this, will you join me in calling for an end to this practice?
Andrew Langer: Well, Thom, I will call for an end any ability of one particular organization being able to gin the regulatory process at the harm of another group of folks. You know, whether or not you make a blanket pronunciation fee I’m very concerned that by making that blanket..
Thom Hartmann: So is your answer yes or no?
Andrew Langer: Well no my answer is that I’m very concerned that what we’re leading into is a war against expertise. There are people of a certain core competency. The fact is that we have a government that has grown so large that anytime, you know, you have the ability of government to affect such massive change that is gonna benefit one party over another, that’s where the corruption comes in. So I think you have to be very, very careful on sort of making …
Thom Hartmann: So who’s going to protect us from the predations of companies? I mean in China you have people routinely consuming carcinogenic foods and poisonous things…
Andrew Langer: Thom let’s talk about United States public policy. And the fact is that you have organizations like the Institute for Liberty which are trying to involve more small business owners in the regulatory process.
Thom Hartmann: But there are very few small business owners left.
Andrew Langer: Well, no, that’s not true.
Thom Hartmann: Because of these largely conservative and Republican policies and this embracive Laissez Faire capitalism it turns into corrupting democracy.
Andrew Langer: Thom, that’s flat, the issue of whether or not there’s a fact is there are anywhere between 6 and 20 million small businesses still in America depending on whose metric you use. The vast majority of businesses that are out there are small businesses.
Thom Hartmann: Numerically.
Andrew Langer: Well, 90% of businesses have fewer than 20 employees. So depending on whose metric you use you’re talking about 5.4 million or 19 or 18 million small businesses. But the fact is that we need to protect those businesses above all else.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah we do, I don’t disagree with you on that statement. I think our methodology might be different but I’ll, we’ll have to leave it at that. Andrew Langer, the Institute for Liberty, InstituteForLiberty.org is the website, thanks for dropping by, Andrew.
Andrew Langer: Thank you Thom, any time.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
