Ryan Daniel Moran defends capitalism against criticisms of Wall Street and financial speculation. He argues speculators provide liquidity and value, blames the 2008 crisis on Federal Reserve interest rates near 1%, and claims free societies care for the vulnerable better than non-free ones.
I was thinking about Aubrey's audience and how they might interpret it and if they might think this is a utopian view of capitalism.
Yeah. We didn't talk much about the problems that people associate with capitalism.
So one thing I wondered if people bring up, like, I thought you handled the environment well.
Thanks.
But what do you think about Wall street and financial services people?
Give me an example.
People who make money on money. So I mean, day traders.
Yep.
You know, Wall street and what's the word? Like.
Hedge funds. I suppose. So people might argue this is an idle form of capitalism and that the value that they're providing to their shareholders maybe isn't for the greater good of like the world. Like, well, what about like this is kind of a different realm than what you guys are talking about of like physical products.
Yeah. So hedge funds and like the Wall street moguls do serve value in the marketplace. They've shown that they can do two things. One, they can perpetuate trends, meaning they can make things happen faster. And number two, they provide liquidity in markets where there isn't previously liquidity, which is very important to bring new solutions to the marketplace. So speculators who are betting on things going up or down can actually make things happen faster. And that's the function that they serve in the marketplace. It doesn't mean that everyone wins. It means that a lot of people are gonna lose. And they still serve to function in the development of whatever the solution to the problem was.
So 2008 housing crisis, is that too much regulation or not enough regulation?
The two.
Crisis happened because a central authority, the Federal Reserve, kept interest rates at 1% for years. And so what you had was a pouring in of money that needed to go somewhere. And the place that it went was things like real estate creating booms, which ultimately is going to create a bust because the prices should have never been that high. You had people spending money with almost no risk because interest rates were so darn low. And so you don't have a calculation of risk, you have a removal of risk. And so you're incentivized to take more risk than would be healthy in a normal economy. And that drove up asset prices, drove. Drove more people in. And then you have the collapse.
That's cool.
Yeah. Which is why a lot of people think that there's another one coming. Because we have the. We solved the problem with even more debt. We solved the problem with even lower interest rates, which is crazy.
And we'll see about that.
This might be an interesting follow up vlog Maybe. But. Yeah, I thought it kind of ties into, like. I like how Aubrey tied in the natural systems of, like, evolution of, like.
Like. I don't know, you have, like, natural systems of, like, risk and bad ideas going away and good ideas prospering.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the comparison of.
Capitalism to Darwinism is dangerous because people tend to associate it, meaning people will die, the weak will die off, but it's not that. It's actually the ideas, the bad ideas that will die off. That's where the proper comparison is. Weak people are taken care of much better in a free society than in a society that's driven by force.
Look at any first world nation. In any first world nation, first world nations become first world nation because of freedom. And they. They take much better care of their sick, they take much better care of their challenged than any second or third world country, without exception.
I'm ready for part two with you guys. We need to hang out with Aubrey some more.
Yep. I love that guy.
I feel like we're doing the right things, man.
Yep.
Wall.
