Capitalism

My philosophy on business?  I am not a pure capitalist, where a business is a venture simply for the sake of the entrepreneur or investor, 
that any benefit employees or a community might receive are a happy offshoot. 
Nope. I believe businesses exist to serve people by providing products and/or services 
and also have an obligation to provide employment to the people they serve, proportionate to the amount profit they take from the people. 

Even so, I am never a socialist. 
I believe that nearly all property, except for government buildings, mail trucks, snow plows and war equipment should be owned by individuals or groups of individuals, or cooperatives, as citizens of the country where the enterprise exits. 
The general public’s needs, like public utilities, should be owned by public corporations or public cooperatives, regulated by elected oversight, with smaller, but virtually guaranteed returns.
Social media included. 

I also believe healthcare should be free-market, community cooperatives, not a social program. 
I discuss this in the ‘Healthcare’ tab of this website. 

I’m not thrilled with companies whose focus is putting other people out of work via automation. 
While automation brings needed precision to certain industries, this is basically a battle between wealth & labor.
Full employment requires a degree of logistical inefficiency, 
and everyone deserves the opportunity to earn their bread, more than anyone has any right to be rich at the expense of others. 

Foreign investors. Companies in America should be started by Americans and should not be sold to foreigners. 
We need to produce and publish a study showing the history of ‘American’ companies and how many of them have been bought by foreign investors, 
funneling the gravy out of our country. We should have an ‘America First’ policy with investments. 
A partof this is understanding that about 30% of America's farmland is foreign owned.
This is made worse when we realize that farm programs and price supports meant to help farmers are going to foreigners.

Product Quality Verification. 
While some people think that the same product bought in different stores will have the same parts or ingredients and proportions, I know better. 
Large stores are able to negotiate parts, ingredients and proportions to economize, while appearing to sell the same product as other stores. 
We need labeling that says ‘Standard Formula’ or ‘Standard Parts’ to assure consistency. 

At least one Omaha firm, Hauptman O’Brien Wolf & Lathrop helps the public. They offer free taxi rides home between Christmas and New Year’s day, during the evening hours. They have paid for some 68,000 transports since 1990. They also arrange transportation for domestic violence victims. 
This is a good example of a business working for the good of many. 

If I were emperor, I would restructure public trading. 
There are so many innocent investors losing money because predatory investors manage financial news to manipulate stock prices. 
They invest in a stock, then create a buzz to encourage amateur investors to buy in at higher prices. 
Then they sell out at those higher prices, then start another buzz to create a fear about that stock, so the amateurs sell out, dropping the price. 
Then they quietly rebuy the stock they had before, but at lower prices, while the companies keeps performing. 
To stop this, I would require a 3-year hold on stock. 
Unless the price of a stock went up or down 25% from the purchase price, investers would have to hold onto that stock for 3 years. 

Eric J. Rose