What I find frustrating is that some people think that us business owners have to be punished for doing a good job.
So what if I make twice as much as the average person? Is the average person doing worse now than they did 20 years ago? If not, what is the problem? The problem is jealousy, you're jealous that someone else has more, so instead of striving to work hard, you intend to steal it from them. Sure there is inequality, but compare the inequality you have with the inequality in Venezuela or Cuba or China, where some people are eating at banquets every day while others are forced eating the fucking bats that caused the coronavirus. What does Jeff Bezos have that you NEED? Jeff has a cell phone, we have government programs to give people those that can't afford them. Jeff has a house, we have government programs to give people those that can't afford them, Jeff has healthcare, we have government programs... Jeff has transportation, we have government programs... Hey, I see a pattern here. So do you need that Lamborghini? Do you need a diamond-studded iPhone?
Compare yourself in America to people in Europe. You complain about a healthcare system that has better outcomes across the board, that is cheaper across the board, sure you have to be responsible and pay for your insurance (or you don't if you make less than 150% of the poverty line), but how does that compare to paying 55% income taxes and 21% sales taxes and 200% fuel taxes? Do you want to get taken care of by a system that cuts off people above 65 because rationing, this is what is currently happening in Belgium, Italy, Spain, people above 65 do not get COVID treatment and most other care (cancer, palliative etc) likewise have limits if you're over a certain age across the EU
Even in the area of safety and environmentalism, the free market has done more to alleviate that than regulation. You can see that easily in nuclear regulation, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources bar none, very few heavy metals, some concrete and water is all it needs, yet regulation makes it infeasible. Based on 1970s projections we should be completely carbon neutral today if we had nuclear energy proliferation. But because we're scared of just one accident that a corrupt socialist government caused by doing dangerous weapon testing, we think every reactor is about to explode in a mushroom cloud whereas to date, people and animals live in that area without a major impact. A working coal plant causes a lot more cancer than has an exploded nuclear plant over the last 50 years.
Having an excess of any sort of chemical, whether it's CO2 or chemicals in a barrel, is waste and waste means you have wasted energy and you have room to improve thus the market will guarantee you eliminate waste over time as your competitors, in order to cut costs, will eliminate waste and thus dirty factories will go out of business. Setting limits by government means that only dirty factories can afford to implement these things and small businesses can't even get off the ground to make those groundbreaking changes that transform the industry. We can see that with Tesla, it took an established billionaire to even break into the car industry due to oversight, taxes, unions etc.
