John Bogle on Bill Moyers Journal

John C. Bogle appeared for an interview on Bill Moyers’ Journal this evening to discuss the state of capitalism in general and in the U.S. in particular. (I’ve seen this guy before somewhere, perhaps on NOW. Searching PBS.org brings up many hits, so apparently he’s been fairly active on public television.) This interview was really excellent. It’s a wonderful thing to see someone as skilled a businessman as Mr. Bogle, with his ethics and morals to all appearances fully intact and healthy, dissect and disseminate his analysis of the state of capitalism in the United States. And that’s what he did, though fairly briefly as it’s a 25 minute spot and the subject is damn complex.

A focus of the interview at the outset is this recent story about private equity firms buying nursing homes, “reducing costs”, and then selling them at a profit. Then when things go wrong, there’s no one to account for the mismanagement. They’ve taken the money and run.

And this is happening everywhere. Mr. Bogle says “My estimate is that the financial sector takes $560 billion a year out of society.” Of course, Bill Moyers asks “Where does it go?” and Mr. Bogle replies that it’s going straight into the pockets of the top 1 percent, or the top 1/10th of a percent. Those are the people who already have all the money in this county but just can’t get enough; and they get it by taking it from nursing homes, or by taking it from our soldiers in Iraq or from the Iraqis themselves, or from airline employees, or wherever. I can’t pretend not to be rabidly pissed about this or to not believe that these executive assholes own us all and run our gov’t, but I won’t mention it here in the interest of keeping this post lighthearted and factual.

According to John Bogle this is standard, modern financial practice, which I think is pretty clear. He also says it’s not sustainable - also clear. So, I found some of the most interesting things he had to say to be about the philosophy of capitalism, such as this:

“…the job of capitalism is to serve the consumer. Serve the citizenry. You’re allowed to make a profit for that. But, you’ve got to provide good products and services at fair prices. And that’s the long term, that’s what businesses do in the long term. The businesses that have endured in America have done that and done that successfully.”

I realize now that I just haven’t ever heard anyone speak of capitalism in any terms other than those waxing wank over the ideal of free markets or defining greed and selfishness and attempts to exploit others to a financial advantage, which, of course, is usually what it’s all about. I could go on, but John Bogle puts it better. Check out the video at the link above.