The Price Of Capitalism & Socialism For The Rich – Silicon Valley

I’ve been binge rewatching Silicon Valley on HBO. I remember a scene from a few years ago when I first watched it and am now rewatching. It’s a very good scene.

Gavin is trying to get the cheapest place and people to build his new box. China, Bengledesh, all the other cheaper labor places in the world he couldn’t do so he turned to the United States. Some little town in South Carolina.

He got them to give him massive tax cuts, cleaned up facilities, etc… ya know, what rich NFL owners, Amazon, and other big corporations do.

Unfortunately, that strategy did not turn out well for his factory. Here’s what happened:

• The mayor had the factory repainted.
• The painters left some oily rags in a garbage can.
• Because of cuts to the sanitation service, the trash was not collected.
• The rags smuldered and caught fire.
• Because of cuts to the fire department, the blaze spread.
• A number of concerned citizens tried to fight the fire, but because the water was cut off, they could not.
• The vast majority of the rare earth materials survived the fire until the flames evaded.
• Due to mass layoffs of police, the locals that were there to fight the fire, decided to loot the burned out factory.
• The national guard attempted to reach the factory to help stop it, but the roads.

It’s just perfect to highlight what all goes wrong when capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich come together. In this instance, even though it’s fiction, it’s good to see how big companies can suffer from their own mistakes.