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Kevin O’Leary doesn’t hate poor people, he just loves capitalism

on January 28, 2014

After Kevin O’Leary said last week that half the world living in poverty is “fantastic news,” O’Leary and his CBC co-host Amanda Lang decided to “continue the discussion” this Tuesday. Several news outlets had linked to the clip, inspiring popular outrage over O’Leary’s callousness.

Tuesday’s episode of Lang and O’Leary Exchange came and went with no discussion. In fact, Kevin O’Leary wasn’t even on the show; he was preparing to offer third-rate analysis of the State of the Union address at CNBC.

While it wasn’t on air and it’s not available on either the CBC website or the show’s YouTube channel, O’Leary and Lang’s continued discussion was posted to Kevin O’Leary’s personal YouTube channel. It is, in common parlance, a doozy.

The entire purpose of this segment is to temper O’Leary’s cartoonishly pro-capitalist remarks, and yet O’Leary offers only a half-hearted compromise before immediately moving back into a full-throated defence of free-market capitalism:

No, I don’t think poverty is fantastic, and I don’t think income disparity is fantastic. What I think is how successful capitalism has been over the last 100 years in reducing poverty and in reducing income disparity. [...] Amanda, I want you to thank capitalism for that.

So Kevin O’Leary doesn’t think poverty and income disparity are great. Capitalism is great! And capitalism has cut down on poverty and income disparity! What’s that? The very study we’re looking at says income disparity is rising? Well, but, capitalism is awesome. So don’t try to take any of my money with your harebrained “tax” schemes!

We now have conclusive evidence Kevin O’Leary is a moron who won’t even shut up when it will benefit him most.

Everyone who cares already knows Kevin O’Leary is an unthinking, illiterate über-capitalist. No one needs more ammo to poke fun at him. All he had to do during this clip was say “I don’t hate poor people” and despite how terrible he is, everyone would have moved on. But Kevin O’Leary couldn’t stop spouting shitty nonsense for even that long.

Keep on doing you, Kevin O’Leary. And don’t forget to pick up your government-funded paycheque before you bash taxes and poor people again.

, , , Lang and O'Leary

  • canadian

    I am pretty shocked that he is still on the air. CBC needs to get rid of him. Also I cannot believe more people aren’t pissed off about this and the lack of coverage this story has received. It seems as if there was some damage control done. Additionally no one “misunderstood” him, he needs to own up to what he said and apologize. It was honestly the most ignorant, retarded thing I have ever heard anyone say.

  • canadian

    COWARD

  • Robert Chisholm

    Once again, a great job by Amanda Lang! At the same time, while Kevin O’Leary never said at any point that capitalism is “perfect”, though as usual he went to great lengths to “trumpet” the “benefits” of capitalism. In some important ways, capitalism isn’t a bad system - because it is an incentives-based system, unlike Communism (or at least Communism, Soviet-style) which destroyed incentives in the form of rewards (money or otherwise) for working harder. The problem with capitalism in its present form is that too many rich people fail to recognize the importance of incentives (in particular, a direct relation between effort and rewards) for ALL people in order for them to function at all. THAT is where the trouble lies, particularly for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty referred to at the beginning. Things are bad enough here in Canada, “

  • Robert Chisholm

    Once again, a great job by Amanda Lang! At the same time, Kevin O’Leary never said at any point that capitalism is “perfect”, though as usual he went to great lengths to “trumpet” the “benefits” of capitalism. In some important ways, capitalism isn’t a bad system - because it is an incentives-based system, unlike Communism (or at least Communism, Soviet-style) which destroyed incentives in the form of rewards (money or otherwise) for working harder. The problem with capitalism in its present form is that too many rich people fail to recognize the importance of incentives - in particular, a direct relationship between effort and rewards - for ALL people, in order for them to function at all. THAT is where the trouble lies, particularly for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty referred to at the beginning. Things are bad enough here in Canada, “never mind” the much worse problems for the 3.5 billion just referred to. And attitudes in Canada towards people out of work, from what I see going on, are based on popular disinformation and absolutely “…stink to high heaven…”, and are based on exploiting high unemployment to cheapen people who are out of work . Such attitudes are irrational and simply serve to de-motivate them from making all the effort necessary to getting work. Nobody ever bothers to analyse the consequences for the job seeker of there being between 70 and 5,000 people competing with you every time you apply for a job. I would reiterate what I’ve said elsewhere - namely, that it would be a good idea to invite Kevin O’Leary to a panel discussion with myself and some other people to address questions like this, with Amanda Lang as the host. Robert T. Chisholm - Associate Member, O.S.P.E.

  • Taylor

    Everything Kevin O’Leary said was correct. Capitalism has cut down poverty. That is all that matters. If you are the type of person to about what other people who made more money than you, then great. Start caring about what you make, and if everyone followed that advice, poverty would be cut down even more.

    In the end, capitalism might make some people richer than others, but it will increase wealth overall for everyone.

    • Robert Chisholm

      I think Taylor’s argument is fine, but it omits the question of attitudes in Canada towards people out of work. It’s perfectly true that capitalism, being an incentives-based system, supplies some motivation to everybody wanting to do better. But what about the unsatisfactory SOCIAL CONDITIONS and attitudes that some people have to fight against constantly, which constantly stop them from getting anywhere - whenever they try something?

  • Robert Chisholm

    Taylor and myself have made two distinct sets of points concerning Kevin O’ Leary’s approach. We are both correct. What are we going to do, in Canada, with regard to correcting the faults with capitalism in its present form? Who is paying proper attention to the performance of the economy, as the basis for this? See my website at http://www.unempgeninfo.com