Ashton Kutcher Tears Into Corrupt Regulatory Barriers to Businesses Like Uber

Over at the Independent Women’s Forum, Reason contributor
Abby
Schachter points out that Ashton Kutcher, inescapable TV
presence, one-time Demi Moore boy-toy, and current Uber investor,
has developed a sharp business savvy and an aversion to stupid
regulatory barriers. On the Jimmy Kimmel show, Kutcher went from
stroking his host to venting about crony-capitalist rules in record
time.

Writes
Schachter:

Kimmel asked if the service was available only in Los Angeles
and New York or elsewhere. Kutcher said that it was global, but
still couldn’t get into some places.

Kimmel asked Kutcher to describe the problem so Kutcher he did.
There’s “only [trouble in] some cities where there’s some old,
antiquated legislation that doesn’t allow it to exist there….
[There’s a] Mafioso village mentality of ‘we’re not going to let
the new guy in’…in Miami it doesn’t exist because of some dumb
regulation that says it can’t exist there. For a while in Denver
they couldn’t have…cars there…[W]ith Uber cab or airbnb or any of
these new peer-to-peer networks, you have old-school monopolies and
incumbents, and old-school governments that get kickbacks from
various people that don’t want the new guy to come in so they try
to kick them out of their city. But the people are going to have
what the people want and the people say they want Uber and the
people say they want airbnb.”

It’s amazing how clear and coherent a seemingly flighty
celebrity can become when describing an encounter with the
destructive power of politicians and government. Rage does focus
the mind.

See Reason’s extensive
coverage of crony-capitalist efforts to obstruct and destroy
entrepreneurial companies like Uber.