Socialism 'brings misery and poverty': TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts
TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts discusses the need for free enterprise, personal investment, his concerns over 2020 Democratic candidates and his personal life.
TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts joined FOX Business' Neil Cavuto on Monday and said he believes 2020 Democratic candidates are pushing socialism on voters.
Ricketts said he finds many of the ideas candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., concerning as he's worried they will make it less conducive for people to start businesses.
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"A lot of young people don't know about the free enterprise system," Ricketts said on "Cavuto: Coast To Coast."
"Socialism is so attractive when you hear it. It's always failed. It brings misery and poverty."
"But if you've never experienced that, and you don't know, you're going to think that's probably the best way to go," Ricketts said. "And that's what concerns me."
Ricketts admits there are some "rough edges around capitalism," and he, in turn, prefers to use the phrase "free enterprise" when talking about capitalism.
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"Free enterprise shows that balance of regulation and control into the environment that makes it good and healthy," Ricketts said. "Free enterprise brings jobs. We need the free enterprise system just to have a job for young people coming into the marketplace."
Ricketts maintained conservatives have "allowed the socialists to kind of take over the megaphone," but he believes Americans should defend free enterprise, even with the growing gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
"There isn't any question that the gap between the rich and the poor probably needs to have some oversight, but if you're going to take away the benefits of getting rich, you're going to destroy capitalism. You're going to destroy the free enterprise system."
He said if the free enterprise system falls, people won't be able to get jobs and "the poor get poorer."
"If people want to step out of poverty, they have to have a healthy economy, and that is really going to require capitalists," Ricketts said. "It's going to require people who are able to take advantage of the free enterprise system."