Jerry Kraus wrote:
> On Mar 29, 10:04 am, "John Galt" <whoisjohng...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "ajames54" <ajame...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>>
news:d4f60149-e4a2-4e78-877b-09aab679ebbe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mar 28, 3:34 pm, Vide...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>>>> On Mar 28, 12:28 pm, Jerry Kraus <jkraus_1...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> what i find hilarious, outside of a couple of complete libertarian
>>>> cranks, where have all of the defenders of laissez-faire gone?
>>>> where is their outrage, why are they not publicly, and proudly
>>>> announcing their adherence to libertarian dogma, and renouncing
their
>>>> investments in the markets.
>>>> after all, they to are the indirect beneficiaries of the bailouts.
>>>> you would think that they would be fleeing the markets, whilst
>>>> proclaiming their beliefs. i see none of that.
>>> Actually I would call myself a free marketer.
>>> I've expected this outcome for a couple years I am really surprised
>>> that it took this long to come about. Hell not only did I expect it,
>>> I've even bet on it. All those puts I bought that expired worthless I
>>> looked on as the cost of doing business, now that I should be hugely
>>> in the money the Fed steps in to screw me over.
>>> Well in all honesty there haven't been that many puts ...because while
>>> I believe in a free market I know that we do not have one. Anyone who
>>> saw this coming could just as easily seen the response...
>>> In my opinion is the stupid thing was all the morons defending the
>>> current system as though laissez-faire was what we had. To call what
>>> we have a free market is to indulge in Orwellian double speak of the
>>> first order.
>> Well, right. There hasn't been a laissez-faire system since prior to
the
>> Industrial Revolution.
>>
>> JG- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> Modern economists regularly take Adam Smith's quote about the
> "invisible hand" in the "Wealth of Nations", circa 1776, totally out
> of context. Firstly, he was talking about a world without mass
> communication, and with very slow trans****tation. The potential for
> monopolistic business practices was very limited.
It still is. At least for me, I've stopped worrying about M$ style
monopolies/monopsomies so long as they create the most value for
the end customer. If we ask the end customer, I think they've
been served to their satisfaction by this arrangement. At least
I see them following it to XP.
Remember too, Ballmer's "developers, developers, develoeprs" chant.
All those of that era (Cisco, Oracle, etcetera ) have created
subcultures around the products, not just products.
"Invisible hand" was a metaphor for not-having royal charter
Mercantilist monopolies. It is a stretch to say that IP law
is the same thing as a royal charter. Not much of one, but still...
> Businesses were
> small business, almost by definition. Secondly, Adam Smith himself
> emphasized that "Greed" -- the basis of Capitalism, and the "invisible
> hand" -- only works well sometimes, not all the time.
Agreed. It's bounded by fear. But you also have horse players... like
Joe Kennedy, who sold out weeks before the Crash of 1929. Insider?
Maybe. Probably just had a good gut for it.
If there's a problem it is that the penalty for private irrational
exuberance tends to be very much paid for by the public. But since
the public Fed creates the bubbles...
> The government
> must regularly intervene to ensure that the welfare of the citizens as
> a whole is not undermined by the greedy few. Taxes, health care,
> education, the military are necessary government perogatives, greed as
> a motivator notwithstanding. Right-wing economic evangelists like
> Thomas Sowell seem to have missed this small point, perhaps
> intentionally!
>
I can't name chapter and verse, and it may not even be Sowell, but the
way a lot of ... Neoconservative economic thinkers think, yer average
guy gets a bigger step-up if he does as a welder friend of mine has
done - he's an entrepreneur-welder. They see that as a solution to the
problem of the decline of mass industrialization.
One has to invoke a certain class of Choice to posit health care or
education as public goods. They are, unfortunately, goods which
follow public consumption patterns but private production patterns,
which makes them almost neither. And we don't really know how
to measure them, since people's lives are almost literally at stake.
Real quality, both in health care and in education seems to elude us.
Maybe the Canadian/British model is as good as it gets. Maybe the
not-for-profit sector has a role. I don't know.
--
Les Cargill
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