Thursday, September 18, 2008

Capitalism, regulation, and stupidity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Atrios:

The Absurdity of CNBC

The entire financial system is practically collapsing and they're lamenting the possibility of more regulation. I don't think the sports/referee metaphor is perfect, but it's probably good enough. People who prattle on about "the free market" are usually too stupid to have a clue how complicated and pervasive the "rules" had to be to get a well-functioning modern market system: sophisticated concepts of contracts and enforcement, property rights, legal entities, proper accounting, bankruptcy, limited liability, etc... etc..., did not descend from the heavens but were, in fact, created.

Exactly.

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1 Comments:

  • At 8:50 A.M. the other day, I was at the front door of my bank here in south Flori-DUH, along with many other scared people, wondering what would happen to our life savings. I asked the gathering crowd if they remembered what flying was like before Ronald Reagan de-regulated the airline industry, and whether they thought flying was better before de-regulation or after de-regulation. Guess what? To a person, they all said flying seemed to be a better experience, safer, better on-time records, more comfortable, etc., etc, when the airline industry was regulated.

    By Blogger Bob's Blog, at 7:35 AM  

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