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Politics : Electoral College 2000 - Ahead of the Curve
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To: moosebeary who wrote (6211)12/14/2000 1:12:52 AM
From: Raymond Duray  Read Replies (2) of 6710
 
moose,

I wouldn't fear Capitalism. The price of goods gets cheaper all the time, due to capitalistic competition.
What planet are you living on? The California spot price of natural gas is $61/MCF today. Last year it was under $4.
The average home heating bill across the U.S. is going to be up by 40-60% this winter. What's cheaper about that? The capitalistic competition that was going on at 2PM this afternoon at the California Independent System Operator was a very capitalistic affair. The energy supplies from the Northwest were curtailed because certain California utilities are facing bankruptcy. What's so great about unbridled capitalism? Seems to me it sucks, once you get to look at the raw belly of the beast.
caiso.com
You can banter all you want about your academic and pie-in-the-sky views of capitalistic competition. But I just provided you a glimpse of a crisis, brought on by theorists of capitalism, that should never have been allowed to happen. California is going to be held hostage to some wickedly strange market forces for the next few months. This isn't your pretty little garden party capitalism. This is the real deal. Raw and in your face.

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I am, of course, familiar with the work of Julian Simon and the bet he won against Paul Erlich. So, sure, generally commodity prices come down over time. But tell that to the Stellar Sea Lions of the Bering Sea who are in catastophic population collapse because we hoovered out all the pollack for surimi and cat food. Tell me that that I can buy wild salmon for a price anywhere near what it was even 5 years ago? You can't. Not with human depredations on salmon habitat, and the imminent collapse of wild stocks. And a lot of it because corporate farmers and shipping companies could foist dams on rivers in the West through a corrupt political system that socked it to the American taxpayer for the benefit of a precious few individuals and their corporate interests.

moose, it is not that I fear capitalism, because I don't. It is a matter of sensibly controlling its power and its excesses. It is far too much a winner-take-all kind of a game. And the problem is that the winners in the game of capitalism are generally the least scrupulous, most aggressive and most devious among us. And they hate to let any crumbs fall off their ill-gotten table of plenty.

-Ray
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