LPS5 wrote:
"It is my personal belief that most forms of regulation are little more than inherently-biased propositions which, instead of evening things out as they purport to, merely redistribute wealth and opportunity: replacing that which is deemed by pols "unfair" with another, slightly different but at least equally skewed regime. Instead, I believe that natural market forces - products of economic and behavioral laws - encapsulate and should be held as the highest law(s). Markets and social orders ultimately cannot be regulated to the benefit of a particular party without trampling others' freedoms in the process."
ironically, despite a snippy exchange or two, i find myself in general agreement with much of what LPS5 has written in this and other posts. there is no denying the threat to freedom posed by over-regulated markets, over-planned economies etc. indeed, it is difficult to imagine that many traders would be socialist types hankering for the collectivist utopia, though i could be wrong about that, i guess. but free market purists and dogmatic libertarian types are also grounded, in 2002, in a measure of unreality. SOME regulation is inevitable and except for a few loose screws currently cacheing ammo in rural idaho, few would deny this.
when LPS5 claims, and let me repeat this for emphasis:
"Markets and social orders ultimately cannot be regulated to the benefit of a particular party without trampling others' freedoms in the process."
he is right, but seems not to grasp that it is this very premise that 1)indicts the status quo and, 2)provides the very rationale for the sort of discussion this thread promotes. is there any market participant still capable of fogging a mirror who doubts that current market regulations benfit particular parties, that merril lynch has influenced those regulations far more than you and i, and that,consequently, the freedoms trampled in the process are far more likely to have been yours and mine than ML's.
of course, i suppose it is possible that LPS5 actually believes that the big money on wall street has scrupulously avoided influencing regulation to benefit themselves and, according to his own construction, trample the freedoms of others (individual investors), but if he does so believe, we may safely decline to take him seriously.
the point is this: a measure of regulation in the equities markets, von mises and hayek notwithstanding, is virtually unavoidable in the modern world. that regulation will inevitably benefit particular parties. if one feels benefited by current regulations, one is likely to resist competing regulations. if one feels trampled on by current regulations, one is likely to support competing regulations. i think the idea of this thread is that individuals have at least as much right as, say, brokerage houses to be the parties benefited by regulations. since wishing will not make it so, a public dialogue that looks beyond mere wishing, seems a good idea.
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