Wanted to make sure you guys saw this - - I picked it up from a thread in SI, thought it was this one, but after I checked, could not find it here, so I am posting it here, worth a glance if you have not seen it, from the South China something or other, re: more to come in the hedge fund debacle.
scmp.com
The URL is as I copied it, letter for letter, but it does look funny. Think it will work, though.
If you read the New York Times, the Sunday business section had an article re: Hong Kong's attempt to fight off currency speculators, led by its financial secretary, Sir Donald Tsang.
I have to admit, after watching the havoc and fearing the havoc still to come, I wonder whether laissez faire has all the answers.
I'll pose a hypothetical: suppose George Soros, or Long-Term Capital, buys all the penicillin in the world, and all the penicillin factories in the world, and then offers penicillin for sale at $1,000 a dose? Under strict laissez faire, that's perfectly moral. Yet, I can't stand the thought of all the poor people dying because they can't afford the penicillin. (In this hypothetical, there is no alternative antibiotic.)
Under strict laissez faire, what is about to happen to the world economy, (and if you don't believe it why are you in this thread?) is perfectly moral. Well, I don't have an alternative.
So, I'll just sit on the sidelines and watch. I feel like Fernand Braudel in a time machine. |
