Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rarebird who wrote (56309)	7/16/2000 3:30:13 PM
From: PaulM	Respond to of 116826

ASIAN STOCKS MAY FALL; SPECULATION ON RATE RISE quote.bloomberg.com True to form, very little press coverage today of what could be the most important decision of this decade: the BOJ decision whether to raise rates. Japanese/US rate differentials, more than anything else explain what happened to US stocks in the 90's. The G8 want the zero rate policy; Larry summers wants the zero rate policy; Wall Street and the Japanese elite (banks and exporters) want it too. But let's see what the BOJ does.

To: Rarebird who wrote (56309)	7/16/2000 5:51:25 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116826

Rarebird, I don't know who you are trying to convince here. All I stated was that unfettered (unabashed) capitalism is just as undesirable as unfettered centralized control, or unfettered powerful trade unions. Other than that, I can't disagree very strongly with anything you stated with regard to the risks businessmen take versus the labor they utilize. But time and time again, we've seen instances where businessmen pursued profits to such an extent that they have disregarded the safety or human rights of those who work for them. And when that situation pervades the economy to such an extent that workers cannot easily leave one tyrannical workplace because all the alternatives are just as tyrannical, then we have the makings of class warfare. Democracies don't exist solely to preserve the rights of the elite merchant class or landed gentry (although that's how the US started out). Neither does it exist for individuals to undeservedly profit from the ideas and ingenuity of the entrepreneurial sector. Somewhere in the middle of these two cultures, the businessmen and the workers, lies the optimal relationship that preserves the rights and opportunities of both. There should not be sweatshop businesses, nor should US businesses be undercut by foreign sweatshops. However, neither should workers be so empowered to demand uncompetitive wages that US businessmen are forced to locate their operations overseas. Btw, as an unabashed capitalist, one would assume you are a lazzez-faire libertarian who believes that government has little right to set tax laws or regulations that adversely impact business operations. But IMO, it is obvious that some regulation and tax burden should exist, but the right amounts, and the focus of its policy making power is something that ebbs and flows with each generation, or turnover in political party power. Let's not forget that it was only in 1916 that the Income Tax was instituted (originally as a temporary war tax). Reduction of such taxes on the common worker can go far to reducing wage pressures on businessmen as well. The real strength of the US form of democracy is that it provides no real power structure that is quite strong enough to completely overwhelm the others and seize total control. It is our system of checks and balances, playing one powerful interest group off against the other, or constraining the power of political leadership, that truly displays how political weakness, or seeming indecisiveness, provides the true strength of our system. It is also the primary reason that most talk of global conspiracies is utter nonsense. Since power is so diffused, or would be immediately opposed during any attempt to step on the rights of others, there is little chance that such a global conspiracy could ultimately succeed. It would have to defeat all the other global conspiracies first... <VBG>