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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crossy who wrote (11495)	6/19/2001 4:25:07 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Crossy, Have you studied Schumpeter's later works in detail? If you haven't it is highly recommended. As he matured and became a wiser man, he relented on his market orthodoxy, much as George Soros today castigates the "free marketers" who foolishly think that markets move toward equilibrium. Soros's view and my own is that markets, left to their own devices, tend to run amok. The California energy situation is a good case in point. What Schumpeter concluded, in the end, was that the "invisible hand", left to its own whims, could never satisfy the needs of society for larger infrasturture and social welfare projects. And yes, there was reason in my list earlier of the types of projects (all infrastructure, as you correctly noted) that private enterprise simply will not and cannot deal with. So, to reinterate what I said earlier, free markets are great in the greeting card industry, and maybe a handful of others. But when society needs real goods and services, relying on the whims of corporate pirates is folly at best and downright stupidity at worst. Yes I love the quote "Seeing is believing" .. makes it a lot easier <g> If only it were true. Today, the bleeding edge of electronic design is at the quantum level, where we shall do no seeing, but rather only predicting, hypothesizing and tediously verifying the calculation of states of uncertainty. And as far as human knowledge is concerned, we are so specialized today that no one individual can see even a tiny portion of the sum of human knowledge. "Seeing is baffling" is more like it. Sort of like that baffling corporate structure that PG&E erected and the Jim Hightower talks about in his "Flim-Flam" piece. A perfect example, by the way, of why you might not want to put all your faith in the hands of the corporate interests. Considering the losers include the rate payers, the workforce, the shareholders and the general economy and the winners include....... a handful of executives. Not at all what Schumpeter saw as healthy economics in the end. Best, Ray :) -Ray