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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 (11501)	6/19/2001 4:52:25 PM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Who would have thought that the vital service of mail and package delivery could be so botched by the government that several private companies could be successful at charging $8.50 and up to deliver a letter? Hope you are based in a tax haven. Will

To: Crossy who wrote (11501)	6/19/2001 5:03:58 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

crossy, Thanks for the stimulating debate on Schumpeter and the Austrian school. Am I to infer from your post that you view the later Schumpeter to senescent, doddering and no longer capable of bleeding edge economic theorization? Do you view his later more compassionate views as being weak? I view him as wiser, but YMMV. <w> People like you tend to point to market failures. Only in times like this, when markets are failing. I loathed the writing of the permabears like Alan Abelson, Jim Stack and Jim Grant back in 1998-99, when they were so out of step with the market. I'm no jeremiah congentially. I've come by it in witnessing the reality of the greatest destruction of wealth the world has ever seen, in the present telecom industry debacle, that is the perfect foil to John Doerr's famous comment on high tech being the greatest legal creator of wealth the world had ever seen from 1983 through 2000. Then folks like me point to government failures. I like the post office. :) Social welfare ? Ok, now you are showing your true colours <g> The alternative that your philosophy will create if taken to the extreme is a society that has its elites living behind locked gates and the rest of the population either behind prison gates, or on the curb. Is this the future we want? I can't imagine a more evil approach to the future. Yet, it is certainly starting to happen here. What holds corporate power in check ? There only one way : competition. Well, you are either re-writing history, or unaware of it. Here in the US, we have the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which, although written over a century ago, is still being applied, most recently, and with good effect, in the Microsoft case. Here in the US we also have an EPA, to curb environmental despoilage, we have the NLRB to provide a level playing field for labor vis a vis corporations, and we have OSHA, etc. etc. The best example of where competition fails to curb the excesses of the monopolist is the CLEC debacle of today. Billions have been spent to try to unseat the incumbents, almost all for nought. Same was true in the old days of oil industry consolidation. Competition simply could not overcome the ruthless self dealing and deceptive practices of the Standard Oil Company. Competition failed to break the grip of that monopoly. It had to be broken up by the courts. Same is true of Ma Bell in 1982. I find your faith in competition to be perhaps in need of another look. Rather than reading the theorists such as von Hayek, I'd suggest a few history books, where reality, rather than theory, is discussed. Just a friendly suggestion. :) -Ray