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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (37599)	8/31/2003 3:28:54 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Raymond, we agree on the underlying motivations - pure greed. When business people want 'deregulation' it's unusual. They don't really want deregulation, they want profits of control. Usually businesses are wanting regulation and monopoly protection, licensing and a cushy number. I started life as a government enthusiast, thinking it obvious that a single supplier, preferably publicly-owned, is the most efficient and orderly way to run a railroad and most businesses. Having several bus companies competing on the same routes seemed silly, with the old bus problem of several buses showing up at once, then none for ages. But after not many years of seeing, up close and personal, with my own eyes, what happens in practise, I was soon a fully-paid up, foaming at the mouth, free marketeer. Now I'm convinced that the only monopoly which matters is that of governments. $ill Gates doesn't have a monopoly in any meaningful sense. King George II has a monopoly. The saving grace of democracies is the rogue only has a few years in the monopoly position and his power is circumscribed by Congrees, the Senate and the Supreme Court [though they in this instance handed him the keys]. My definition of "free markets" includes commons protection [air, water, spectrum etc], risk management [can't have nuclear power stations built with no good-performance bond paid, and don't want them in the wrong place], and other controls on wanton behaviour. One area where I think "free markets" are undesirable is in foreign trade. I used to think "free trade" meant being allowed to buy and sell multinationally. I didn't realize it included no tariffs. It makes sense to me that countries raise taxes at the borders because the definition of a country is its borders. Raise tariffs and reduce internal taxes. That way, bandit overseas producers can't undercut homegrown community producers who have to comply with civilizing laws. Smuggler's Cove would be back in business. Moderate taxes wouldn't cause too much problem and these days its easier to control smuggling anyway. Mqurice