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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (3024)	3/9/2004 10:48:08 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

Market crashes are caused by one and only one thing. The intersection of stupidity and greed. Was true of the tulip bulb crash. Was true of the 1929 crash. Was true of the tech bubble crash. Will keep being true as long as people remain both stupid and greedy.

To: tejek who wrote (3024)	3/9/2004 7:12:51 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7936

"Caused what problem? The crash itself, the depression what?" The crash. I agree with CH that market crashes are caused by "The intersection of stupidity and greed." Such an intersection will exist even with heavy government regulation both because the government can't really regulate everything (or if it can you have totalitarian government which is far worse then a market crash) and because government officials can also be greedy and stupid. " You think that the crash or depression would not have happened had the government in say 1925 decided to regulate more?" Yes. Most of the post 1925 changes in law and regulation contributed to the crash and the depression. Perhaps perfectly wise regulations could have prevented or at least mitigated the crash but regulators are not perfectly wise. Overt greed usually results in over the top speculation Overt greed exists in even totalitarian countries. Another flaw.....the tendency to develop monopolies or oligarchies in order to control the market and the price of goods. I can see this as a flaw but monopolies are far more likely to form because of government action then because of its absence. I know capitalism is a sacred cow with you but it is flawed. I never said it wasn't flawed. In fact recently in this conversation I did say that capitalism was flawed. Capitalism, like Democracy, is the worst system except for all the others. A capitalist system will never be perfect but consistently moving away from the market will almost always bring worse results. Tim