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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/21/1997 6:37:00 PM
From: Sam Citron	Respond to of 10921

Cary, <<Sam and Cary make widgets. Sam makes them better and cheaper, so Cary goes bankrupt, becomes an alcoholic, and eventually commits suicide. Economics didn't harm Cary, but economic theory supports the propriety of Cary's bankruptcy and accepts the "minor dislocation" to one man's life as the consquence of a system that "optimizes" the benefits to all.>> You are mixing psychology, law, economics and politics into a stew that is difficult to rationally address, but yes, perhaps Cary would be better off as a computer programmer or a portfolio manager than a widget maker in the above example. If Cary becomes depressed and is marginalized due to his inability to discover or capitalize on his unique gifts and potential, then the capitalist system will provide him with better psychological and vocational counselling than most other systems, except possibly Scandinavian democratic socialism. SC

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/21/1997 6:39:00 PM
From: sawgrass	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

You are on target......here.If people are concerned about greenspace,pollution, working conditions etc,etc,etc. Then new business will evolve as a result of DEMAND for it. The government is here as the "gate keeper". The govt. can not provide the service most effeciently,however. That is MARXIST THEORY!!! The government in the "gate keeper role" should provide incentives for companies to meet demand for "social issues" if they can provide at a lower cost. Health care is a good example of this. Government intervention should only occur when the economic system or provider of a social benefit fails.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/21/1997 6:58:00 PM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10921

Cary, <<My concern is that laissez-faire capitalism functions best in a variety of what was once called a fascist system. The government and business collude to waste natural resources, pollute the environment, export labor to the lowest cost country without regard to wages, living conditions, hours of work, or age of worker, bust unions, eliminate welfare, criminalize immigrants, oppose health care for all, etc. in order to build the "strongest" economy.>> I don't think that laissez-faire capitalism really exists anywhere in the world, but Hong Kong probably came closest to the ideal. Have you ever been there? I visited in 1984, the year Orwell prophesied Big Brother would be watching. <G> Delightful place that attracts hardworking and aspiring people from many countries. People from Vietnam were literally dying to get in. Very busy place, Asian Tiger, high growth rate of GDP per capita. You should get out and travel more, Cary. See the world a bit. Or surf the net and talk to people like Gottfried from East Germany. techstocks.com You will gain a tremendous appreciation for the economic miracle that is taking place so close to your nose, in Palo Alto, that you seem oblivious to it. SC

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/21/1997 7:59:00 PM
From: Lars	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

cary, excellent post......continued to get carried away...... lars

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/22/1997 12:53:00 AM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 10921

Cary, >>I can get carried away on this subject!<< Good thing you started this thread. <g> Your intentions are noble - that's easy to see. Why do millions of people try to immigrate into the US? Why do hardly any want to go live in Russia, for instance? I am - of course - assuming that people themselves can decide what's good for them. Others may hold that an elite should make decisions for them. GM

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (2872)	10/22/1997 3:20:00 AM
From: jweiner	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Cary & Sam, (warning - not exactly about semi-equips) Cary's brief comment implies insight about a fundamental issue within capitalist structures-the limitations of typical price systems to adequately assign correct (long life cycle value) to market actions. There are certain markets in which the pricing mechanics of the invisible hand utterly fail to serve. A good example is power generation in which some utilities mistakenly invested in nuclear plants because of their suggesteed economies of scale while ignoring the overt thermodynamic inefficiencies of creating huge temperature differentials for typical low level end uses (2nd law). Externalities that were not accounted for included the problem of containment of the huge amount of energy created, the "friction" of moving it across the huge grid it was designed to serve, the overhead of the heavily centralized administrative structure required and the unknown (outside of the market) future costs of disposal and decommissionning to be borne by folks living well beyond the useful life of the original equipment. In our somewhat free market economy those prices are euphemistically called "stranded costs" on the books of the utilities whose economics were framed too narrowly to reflect reality. Well this was a fun rant for me and I'll pick up the next round for any who got this far... james w