To: derek cao who wrote (23538 ) 8/28/1998 3:37:00 PM From: akidron Read Replies (1) | Respond to
unfortunately the history of capitalism would beg to differ. bankers tend to lend to those from which they can get the highest return, and in an expansion, opportunity for sane lending gradually diminishes, and bankers then lend to whoever.... greed driving the wagon. its too boring to provide a complete list but in the 90's you've had east european, russian, japanese domestic and foriegn, latin american, and numerous corporate examples of this from metal's co's in germany, to chip co's in korea, to oil co's in russia, to real estate co's in HK. Money goes to where the highest rates of returns are and then guess what... when it all blows, who is left holding the baby.... we are. However, again, it is my opinion that the primary reason to the debacle affecting us now is the inequality of wealth distribution world wide, which has negatively affected the demand side of the market equation. Microsoft is a good example. It sells a bunch of software, and makes extraordinary profits, based not on technologicAL leadership but monopoly power. The prime benificeries of these extraordinary profits are 1000 microsoft employees that live as result an extraordinary lifestyle and Paul Allen and Bill Gates are now richer than all but one country in Africa, and a bunch of others around the world. computor users suffer however as they have become saddled with only one os choice and have had to pay too much for it, giving them less money to spend on other products. unfettered microsoft will lever this market power into other related (net) and unrelated (cable etc) areas. As this is not acceptable and as the market is unable to shackle MSFT itself, the govenment is gradually stepping in to regulate it ---- figure this if intel isn't powerfull enough to resist msft's monopoly power, who is? ... only your uncle sam.
