Les Cargill wrote:
John Galt wrote:
snip

Yes, certainly an interesting conundrum. Again, demographics may
explain a lot. People who had some of their adult years during the
Depression were famously adverse to the stock market. The following
group saw *some* good years after WW2, some bad, and were therefore
properly cautious. Since 1980, however, it's been largely boom with a
bit of bear thrown it. This encouraged, as I see it, the attitude
that "if you stick with the markets through the busts, they will
always reward you in spades during the booms."

JG

You got that right.

The antithesis to that thesis is .. Qutbism.

The resulting synthesis is very, very messy.

Well, there's always Islamic Banking. :-)

JG


--
Les Cargill

Dude, the Islamics invented banking. The Medici
copied it from them in defense...

What do you mean? Your own government engages in venture-capitalism:.........

On Nov 5, 9:42 am, darwinist <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

What do you mean? Your own government engages in venture-capitalism:.........

You are confused, cronyism is not capitalism.

MG

Government investments and businesses usually lose money, unless they
are subsidized, or competition forcibly suppressed, and New Zealand's
program has not deviated from this record.

On Nov 5, 10:07 pm, Michael Gordge <mikegor... at (no spam) xtra.co.nz> wrote:

On Nov 5, 9:42 am, darwinist <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

What do you mean? Your own government engages in venture-capitalism:.........

You are confused, cronyism is not capitalism.

MG

What makes it cronyism as distinct from capitalism?

To put it another
way: when private companies or individuals put money into the same
investment funds that the government is putting money into (which they
do), is that cronyism or capitalism?

On Nov 5, 9:00 pm, darwinist <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

On Nov 5, 10:07 pm, Michael Gordge <mikegor... at (no spam) xtra.co.nz> wrote:

On Nov 5, 9:42 am, darwinist <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

What do you mean? Your own government engages in venture-capitalism:........

You are confused, cronyism is not capitalism.

MG

What makes it cronyism as distinct from capitalism?

Capitalists do not make money using money that was taken via a threat
of force, capitalism is a political system based upon free trade,
based upon peaceful human individuals being left free and alone to
make their own choice as to where they place the results of their own
energy (their money).

When the state picks winners (buying shares) that is called cronyism,
and when they do it using stollen funds that is called the laundering
of money. There is no such thing as a partnership happening between
the dollar and the gun.

To put it another
way: when private companies or individuals put money into the same
investment funds that the government is putting money into (which they
do), is that cronyism or capitalism?

Already explained.

There are only four ways to spend money. (P. J. O'Rourke)

"Spend your money on yourself
Spend your money on other people
Spend other people's money on yourself
Spend other people's money on other people."

The first two deal with capitalism, the latter two deal with
cronyism / statism.

MG

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 04:00:06 -0800 (PST), darwinist

What makes it cronyism as distinct from capitalism? To
put it another way: when private companies or
individuals put money into the same investment funds
that the government is putting money into (which they
do), is that cronyism or capitalism?

Private public partnerships are invariably on the terms
that the government takes the losses, and private firm
the profits.  A private firm will not put money into the
same thing as the government does, except on more
favorable terms, because what the government puts money
into, usually loses money.

What if someone makes money using products that were paid for by
taxes, does this mean it's not capitalism either?

If using taxes to
make money disqualifies something as capitalism, then nobody engages
in capitalism, since all businesses buy and sell things that arrive
using (tax-funded) roads.

On Nov 6, 7:16 am, darwinist <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

What if someone makes money using products that were paid for by
taxes, does this mean it's not capitalism either?

Yes thats right, thats not capitalism either, capitalism is a
political system utterly dependent upon human individuals being left
free and alone to make their own descisions as to what they do with
the results of their own energy.

If using taxes to
make money disqualifies something as capitalism, then nobody engages
in capitalism, since all businesses buy and sell things that arrive
using (tax-funded) roads.

Maybe now you are begining to understand what Rand meant with the
title of her book "Capitalism The Unknown Ideal" perhaps you might
enjoy reading it, but I wont be holding my breath.

Oh and btw, not all roads where I live are or have ever been funded by
tax.

I travel many hundreds of miles every month on privately funded,
privately constructed and privately upkept roads. Indeed, the costs of
all roading in all new housing subdivisions in NZ and Australia and in
privately funded shopping complexes are paid for by private
enterprise, no tax.

And guess what? they can do it at a fraction of the cost and do a much
better job.

MG

James A. Donald <jamesd at (no spam) echeque.com> wrote

Government investments and businesses usually lose money,
unless they are subsidized, or competition forcibly suppressed,

and New Zealand's program has not deviated from this record.

Capitalism requires, among other things, novelty and innovation to
create products upon which to profit and such innovation itself can
be a product.

When the novel has aged to worthless, and the innovation has been
assimilated by competition, then the capitalist enterprise bound to it
peters out and fails.

Successful capitalist enterprises innovate, improve or fail.

Government bodies are traditionally built to resist entropy, to foster enduring ideals.

Ideals are not innovations, nor novel.

Government bodies cannot possibly embrace capitalist methods.

Government should foster a common good through adequate
regulation to deter human efforts to subvert the health of capitalism.

For example, government should be smart enough to understand the outrageous
instruments of wealth-creation in order to keep them from destroying the money system.

Government investments and businesses usually lose
money, unless they are subsidized, or competition
forcibly suppressed, and New Zealand's program has
not deviated from this record.

Capitalism requires, among other things, novelty and
innovation to create products upon which to profit and
such innovation itself can be a product.

What makes it cronyism as distinct from capitalism? To
put it another way: when private companies or
individuals put money into the same investment funds
that the government is putting money into (which they
do), is that cronyism or capitalism?

John Stafford
James A. Donald <jamesd at (no spam) echeque.com> wrote

Government investments and businesses usually
lose money, unless they are subsidized, or
competition forcibly suppressed, and New Zealand's
program has not deviated from this record.

Capitalism requires, among other things, novelty
and innovation to create products upon which to
profit and such innovation itself can be a product.

Government suppresses novelty and innovation.

Compare the results from the Soviet Union, with the results from the west.

Similarly, compare the results from countries where the
government spends very little on science and technology,
such as Switzerland, with countries where the government
spends a great deal on science and technology, such as
Sweden.

Just as government involvement in venture capitalism
merely produces bureaucracy, swindles and waste,

government funding of arts and science merely
produces grantsmanship and rigid orthodoxy.

The vast and necessarily rigid bureaucracy of government
necessarily and unavoidably has a destructive effect on innovation.

Just as any art funded by the NEA is necessarily repetitious
rubbish, mindless aping what once was daring innovation but
is now mindless mechanical orthodoxy, the same applies
with government funded science and technology.

Government funding of science and technology
fails as miserably as government venture capital.

Private public partnerships are invariably on the terms that
the government takes the losses, and private firm the profits.

A private firm will not put money into the same thing as the
government does, except on more favorable terms, because
what the government puts money into, usually loses money.