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  • More on Greed, Regulation, Lehman, The Financial Industry [View article]
    Good point about definition. I will take that up directly in a post on Goldman. My answer to that here is that I don't want the government to define what is excessive and what is not excessive in finance, sports, music, television or anywhere else.

    This is one reason I take a 'neutral' stance on the greed issue. My definition of excess may be vastly different than someone else's. I will say in this post on Goldman that there are other ways to attack so-called excessive compensation.


    On Oct 16 06:55 AM chap08 wrote:

    > Edward, I agree with you and what Roger Bootle had to say in your
    > previous post. I disagree with the Austrians. As Bootle said:
    >
    > "These people are dangerous. The idea of letting the financial system
    > implode and then waiting for the market to bring spontaneous, healthy
    > revival out of the wreckage might read well on the pages of a book,
    > but in the real world it would bring human misery on a gigantic scale.
    > In today's society, people simply will not tolerate it. If that is
    > what the market system is about then they will have none of it; and
    > rightly so."
    >
    > Of course "people ... having none of it" is what has happened a number
    > of times in history. It's called socialist, or national socialist
    > revolution. I'd prefer that didn't happen here. As you said "a perfectly
    > free market is a fiction". It is a fiction from the pages of the
    > same book that Bootle was talking about. Consequently, we need regulation.
    >
    >
    > As for greed, I believe that you need to do more thinking. I happen
    > to agree that "greed is not good" but the statement is NOT self evident.
    > The problem lies in defining "excessive", as in "excessive wealth".
    > What is excessive? What is too much? Does Warren Buffett have more
    > wealth than he needs? Of course he does. So why don't people think
    > of him as greedy? Is America greedy - do we have an excess of material
    > wealth? Does the rest of the world get by on less? Do our system
    > and society promote greed but call it something else? I'm not sure
    > that there are definitive answers.
    Oct 16 07:46 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
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