First off, capitalism is a pretty effed up system when a market can almost crash on someone's interpretation of the words of one individual in regards to one company. I mean, do you really want a stock market that could send the whole economy reeling because rich people who are probably bilking the little people get a case of the heebeejeebees? Sounds rather moronic to me. Isn't this a symptom of Anglo-disease or something? Secondly, if someone's screwing up, why shouldn't they be called out on it? The alternative seems to be some situation in which everyone lets everyone get away with murder because targeting corruption might give people the heebeejeebees, causing the market to crash. Is there some market that works to encourage accountability and reform, not that works against these things? Hell, I really have no idea if Putin said that because he wants those taxes so he can feed the starving children of Tomsk or if he did so to signal some intention of a govt. takeover. But who cares? Maybe -here's a brilliant idea, if you really wanted to stand up to Putin, you could ignore him. Thirdly, why would doing what was done to Yukos to Mechel be a bad thing for the country, for the Russian people? I mean, from what I can tell, the average Russian is glad to have people like Misha behind bars. Sick of the robber barons, but tolerant of those who at least bother to share the wealth. Fourthly, why is this all Putin's fault and not the company that was probably screwing up on some level (all companies probably do until they get caught) or the guy who called in sick to the meeting in which Putin was going to take him to task? No one saw this coming?
Here's my terribly ill-informed opinion: Free marketers are whiny freaking idiots. That's right. They reserve the right to behave with total lack of responsibility or accountability. Any government interference is oppression. YET, they expect, demand, that the government opperate with responsibility & accountability. B.S. It's not even an ideology, is it? It's a game where the rules are, "the rules apply to everyone but me." FWIW, that may be the official Kremlin ideology too - I don't know. But you can't have it both ways, can you? You can't declare yourself unbeholden to gov't regulation or meddling or audits or investigation or opinion or whatever, and then throw a fit when the gov't doesn't seem to be beholden to you! You can't (supposedly) break anti-monopoly laws and then get all grave and moralizing when (supposedly) the gov't begins acting like a monopoly. Hypocrisy. Also, isn't it ridiculous to complain of authoritarianism and then base all your decisions on the actions of this authoritarian? I mean, aren't you just feeding that fire? If he says, "Don't even make me call the doctor" and you run off and sell all of your stocks out of fear, aren't you implicitly banking on this authoritarianism? Kinda lame. Did your mothers not teach you that business about sticks & stones? Or are you selling stocks as some kind of threat? "If you don't let us get away with this, we'll make your stock market crash." "Don't make me call the Dr.!" "Don't make me take my money elsewhere!" I don't think any of this has to do with democracy ro human rights or authoritarianism as it does a buch of obscenely wealthy people acting like siblings in the backseat during a road trip. "Mom! He's on my side of the seat!" "Mom! She won't share the gummy bears!"
Robert Amsterdam writes,
"We are dealing with some very fundamental questions of what happens when power is left unchecked by law, and then takes an interest in the markets."
Of course he's talking about governmental power. When the power of private corporations is left unchecked by law, and then takes an interest in the markets, it's called a "free market." Christ.
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BTW, Great pic of VVP. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
First off, capitalism is a pretty effed up system when a market can almost crash on someone's interpretation of the words of one individual in regards to one company. I mean, do you really want a stock market that could send the whole economy reeling because rich people who are probably bilking the little people get a case of the heebeejeebees?
Well, this is not exactly "one individual". This is a guy who has the power to convert his words into actual action detrimental to companies, as demonstrated in the past.
So he's saying that he might send the tax inspectors onto the company, and they can bankrupt it, so suddenly the shares of that company are suddenly worth a lot less, because there is suddenly a pretty high probability that they might be worthless.
Fourthly, why is this all Putin's fault and not the company that was probably screwing up on some level (all companies probably do until they get caught) or the guy who called in sick to the meeting in which Putin was going to take him to task? No one saw this coming?
Markets react to new information. That companies do that and might be caught is already priced in, in the abstract (with, say, a statistical probability of 5 or 10 or whatever %). But if certainly one company is designated as a fraudster, than the probability for this particular company to have to pay extra taxes or worse suddenly becomes a lot higher, and thus its market cap falls. Markets react to new information, and more precisely to the unexpected difference between facts whn they come up and the expectations prior to the fact. Thus the sometimes strange reactions when a company announces big profits and its stock plummets: it's just that markets were expecting more (and were at prices that reflected that "more")
Free marketers are whiny freaking idiots. That's right. They reserve the right to behave with total lack of responsibility or accountability. Any government interference is oppression. YET, they expect, demand, that the government opperate with responsibility & accountability. B.S. It's not even an ideology, is it? It's a game where the rules are, "the rules apply to everyone but me."
Yep.
Thirdly, why would doing what was done to Yukos to Mechel be a bad thing for the country, for the Russian people?
The market does not care about what's good for the country or for the people, it only cares about how much money can be made from owning a share of a company.
When the power of private corporations is left unchecked by law, and then takes an interest in the markets, it's called a "free market."
Yep. The Anglo Disease in a nutshell. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Is there a way we can conduct societies without markets? J
I think it's possible to have a market economy without "profits".
In fact, I think that such an economy is a logical and inevitable consequence of the direct connections of the Internet.
And from there, maybe in a generation or two, we may move to a "gift economy". "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I don't think profit itself is the problem, anymore than a market economy is a problem, or even share-capitalism is a problem. The problem in all of these systems is 3rd party parasitism, and the extent to which the they encourage this aspect to the detriment of the original trade.
My view is that anglo-disease is about prioritising 3rd party parasitism to the extent that it became the main focus of all trading and the actual transactors were bled to death. keep to the Fen Causeway
then some bright spark invented money as a unit of exchange in complex barter societies.
What money achieved was not so much a "unit of exchange" but a "split barter" transaction with a time delay between the two parts of a barter transaction.
While a value unit or unit of exchange is implicit as a reference in a monetary transaction, it need not be money.
Wherever you have a barter system (eg the Swiss WIR or a proprietary system, like Bartercard) with built in credit, then the result is a monetary system.
Helen:
The problem in all of these systems is 3rd party parasitism
"Profit" and "share capitalism" are integral to Anglo Disease "finance capitalism" and constitute an unnecessary overlay on the "real" productive economy.
The key point about a "Peer to Peer" economy is that the "3rd party parasites" are cut out, or "dis-intermediated" in the jargon, and with them go not only "for profit" share capitalism, but also credit intermediaries aka banks as middlemen...... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Well, a market economy without profit is probably how we started out after we stopped being hunter gatherers. That was barter, then some bright spark invented money as a unit of exchange in complex barter societies.
There's not much to prove that. Early agricultural societies were at least as likely to depend on gift economies, some sorts of centralised planning, or plunder, as means of economic organisation and exchange. The narrative of the inevitability of barter then currencies is just a narrative. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I don't have a problem, nec. with profits. It's profits made by gambling and what is done with those profits I have a serious issue with. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
From what you've written it's less about competing ideas of authoritarianism because I think there is an idea amongst the Russian plutocracy that, Yukos aside, there really is no restraint upon their corporate behaviour and Vlad the Putin remains indulgent so long as they render a little bit unto Caeser. however, seems as tho' Vlad's been reading Machiavelli's The Prince, where you would see this behaviour, this capricious behaviour described as a very necessary essence of Statecraft.
""it is best to be both feared and loved; however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved." keep to the Fen Causeway
Is anyone alive around here? Where is everyone?
Seems like most everyone is all off on holiday and forgot to arrange for broadband on the beach. keep to the Fen Causeway
on a village level, it's easier to finger the criminals, the ones who can't resist gambling with others' funds.
scaled up to the insane level it is now, it's a lot harder.
and now 'trust' has become 'consumer confidence', same diff. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
