Friday, January 9, 2009

Bailouts Gone Wild

I just got an email from Vinny Catalano (vinnycatalano.blogspot.com) and stole his subject line for this blog post. He writes about the porn industry now asking for a bailout. Of source, its a stunt but if porn - a thriving business - wants help, then everyone should get in line for help, too.

In another email received ealier today from friend Tom McMahon, he sent a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon from 15 years ago. Evidently, Calvin's lemonade stand business practices were so rife with greed that his business failed. He went to his personal govenrment (Mom) for a subsidy.

Here is the link at one of the humor websites:
http://spikedhumor.com/articles/171386/Calvin-and-Hobbes-Financial-Crisis.html

Amazingly accurate and relevant to today.

Socialism cannot change these attitudes. Only a good housecleaning by capitalism can flush out these greedy idiots. But since we are a civilized nation, a safety net for the innocent victims is still a good idea. Innocent victims are workers laid off by failing companies - not management and not dumb investors.

1 comment:

Amalan said...

Actually, "dumb investors" are probably just "ignorant investors" - you could dedicate a PhD thesis for this, if it hasn't already been studied. I am almost certain that 90% of the investors have no clue of what they are investing in - of course, this is why most invest through mutual funds so that fund managers can be their informed representatives, but do you really think most managers knew about the bad books at the large brokerages which went under? If the fund managers didn't know, can we call them dumb or at least incompetent, and if we do, then the whole investment theory of going with stocks for the long haul is based on sheer hope and not faith in fundamental business practices. On the other hand, if the managers did know about the bad books, then it's even worse - these fund managers belong to the same group of bad CEOs. I don't know the percentage of bad participants in this game, but it sure looks dangerous. Eventually, the only people making a profit might be traders, which a vast majority of the investors are not.