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Originally Posted by Lune
The rules of 'fairness' and the 'free market' dictate that everything that is happening right now is okay . . . . Yep, you've found one way in which financial institutions use non free-market mechanisms to make money.
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I think we can both agree that the elites on their government <-> big business carousel are the problem here. So how is this an indictment of the nonexistent free market and not our political system?
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Originally Posted by Lune
Premise 2: The free market has no mechanism to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated in the hands of the most successful individuals or organizations.
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This is just wrong, for two reasons. First, capital needs land and labor to be effective. Warren Buffet's 50 billion can't grow unless he hires other people to run the trains, design the new products, and so on. Second, capitalism involves wealth creation. This isn't the Feudal era where land was the only resource and to get rich you either had to steal it or inherit it. When you found a successful company, you make money, possibly a lot of money, and there is nothing the established elite can do to stop you. And new companies often involve a lot of creative destruction (think Kodak, Blackberry, etc).
I remember being taught in school about how the New Deal lifted us out of the depression. And yet, the Great Depression lasted for 7 years after the New Deal began. That is what I call failure. On the other hand, free market policies stopped the Great Depression of the 1920s in its tracks and lead to renewed prosperity.
Socialistic governments with 'strong labor' are in fact disasters all over the place: Southern Europe has youth unemployment of 40%. Venezuela is a disaster where you can't buy a pack of sardines and a taxi ride to the beach requires 100$ US at the current exchange rate. Denmark is in the midst of a massive housing bubble (Copenhagen housing prices have increased 50% over the past 3 years due to NIRP). Germany is about to take on 1 million Syrian immigrants. I'm sure that will work out well for them.