FW: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... (fwd)

[Trei, Peter]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Blanc [SMTP:blancw at cnw.com]
> Sent:	Monday, October 05, 1998 12:10 AM
> To:	'Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer'
> Subject:	RE: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... (fwd)
> 
 [...]
>  
> Free market economices don't "work", simply because they are run by
> humans, who regularly suffer
> psychological breakdowns, envy, and mistakes of judgement, not to mention
> disreputable marketing
> departments.   Regulated economies, however, are run by government drones,
> and are therefore perfect
> vehicles which, with unfailing success, make all of their captive
> customers happy.
> 
[four paragraphs of well written irony removed]


For those interested in a thoughtful (though slightly one sided) look at
this issue,
I strongly reccomend PJ O'Rourke's new book 'Eat the Rich'. He examines
several
locations (US, Sweden, Albania, Cuba, Russia, Hong Kong, Shanghai) in an
attempt to 
figure out why (economically) "some places suck and others don't" His bottom
line
is that the rule of law (especially contract law) is critical, as well as
democratic
government. 

He's much more interested in on-the-ground economic experience than in
government
figures, and is the only economics writer who can make me laugh out loud. He
does
have his blind spots - I would have liked to see what he makes of Singapore.

Peter Trei

[Excuse the lousy formatting - I'm using a Microsoft product]