Dan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The problem was that no-one (including the board of directors of AIG knew > that AIG was insolvent until the day the government intervened. LOL! Do you believe in the tooth fairy, too? > At that point, _everything_ becomes questionable. GE having to pay nearly > double for a 1 day note is an example of this. Oh, the horrors! > The viewpoint you are > expressing here makes Milton Friedman look like Karl Marx. Hmmm, if you actually knew what you were talking about, I might take that as a compliment. > The government did not intervene in the market after the panic of 1929. It > did after the panic of 1987. The latter turned out fine, the former was the > start of the Great Depression. The Fed caused much of the Great Depression by not increasing the money supply during a banking panic. The stock market crash of 1987 was not a banking panic, it was volatility due to wrong-headed program trading and portfolio insurance, the propagators of which lost their shirts and the silly techniques largely disappeared from the market. > I'm sure you'd call it coincidence...or other factors in play, but panics > and bubbles are inherent part of any market. Its irrational to think all > market players act rationally. It is funny that you would think I would disagree with this. It is also irrational to think that a bunch of politicians and people like you know how to "fix" the system by taking taxpayer money and using it to enrich a bunch of bozos who made foolish loans at ridiculously low interest rates because the government encouraged the process. > It may be true, like the early economist said "the market will work in the > long run." But as Keynes said "in the long run, we're all dead." Just a thought, but you might inspire a bit more confidence in your marks if you spent a little time learning about how markets and regulation actually work and a little less repeating cliched-jokes that were corny when my grandfather was young. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l