I just listened to part one then two, one right after the other (I think I need a cup of tea and a lie down now...). It was actually a good debate, when one person talked at a time, of course.

I\\\'m going to have to mull this over some more, but I wanted to say thanks for having the debate. It was worth the heat, I think.

posted by: Arthur (AmeriNZ) on 2007-06-07 08:17:00

(I was responding to an email from Arthur at AmeriNZ and realized that I should cross post this here, of course, since this is about this podcast...dur)

I have been thinking more and more about that \"debate\" on TOF and regret that I fell into the trap of arguing so easily. I would rather have made the effort to be silent and just come in once or twice with important points. It\'s something that I have made a concerted effort to do in my life, since I used to be much more confrontational and it turned people off alot. I really buy into the honey vs vinegar thing now....I realize that I was not at all prepared for what the conversation would be. David just invited me to be on a group podcast, and I walked into the topic. We\'ve talked about this, and we\'re cool. David even suggested himself right away that he didn\'t really moderate it as much as it needed.

To your (AmeriNZ) comments:

I WOULD indeed say that we don\'t live under any kind of true free market. However, I don\'t have unwavering FAITH in the notion of free markets, as you assert (I believe in reason, after all, not faith). I have unwavering support for trying to make the market free-er. I tend to be more on the side of limiting the rampant regulation of enterprise. Nothing gets created when there are tight strictures on entrepreneurship. China has learned from this, and even the world\'s largest communist state is becoming the biggest free market economy. Who\'d a thunk it?.

(Interesting side note: I think one of the biggest misconceptions is equating corporations with entrepreneurs, they are by definition opposites. To lump all businesspeople together is a huge mistake, and sadly, corporations by their very nature tend to act more like bureaucracies with regard to individuals or small businesses, namely that they feel it\'s better to dominate them than to allow them to trade freely. Bureaucrats would control individuals with regulation, and big corporations would do it through throwing around their considerable economic weight. Both are enemies of true free market competition, although they may at times claim to support it. All animals are equal, it\'s just that some animals are more equal than others...)

As for the greed that goes on in some corporations, you are spot on. You said it well with your comment that the expectation of reward for an investment is at times out of all proportion to what is put in, and most \"wealth\" now is created by shuffling pieces of paper back and forth in a poker game, where we bet on each other. This is one of the core principles that I live by, that of the earned vs the unearned. In fact, I think it\'s immoral to derive benefit from that which you have not created. I think there are even whole professions built on immoral earning of money. One of my former best friends owns a hedge fund and has made millions by shorting medical technologies that he feels won\'t pan out in the marketplace. Not always because they aren\'t good, but because they just aren\'t ready, or because people expect immediate gains, or because the government has made it unfavorable for these technologies to succeed. So he\'s hoping that good ideas that could help people fail in order to turn a profit. Watching him work (and I used to sit with him as he made his buying and selling choices, sometimes moving up to $10 million at a time), it slowly became clear to me that he is making money not by creating, but by hoping for destruction. As good as I was at \"trading\", I realized that it was bad for my soul, since it was not based on investing, nor in any creation of my own, and over time I had a falling out with this friend who had grown rich from this practice.

Now, of course, my business is built on creating things, either literally with my hands or with my output of ideas. I feed people, a noble pursuit, and one that in this culture I can make a really good living at.

I absolutely agree with you that there is a place for regulation, since abuses do happen. The framers saw the need for this in the way they built our government. They were not naive enough to think that some degree of government was not necessary, but I think that it\'s more valuable that the shift away from rampant greed happen from within the ranks of the people rather than with the fist of governments. Greed and power are flip sides of the same coin, and as we see with government, using one to crush the other is simply re-arranging deck chairs...

I was definitely being tongue in cheek about the progressives being closer to communists. I was trying to get at the point that many so-called progressives actually operate under a strong assumption that the government necessarily SHOULD fix everything, and therefore MUST be turned to. It\'s a paternal attitude that makes the state our nanny, and has contempt for the ability of individuals to make good choices for themselves. I got at this in my comment about not respecting the voters. I also listened to CallBox7 the other day, and liked what he had to say about progressives being practical. I just don\'t think that governments can mandate people doing the right thing, just as it\'s difficult for a parent to make their child do the right thing. Freedom means being free to make even the \"wrong\" choices, and we grow, whether as individuals or societies, to the extent that we can learn from our mistakes.

My biggest assertion, as I\'m sure you know from hearing me on different podcasts, is that we can change ourselves and the world only through personal responsibility. recognizing that we are the generators of our experiences, and the creators of our results is amazingly empowering, and frees us from the \"matrix\" that is this endless partisan debate. It\'s so easy to define ourselves as to the opposite of our opponents, and get caught in meaningless back and forth. We saw how easy that was in this discussion. I try to live by this principle, yet I easily fell into the matrix, so ingrained in our social structure it is, and had an easy time getting stuck in par

posted by: Chef Mark on 2007-06-09 22:16:00