patrick.net

First came Jim Cramer's incoherent rant on the hedge fund/Wall Street meltdown, then came Bill Gross's semi-coherent plea to POTUS for a federal bailout of his struggling PIMCO bond funds the overleveraged U.S. homedebtor. Given that these are two of the most vocal and public commentators in the sphere of media finance/capitalism, it seems fair to ask: are these men true capitalists?

Now, I am not one to lecture others on the tenets and/or history of capitalism. I was studying literature and journalism, while many of the regulars on this board were immersed in B-school. Nonetheless, given my limited exposure to macro/micro economics, I vaguely remember a lecture or two about the virtues of creative destruction (i.e., the healthy, natural market process whereby businesses that are poorly run and/or engage in excessive risk tend to go out of business). I also recall a cautionary tale or two about the moral hazards created when government attempt to impede this necessary process. It's been a long time since macro-econ 101, but I distinctly recall Adam Smith saying something about an invisible hand that rewards good financial risk management and penalizes poor risk management, and that this was a *good* thing --not a bad thing, as Mr. Cramer and Mr. Gross both seem to think.

This begs the question: if capitalism is *only* allowed to work freely in ONE DIRECTION (up), is this really capitalism? If the people who habitually make poor financial decisions are always bailed out by those who did not, what sort of behavior does this encourage in the future? Are these Wall Street "Masters of the Universe" who are clamoring for a taxpayer/Fed bailout really capitalists, or something else?

I leave you to ponder this along with one of my personal all-time favorite truisms:

PRIVATIZE PROFIT, SOCIALIZE RISK

Discuss, enjoy...
HARM

P.S., kudos to Jim Grant for his excellent Op-Ed in the Sunday NYT: "capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich".