On 25/11/11 08:22, Michel Bauwens wrote:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Natalie Golovin <[email protected]> wrote:
Scarcity of resources and risk-taking play major roles in allocation, and choices become skewed as decisions are controlled by govt policies, religion, culture & personal ethics. Consider the simple example of providing HIV drugs to poor populations. Lengthening lives results in the infection of many more individuals unless the culture �buys in� to prevention like condom use. Profits pay for the returns to risk in bringing a product to market. Once a product successfully hits the street, competitors are encouraged until a dynamic equilibrium is reached and in the long-run profit is roughly equivalent to the interest rate plus depreciation. Today we have nothing close to that due to cartels, monopoly behavior, collusion, FED manipulation of interest rates, insufficient or over-regulation & favoritism etc. etc.,, all now made more complex on a global scale.
we can agree on this ..
are these problems (cartels, monopolies etc.) hindering a well functioning a profit system, or are they rather problems made by a profit system?