For the record, I'm not in favor of any and all profit-driven investment
programs. I do think we need to understand better how the system works,
however. It is not clear to me (or to lots of other folks on and
off this list)
whether the "speculative versus real finance" story is logically
sound. If we
can model it, we can (1) show that it is in fact sound, and (2)
perhaps learn
something about the circumstances under which it is likely to be a factor.
I'm sure most of us agree that, in our future perfect world, many
such problems
would be behind us.
Peter
************
For the hard drives, I'm wondering what it would take to revive JMK's
cryptic remarks on the "socialization of investment" and the "euthanasia of
the rentiers". To the extent that a decent model showed that the S vs. R
story was coherent [even though the market behavior that drives us to seek a
model is itself arational/irrational?], would it be usable in helping
convince others that performing the above goals were worthwhile? Is not the
greening of finance a corollary of greening technological/organizational
change?
Ian
