Re: Re: Re: RE: "Speculative" vs "real" investment

[Jim Devine]

At 08:05 AM 1/10/01 -0800, you wrote:
>>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.
>
>Why should anyone imagine that it would be sound? No one has ever been 
>able to make it coherent. And it is a survival of the old days: ideas of 
>good Christian (or German) engineers and bad Jewish financiers and userers...

For example, in his CAN "IT" HAPPEN AGAIN?, Minsky has a clearly-defined 
distinction between hedge financing, speculative financing, and Ponzi 
financing. It avoids any ethnic stereotypes, though Ponzi was Italian, I 
believe.

Veblen distinguishes between those who produce (engineers, workers, etc.) 
and those who just shuffle paper...

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine