On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > you might say that star athletes and Goldman Sachs nabobs both are > parts of winner-take-all markets, where a small number of "winners" > reap millions and the rest just barely make it. These markets are > inefficient, according to neoclassicals. But at least athletes are > productive (of entertainment). G-S bucksbarons make no positive > contribution to society at all, as far as I can tell.
Apart from the fact that Goldman Sachs financiers, unlike athletes, are worse than useless, there are other big differences between the two that makes the comparison invalid. 1) Athletes do not enjoy government subsidies, bailouts and guarantees. 2) Athletes play in a fair game (except for rare instances of match fixing). Bankers play in a game rigged by insider trading, "server co-location" and other forms of information arbitrage that systematically favor a few companies. 3) Athletes compete in a brutal free market that punishes failure just as severely as it rewards success. 4) Athletes do not depend on lobbying a corrupt government for favors. etc. -raghu. -- "I don't care who you are, Fatso. Get the reindeer off my roof!" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
