[Sam the Sham]

Are you under the impression that businessmen are all the Hank Reardens and Dagney Taggarts of libertarian fantasy ? Are you under the impression that there aren't tons of businessmen who wouldn't be perfectly happy to trade "innovation" and "expansion" for a guaranteed easy life for themselves and their children ? That is why the normal progression of an industry is to cartels in which the entry costs have become so high that there are a small number of big players at the top who have a live and let live understanding amongst themselves.

[Havoc]

Gave a newspaper interview tonight, Sam. Looks like I have another brewing and was asked to call a radio show on top of that. Researching the show; but, thought I'd let ya know before I hit the sack. Have a good one ;)

[Toddsterpatriot]

Are you under the impression that businessmen are all the Hank Reardens and Dagney Taggarts of libertarian fantasy ?

No. I'm also not under the impression that politians and government regulators are all Jimmy Stewart, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" types either.

Business needs to be regulated, fine. Business also needs to make a profit. If you or government decides where business can hire or manufacture or if you decide how much profit should be enough for business to make then you might as well have government control of business.

You might disagree, but that's Fascism.

[discostu]

Nope. I'm quite aware that business people can be mean nasty SOBs. But they also want to expand their business. Command economies aren't cartels, they're government run industries. Again look at Amtrak, their chairman gets to go to congress and beg for money be given half of what he needs and is told to find a way to make it work without reducing service or increasing fair... No CEO wants to be in that position, they didn't spend all that time stabbing people in the back and climbing the corporate corpse mound to be reduced to Dickens characters.

There's a myth that the top players in industries have a live and let live understanding, but it's a myth. Competition is fierce in almost every industry, if a business isn't expanding then it's probably shrinking, the business cycle is not condusive to a company sitting on a plateau, the only way for a business to expand is to take business away from somebody else. When businesses to sit back in cartel manner the end result is something like what happened to our auto industry in the 70s: somebody find a way into the market and kicks the crap out of the lazy bastiches.