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"Fairness" in a capitalist system is more or less what you can get while following the laws. In this respect collective bargaining/unions are fair. They may go against the grain of American individualism, but they're fair.

The guy running the injection molding machine wasn't overpaid. The market had simply set a new price on his expertise. It went from $15 or $20 bucks an hour to 50 or 75 cents an hour. That's a conversation I wouldn't relish having with anyone. "Hey pal, the thing you spent the last decade doing for eight hours a day -- the job that has paid the mortgage, fed the kids and makes you a hero to your family -- is now worth five bucks a day."

The hedge fund guys are just the latest thing. Twenty years ago it was the M&A guys and the arbitrageurs (love that word). And before that it was the go-go years brokers, who followed the bond brokers...

""Fairness" in a capitalist system is more or less what you can get while following the laws".

Not really. There is nothing unconstitutional about marxism. It is not a body of law but an economic theory. In the United States we could implement, through legislation, a completely marxist economic system. Some would say we are pretty close now. OMG.

The problem is marxism is bad economics.

"The guy running the injection molding machine wasn't overpaid. The market had simply set a new price on his expertise" You have a point unless it was a collective bargaining agreement which is an extra-market activity.

Have you read Thomas Sowell? The guy is great. Kind of like Walter Williams without the affectations (real or faint). I'm working through his review of classical economics right now. A bit more challenging.

I trade against the hedge fund guys all day long. We have different missions and as long as I stay small and don't get greedy or lazy or diverted by Freeper I do pretty well.

You know the really odd thing are those folks on redstate.org. When the Katrina oil shock hit the price control-freaks came out of the woodwork. The mission statement is good but it is too much like FNC for my taste.