see ... that's exactly the leftist in you - blaming 'capitalism' instead of your own youthful naivete. Even if you weren't wise enough to see it at the time, at least now in hindsight you might want to reflect that the whole dot com boom was just a Ponzi scheme. There never was any 'capital' basis to warrent investment - no product, no thing of value - just a frenzy to be in on the ground floor of a house of cards. So it wasn't 'capitalism' or capitalists who caused you to nearly lose money. You, and too many others, were simply snookered. Take it as a lesson in life (and towards understanding what real capitalism is) instead of blaming and hating what might have saved you the trouble. Take responsibility for having been a naive youthg and resolve to invest yourself in things of real value. You'll feel better instead of bitter (and start understanding conservatism).
Very good post, all of it, dougd. When you go looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Expect to be disappointed.
I'll skip the overabundance of capital in the stock market to talk about something related that ex-GE CEO actually said. What he says fits in with my notion of the economy being "broken"
Jack Welch on Hardball
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:[...] Jack, what’s your take on when this economy is going to turn around?
WELCH: ...You’ve got global capacity everywhere. ...There are plants all over China that just built 20 million things that are coming in to this or that, so pricing pressure is what we’re facing. The reason why jobs are tough is not volume. The reason why jobs are tough is there’s no profitability.