Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Enron's Success Story

[Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx>]

Max, I read the big push to define the Enron affair as criminal as an effort to
suggest that there is nothing wrong with the functioning of the market, just
some bad apples who everybody thought were good apples.
    Which is not to say that pushing the criminal investigation high into the
Bush administration is not a good idea.

Gene Coyle

Max Sawicky wrote:

> Two different issues seem to be mixed in here.
> One is market failure, the other is illegal acts by
> Enron execs possibly linked to illegal acts by
> the Bushies.  The mere fact of a company failing,
> even a large one, is not a market failure.  Market
> failures exist because markets keep functioning
> in some perverse, diseconomical way.
>
> Neither is the commission of illegal acts a market
> failure.  In this case, such acts happen to be politically
> sensational.  That's the importance, IMO.  Not
> market failure.  Capitalism is guilty of its successes,
> not its failures.
>
> mbs
>
> To answer Michael's question below:  "No."
>
>     But the reason for the Wall ST Journal story was not to work through
> micro theory to get the "right answer."  The article appeared to head off
> any questioning of "the market" in Congress or State legislatures.  People .
> . .
>
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> > Is it ever possible to the disprove market efficiency to the satisfaction
> > of a conservative economist?
> >