Greed

Why do I get stuck explaining things? Jeez.

Michael Medved bungled again, couldn't explain capitalism. Pay attention, dipshit. Investors have to climb a wall of worry. Competition, hidden defects in the enterprise or management thereof, cost of money, foreign exchange rates, and two million other factors like deliberate market rigging by colocated robots and short sellers could wipe out investor gains in a blink. That why conservative investors strangle positions with puts, calls, and diversification.

Meanwhile, corporations are NOT eager to take on more debt, unless their market share is hopeless (like Sears). Bankruptcy and liquidation (Borders, Toys R Us) is better than sudden mark-down of asset value (Chesapeake). Investors in Venezuela were totally screwed. If a borrower can't pay and never made a profit, high yield lenders face financial disaster (Uber, Tesla). That's why retail investors prefer mutual funds and pension funds that spread bets across several asset classes: blue chip dividends, bonds, real estate, Treasurys, gold, and a dollop of high P/E multiple FANG stocks (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google).

Profitable companies expand and produce new products (Google) with retained earnings after tax. R&D is a pre-tax deduction. They pay top wages to attract the best employees and put considerable effort into world class organizational development (Boeing, IBM).

"Greed" drives half of it. If they can't make a profit, publicly traded companies lose market value, pay higher interest rates, shrink and die (AT&T taken over by Southwest Bell for $1 and assumption of AT&T's debt, Enron liquidated without paying pensions). "Fear" is an equally harsh factor. Many companies are vulnerable to Chinese competitors and trade tariffs.

Households are no different. "Greed" encourages people to go to college, to butter up family and classmates. "Fear" makes them stick at a job they despise while they look for something better, and in the meantime smile at the boss, pretend to be a loyal servant. The ultimate greed is liberty, greatest fear a Blue Wave to impose higher taxes and job-killing regulation.

Pretty simple stuff. Liberty promotes greed, squashes risk. Capitalism is retained earnings, invested in new products, new hiring, better wages, business expansion -- and "creative destruction" of inefficient and unneeded stuff (steam locomotives, whale oil, telegraphy).

If you want to punish greed, engine of a wealthier society, enact laws limiting or abolishing civil liberty and private property -- multiplying fear and want (Venezeula, North Korea).

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