… is from page 37 of John Mueller’s brilliant 1999 book, Capitalism, Democracy, & Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery:
Bankers, often criticized for stodgy, conservative behavior, in fact take more risks in a single business day than many of their critics do in a lifetime.
DBx: Indeed.
Keep this truth in mind when you next encounter the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Marco Rubio, or Josh Hawley, in their profound ignorance of both economics and history, criticize financial markets for failing to allocate capital in ways that these politicians – insufficiently gutsy to put their own money where their mouths are – claim to somehow divine how capital ‘should’ be allocated. These individuals apparently believe that being elected to high office somehow grants them access to knowledge about resource-allocation processes that is more accurate and full than is the knowledge that competitive markets put to use to allocate resources.
The fact that politicians such as these, as well as intellectuals who endorse industrial policy, refuse to put their own money where their mouths are cannot be mentioned too often. Such people wish to fund their dreams and schemes with money taken from other people. This fact alone is sufficient to discredit their proposals.
