As the third and final installment in my Futurama series, I call attention to That Guy from the episode Future Stock, a resurrected 80's style financial whiz and his untimely death from the unfortunately fictional disease Boneitus. I'm looking at the behavior of Wall Street lately and sincerely wishing someone would spread boneitus to people like That Guy.
"Fry, I'm an 80's guy. Friendship to me means that for 2 bucks I'd beat you with a pool stick until you got detached retinas."-That Guy (a.k.a. Steve Castle)
Okay, I know in advance that I publish this in a Libertarian forum and the potential consequences of criticizing the Free Market on these pages are bad. And I already realize that anything offered by any cartoon is going to be more caricature than character. Hence it is unfair for me to take Steve Castle (in the episode in question he was known only as That Guy), and say he is typical of Wall Street. In the course of the episode, he died a very funny death from boneitus, the disease he had himself cryogenically frozen to avoid after he engineered a hostile takeover of the company that was working on a cure (and pocketing a cool 100 million).
Yes, it would be unfair of me to lump in all of Wall Street with this caricature. Maybe I shouldn't give examples like the people who lost everything in the Enron or World Com or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or 80's S&L debacles and point out that it's people like That Guy (Steve Castle) who are directly responsible! So I won't.
I'll just point out that despite the damage done to our economy by this entire culture of shortsighted greedy traders; Libertarians still can make a persuasive case for fiscal conservatism. I don't think anyone could miss the foreclosures, unemployment and poverty that are rampant today. There is just a much higher percentage of them dragging down the economy.
But this proves the point of the danger and potential abuses of fiat currency and central banking. Alan Greenspan made money available at a negative interest rate when adjusted for inflation. Free money was a betrayal of his supposed Libertarian principles. Who knows what he was thinking when he was making those decisions. Who cares, the results of this were tragically inflicted on people who believed hype from people like Greenspan and That Guy (Steve Castle).
And it was people like That Guy (Steve Castle) who were playing hard and fast with the rules driving housing prices up beyond what was reasonably affordable.
I've heard one of the most eloquent local Libertarian speakers say that in spite of all of this we want avoid Government Price Controls. He's actually preaching to the choir to me on this one. The argument was that it only causes shortages where there shouldn't be shortages and surpluses where there shouldn't be surpluses. However, it is seldom one word is ever said about Price Controlling or Price Fixing when the Free Market does it.
Do you feel that the Free Market never indulges in Price Controls?
Please allow me to introduce you to a form of Free Market Competition known as Oligopoly. Oligopolies exist when you have a handful of firms producing from 75%-100% of the Marketshare. In this kind of Marketplace, they are the one who establish the price-a phenomenon known as being a Price Maker. Examples are Batteries, an industry where Four companies: Duracell, Eveready, Ray-O-Vac, and Kodak control 94% of the Marketplace and Toothpaste where another Four companies: Proctor & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Lever Bros, and Beecham control 91% of the marketplace. And you will notice that the prices for these products don't really vary that nuch when you shop for them. When's the last tine you saw a hot new toothpaste or battery try to capture marketshare by dramatically reducing its price. You don't see new brands for $0.50 when you shop for toothpaste do you?
Well, there's a good reason. Such forms of Oligopolistic competition encourage collusion, both legal and illegal, between firms so that no outsiders are allowed to infringe on their marketshare and a few companies are able to control production and pricing.
In the Futurama episode in question, Mom, the head of Momcorp, is so afraid of competition that she is willing to buy the Planet Express delivery company That Guy (Steve Castle) is running rather than give up her control over price and production. This had the effect of making everybody who held onto his or her stock momentarily rich until Phillip Fry opened his big mouth.
My point is that if you really are fiscally conservative, private sector price controls particularly the illegal kind, should be just as much an abomination to you as government price controls. And the system really isn't set up in a way to discourage this in big companies that are Price Makers. Just the opposite, if you are a CEO of a monopoly or an oligopolic company, there is pressure on you to increase earnings no matter what. Even if it's a secret illegal meeting in Las Vegas during a trade show with bigwigs from your competition where you decide on what price and production should be, you feel pressure to do it. And if you won't for ethical reasons, one of your executive vice presidents will. And the guy putting pressure on you to do behave this way probably thinks and behaves a lot like That Guy (Steve Castle).
The best argument for Libertarian thought I've ever read was from Michael Shermer in his book Mind of the Market. He is very clear on the role of government as the creator of a level playing field where the Free Market can flourish. To his credit, he has denounced the safety and environmental shortcuts indulged in Massey Energy and BP that have lead to disaster and death.
He makes the case that bottom up capitalism is easier to change (because of marketplace pressures) when a mistake is made. Top down government is very difficult to change once legislation is enacted, but still plays a vital role in the marketplace. The purpose of government is to ensure a level playing field so that markets can thrive. It's my understanding that this mirrors the thesis of Ludwig Von Mises, the father of Austrian Economics.
If that's the case, then we're comparing apples and oranges when we discuss the merits of Austrian Economics and letting sociopaths in executive offices, like those whom That Guy (Steve Castle) was a parody of, fix prices and bribe legislators for ideological reasons only. Those are two different proposals!
By the way, in the process of enacting Financial Reform, Wall Street lobbyists have recently proved Democrats can be bribed just as easy as Republicans can. It was a Democrat, not a Republican, who has been sabotaging reform legislation and enabling the next big financial crisis. An amendment submitted by Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) would eliminate an Obama administration-supported proposal to protect average investors from unscrupulous brokers on Wall Street just like the kind parodied in Futurama as That Guy (Steve Castle). The move puts the entire Financial Reform bill into joke status. Tim Johnson's actions undercut a move to require brokers to act in the best interest of their clients. While financial advisors are already legally bound to do this, huge investment firms like Goldman Sachs are not! The average guy who got his Series 7 license and is acting on behalf of his investors is not the one who deserves boneitus. That Guy (Steve Castle) does deserve the horrible cartoonish death of boneitus!
And Democratic Senator Tim Johnson just enabled That Guy (Steve Castle) to continue to risk huge companies at taxpayer expense, while the Senate is debating Financial Reform. He told the world that despite the horrendous recent record of Wall Street, Big Financial Firms should get to play by different rules than the ones average investors have to play by.
I don't rejoice in anyone's death. A cartoon's death is always reversible. But there are those in real life whose passing leaves the world a better place (Adolph Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeni, Ted Bundy, just to name a few off the top of my head). I feel the same way about That Guy (Steve Castle) and his real life counterparts. I think Morrisey, of the band the Smiths said it best in the song Unhappy Birthday-"...You're evil and you lie. And if you should die, I may feel slightly sad, but I won't cry".
I wouldn't cry if someone found a way to spread boneitus to those who cut corners regarding worker safety and environmental protections in the two recent lethal disasters. Nor would I cry if suddenly executive officers had to pay for price-fixing in the marketplace with a bad case of boneitus. And unfortunately, if a fictional disease can't make these people behave, it looks like the only entity with enough power to do so is the government a.k.a. We, the People.
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