one that has a lot to do with publicly traded
companies rather than private ones
Are there a lot of private companies doing big things (ie, $90M wrench factories?) out of their own war chests?
I can think of a few examples but my perception is that this is rare enough to essentially disregard... but, I could well be wrong.
Even if a private company does such a thing, it would almost always be via some kind of financing, right? Which creates its own sort of short-term pressure even if it's not as psychotically ADHD as the pressure exerted by Wall Street.
I don't think it's accurate to say our "system was designed"
to do this sort of thing,
I mean, of course it wasn't intentionally designed for this outcome.
But it was designed for rapid and almost entirely unfettered economic growth. Given that, what other outcome was possible?
if only because 50-90 years [ago] it didn't do this sort of thing.
It wasn't possible 50-90 years ago. There were world wars, the seas were not safe, communication was glacially slow or impossible, etc. Also the U.S. was not yet so rich that it couldn't afford to pay its own people to make its own stuff.
> Are there a lot of private companies doing big things (ie, $90M wrench factories?) out of their own war chests?
Ask the Germans :) Anyway, you issue bonds, instead of stocks. You control the term, the "market" tells you the cost. And its a fixed cost. Or you take out a loan, again with fixed interest. You control the parameters as much as anyone else. Or you issue restricted shares, to convince capital owners willing to make a longer term bet to play with you. They have to be in it for the long haul, since they can't sell the shares based on some 1st, 2nd or 3rd order belief about the company value.
> But it was designed for rapid and almost entirely unfettered economic growth
I don't think it was "designed" at all. It evolves subject to various pressures and interests. And since Reagan or slightly before, most of the pressures from citizens (as opposed to customers) have been lifted/ameliorated. Same with pressures from employees. True, we did somewhat increase the pressure from environmental concerns. But at some point, people noticed that extracting value, instead of creating value, was a pathway to riches, and that's where a lot of the big bucks are made these days.
I can think of a few examples but my perception is that this is rare enough to essentially disregard... but, I could well be wrong.
Even if a private company does such a thing, it would almost always be via some kind of financing, right? Which creates its own sort of short-term pressure even if it's not as psychotically ADHD as the pressure exerted by Wall Street.
I mean, of course it wasn't intentionally designed for this outcome.But it was designed for rapid and almost entirely unfettered economic growth. Given that, what other outcome was possible?
It wasn't possible 50-90 years ago. There were world wars, the seas were not safe, communication was glacially slow or impossible, etc. Also the U.S. was not yet so rich that it couldn't afford to pay its own people to make its own stuff.