Seth Ackerman FAIR
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Henwood [SMTP:dhenwood at panix.com]
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 1998 11:41 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: RE: Soft privatization
>
> I oppose stock purchases for several reasons. One, it'd be a vast
> subsidy
> to Wall Street. Sure the fund would hire its own managers, but even
> index
> fund managers don't come cheap, and you can't buy stocks for free.
> Two,
> what stocks would the fund buy? Index the S&P 500? But what about the
> small
> stocks, whose neglect issuers and holders would whine endlessly about.
> Every stock? Would they manage the portfolio actively? What about
> social
> screening criteria? Arms-makers yes, tobacco no? Three, how would they
> vote
> the stock? With management? With the Council of Institutional
> Investors?
> Four, why should public money go into the stock market? On the basis
> of
> historical returns, which economic theory still can't explain? To
> promote
> "capital formation," which the stock market has nothing to do with?
> And
> five, it would further the ideological legitimation of the stock
> market,
> and make supporting prices a matter of national policy. The
> government's
> material interests would fall even further in line with those of big
> capital than they already are.
>
> The only reason to buy stock with public funds would be to socialize
> the
> enterprises, but that didn't work in Sweden.
>
> Doug
>