From: Noah Horton (nhorton@ectropic.org)
Date: Mon Nov 18 2002 - 14:43:28 MST
On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Well of course not. Companies that produce no goods or services
> whatsoever, like arbitrage firms or currency traders or day traders,
> are nonetheless valuable contributors to the economy, and every
> penny they make is well earned.
How do arbitrage or currency traders not produce a service?
I think the point of the question was probably referring more to the
contributions that a company makes that do not fit into a business case.
An example that comes to mind is the improvement of employee skills.
Another would be community contributions via donations.
Personally I would vote that these contributions have tremendous
importance in judging a company. What is most interesting is that an
absolute free market is generaly thought to be sustainable only when
companies are unable to pass costs on to non-owner constituents (an
example would be pollution). The interesting is that behavior like
contributions to charitable causes is an example of companies passing
profits on to non-owner constituents.
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