[yorkedork]

What is it that's working as intended? The process of buying back shares of your own company?

If you read what I wrote carefully, you should notice something that I didn't say:

  AAPL has a bunch of cash and is using it to fund its stock buyback program. Thus, capitalism has failed.

In fact, I was attempting to elucidate the OP's topic. I believe a reasonable interpretation to be: why are so many startups with weak fundamentals and/or specious business models receiving so much funding via private equity?

My response to this question was to observe macro-level phenomena and speculate that the _emergence_ of this dynamic was due to a broad-based failure in matching capital with desired investment risk and return. I mentioned Apple to demonstrate what a capital hoarder has done (which is to reinvest in its own equity) in relief against private equity firms. In a global environment where demand for safe assets exceeds supply, less risk-averse firms are chasing further risk to maintain their desired level of return.

None of these points, I thought, required a race to defend attacks against capitalism; however, in the interest of demonstrating my sincerity, I'll share a couple of my own positions I believe are loosely-relevant to the broader discussion:

  * Capitalism maximizes human capital: no
  * Efficient markets hypothesis: wrong-headed, at best
  * Moralizing capital: one of the most socially and politically toxic behaviors

It is my view that capitalism is a set of prescriptions which seek to define and regulate economic behavior. Further, it seems misguided to say simply that capitalism has succeeded or that it failed. A better alternative might be to say: given a set of expectations, a capitalist environment produced correct or incorrect results. Or, a more politically-charged example: capitalism has succeeded (or failed) in maximizing, e.g., environmental capital, human capital, social welfare or aggregate happiness.

In any case, I now regret side-tracking myself and I don't find it particularly relevant to be debating the merits of capitalism in this context.

[eru]

OK, sure, no need to side track.

> Capitalism maximizes human capital: no

Actually, it economises on that kind of capital, too.