[ElProlactin]

> No, I think there is tremendous potential value in some areas.

So who is going to decide what has tremendous (real) value and what doesn't? And how are they going to force private individuals and enterprises to invest only in what has (in their estimation) value while at the same time ensuring that the level of investment permitted is sufficient to realize the value but not excessive so as to cause malinvestment?

[cassianoleal]

At this point I honestly think you're not even trying to have a good faith discussion, but I'll bite this last one.

> who is going to decide what has tremendous (real) value and what doesn't?

No one has to.

> And how are they going to force private individuals and enterprises to invest only in what has (in their estimation) value while at the same time ensuring that the level of investment permitted is sufficient to realize the value but not excessive so as to cause malinvestment?

They don't have to do that either.

Government is (or at least should be) in the business of ensuring better outcomes for the population that constitutes it, whilst reducing harm to as many of those people as possible.

Look for symptoms of things that are threatening either of those, and figure out a way to find balance.

Your argument reads a lot like "who is going to decide what a monopoly is and isn't? And how are they going to force private enterprises to break up when they are past that threshold?"

[ElProlactin]

> At this point I honestly think you're not even trying to have a good faith discussion, but I'll bite this last one.

Honestly, this sounds like a cop-out. I asked a legitimate question in response to your comment: who decides what is a good investment and what isn't, and how do they determine how much good investment is needed to prevent excess that becomes malinvestment?

You refuse to answer this question because, I suspect, you realize that this is an impossible task.

> Your argument reads a lot like "who is going to decide what a monopoly is and isn't? And how are they going to force private enterprises to break up when they are past that threshold?"

Except that there are criteria defining what constitutes a monopoly and they're applied to the current state of a company.

Adjudicating a monopoly case is therefore a completely different matter in which regulators and courts determine whether a business, based on its current state, meets the definition of a monopoly.

The only way to establish good investment from bad is in hindsight. Unless you have a direct line to God, you can't know whether $1 billion invested into Company A or Industry B will produce a return or wipe investors out, or whether the appropriate level of investment in Company A or Industry B is $1 billion versus $1.5 billion, and so on.

But your comment hints at the idea that there's a group of people who can predict the future and accurately determine what investments are good or bad, and precisely how much should be invested in anything up to threshold where good investment becomes bad. This just isn't reality.

[cassianoleal]

> You refuse to answer this question

I didn't.

Everything else you said is dodging my main argument, and in fact pretty much everything else I've been saying in favour of your own very very narrow interpretation of the world in pure financial terms.