[ExI] Americans are poor drivers

[Dan]

--- On Wed, 7/8/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/8 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>:
> >> So what would you do if you were a shareholder in
> a company
> >> which
> >> owned the roads? Assume these are a special class
> of shares
> >> which
> >> cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights
> and the
> >> rights to
> >> any dividends generated or costs incurred.
> >
> > How does this [your road company where you have only
> voting rights, but no other rights -- including no right to
> exit] differ from a government?  It seems you believe that
> the difference between a free market road system and a
> government one is merely the labels applied.
> 
> There are all sorts of legal instruments like this in the
> free market
> capitalist world: preference shares, convertible bonds,
> non-voting
> shares, options, trusts which stipulate whether and how
> the
> beneficiaries can dispose of the assets, and so on. In the
> example I
> gave, if you have voting rights you can vote to convert the
> shares to
> a different type, so that you can dispose of them or
> accumulate more, for example.

Yes, while true, my point was that there are options and no one is forced into those things.  Yes, I can agree to some contract that's extremely restrictive.  But I can also NOT agree to that -- e.g., not form or come into agreement with your very state-like road company.  My guess is in a world of free market roads, we'd see very little like the scenario you depict.

> But suppose you start off with the situation
> as stated.  What will you do?

Go on a killing spree?

Regards,

Dan