[T]hat is a valuable service and you can make a nice profit from it. But it is not a value-creating service. It is a value-shifting service. You take the value from the creditors and split it up among the buyer and seller.
This is one of those topics where I feel people need to step back and make a distinction between real profits, in which something of value is added to the world, on the one hand, and paper profits on the other, which move value from one person to another. This distinction gets obscured very frequently and to a great degree, and especially since the 1980s move to get everyone involved in the financial markets (where the only kind of profit is the paper one) by changing from defined-benefit pension plans to market retirement accounts.
In the case of coal mining, Federal law requires operators to post a bond for the amount required to remediate the mine sites after they're worked out. The Bureau of Mines has, however, for decades allowed operators to "self-bond", in effect, just say they're good for the money. Then, when the mine is near being worked out, it's sold to another operator (often spun off from the former one), which then declares bankruptcy. Pretty much every single time. It's strange how that happens.
Also : oh my God Ukrainian organized crime. Some of the most useless people in the entire world.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-10-17 09:09 pm (UTC)This is one of those topics where I feel people need to step back and make a distinction between real profits, in which something of value is added to the world, on the one hand, and paper profits on the other, which move value from one person to another. This distinction gets obscured very frequently and to a great degree, and especially since the 1980s move to get everyone involved in the financial markets (where the only kind of profit is the paper one) by changing from defined-benefit pension plans to market retirement accounts.
In the case of coal mining, Federal law requires operators to post a bond for the amount required to remediate the mine sites after they're worked out. The Bureau of Mines has, however, for decades allowed operators to "self-bond", in effect, just say they're good for the money. Then, when the mine is near being worked out, it's sold to another operator (often spun off from the former one), which then declares bankruptcy. Pretty much every single time. It's strange how that happens.
Also : oh my God Ukrainian organized crime. Some of the most useless people in the entire world.