Baraka_Guru

I nominate capitalism as the first clue.

---------- Post added at 04:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:35 PM ----------

No, my point is that the push for a commercial aviation market was based on their being an existing market for other modes of transportation. The aviation industry didn't blossom from nothing.

You are suggesting that investors want to put money into things without first realizing the potential for a market. There are investors that might do this, but it likely happens on a small scale, because it's a huge risk.

If you look at the investing environment on a wide scale, investors don't put good money into things they don't see a market for. If strong spending isn't happening in a particular market, people won't be as inclined to invest in it.

I should probably point out that I'm referring to all investors, not just institutional or corporate investors. The average investor (which makes up quite a bulk of available capital in the U.S.) is rather shaken by what happened in 2008-2009. But even institutional investors won't put money into anything unless the fundamentals are strong, and one of these fundamentals includes market outlook. For a while now, people have been parking a lot of cash because of that. It's only when the markets begin to turn around will the average investor want to invest in them again.

I'm not suggesting that investors don't do what you are getting at, because they do. They see opportunity despite no track record. However, I don't think this kind of investing is the norm, and I don't think it drives the economy like the spending/investing balance I'm getting at.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot