the free market strikes it's cruel fist again

the free market strikes it's cruel fist again

fiction
edward w pritchard

Author has been following American industrial paper producer Verso Paper [ VRSZ] for several years and notices the stock is today at 4 cents a share and the company again is laying off unionized workers and threatening to close several more mills.

Company assures displaced workers to deal with things you can control such as safety at the local plants and [ author's interpretation] "let the free market sort out the rest".

It's the usual story concerning lost jobs, New York hedge funds arranging leveraged buyout, promises and promises to local Governments and regulators, and then ultimately idle Mills and Factories.

Americans infatuation with the free market strikes again abet on a small scale in a few small towns losing a Mill and local jobs. Insignificant to some in the cosmic significance of market dislocations.

Author studied American History in college and recalls that it was America politicians in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century who resisted European economist's calls for Free Trade. American instead choosing to protect it's fledgling manufacturing companies with tariffs and other protections. Such measures now terribly out of fashion and so politically incorrect.

The fall of Verso paper more than likely has something to do with the internet and new technologies but a fall in stock price in eighteen months from five dollars a share to four cents is somewhat starting to one not trained in classical economics.

Stay tuned for a bankruptcy filing soon from Verso paper. What must the bankruptcy trustee think when he reviews the paper work on these type of deals?

The free market strikes its cruel fist again.