If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now
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The bezzle is contained by two forces.
* First, #SteinsLaw: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."
* Second, #Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).
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On the other hand, as the #PrivateEquity sector has repeatedly demonstrated, there are all kinds of accounting tricks, subsidies and frauds that can animate a decaying, zombie firm long after its best-before date (Keynes's irrational markets):
https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben
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