On 2009-Mar-08, at 18:29, Chris Gehlker wrote: > It is easy to find examples of markets that are very far from > perfect, very expensive to regulate, and simply can't be made > anywhere near perfect for reasonable social cost. Real estate is one > example because no piece of property is a perfect substitute for any > other and because so much of the value of any piece of property is > composed of positive externalities due to public and private > investment in nearby property. The question isn't whether or not to > regulate, the question is how and how much. Anybody advocating > either zero regulation or enough regulation to make the market > nearly perfect is probably an ideologue who should be regarded > with suspicion. > > I get upset and a little fearful when I hear someone like Giethner > go on TV and talk about disappointed he is in Wall Street executives > who are making 'the system' fail by acting to maximize their > personal wealth. If people behaved so as to maximize social well > being rather than their individual well being, we wouldn't need > either a market or a government. I want to say "Really? You > supported the dismantling[1] of the regulatory structure during the > Clinton years and later because you thought Wall Street was > populated with altruistic Marxists?"
Aye, if anyone is looking to generalize that no market is "perfect", then the other side is also true, that no regulatory effort is "perfect". (In keeping with your sig today, we honor both poles in a sort of Zen way). Otherwise we'd be heading towards saying that the market is full of poorly informed, irrational, selfish jerks, whilst government is run by altruistic aliens with IQs of ten million and googleplexes of accurate data. So does that leave us with a case-by-case list of things which sometimes the market can do better, and sometimes the government can do better? Even cases where the market is far from desirable by any objective measure, but regulatory efforts would make things worse, due to the government lacking information, lacking political honesty, being prone to the whims of interest groups, inertia, and even just the occurrence of unintended consequences? Are there any general rules about which should be in control, market or government? or does it depend on each case and what else is happening? Stefano > -- > The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here > and you are out there > -Yasutani Roshi, Zen master (1885-1973) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
