patrick.net

How will the free market stop it? The government is small and doesn't have the resources in this problem.

Assume it can, and if not hopefully someone would try. Who would it be? A government? Would a heroic corporation lose its wealth knowing it was the only one and there was no compensation?

Perhaps someone should write a novel about this scenario.

To make it more interesting...

Let's say a meteor is to hit Earth in 100 years with 75% certainty. How will humanity react? There may be enough time to develop new technology but the treat may not materialize. What should we do? :)

Peter Paul the libertarian candiate surprises everyone and wins the election. In his first week he eliminates the IRS, and reshapes government to his ideal view. A month later an amateur (no government scientists left) sees the meteor in his telescope. The space program has been cancelled but everything is still there, the auction hasn't happened yet.

What does Peter do?

I can't answer your scenario first because that would help you. I promise I have the solution in my hybrid model.

What does Peter do?

We are doomed! :)

But that is the worst case, right?

Peter,

Do nothing. I mean, really, who cares about the survival of the human race. I expect a lot of sex happening all over the world when people know they're going to be wiped out. Not just with humans, with monkeys, dogs, cats, snakes and ants, too. Many people have secret desires that a meteor will bring to fulfillment. Not long ago, a man in Washington died from having sex with his horse.

Perhaps I will fly over to Japan and have a Fugu feast...

ANTS?

I know. Some activities are better than sex.

Ok, you lost my vote :)

My solution under your scenario and probability:

Levy a per capita tax and put it into a specific account. That account will grow each year until the meteor is stopped. Whoever, or whichever corporation stops the meteor gets all of the money as a national prize. I believe in paying for performance.

The probability is irrelevent, just having it on an undisputed course with the Earth is enough of a crisis.

Perhaps the scenario is just outside Free Market's "envelope" of capability.

I can bet that all markets will breakdown and we will all revert to the basic mode. It is not going to be pretty.

Yuck! Please stop!

Well it is easy to use the normal course of distribution of goods and services to argue the merits of the free market, just as it is easy to use an example outside the norm to illustrate limits. Admittedly it gets kind of tricky in the middle. The distinction in my opinion between political points of view is where you draw the limits.

In my hybrid model thesis the government never competes with the free market, and happily hands off tasks the free market can take from it. The dilema is that high social need activities tend to be ones that don't generate any return for the private marketplace.

Yet the private markets of course receive the benefits of solving the social problems.

The dilema is that high social need activities tend to be ones that don’t generate any return for the private marketplace.

So the dilemma shall remain... human is the hard problem.

My opinion, any system would work if the human problem could be solved. Collectivism would work just fine if we didn't mind carrying our share of the work and or didn't resent it when others didn't, or didn't derive satisfaction when others are doing more than us for the same reward.

Collectivism would work just fine if we didn’t mind carrying our share of the work and or didn’t resent it when others didn’t, or didn’t derive satisfaction when others are doing more than us for the same reward.

That require qualities we denounced the day Adam ate the apple. :)

Probably why the founders hid behind the concept of God given rights as the basis of individual liberty in the hypocritical logic.

their hypocritical logic.

All I know is that eating meat is a God given right.

You've got a point galloping Cheeta. It's on top of your head. You've got a pointy head

I like the new Zillow.com satelite shots. I can see my neighbors pot plants. They're not current pics but it's much improved from before

With the Standard & Poor's 500 at a 10-month low is now a good time to buy for investors with a one-year time horizon?

Yes. We're either at or close to a bottom. 33%
No. Stocks will trade sideways or fall further. 67%

61761 Votes to date

Compare this to a Silly Con Valley CEO:

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer received a pay package valued about $1.3 million for fiscal 2007, a year in which profit at the world's largest software maker topped $14 billion, according to documents filed Friday.

For the year ended June 30, Ballmer received $620,000 in salary and a $650,000 bonus. Unlike some technology companies that spend millions on executive security, travel and other perquisites, Microsoft gave Ballmer a modest $6,750 in matches to his 401K retirement plan and approximately $3,000 worth of life insurance and athletic club memberships.

Ballmer, who owns about 4.3 percent of Microsoft's shares, received no equity compensation. He didn't exercise any stock options or vest any stock awards during the year, the company said in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

"specifically address mother in law issues" LOL!

Yes, something MUST be done!

Seriously though, the guy is living off grid, generating his own electricity and doing his own thing without it affecting any of the rest of us! I say more power to ya'!

"Find an ancient temple and fill it with slot machines"

This is my waking nightmare. We've had arguments in the past about who is and who ain't a boomer but there just isn't a desirable place left on the globe boomers haven't ALREADY soiled.

I had a client just return from La Paz (Baja Del Sur?) and he said they now have gated communities w/ all the amenities. He said his friends and their neighbors just hung out inside their centrally air conditioned McHaciendas (TM) and drank. Not that the guy is some altar boy but what about hitting the town and drinking w/ the locals? No chance!

Brand,

No, you're right. I've never spent all that much time on the east coast, and most of the people I DO know there are connected to WS is some fashion. I was addressing more in general about regional attitudes toward wealth and money.

Here comes Helicopter from Ben Bernanke:

Bush, Bernanke Support Stimulus Package
Bush and Bernanke Back Package to Stimulate Weakening Economy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday embraced calls for an economic stimulus package to avert recession. Bernanke said such a plan should be quickly implemented and temporary so that it won't complicate longer-term fiscal challenges.

The Fed chief, in testimony to the House Budget Committee, said efforts that involve "putting money into the hands of households and firms would be more effective" than other provisions, such as making Bush's tax cut permament.

median rent prices were essentially flat in 2007, rising just 0.5 percent to $1,465 a month, according to a sampling of 10 metro areas from Investment Instruments Corp.'s Rentometer. The stagnation is attributed to excess housing inventory as people are unable to "flip" investment properties. Residential rents in Atlanta and Houston dropped 12.8 percent last year.

PermaRenter Says:
I want more Silly Con Valley CEOs behind bars …

Me want that too. I don't know if there is a statute of limitations on this, but the eye-witness shenanigans I personally saw back in the '99/Y2K timeframe would be enough to put a couple of IPO CEO's into big trouble. Wish I was a little more ruthless, I could probably monetize that threat somehow... :-)

Permarenter,
Isn't that simply pathetic? The solution from the Fed and other "expert economists" for the current economic malaise is to find some way to get Americans to SPEND more!!! If that's the solution, we are all doomed. We're just fixing the addiction with more crack. Pretty soon, we are all going to OD, crash and burn.

Tent city in suburbs is cost of home crisis By Dana Ford
Fri Dec 21, 8:18 AM ET

ONTARIO, California (Reuters) - Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

ADVERTISEMENT

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it's just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.

"They don't hit the streets immediately," said activist Jane Mercer. Most families can find transitional housing in a motel or with friends before turning to charity or the streets. "They only hit tent city when they really bottom out."

Steve, 50, who declined to give his last name, moved to tent city four months ago. He gets social security payments, but cannot work and said rents are too high.

"House prices are going down, but the rentals are sky-high," said Steve. "If it wasn't for here, I wouldn't have a place to go."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071221/lf_nm/usa_housing_social_dc

Google $100 drop within 30 days:

16-Jan-08 628.97 639.99 601.93 615.95 10,560,000 615.95
15-Jan-08 645.90 649.05 635.38 637.65 5,568,200 637.65
14-Jan-08 651.14 657.40 645.25 653.82 4,447,500 653.82
11-Jan-08 642.70 649.47 630.11 638.25 4,977,000 638.25
10-Jan-08 645.01 657.20 640.11 646.73 6,334,200 646.73
9-Jan-08 630.04 653.34 622.51 653.20 6,739,700 653.20
8-Jan-08 653.00 659.96 631.00 631.68 5,339,100 631.68
7-Jan-08 653.94 662.28 637.35 649.25 6,403,400 649.25
4-Jan-08 679.69 680.96 655.00 657.00 5,359,800 657.00
3-Jan-08 685.26 686.85 676.52 685.33 3,252,500 685.33
2-Jan-08 692.87 697.37 677.73 685.19 4,306,900 685.19
31-Dec-07 698.57 702.49 690.58 691.48 2,376,200 691.48
28-Dec-07 704.93 707.95 696.54 702.53 2,537,000 702.53
27-Dec-07 707.07 716.00 700.74 700.74 2,942,500 700.74
26-Dec-07 698.99 713.22 698.21 710.84 2,530,000 710.84

Malcolm Says:
They already do that in China. Google was recently investigated because one of the people it turned in from its search engine

Um... I think you are thinking about the _other_ search engine, I forgot what they're called... yeah who? :-)

Bay Area DQ numbers out for December:

http://www.dqnews.com/RRBay0108.shtm

This time, median is finally down, and it's down in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY (except Marin, for which it is flat). Let's hear the bulls' arguments now that Bay Area prices are immune to the downturn.

I like their headline,

"Bay Area home sales drag along bottom, median price back to 2005 level."

median price back to 2005 level

I still remember hearing homeowners boasting $xxx/day appreciation.

SP, I stand corrected, it very well could have been Yahoo and I mixed them up. I'm not certain.

skibum Says:
I like their headline: “Bay Area home sales drag along bottom"

My favorite line is still there: "Indicators of market distress continue to move in different directions". An apt euphemism for stuff hitting the fan.