patrick.net

BAP,

That's the redevelopment department hard at work. It's not just Merced County. It's Stanislaus, Contra Costa, and just about every other county that has access to the funds. It's just that they have more to whine about now so it makes the news.

Look at the bright side. As long as lending institutions don't make ridiculous loans, people cannot afford to buy the houses and prices will stay low.

"Prius owners are part of the reason [gasoline] prices are falling..."

Yes, and perhaps just a little is also due to the anticipated slow down in global demand. In particular, China's inability to decouple from the US economy played a big role in this. Peak oil is just not as imminent as speculators thought it was.

Deflation,
Agreed.

Kewp,

I liked your tongue-in-cheek answer, but I was actually being serious.

I'm quite well acquainted with how the 401k works on a day-to-day basis. My question really was about something else. I'll try to paraphrase:

"who holds title to the assets while they are in the 401k plan, and can the company and/or plan trustees under any circumstances divert the assets for other purposes, either on a temporary or semi-permanent basis?"

This is the gist of my original question. And I am talking about MY contribution, and not potentially un-vested matching funds.

@deflation,

Well, if oil consumption, and therefore production, is falling and never again reaches 2007 levels, then by definition, peak oil occurred in 2007. So peak oil indeed perhaps it is not imminent, but rather past.

One can hope.

Alright, I'm starting to get a little freaked out by the articles I'm reading about the need for an "international overhaul of the financial system". With the "free market dogma of the past has been shown not to work" kind of statements.

Christ. As if the market was anything close to free. If the market was free, the failing corporations would be allowed to fail. Lo and behold, it would solve the problem.

I think what they really mean is that the "free market dogma" has shown not to consistently produce fantasy profits forever and ever. Fucking morons.

I think Ron Paul had it right when he said the result of all this would be a new World Central Bank and some unified currency. God we are so fucked. They are taking a housing downturn and turning it into the end of the free world.

The only thing to fear at this point is our own government.

@justme,

I believe the highs we saw were caused by speculators blowing the Chinese growth engine out of proportion with respect to oil consumption (not to mention the Prius owners:).

I may be wrong, but I always considered peak oil to be the maximum rate at which they are able to pump (irrespective of demand) and implied a depletion of oil from the source.

We can have "peak oil" and falling prices at the same time. But it may take a supply shock to send prices up again.

Do not blame the speculators. Without them, price shocks will still be there, price discovery will be slower, and liquidity will be less readily available.

Yet here we are, at 1/2 the price and dropping while OPEC is decreasing production. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have speculators.

Just that they were very wrong this time as happens at times.

Justme,

The assets in a 401(k) are generally held in trust by a fiduciary for the benefit of the plan members. The fiduciary's duties are specified under ERISA, and breach of fiduciary responsibility is a serious crime - up to 1 year in jail and a big fine. Second occurance is a felony.

Did anyone ever answer Charles' (the original poster's) question?

See for example www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/fiduciaryresponsibility.html

TOB, democrats do not tolerate liberty because free-minded people are impervious to their populist claims.

YES WE CAN!

When those young people were chanting, they failed to realized that the word 'WE' was referring to populist elites.

I still think Ron Paul was the only good candidate.

BTW, I prefer Ronald Reagan's "It CAN be done."

Deflation,

>>I may be wrong, but I always considered peak oil to be the maximum rate at which they are able to pump (irrespective of demand) and implied a depletion of oil from the source.

Good point, and this is exactly the distinction I was trying to make.

From Wikipedia:

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.

Since this definition uses the word *extraction*, it does not refer to peak pumping capacity (per day or month or year), but rather the peak volume actually getting pumped.

The peak volume getting pumped will occur at some point in time where the current price combined with current demand causes a never-to-be-exceeded (daily, monthly, yearly) production numeric value.

Another way of saying the same thing: It is likely that peak oil will occur because of higher price pushing the demand down rather than a constant or falling price and hitting a hard limit on pumping capacity. Oil price has a way of soaring instantly once demand gets even close to the supply capacity.

I agree that the difference can perhaps be called somewhat subtle or technical, but also think that it means that peak oil *production* will be reached sooner rather than later. The reason simply being that oil production will peak at the point of maximum oil affordability, as determined by oil price and expendable income (or macro-economic equivalent).

DennisN,

I should have thought of you right away, thanks for the lawyerly answer.

hmm, did someone say socia1ised medicine? too late, thread's over...

obama rules...