Okay, here's my grand idea to fix corporate governance and balance-sheet transparency: laissez faire.You know, it works for the animals in the forest, and microbes in the petri dish, why not investors in the USA?See, if we let the people with the information trade against the people without the information for long enough, eventually there just won't be anybody without information anymore.It's just that simple! Seriously! Economists only figured out at least 200 years ago, that Party D - the government - doesn't need to bother itself with whether Party A gives information to Party B or Party C. The only real problem, I guess, is that this would leave Party A with a job, and Party D without one. Hmmmmmm.If it is so hard to move information to Party C in a certain structure, then why not let that structure kill itself, and let all the parties reform themselves into new structures, propped up by natural patterns of information dispersion?If Party C has the money, and Party B has the information, they're just going to have to come to some sort of, like, agreement.Seriously, an information pipeline is like a plant, you grow it like a crystal. The first little shoots or seeds are the people with the "inside" information. And then you just let it assemble itself from there. You kill everyone outside the pipeline, and you incentivize everyone who migrates around to attach himself into the pipeline somehow. And, like magic, suddenly everyone has attached himself in!But if you punish the natural pipes that contain information, and try to artificially impose unnatural pipes to people who don't have anything - and then fix it all in place using regulation - you are left with, as Hitler said, a piece of dead mechanism.The SEC is like a bionic heart, rammed into the center of securities markets, lately.MPP.S. And what is with this 401k crap? What makes people think you can pass some 401k law, kick people out of work at age 60 and, by magic, suddenly they will have retirement income? The government is trying to force this mechanism but, at the far end of the pipe, all you get is a bunch of hustlers accumulating like moss. The government has done all their hustling for them, all hustlers have to do is manufacture 10Q's.

Searched on Google, number of results:index fund - 1,880,000401(k) - 1,880,000free porn - 1,250,000teen porn - 953,000teen sluts - 440,000Roth IRA - 171,000I guess people are hardwired to stick their money in anything that moves.MP

TRIVIA QUESTION:From what economist did I plagiarize the phrase "a modest proposal," and what novel auction market which survives to this day was born as a result of his proposal?MPP.S. Hint: It was in the title of a 1977 WSJ article.

The Rev'd Jonathan Swift was a professional clergyman, back when the distinction of economist was not understood in our current distinctive standards. He was paid to preach, not to lecture or write, and his "political arithmetician" was a self-description.The idea of eating babies survives as an acceptable source of norishment only in North Korea. The world's least free place. The "auction" of human flesh exists soley because the freedom of other choices is circumscribed by the concentrated ability to commit violence and limit information.

It's just that simple! Seriously! Economists only figured out at least 200 years ago, that Party D - the government - doesn't need to bother itself with whether Party A gives information to Party B or Party C. The only real problem, I guess, is that this would leave Party A with a job, and Party D without one. Hmmmmmm. >>When party A is connected to Party B and/or Party C this works out just fine. However, interesting problems arise when the connections are not present i.e. when there are markets or information missing. You frequently seem to imply (1) that economics always assumes complete markets and information and (2) that economists have little or nothing to say when markets are incomplete or information is missing. Both of these implications are false. Bar-room economics is not the only kind.

If its transparency you want, I’ve go a better idea: Eliminate Taxation of Corporations and Institute a National Sales Tax on all Goods and Services. There's plenty of information about this on the web, so I won't bore you with the details. Offshore SPE's would be a thing of the past (unless you were trying to hid something that's truely illegal)With respect to the 401(k) issue, I absolutely agree. The next generation of retiree's are going to give themselves ulcers worrying about how long thier money is going to last. Of course, this problem was solved a long time ago with the invention of defined benefit plans, but employers don't want the funding risk, and employees are generally to stupid to know the difference, so 401(k) is what you get.While I'm on the topic, there's a few other things about 401(k) vs. Defined Benefit Plans that I've been thinking about:1) Over the past 15 years, 401(k) plans have been replacing traditional defined benefit plans in droves. (fact)2) As a result, individual employees now get to see thier own personal wealth fluctuate in real time as the stock market moves. (observation)3) Hence, an individual's perception of his or her own wealth now fluctuates in real time. (Conjecture)4) In decades prior (when savings plans were typically in the defined benefit format) the individuals perception of his or her own wealth was insulated against market movements by virtue of the defined "formula" (deterministic function of age, years of employment, salary)5) Supporting fact: Many years ago, less than 10% of American were invested in the stock market. Now close to 90% have capital tied to the market in some form.6) Hence, if the stock market were to crash, this would have a pronounced impact on the consumption behavior of the individual, thus translating a market correction back into the real economy.Dosen't anyone else think that it's strange that the tech-bubble burst put the US economy into a recession? How else could the demise of a buch of firms with no earnings have an effect on employment/wages/etc...? The opposite should hold true as well, I belive one could argue that years of exploding stock indices reinforced excessive consumption behavior, and ultimately exacerbated the size of the bubble. This leads me to wonder if the crash in '87 would have been so short lived, had it occured a decade later. Also leads me to wonder about the impact that the impending retirement of the baby-boom generation will have on the markets. Buy the debt and sell the equity seems like a decent long term strategy.Comments?

QuoteOriginally posted by: JamesThe Rev'd Jonathan Swift was a professional clergyman, back when the distinction of economist was not understood in our current distinctive standards. He was paid to preach, not to lecture or write, and his "political arithmetician" was a self-description.Actually, to be a nit-picker his title was Dean Swift.