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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Perspective who wrote (76221)	4/18/2007 2:18:04 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

The problem with free market solutions is that the world is large, the timelines huge, and accountability for individuals nearly nil. Hence, pollution (it doesn't wreck my back yard...); global warming (it won't wreck the earth in my lifetime); dangerous products (it won't hurt me because I'm shielded by a corporation), etc. Cutting corners and creating a long term, systemic problem is rewarded in the free market system. In theory, accountability is supposed to be enforced by the court system, but it rarely is, and rarely commensurate with the damage (e.g. Enron). The problem with the decline of fossil fuels is that the energy required to make a transition will be monumentally huge -- it takes energy to build a windmill, a solar cell, etc. If chronic shortages arise, then there will be a serious problem managing a transition. A higher oil price, due to lack of subsidies or simply market forces or taxes, would make the long term solutions more feasible now and would get the so-called free market working to instill change within the system. And moving away from oil also solves the problem of the massive buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. The transition away from oil (burning) will happen, if we don't blow ourselves up, and there will be a point where carbon generation simply declines because we aren't burning much any more. We will truly regret for all time if we burned up all our cheap hydrocarbons driving around and heating homes rather than preserve it for plastics and medicine.