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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jweiner who wrote (2926)	10/22/1997 7:09:00 AM
From: Sam Citron	Respond to of 10921

JW and Thread: I'll be the first to admit that markets have imperfections. If they didn't, I wouldn't waste my time here trying to "beat the market". I'm exquisitly sensitive to the the failings of the invisible hand and the even greater failings of the visible one. Economists have become quite aware of such market imperfections and routinely try to assign "shadow prices" where resource prices don't reflect their true scarcity values. Ultimately it comes down to fairly cutting-edge science, like determining what causes global warming (assuming it exists), what is the cost to society, and what, if anything should be done about it. I remember once in a cost-benefit analysis class at Harvard, I had to try to quantify the benefit of saving lives. Needed to plug in a $ benefit amount for a disease control project to justify the project to the Minister of Finance. Standard doctrine was that it was the discounted value of the person's future earning stream (similar to enterprise valuation models). But what if the people are poor and do not have jobs?... How then do we measure the costs of morbidity and mortality? Yes, the dismal science is challenging. Why are some so rich and others so poor (materially)? The 10 trillion dollar question! The greatest economists in the world IMO begin their quest with a compassionate concern for the less fortunate. There is still much to be done. SC