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To: Columbo who wrote (14492)	11/26/1997 3:02:00 AM
From: gookmd	Respond to of 24154

anyone know anything about charitable remainder trusts? i heard you can trade without paying capital gains using this technique

To: Columbo who wrote (14492)	11/26/1997 5:16:00 AM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 24154

>>> I agree with you 100 percent that the best way to do something is not always the one that makes it. It usually doesn't<<<< I think this statement ought to be put in a limited context, that in which roughly competitive solutions are offered for sale and are non-adoptable by persons unable to pay a fee. That is, many best solutions win out in environments where they are both obviously preferable to any alternative and the ability of people to adopt them is generally unlimited, or even encouraged by their society. For instance, having all the cars going the same direction drive on the same side of the road. Coming in out of the rain rather than standing in it. The downside for going counter to the quickly adopted conventional wisdom being obvious. Another category of solution is that of fashion. What kind of necktie should I wear today? The kind favored by the group that I wish to assimilate with. This will change next year, but no matter. This kind of thing can be determined by the innovation of subcultures or by volume of advertising. It has little to do with the kinds of early-entry and lockdown or monopolistic effects under discussion. The category of solution we are discussing is the subset where the correct decision is relatively but perhaps not crucially important and there are competing sellers of goods backing the alternatives. For contrast to the typical VHS example, I offer the fact that until digital tape came along BetaMax dominated professional units sold to studios. This is because the correct answer was vital and in fact worth paying 20,000 a unit for improved performance. What to do with confronted with a large predator is another counterexample. The best way to do this is definitely going to be the one that makes it, literally. The other ways may get you eaten. Yet there is no market involved. By the way, and this is something Diamond should touch on, one of the main functions of Government is to correct the shortsightedness of the inferior solution. E.g. by making sure that water hoses all screw on the same way with the same size threads, which BTW, is a regulation and didn't work that way originally, due to business competition and sloppiness and lack of scope. Still, the reviewers are gonna make me read the history book. Seems like his "Third Chimpanzee" takes up where "The Naked Ape" left off thirty years ago, and may be sensible, but as reviewed the historical notions don't all seem to make sense. Perhaps the reviewers are inaccurate. (In one of the links you provided, the reviewer has the use of the wheel in Europe connected somehow with Christianity, which is laughable.) Anyhow, can't tell until I read at least those two books, so I guess Amazon.com has another sale. Cheers, Chaz