[Utah]

"There is the fallacy of the commons. The assumption that each individual acting in his own best interest is in the best interest of the group as a whole has been disproven. Did you ever see the movie "A Beautiful Mind." Remeber the seen where John Nash has his big breakthrough, thinking about trying to get the hot blonde. He explains that if they all acted in their own interests and approach her at the same time, she will turn them all away. Then her friends, who will be insulted by being chosen second, will turn everyone away as well. However, if they work together, and act for the good of the group by not automatically going for the girl they found the most attractive, everyone would end up happy."

The problem with this is the "free ride" principle. Everyone has an interest in breaking the pact if they think the others will follow it. This is the reason these cartel situations breakdown.

"The assumption that each individual acting in his own best interest is in the best interest of the group as a whole has been disproven."

This has not been disproven. It has only been shown not to work in all cases.

"The market only considers the here and now, for the most part. Supplies might be considered for the next couple of months, but you don't see investors dumping shares because oil's gonna run out in fifty years."

No, the market considers the future. The market simply applies a discount rate of future potential earnings. Sometimes that rate is small and sometimes that rate is quite large.

"The market has absolutely no idea how to serve the long term interests of the society in which it functions, especially when it comes to something as tricky as resource depletion"

The free market does an outstanding job of serving the long term interests of its society. Just look at the long term rise in the standard of living in the U.S.

It also does an oustanding job of serving the resource interests. If the market thought that fuel will run out anytime soon then the proper resources will be thrown at the problem. Today, the market looks at the fuel issue and says, "we dont think there is a real issue here".

The two areas where the markets do a poor job is in national security and in pollution/environmental damage.