I have noticed over the last few months that my market accounts are usually out of synch with the Dow Industrials and with NASDAQ. Since the markets largely reflect the thinking of the big players, usually assumed to be the plutocrats, that means my thinking is different than theirs. Well, that doesn't surprise me particularly, nor should it surprise those of you who bother reading my posts.

My weakness, in terms of managing my account, lies in following my views of how an economy should work. I guess it is naive to expect that, in my lifetime, the public will become aware enough to both understand and repair what is wrong with the economy (and to a large extent, with the society). Certainly, most of you hold the view that I am wrong and you are somehow less wrong.

The predominant viewpoint of those who post here is that the economy is a mess. However, you mostly share the view that any changes which can be made must come from the short list of changes that have been made sometime in the past, whether they proved workable or not. That is, of course, a hallmark of conservatism. I am not a conservative so I don't have to follow that kind of threadbare rule. However, being a liberal, I don't have to eschew the option. The hand I hold has far more cards than the ones you hold. As an instance of my willingness to repeat the past, consider the case of the banks:

We have all agreed that the banks are in poor shape. I have suggested that it makes sense to revert to a system in which banks are limited to holding deposits and lending money (with collateralization). It is proper for parts of the present banks to be rolled out into investing entities, which might look like holding companies or mutual funds. Investments in these would not be guaranteed by any agency and no margin loans could be made to member/investors. It is also proper to roll out brokerages which would be limited to acting as investment agents for individual investors. Margin loans on the contents of the accounts held by these brokerages would also not be subject to margin loans. Now, all of those moves would represent a return to earlier times. Because I hold the obviously minority opinion that competition generates costs rather than savings, I would not seek to prevent the merger of like types among these business with restricted missions.

In the area of the pure banks described above, I would favor an organization which I believe reflects the operation of Islamic banks: each individual depositor would have the option of allowing the bank to lend out some part of their account, with the earnings, or losses, from these loans being credited to those depositors that agreed to the lending. The depositors who do not wish to have their money placed at risk would not opt into the lending and they would pay a "storage fee" on their deposits.

As to the stock market, it has become an untidy, dangerous quagmire as the result of allowing so many operations which cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed investing. I would like to see all of the "derivatives": puts, calls, short sales, bets on the next days volatility, future options, and such. I think it is fairly obvious that there are entities which extract various resources and entities which process these resources into some other, more finished, form. I think it is reasonable to restrict the market in these resources to only those entities that have that kind of involvement. I would allow them to write future delivery contracts since there is a real period of performance which must be considered and planned for. However, I would like to see each contract carry with it some physically identifiable asset that will be delivered. This would restrict the seller to contract to deliver only that quantity of the resource which can reasonably be expected to be available at delivery time.

I believe that, in a global economy, corporate entities should be chartered, regulated, and taxed by a single universal international agency. I have suggested the UN for this function since it is already essentially universal, has staff, offices, and recognition. The taxes collected from these entities would fully fund the UN for its regular functions, thus preventing nations from manipulating their financial support of the UN to support their political orientation.

I believe that, in a global economy, there needs to be a global currency. I feel it need to be much more solidly grounded in reality than are the various national fiat currencies. I don't have a detailed plan for its implementation, but eventually I will.

There's so much more to touch on, but this is probably already more than enough for a single post. I recognize that there are people who read my posts and either consider me a harmless old fool who shouldn't be bruised with a reply, or that see the logic in what I say but can't relate it to past experience and can't bring themselves to picture a future that doesn't correspond to the past and therefore can't reply. I know there are also some who will reply to tell me that it just isn't going to happen because it never has - but that is what I single out as a problem above. So, make of this what you will.

Phil