Externalities are only good from an academic p.o.v.

So the earthquake in China is going to end up with a really bad death toll. When I read about it last night my degree in economics kicked in right away and I started thinking okay, get long construction stocks and material stocks such as cement producers. That is thinking as an economist; an externality is an event that creates huge economic benefits over time but does nothing good from a societal prospective- that is not the full, professional definition but close enough. Probably the largest and best example of an externality is the Black Plague in the 14th century. It killed off somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of Europe's population and ended up giving rise to free market capitalism. The earthquake will destroy families and peoples lives but an economist looks at it as ok, now the Chinese will have to rebuild and that will engender more economic activity. A cynic may look at it that way as well.

Can we agree the whole root of the current credit mess is declining home prices? Good then what you need to know is that with over 2/3 of U.S. cities reporting home price declines then this mess is not over until they stop going down even though our Treasury Secretary says all is well. Even Mr. Bernake admitted today that financial markets are less than normal which is why he is now extending the TAF until eternity. Hell, look at MBI. They are most likely going to lose their triple A rating soon. They have been less than stellar in their decisions lately. They raised several billion dollars they were then supposed to shore up their insurance subsidiary but they have not yet. They got mad at Fitch for saying they are in trouble so asked Fitch to stop rating their instruments and won't provide them with the data to anymore. Are they now going to ask Moodys too ass well since Moodys is now saying the same thing as Fitch? Once they do lose the trip A rating that will start a whol new wave of mark to markets on the down side and this summer will be an echo of last summer.

While still on the markets, am I the only one who has an issue with the government abdicating its role in law enforcement? Teh government makes the laws and enforces them and sets punishments. But these days that is where it stops. They have allowed for profit companies to take over the prison system. I am all for free market capitalism but I have an issue with this matter. It is a big pussy move in my mind on the government's part to make the private sector do the dirty work.

The husband tells me I should not wear polo shirts to work before Memorial Day. I am not sure where in my membership hand book that rule is and have ignored him a couple of times already.

Is it just me or does David Carr or Ian Kennedy get you all hot and bothered? Speaking of hotties, the data services guy was in the office today and he started chatting with me about stocks, lol. I didn't look at him just watched my screens and carried on the converstion mainly because he was standing and if I looked at him I'd have been staring right at his package, lol.