There is bad news for the summer for folks along the Atlantic Ocean shore like me. It is promising to be a scorcher based on the high temperatures we have had since June began. But therre will be little relief.. Not only are our Shreck glasses contaminated with cadmium, a carcinogen, but also our east coast beaches will be hit by currents carrying gunk from the Gulf oil disaster.

There is no alternative: we will have to study stocks and invest wisely. The stock markets globally are severaly oversold in part because control freaks are freaking out. If we cannot drill for oil or paint drinking glasses without disastrous consequences, surely we cannot pick stocks either is the market mood. That is probably more a sign of a bottom than a top.

Here is reader DvN’s thoughtful response to my rant of yesterday. The other comments were mostly marginal or unprintable in a family newsletter:

I despair of ever seeing a detailed, objective analysis of this problem. By ‘This problem’ I mean what sort of human economic activity should be done by private enterprise, which by government (by government I mean tax-funded), which by various sort of non-profits, not to mention various combinations. I despair because they have been so long such religious issues, between Free Market Capitalist, Marxists, in various denominations, that it seems impossible for anyone to think dispassionately.

Of course I have my opinions, but I am not an economist. And I have my background prejudices, one of which is that it is not OK for some people to be rich and others poor, and another is that people are individualistic and greedy and it is better for the general good to try to harness that than the impossible task of changing it.

So I think in some areas the profit motive is obviously vicious, as in health care delivery, where as in another it is obviously efficacious, as in drug development.

And I think that there are some things that it is clear benefit commerce if the public invests in them, on the analogy of the marketplace where the city builds the square so the vendors can set up their stalls. Things that seem like the marketplace to me are roads, railways, airports (but not airplane companies), cable TV (the medium, not the content) and the Internet. Schools are another; we need an educated society for larger than economic reasons, but this does not determine how teachers are selected and paid.

Another model appeals to me. Once upon a time in the US utilities were closely regulated and allowed to earn 6% or the like, not more not less. Sees a pretty good model to me and maybe one that should be applied to banking.

And there is the matter of culture. Maybe in some societies it is better one way and another in other societies. You often rail against the abuses in France of public private companies, and I believe you, though the governments hardly have a monopoly on corruption. On the other hand one of my good stocks has been Statoil, which I bought when it was first formed.

I spend quite a bit of time in Finland where these things seem pretty well worked out, but maybe that is only for Finland with its homogeneous and obsessively honest population.

More for paid subscribers follows starting with an extraordinary article from Globes Israel yesterday, followed by news of Israeli plans for the US via Australia, more trans-Iberian Peninsula showdowns, and lots of news about British shares, Canadian shares, and Australian shares, mostly with environmental impact, if indirect. You don’t only get to read foreign languages when you edit Global Investing. Sometimes it’s in English.