Yes, its not a panacea. If the people are clueless, even the best decision making system in the world will still yield bad decisions. Regarding horse trading,

Yes, its not a panacea. If the people are clueless, even the best decision making system in the world will still yield bad decisions. Regarding horse trading, I'm not opposed to trading favors. If group 1 really wants X and don't really care about Y, while another really wants Y but is willing to give up X, why shouldn't they trade? Where I object to tradeoffs is where Goldman Sachs and former GS CEO Paulson trade favors, while those financing the goodies have no representation or even awareness of what's going on.