Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Debating EMH

I've got crappy internet access here, so my headlines are all in Thai or something. Anyway, see me debating the way overmatched Justin Fox (author of Myth of the Rational Market), who posted first here. Yeah, that's some good ole smack talk! Actually, Justin is not super anti-EMH or rational market, as say Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, your average editor at a major newspaper, or Slate columnist. He just thinks more regulation can obviously make it better.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Compelling rebuttal. It's satisfying to see your ideas get some general exposure.

Smiling Buddha said...

Its Hindi

$9,000,000,000 Write Off said...

Fox makes a good argument in his opening paragraph: he wants to talk about the system we have, not the one a minority of people think we should have. Libertarians have to realize that the U.S. is a consensual political system and most people reject a minimal government approach. You will be ignored if your only prescription is “less government”. Some people will always prefer being right to being relevant, but that’s its own kind of being wrong.

I was reminded of all this when reading a long <article on Lincoln and his critics. Critics say he should’ve advocated the emancipation of slaves from the beginning and made it so when elected. The author points out that Lincoln never would’ve been elected, nor would have kept border states within the Union after the election if he'd emancipated then. Constrained by the reality he lived in, he did all he could.