Thursday 12 June 2008

Dumbest quote of yesterday

"Markets don't fail, it's the humans in them who do."

From Jeff Randall's column in the Telegraph yesterday. I know it is in the context of Eamonn Butler's book on markets, but it's still fair game!

Markets aren't some mechanical system that exist separately to their participants, they only exist because of those participants. People are flawed (because of biases, lack of information, skill etc) and therefore markets are flawed, fundamentally. No more flawed than any other type of human activity/organisation, but flawed nonetheless. "Out of the crooked timber...." and all that.

The column overall says nothing new. "Larry Elliot is right when he says Labour is terrible. He is wrong when he says markets are terrible."

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