Robert wrote: << . . . . . . George Soros was talking about how economists assume that things will average out and self-correct. This is, of course, false. Instead, there seems to be a tendency for self-reinforcing feedback loops to occur (in both positive and negative directions), which cause exponentially fast changes to occur. Unforunately, that's often too fast for society or the political system to react.
I would agree only that self-correction doesn't happen in the short term. In the long term, however, I believe self-correction does occur: A commodity is ultimately worth its intrinsic value, rather than what investors speculate people might be willing to pay for it in the future. The meanings of short and long term are hard to pin down. But also, my claim is almost tautological, since "intrinsic" worth is essentially defined by what people are willing to pay for it. Yet I think there's also a grain of non-tautological truth there, too. --Dan _____________________________________________________________________ "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." --Peter Schickele