I was afraid of this

[fpb]

As I said a couple of days ago, the "markets" are in a state of blood lust where no reason can prevail. And the trouble is that the current generation of politicians, raised and bred in the superstitions of Ronald Thatcher, regards these ugly mobs of gamblers barely out of their teens as a good thing rather than a bad one, and has no mind to

Comments

[jordan179]

I'm not sure how you believe the markets can be "fought." Your choices boil down to trying to let the bubble deflate slowly (via delaying trading) or letting it pop suddenly (by not delaying trading). The market is ultimately just the messenger of the underlying reality, which in this case is clearly that the euro is overvalued.

[fpb]

Suuuuure. Let me tell you that if I were reality, I would want a better messenger than a bunch of coked up twenty-somethings in loud shirts speculating on artificial quantities and, as a rule, with the intellectual capacity of a three-toed sloth. I am sorry, but I consider this the very instance of the Thatcherite fantasy that "you can't buck the markets". These "markets" have nothing to do with the real-life markets where real things are bought and sold; they are entirely a separate reality, and the whole institution could be swept away without a single bricklayer or farmer or shoe salesman noticing.

[fpb]

(For a start, how about outlawing, with heavy penalties, short selling and derivatives, so that what people are "trading" are at least real entities and the shares of real companies? All these things are in effect manipulations of debt, and I have written elsewhere how I feel about debt.)

When the streets of Paris run red with blood, I buy

[joetexx]

For good or ill I don't have the money to try out the Baron de Rothschild's advice.