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September 20, 2010

Comments

Luis Enrique

"discussing risks" can include saying things like: "whoa, this looks dangerous" which is tantamount to giving a forecasts (in expectation, at least). Can't journalists say anything more concrete about risk than reporting historic volatility and discussing sources of risk in abstract?

The chief economics writer of a newspaper is not a personal finance adviser.

If we can expect academic economics to have understood the workings of finance and the macroeconomy well enough to be in a position to issue warnings, ought not the nation's newspapers be able to find some journalists who understand things equally well as academics (albeit with differing levels of technical ability)? Would you argue that it was also too much to ask of economists?

Phil Ruse

The answer to Arsenal's goalkeeper problem is to look at getting another (hopefully better) goalkeeper or working to make the one they have better. They are aware there's a weakness. They can discuss the possibilities.

In a similar way...

I suspect there were some who understood. I wonder what happened to them?

Laban

"if you hold shares directly, don’t trade much"

How do High Frequency Traders cope with Stamp Duty - doesn't that wipe out profit, or don't we have HFT in London ?

Dipper

was the crisis inevitable? fractional reserve banking always relies on confidence, and if that disappears then at any time there can be a run. It's an unstable situation that can run away. Predicting it is next to impossible

Its like asking why the mechanic didn't tell you your car was about to break down, or your doctor didn't tell you you were about to become ill.

donald

did you say "minimise taxes"? In the words of the deputy PM, does that not make you immoral?

Carps

Prognostication has a pretty gloomy history, but I was just reading a piece by Marc Faber in an old copy of Time magazine from 2007 (which, inexplicably, sits in the toilet at work).

He was predicting the economic crash based on what he saw as unwarranted global asset inflation.. people leveraging the supposed value of their assets to buy more assets... thus fuelling the growth in asset prices (of all kinds).

The trouble is that in that very same issue, another equal-but-opposite expert was painting very much the reverse picture.

So it's not the media didn't make predictions, just that the media make so damn many of the things that someone, somewhere is eventually proved right.

I've given up listening, frankly.

moncler norway

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