Economics Questions

Re: MIT Blackjack Team sounds impressive, misses fundamentals.

Jon Irenicus — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:05:37 GMT

What exactly is impressive here? It's just standard fare statist rhetoric, laden with "we"s and typical ignorance of markets, as well as the elitist mentality that "we" must stop "ourselves" from hurting "ourselves". Yeah, sorry, why doesn't the author take a hike?

Re: MIT Blackjack Team sounds impressive, misses fundamentals.

jason4liberty — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:24:51 GMT

My conclusion, starting from the same situation, is essentially opposite. The only way to fix the current mess is to make sure everyone is strictly accountable for the choices they make. Then the pain of the losses teach the foolish to be wise. Freedom demands that people must reap what they sow, for good or ill. Otherwise the imprudent end up stealing from the prudent, and imprudence is incentivized. Then you get more imprudence, and the cycle continues until there is nothing left to steal from the prudent.

MIT Blackjack Team sounds impressive, misses fundamentals.

Daniel Waite — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:07:54 GMT

MIT Blackjack Team sounds impressive, misses fundamentals.

An excerpt:
The only solution is to forbid money management as we know it. We could certainly have people like Warren Buffet manage investors' money alongside their own, with no additional percent-based compensation beyond their own investment gains. But we must remove the incentive to create Martingales, and protect people from their own intuitive desire to move their money into the funds which generate out-sized returns, without understanding the long term risks which create them.

Another excerpt:
In our globalized free market world, almost everyone is ultimately an investor, whether by owning a house or merely holding a job in a company which depends on access to capital. The scope of the current bailout has reached the point of real danger. We must fix the underlying problem before doubling down again as a society, or risk going the way of Albania.

The article sounds intelligent, poignent and trustworthy, but the first sentence in the second excerpt tells me someone is misguided regarding their definitions.

I'm not sure what to make of it, but the discussion it has generated on reddit is interesting, especially the first comment.

When I read stuff like the article and the first comment on reddit I think, "Sure, it sounds impressive, and no, I don't understand the details, but I don't think I need to. Why? Because it's written within the framework of a statist mentality, and is therefore not worth my time trying to understand."

That's my view. How do you react when you read something involving the economy that sounds impressive but appears to be predicated on the notion that the state is good and necessary (or even a necessary evil)?