4 ms·
The main problem with efficient market hypothesis is that it pretends that the only way to get money out of the economy is by providing economic value for other
by jongjong 4y ago
The main problem with efficient market hypothesis is that it pretends that the only way to get money out of the economy is by providing economic value for others who also provide economic value.
It ignores the fact that participants within the system are only efficient with respect to the basic incentive structure created by the monetary system which itself is highly inefficient and wasteful.
The government could essentially just print money to incentivize people to push a boulder up and down a mountain for no reason... You can be sure that those who will get paid the most will the the fittest ones who can push the boulders up faster than anyone else; the most efficient boulder pushers if you like... But can it be said that these people are efficient at all in the grand scheme of things?
Is it an efficient market if the monetary environment within which those markets exists is itself artificial and inefficient?
- lupire 4y agoYou are describing an unfree market. By definition, the EMH applies to a free market where people choose where to put their money. The EMH says nothing about efficiency of producing value, only about price discovery.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> By definition, the EMH applies to a free market where people choose where to put their money. “The EMH only applies to an idealized analytical fiction and is not applicable to the real world” would also be a problem with the EMH.
- jongjong 4y agoTotally. It is a valid critique. Suggesting that it's valuable in a hypothetical environment is similar to the "not true communism" defense used by communists to explain past failures.
- scottLobster 4y agoUh, yes. Have you not been paying attention to the weekly "what potential fed action is the market pricing in this week?" articles? Efficient markets take into account everything from politics to corruption to the odds of natural disasters. I'm not sure where you read otherwise. You think investors don't price in the political risk of dealing with, say the Chinese government? You think bond investors aren't paying attention to the fed?
- imtringued 4y agoThe monetary system is always artificial because all monetary systems are man made inventions. It is inefficient because it requires a constant injection of money because of growing inequality. People think the newly injected money is causing inequality but the reality is that the inequality is growing regardless of whether you inject money or not and injecting more money acts as a temporary pain killer. A wealth tax deallocates money from the rich to the poor. You might call this redistribution but who is to say that the wealth hasn't been artificially redistributed to the rich?
- jongjong 4y agoThis cannot be true since most of the newly printed money goes towards big corporations (e.g. via big government contracts) or through loans to individuals and companies (based on collateral). Who has collateral? It's not the poor! The other way money enters the system is through interest paid out by reserve banks on deposits... Again, it's not the poor who hold huge deposits at the Fed. The idea that money printing helps the poor is a narrative fabricated to serve the rich and could not be further from the truth. Maybe if/when UBI is implemented, a case could be made but now there's nothing backing that narrative. Currently, all the newly printed money only serves to subsidize the operations of the rich; allowing them to reduce their margins down to 0 which creates insane anti-competitive moats.
- lottin 4y agoThis doesn't make any sense. The efficient market hypothesis has nothing to do with the monetary system or with getting money out of the economy, whatever that is supposed to mean.