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Agree more with you than GP. Revealed preference is a thing, virtue signalling and performative behaviour is rampant. However, you can have a situation in a hy

Agree more with you than GP. Revealed preference is a thing, virtue signalling and performative behaviour is rampant. However, you can have a situation in a hypothetical economy where the VAST majority cares deeply about an issue and actually put the wallet where their mouth is. But the aggregate spending is different simply due to an enormous inequality in wealth. The integral of "revealed preference" across the population is not the same as a popular vote after all. I guess some people would argue this is the case in western economies, that we "have no choice" due to powers at be, but I don't agree with this view. But it's conceivable that in some economies this is, or at least could be, the case.

lazide 2y ago
Ah, but we’re talking markets. Not votes. Though, politics is power, and power is about money. Or is that sex? I forget. Power definitely does impact markets, as it applies counter pressures on what matters or not, sometimes to the point of making it impossible* for a trade to actually occur. But always shifting what actually matters or not in some direction, and hence influencing prices. Power unexercised is power that de-facto does not exist in the moment, eh? So if the voters aren’t making something illegal (and ensuring enforcement) they aren’t exercising their power to influence that market, and hence that power does not yet exist. And so typically prices will merely reflect the risk premium of the potential. Not have it as fact. And if the rich folk are transacting in these markets, and are using their power to hide and/or obfuscate that they are doing so, to avoid any public influence, that is power that definitely does exist right now.. And markets will reflect that, on the balance, or a trade won’t occur. When trades do occur, EMH gradually forces things towards efficiency. And the more players there are, and the more transactions occur, the more efficiency is inevitable. Barring things like monopolies, regulatory action, etc. * though as the war on drugs (and the persistence of smuggling from antiquity through to the modern day) makes quite apparent, it is actually very difficult to stop all trade when there is a large market ‘potential’ that exists. Trade ‘finds a way’.

lazide 2y ago

Ah, but we’re talking markets. Not votes. Though, politics is power, and power is about money. Or is that sex? I forget. Power definitely does impact markets, as it applies counter pressures on what matters or not, sometimes to the point of making it impossible* for a trade to actually occur. But always shifting what actually matters or not in some direction, and hence influencing prices. Power unexercised is power that de-facto does not exist in the moment, eh? So if the voters aren’t making something illegal (and ensuring enforcement) they aren’t exercising their power to influence that market, and hence that power does not yet exist. And so typically prices will merely reflect the risk premium of the potential. Not have it as fact. And if the rich folk are transacting in these markets, and are using their power to hide and/or obfuscate that they are doing so, to avoid any public influence, that is power that definitely does exist right now.. And markets will reflect that, on the balance, or a trade won’t occur. When trades do occur, EMH gradually forces things towards efficiency. And the more players there are, and the more transactions occur, the more efficiency is inevitable. Barring things like monopolies, regulatory action, etc. * though as the war on drugs (and the persistence of smuggling from antiquity through to the modern day) makes quite apparent, it is actually very difficult to stop all trade when there is a large market ‘potential’ that exists. Trade ‘finds a way’.