This is a fair point, but I feel like whenever it's brought up, it's focused on to the exclusion of all else. (I'm not saying that's what you're doing. Frankl

This is a fair point, but I feel like whenever it's brought up, it's focused on to the exclusion of all else. (I'm not saying that's what you're doing. Frankly, this is a backlash against my misspent youth). Efficient markets mention nothing of capital, and the tendency for it to self-perpetuate. I can trade my oranges for your turnips and we both benefit, but what happens when you eat my oranges and I sell your turnips for a pear orchard? You could argue that rational actors would tend toward investment rather than consumption, and I'd point to a negative/extremely low U.S. savings rate. Humans behave like rational actors, but we aren't. Or perhaps we are, but our utility functions are incomputable, or have conflicting interests with different weights at different times of the day, etc. So, revering markets for their sensitivity, speed, and efficiency, I am nonetheless suspicious of them. Markets didn't take us to the moon, but I'm glad we went. Markets allow the smart to get wealthy, and the stupid to get poor. We should remember the latter as we celebrate the former.