That self-confident psychotechnician again -
Knowing that the Weimar Republic is unstable and that economic depression and mass unemployment would lead to a dictatorship in Germany within five years, he assures his colleagues:
"'...I'm here to see that capitalism does not, ah, go bust.'" (p. 134)
On Friday, October 23, 1939, he sells heavily in order to bring the fluctuating market down, having proved from games theory that this will not cause a panic.
Before that, he had been able to perform wolfishly on Wall Street because he had the benefit of:
"...a million-year-old science of economics..." (p. 132)
- whereas his competitors were:
"...operating mostly by God and guess..." (ibid.)
But how much of economic activity is inherently random and unpredictable even to a million-year-old science? He gets it wrong in October, after all.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course, because human affairs and lives are intrinsically chaotic and unpredictable.
I also noted with interest, under the big headline about the stock market crash, the headline about the assassination attempt on the Italian crown prince.
Ad astra! Sean
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