Comments on: Iron Laws Of The Universe

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 20:50:47 +0000

About an investment profitable through and after a bubble” insured bank accounts. Fundamentally, you’re always otherwise balancing risk and reward, and the risk means there’s a downside.

By: zizka

zizka — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 02:31:55 +0000

A lot of self-help literature, futurology, and New Age spirituality makes sense as long as the bubble isn’t popped, and by and large it serves to postpone the pop. As I understand the rule is, “This can’t go one, but no one can time the pop”. People who shorted the bubble lost money because they’re trying to time the pop, but are there anti-bubble investments which are profitable during the bubble (though less so than bubble investments), but which lose little or nothing, or even gain, afterwards?

By: Damien Warman

Damien Warman — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 02:08:10 +0000

Patrick and Teresa are spouse to one another. See details about their name.

By: William

William — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 01:45:53 +0000

I prefer one of my PoliSci professor’s comments: “We’ve discovered that The Invisible Hand often turns into The Invisible Finger.”

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 08:35:02 +0000

Patrick: Teresa is your spouse? Well, whoever she is, that’s a great quote. I’ll definitely remember it and use it in the future. You should make sure it’s on a web page, or better, with proper attribution.

By: Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick Nielsen Hayden — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 03:56:17 +0000

Keynes’s remark that “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” is paralleled by (ahem) Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s observation that “The Invisible Hand is not to human scale.”

By: Joe Buck

Joe Buck — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 01:53:02 +0000

Yes, lots of people went broke shorting Internet bubble stocks in 1998 or so, because the bubble kept expanding for another year and a half and the short-sellers had to cover. Of course the thing popped eventually, but not soon enough for those who bet on it.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 00:38:22 +0000

Reading this almost gave me a coronorary.

By: zizka

zizka — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 22:05:55 +0000

A sadder statement of the rule was made by a co-worker I had awhile back, originally from Bosnia: “Don’t EVER say ‘Things can’t get any worse’”.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:33:56 +0000

The comment (“This can’t go on much longer”) is used, to hilarious effect, in Tibor Fischer’s Under the Frog, about Communist rule in Hungary.

By: Fergal

Fergal — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:31:56 +0000

I think you really should doff your hat to Mr Dornbusch for no. 1 (but no. 2 is your own…)

By: Joel B.

Joel B. — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:30:39 +0000

You should have noted this before I played roulette…

By: ben wolfson

ben wolfson — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:16:10 +0000

Seems like an elaboration of Hofstadter’s Rule, which states that everything takes longer than you think it will, even after you take Hofstadter’s Rule into account.

By: Chirag Kasbekar

Chirag Kasbekar — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:15:15 +0000

Spellings, Mr. Davies. Spellings.

By: Charles Stewart

Charles Stewart — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:14:37 +0000

A famous quip attributed to Keynes: the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. (I’d love to know if this one is true or not)