Doug Henwood wrote:
> No matter how many times you prove the above (you can't beat the
> market) people will continue to try anyway. This will no doubt be
> dismissed as rank subjectivism by partisans of High Objectivity and
> Impersonal Law, but folks who are drawn to the profit-making business
> always assume themselves to be smarter than the masses. "The actual,
> private object of the most skilled investment to-day is 'to beat the
> gun,' as the Americans so well express it, to outwit the crowd, and
> to pass the bad, or depreciating, half-crown to the other
> fellow" (Keynes, General Theory, p. 155). One is, of course, never
> the other fellow.
To engage in rational speculation (where "speculation" is defined, as Keynes defines it, as "the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market") you need to be able to understand and forecast market psychology. This capability is extremely rare. For example, it won't be found among those who insist that "motives" play no role in the determination of social phenomena.
Ted