Proof that markets are a bunch of fucking nonsense. You will be amazed. From PBS Nova.

[originalpckelly]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mind-over-money.html

Watch it. If this gets around more, which it should, then it will change the world.

It explains how someone could start off with a paper clip and end up with a house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

Markets are not rational, simply for the fact that the people in them are not rational. We cannot allow the foolish ideas of these folks to continue to run our country, for they will run it into the ground.

Things that blow your mind:

They managed to get people to pay $28 for a $20 bill.

They found that writing down a totally unrelated number, like the last two digits of your SS number, will cause you to estimate the price of something to be higher than it really is, if the SS number is a higher number.

[originalpckelly]

1. Um, yeah...

This is actual proof with experiments that the capitalist free market system we know is not based upon reality. But hey, you all keep ignoring it.

[originalpckelly]

5. So the Chalupa fire bombing story takes precedence over...

research into the behaviors of people in our economy?

This would be reason #100 that we are totally fucked.

[elleng]

2. Known/suspected this for a long time, even before economists

received awards for studying the was people make decions. The foolish ideas of these folks have run the country, haven't and couldn't do anything to keep it from running into the ground. 99% may be the only ones who could.

[originalpckelly]

3. We need to come up with a new system that protects us from our own stupidity.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Yes. Surely a centrally planned economy, run by Government experts, would be superior.

They could come up with regular "5 year plans" for economic development, where the stupidity of the "little people" would not be a factor.

[originalpckelly]

6. Yeah, we don't have to do that stupid shit either.

I'm not a socialist, and I can explain to you why you shouldn't be either. But this system is fatally flawed.

[GeorgeGist]

16. So why do you ...

socialize?

Irrational, perhaps?

[sabrina 1]

7. No, but we could put back the lock on the vault we took off

leaving it open for the 'free' marketers to raid and gamble with. Glass Steagal kept their grimey, dirty hands out of the tax payers' money for 40 years.

But why do anything practical when a teeny % of the population have done so well the way things are?

[originalpckelly]

9. The problem is that we all do this stupid shit.

Not just the people at the top. There is just no way to get rid of this, aside from turning the whole system over to computers which could take into account human quirks.

[sabrina 1]

10. I don't think we all do the kind of thing these people did.

Not anyone with a conscience anyhow. They are the kind of people who if they found a wallet on the street, they would not only keep the cash, but use the credit cards also. It would never occur to them that some poor person might suffer because of that loss, that it might have been their last few dollars, nor would they care even if they did think about it. They would feel entitled to it.

Most people I know would hand in the wallet. But of course there are people who are not among the extremely wealthy criminals who crashed the economy and are still not satisfied with all the money they took. And we have laws to deal with them.

The problem with the Wall Street criminals is that the laws do not apply to them so there is no incentive for them to stop.

[originalpckelly]

11. It has to do with your simple sense of morality. It is science.

Chances are that you are as flawed in your judgment as the people studied. It is a general truth, which applies to all.

[Fool Count]

14. Yeah, sure, god forbid we actually think a little and plan a bit ahead

before doing anything. Because the vaunted "free market" has proven to be so flawless in
taking care of people's needs.

[Duer 157099]

8. Bookmarking for later, thanks

:thumbsup:

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. So if people aren't rational, people can't run the country either

and that's democracies, dictatorships and everything else out of the window too. Do you know of any rational decision-maker? Computers are, after all, made and programmed by humans, so they will be infected by the same irrationality of humans that you fear; do you think there is some animal that is more rational than humans?

[AngryAmish]

13. I got a degree in economics. Was briefly an economist. Then I found out it was BS.

homo economus does not exist. Yet markets do work most of the time. Regulation needs to exist to make sure they do work well.

People think they are rational. Everybody. Unfortunately we are not. The thing that makes us human and not a Vulcan is the bundle of cognitive biases to which we are completely blind.

[uponit7771]

15. The irrationality of the market was patterened at one time, computer trading has screwed that up