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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (38594)	11/13/2009 6:25:49 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Its a different point than the idea of perfectly efficient markets. But 1 - Its a direct reply to your claim that absent perfect knowledge the market can't be the "best/highest" way. If markets are imperfect, and every other way is more imperfect, then markets are still best. "Best" can be VERY far from perfect. You said it can't be best (or "best/highest"), not "it won't always be perfect". If you had said the later there would have been no dispute. 2 - He wrote a lot so its impossible to be totally sure, but I'm almost certain that Adam Smith never claimed that markets are absolutely perfect or that "the invisible hand" always leads to an ideal perfect solution. (and even if he did make such a claim, that isn't really the issue, Peter's quoted Wall Street Journal piece didn't even mention Adam Smith, and your reply and my comment on your rely, where about whether or not the maket can be the best way to allocate resources in situations with imperfect information, not directly about Adam Smith (despite "the Invisible Hand" being a term he used and possible coined)