The Greater Fool Theory

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

This week we celebrated (if that's the right word) the 30th anniversary of the 1987 stock-market crash.

I heard an N.P.R. interview a couple days ago with a woman who's written the story of that event.  She mentioned, which I'd never realized, that the little-remembered 1987 market collapse was worse than either the 1929 or the 2008 crashes.

She placed the blame on the computer trading-strategies of the time: that when any stock started to go down, the computers were automated to sell...driving the stock-price further into decline.

She didn't say; and I'll have to leave to people who understand better than I do the workings of the economic system...which is most people; what part seven years of Reaganomics played in the crash.

I remember listening to "Morning Edition" that day as I was sorting mail at the Post Office.  Bob Edwards, the show's host at the time, asked a financial expert why the crash had involved even "blue chips:" the stocks of companies considered rock-solid in any crisis.

I have never forgotten the expert's answer.  (It is in fact the cornerstore of the sparse understanding I have of how Wall Street works.)

You have to remember, he said, that the stock-market operates by the Greater Fool Theory.  My remembrance is that Bob Edwards chuckled as he said, "The Greater Fool Theory ?  What's that ?"

Investors don't buy stocks because they believe in the issuing company, said the expert, or because they believe in the company's product.  An investor purchases a stock because he believes that, in the future, a greater fool will pay a higher price for it.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Jesus Says How It Is

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I know I'm increasingly one-note in my thinking.  I'm O.K. with that, because my understanding is that it's the right note.

When Jesus said "I AM...the Truth..." He characterized Himself as reality, Personal, whole and entire.  The personal implication for me, for every human being, is that living in reality is the only way of life that "works."  That may be why His full statement was, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and The Life."

When Jesus said satan is "the father of lies" He said the enemy of life is futile and destructive unreality.  And that satan himself is the personal, whole and entire source ("father") of unreality...beginning with his telling Eve she would "surely NOT die" by disobeying God, after God had warned her she would.

We know who Eve chose to believe.  And we know, from her and our experience, who told her the truth.

I choose to believe Jesus.  That means my whole and entire way of life is about loving truth.

That includes politics.  When Jesus said "I AM...The Truth..."  He said politics is not really about politics.  He said politics is a spiritual matter, in which we make a spiritual choice.  Our choice determines our life...or death.