Thursday, September 08, 2005

Oh, No He Didn’t!

Alec Hogg writes the usual nonsense about Adam Smith and markets.

Smith gave a detailed analysis of how markets work (WN, I.v-xi: 47-275) and never mentioned, hinted or implied that there was an invisible hand at work. He didn’t have to; his exposition is perfectly clear. Hence, when Alec repeats the usual canard about the invisible hand he informs us that no matter how good he is on commodity prices – besides his regular column for Moneyweb Holdings Ltd, he also delivers a live update at 7:33am weekdays on Lotus FM’s breakfast show, ‘O’Neil in the Morning’ (a ‘must listen’) – his knowledge of Smithian markets is, er, limited. Judge for yourself:

“Oil adjusting; RCH rival impresses, new iPod doesn’t” by Alec Hogg.

“When the father of modern economics, Adam Smith, wrote his seminal Wealth of Nations 230 years ago he unveiled to the world what he dubbed “the invisible hand” – an unseen force which automatically addresses imbalances in economies. That hand has been working overtime recently, reacting to crude oil’s jump to over $70 a barrel.”

It would be rude to call that paragraph codswallop; hence, I shall restrain myself, and as you have probably heard enough about the invisible hand for one day, assuming you read more than this contribution – say, two of the three below – I shall add nothing. I shall finish my lunch instead.

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