On 06/01/2013 05:55 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
On Jun 1, 2013, at 5:23 PM, Bonez <[email protected]> wrote:
Forgive my asking, and know that my question portends no doubt or rejection
... Just curious what your background is, Levi? Do you work in finance, or
simply read a lot? I'd like to learn more about our us systems.
I work in the tech field, like most on the list, but I read a lot from a
variety of places. There is an astounding amount of utter nonsense on the
Internet, however, so it is necessary to be careful with the sources that you
trust, and even then to read critically. Encyclopedias and Wikipedia are good
jumping-off points for research, but forums and advocacy sites generally are
not. If you look at comment threads or discussion forums, keep in mind that the
people who comment there are not a representative sample of the population, and
people will argue just as passionately for wrong things as they will right
ones. Occasionally they will help to point out real flaws in reasoning or
mistaken facts, though, so they are not completely worthless.
I've been in the bank sector, and wikipedia, et al, only tells you half
the system; there's also a social part of it. I've watched a solid bank
collapse under what essentially was a bunch of hair-brained idiots
raving in forums. Only the idiots were the stock-holding board members
making a stink in a public forum about the bank leadership's supposed
malfeasant decisions that resulted in a fractional percentage reduction
of their normal stock dividends. Two weeks later, the bank didn't
exist. At which point, neither did the stock. Don't underestimate the
power of an idiot to destroy value via public forum. They have no sense
of self-preservation.
;-Daniel Fussell
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