At some point in the near future, a "good job" may be defined as whether or not someone asks: "How do you want that cooked?"
"But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?"
Alan Greenspan, 5 December, 1996, Francis Boyer Lecture at The American Enterprise Institute. Accessed 6 November 2010.
There is certainly enough well documented history by now to reach some substantial conclusions about the worth and efficiency of the free market system. When Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gave the speech at a black-tie event within the friendly confines of the American Enterprise Institute, the Nikkei index dropped 3.2%, the Hang Seng fell by 2.9%, the Dax dropped 4%, and when trade resumed the next morning, the Dow shed 2.3%[1]. The one man charged and believed to have the best overview of the actual state of the economy had just told the world that stocks weren't worth the prices they were being traded at, and traders heeded those words for less than 48 hours.
