>I think my reaction was a bit of a knee jerk negative to what you said
>about the Scientific American article about the unpredictibility of markets.
>I have not read the article but I am going to do so.
>
>What bothered me was that people can always say that something is
>impossible if it is not currently able to be done. (eg. airplanes)
>Therefore I am skeptical of arguments that operate in this manner.
Do you think predicting the market is more like flying or more like
predicting the weather? Predicting the weather is theoretically
impossible due to non-linear dynamics. No amount of technology or
future scientific knowledge is going to change that (unless we become
God).
>I do not think that people like Warren Buffett, Sir John Templeton and
>Peter Lynch are just lucky. If it was luck then how many billionaire
I didn't mean to say it was just luck. I am claiming that there are probably
other investors that are equally as knowledgable but aren't billionaires.
There is an element of chance you can't ignore. I think Bill Gates is
lucky in the same way. Sure he had the skill to take advantage of the
luck, but there are many others who are more skilled and less rich.
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.merak.com/~dbm/ Merak Projects Ltd.