Newsmedia commonly personify \u201cthe market,\u201d announcing \u201cthe market climbed today on news of a stellar jobs report\u201d or \u201cinstability in Thailand sent shares tumbling.\u201d Perhaps this simplification is a symptom of the unpredictability volatility of stock prices, a result of broad apathy towards the mechanisms behind the loose moniker \u201cmarket,\u201d or merely shorthand convenience for journalists. Whatever the cause, the market exists in the public imagination as a mysterious, moody beast. B.J. Novak\u2019s short story \u201cThe Market was Down\u201d takes this anthropomorphism to its logical extreme. He writes:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy was the market down? No reason. Well, stupid stuff. Actually, to be honest, maybe it was Spain at the beginning, but it was really only worried about Spain because it woke up looking for something to worry about. Then, before long, the market started worrying about bigger things, things that didn\u2019t seem to have an answer. If the market had never existed, would anyone miss it? Would anything really be different?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The whole story can be found on\u00a0Marketplace\u2019s website<\/a>\u00a0as text or in narrated form (about four minutes long). It\u2019s amusing to read, but also keenly probes the nature and the implications our perception of \u201cthe market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Newsmedia commonly personify \u201cthe market,\u201d announcing \u201cthe market climbed today on news of a stellar jobs report\u201d or \u201cinstability in Thailand sent shares tumbling.\u201d Perhaps this simplification is a symptom of the unpredictability volatility of stock prices, a result of broad apathy towards the mechanisms behind the loose moniker \u201cmarket,\u201d or merely shorthand convenience for journalists. Whatever the cause, the market exists in the public imagination as a mysterious, moody beast. B.J. Novak\u2019s short story \u201cThe Market was Down\u201d takes this anthropomorphism to its logical extreme. He writes: \u201cWhy was the market down? No reason. Well, stupid stuff. Actually, to Continue reading The Market Was Down<\/span>