The stock market, for example, is a colossal engine of human emotion. Prices of stocks rise and fall because of what men and women are doing, thinking, and feeling. The price of a given company’s shares doesn’t rise because of abstract figures in an accounting ledger, nor even because the company’s future prospects are objectively good, but because people think the prospects are good. The market doesn’t slump because a computer somewhere determines selling pressure is on the rise, but because people are worried, or discouraged, or afraid. Or simply because a four-day weekend is coming and all
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