The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

by Niall Ferguson

markets never reach the equilibrium postulated by economic theory. There is a two-way reflexive connection between perception and reality which can give rise to initially self-reinforcing but eventually self-defeating boom-bust processes, or bubbles. Every bubble consists of a trend and a misconception that interact in a reflexive manner.71

Long-Term sold so many such options that some people started calling it the Central Bank of Volatility.84

To ensure that those exports were irresistibly cheap, China had to fight the tendency for the Chinese currency to strengthen against the dollar by buying literally billions of dollars on world markets – part of a system of Asian currency pegs that some commentators dubbed Bretton Woods II.109

because financial intermediation generally permits a more efficient allocation of resources than, say, feudalism or central planning. For this reason, it is not wholly surprising that the Western financial model tended to spread around the world, first in the guise of imperialism, then in the guise of globalization.1

Those who put their faith in the ‘wisdom of crowds’15 mean no more than that a large group of people is more likely to make a correct assessment than a small group of supposed experts.