Volatility is a symptom that people have no idea of the underlying value.

By background I'm both a Quaker and a Yorkshireman, which I like to call double jeopardy.

I would say that financial markets are very inefficient, and capable of extremes of being completely dysfunctional.

Volatility is a symptom that people have no idea of the underlying value-that they have stopped playing the asset game. They're not buying because it's a company with certain attributes. They're buying because the price is rising. People are playing games not related to any concept at all of what the long-term value of the enterprise is. And they know it.

Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance, and if profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism. If high profits do not attract competition, there is something wrong with the system and it is not functioning properly.

Modern agriculture has been accurately described as a way of turning oil into food. As the price of oil continues to rise, so will the price of food.

You can't run the economy on BMWs alone. If the average person is in a pickle, how do you have a healthy economy?