Category Archives: Noise

“Stick wax in your ears”

Andy Kessler says to ignore the stock market and go do something else until February:

So which is [the stock market] now: an efficient mechanism or a manipulating liar? Should you listen to it warning of doom or anticipating renewal? I’d say stick wax in your ears and don’t listen to the market until February.

Don’t get me wrong. The freezing of the credit markets is wreaking havoc on the world economy. Corporate profits are dropping. Central banks are fighting off deflation and may not turn off the spigots fast enough — which could ignite runaway inflation. But because of the credit mess, I am convinced the stock market is at its least efficient today. Don’t read too much into any move.

“Palinonics”

Here at Maximum Entropy we focus on delivering “more signal, less noise,” and so this analysis of Sarah Palin’s unusual and incomprehensible speech really hits the mark:

What we have to do instead is decrypt her message by filtering out all of the confusing chatter that keeps her statements encoded and difficult to follow. . . .

If you just cut out about 60% of what she says, it hangs together. . .

Crunnnnch!

So I’m in a meeting with two distinguished gentlemen this morning, and I open my black leather portfolio to take out some notes, and what do I reveal to the world? A half-crumbled oyster cracker. Hmmm. How could that have gotten in there?

Tommmmmy!