TY - JOUR T1 - After the Ball JF - The Journal of Investing SP - 8 LP - 13 DO - 10.3905/joi.2005.479384 VL - 14 IS - 1 AU - George M. Frankfurter Y1 - 2005/02/28 UR - https://pm-research.com/content/14/1/8.abstract N2 - Academics have argued for decades about whether markets are efficient. This has been a great waste of intellectual resources with no discernible reason other than to funnel research efforts toward ends that lead nowhere. The simple facts discussed in this article make it clear why markets can't ever be efficient, absent radical changes not only to finance but also to government and politics. Given post-Enron incidents of corporate larceny, it should also be clear that the system cannot and will not be repaired beyond tokenism, unless and until we sever or at least mitigate the connection between politics and economics. While there are scandals in other capitalist countries as well, and some of them with political undertones, no strain of capitalism is as much influenced by the unhealthy symbiosis of money and politics as the American kind. No real reform seems likely in the near future because the three requisites for making the system less dependent on politics—stiff campaign finance laws, efficient enforcement of these laws, and abolition of the lobbying system—seem quite remote. Yet there remain new avenues for academics, the financial industry, and government, avenues that are this side of utopia. ER -