And even the savviest investor can make bad decisions and be the victim of fraud.
In a world where people who make bad decisions are spared the full consequences, only one thing is certain.
"When your goal is to be the biggest company and own the most funeral homes, you start to make bad decisions, " Henican says of his larger rivals.
When those who make bad decisions are not bailed out but bear the consequences of their actions, markets quickly self correct and impose just sanctions on the imprudent and greedy.
The result of this instability is that people make bad decisions, like selling when the market is down, or speculating on alternative investments that they perceive to be a safe-haven.
If we as taxpayers are going to assume the risk as stakeholders when bankers make bad decisions, we should reap the profits as shareholders when those banks are profitable again, and use that money to pay down the national debt, cut our taxes and get a solid return on our investment.
How about writing down margin loans to people who make bad stock decisions through no fault of their own?
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We make more bad decisions, and markets take longer to adjust.
Executives who make spectacularly bad decisions can only be subjected to criminal prosecution if they engage in fraud or deliberately close their eyes to it.
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Banning Facebook would just shift people over to another service where they are likely to still make really bad decisions so I doubt it will fix the problem.
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While some may criticize the effort, suggesting it is hard to feel sorry for millionaires who make bad investment decisions, that shows a certain ignorance about the situation.
But we are not going to make bad policy decisions through the artificial lens of hoping something is bipartisan, because in the end the test will be whether or not we have rules in place that prevent this from ever happening again.
Whether it's buying Internet stocks, or speculating on real estate, lots of people can make very bad investment decisions or fall for scams.
Be that as it may the enthusiasts for nudging are almost certainly correct that we believe all sorts of silly things, have all sorts of flawed information, and make all kinds of bad decisions.
There are a lot of small businesses that make a lot of really bad decisions.
In it, he talks about the psychological pathways that lead us to make good (or bad) decisions.
This may be the wrong time to quote Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but the bad boy had it right when he said that countries make awful decisions when they deliberately misprice.
But, while bad accounts may lead investors to make mistakes, even the best often prompt managers to take decisions that are against their firms' interests.
The situation is also bad because these acts disturb the normal current of life and such acts often force us to make radical decisions.
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And BP ignored repeated warnings and made one bad decision after another until it was an environmental disaster and then they continued to make more poor decisions.
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