Reasons to believe in hedge funds . . . or Santa
In Tom Hanks's Polar Express, only those who believe in Father Christmas can hear the ringing of his bell. At the many centenary performances of Peter Pan, audiences must keep Tinkerbell alive by reassuring her, or at least each other, that they believe in fairies. We are exposing our children to complex ideas about the relationship between truth and belief.
“It doesn't matter where the train is going. What matters is deciding to get on,” says the conductor of the Polar Express. I am not sure that Mr Hanks is right about that. Childish fantasies are innocuous, part of the joy of Christmas and of life. Adult fantasies are more dangerous.
The process by which large numbers of people become convinced of things that are not true has always been an important feature of political and economic life. But never more than recently.
The internet would create commercial opportunities of unprecedented scale and range, Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction: these delusions have been central to the economic and political development of the past decade. We now know these assertions are false. Many people have yet to discover that their beliefs that deficits do not matter, and that thousands of hedge fund managers can successfully conjure returns from
thin air, have the same status as
the expectation that Santa Claus
will be coming down the chimney on Friday night.
The social life of a dissenter is always difficult. Few adults give an honest answer when Peter Pan asks if they believe in fairies. The only negatives come from precocious children who have learnt to think for themselves but have not acquired social skills; I can still remember being silenced by my parents and shunned by the audience. With maturity, most of us learn that it is wiser to go along with the crowd.
And with reason. What is widely believed is usually true. That is why it is not just more congenial, but also more efficient to adopt the conventional view than to engage in original research. I think the earth is round, not because I have personally verified it, but because many people I trust tell me so. A thousand years ago, I would have thought it was flat, for the same reason. Likewise, I believed in Santa Claus because my parents told me so, and I ceased to believe in him when my teenage cousin and his friends disabused me.
These social and economic pressures mean that beliefs are contagious. And consequently a proposition that originates with very few people can sometimes become the conventional wisdom.
Take the widespread concern that climate change is a serious problem, the close consensus among economic forecasters and the unanimous agreement that European demography faces a crisis in 2050. All these widely held views become less persuasive when you realise how small is the number of genuinely independent sources on which the supporters of these positions rely.
But the strongest force driving us towards false opinions is the natural human desire to believe what we want to believe. If the choice is between declaring your belief in fairies and watching Tinkerbell fade from view, who would not shout that they believe in fairies? If you must choose between the claim that the internet will change everything and the observation that it is entertaining, a useful research tool and a powerful vehicle for classified advertising, only the most curmudgeonly would not vote for transformation. And who would not like to believe in Santa Claus? Or hedge funds?
Economists define adulthood as the moment at which your expenditure on Christmas presents first exceeds the value of the gifts you can expect to receive. Along with this depressing feature of maturity come ceasing to believe what you want to believe, learning when to ask questions and when to take the views of others on trust, and resisting pressures to conform to what other people think. (I am not sure about the last of these.)
But Christmas offers a few days in which we can all retreat to childish fantasies. As we ride the Polar Express and watch The Sound of Music, we have a chance to believe that all is as we would like to it to be. A Happy Christmas to all readers.
对冲基金与仙女 谁更可信
在汤姆?汉克斯（Tom Hanks）主演的《北极快车》（Polar Express）一片中，只有相信圣诞老人的人才听得到圣诞老人的铃声。彼得?潘上百年的表演中，观众必须告诉小仙女Tinkerbell，或至少相互表态，说自己相信仙女，这样小仙女才能活`l下去。我们让孩子们接触真理与信仰之间关系的复杂理念。
“火车往哪里开并不要紧，要紧的是决定上火车，”《北极快车》上的列车员说。汉克斯先生这句话正确与否尚待商榷。儿童的幻想天真无邪，是圣诞节乃至人生的乐趣之一。成年人的幻想就更危险了。
政治和经济生活向来有个重要特征，就是有太多人相信本不可信的东西。这种现象尤以目前为甚。
比如有人说，网络可以创造前所未有、规模空前的商机。还有人说，萨达姆?侯赛因拥有大规模杀伤性武器。过去十年的经济和政治发展，都和这类虚无缥缈的说法有关。我们现在知道，这些说法都是错误的。很多人到现在还执迷不悟，觉得赤字无所谓，觉得数以千计的对冲基金经理能够凭空创造丰厚回报。这些人的状态，就如同是在期待着星期五晚上，圣诞老人会从烟囱里下来一样。
持异议者的社交生活一定是很艰难的。当彼得?潘问成年人相信不相信仙人的存在时，没有几个成年人会实话实说。只有一些早慧的儿童会说实话，这些儿童学会了独立思考，却还没有学会社交技巧。我还记得我小时候父母亲叫我闭嘴，周围观众对我冷眼相看的情形。长大之后，我们大部分人都学乖了，发觉随大流才是上策。
随大流也并非没有道理。大多数人都相信的东西往往就是对的。因此，接受传统观点，而不去做原创研究，这不但更合群，而且更有效率。我相信地球是圆的，并不是因为我自己去验证了，而是我所信任的很多人都是这样说的。同样，我曾相信圣诞老人的存在，是因为我父母是这样告诉我的，等十几岁的表哥和他的朋友们向我揭示了真相，我也就不再相信了。
这些社会压力和经济压力的存在，意味着信仰可以相互传染。其结果就是，起源于少数几个人的某个观点，有时候也能够成为传统智慧。
以气候变化为例。人们普遍担忧，气候变化会造成严重问题。经济预测者的共识和人们的普遍观点是，欧洲人口结构到2050年会面临危机。不过这些观点真正的独立来源为数极少，要是你知道了这一点，你就不会那么轻信了。
但是让我们接受错误观点的最大原因，是人性使然，即人都喜欢相信自己愿意相信的东西。你要么宣称你相信仙人的存在，要么看着小仙女从眼前消逝，如果要人在二者之间做出选择，谁不愿意高声说自己相信仙人存在呢？有人说互联网能改变一切，也有人认为互联网只不过是个娱乐空间，是个有用的研究工具，是个强大的分类广告载体，要是在这二者之间作出选择，估计只有少数几个脾气古怪的家伙才会不信互联网改变一切的说法。谁不相信对冲基金呢？谁不相信圣诞老人呢？
经济学家对成年的定义是，人们买圣诞礼物的开支超过预计会收到的礼物总价值的那一刻。伴随着这一令人沮丧的发现，人们成年后发生的另一个变化是，我们在判断事物时不再听凭自己的主观愿望，而是学会何时提出疑问，何时信任他人的看法，也学会顶住压力，不随便相信别人的说法。（最后这一条我不是很肯定。）
不过，在圣诞节的几天休假期间，我们能够回到童年的幻想。我们乘坐着北极快车，看着《音乐之声》，我们重新可以相信一回我们愿意相信的事。祝各位读者圣诞快乐！
