The herd is never stupid for too long. In the end, it always responds to good governance and good economic management. Hey, America had similar fluctuations when it was an emerging market, with our railroad busts and booms. You just have to manage them and build in as many shock absorbers as possible. I track the herd's movements all day on the Bloomberg screen next to my desk.
Democracies vote about a government's policies once every two or four years.
But the Electronic Herd votes every minute of every hour of every day. Anytime you want to know, the herd will tell you exactly how you look in a Golden Straitjacket and whether it fits well or not. I know you think that I'm the all-powerful U.S. Treasury Secretary. Those idiots in the media keep putting me on the front page, as if I'm actually in charge, and I'm sitting here terrified that if our Congress refuses to grant the President authority to expand free trade, or busts the budget ceiling, the herd is going to turn against me and trample the dollar and the Dow. It is not pretty.