What's happening right now is the literal opposite of an efficient market even before you talk about the millions and millions of dollars lost by every business in the goddamn state shutting down simultaneously and the cost of a compounding public health crisis https://twitter.com/davidlnoll/status/1361875319054077952

I'm going to expand on this tomorrow when I'm back at my computer because nobody wants to read threads about economic policy at 11pm on a Tuesday

Usual disclaimer of course that I'm not An Economist™ so if you want to get at me about math then please remember that I tap out at tenth grade algebra.

I'm also not going to get into energy policy because I don't want to spend all day arguing about wind turbines or whatever.

So the entire premise of the efficient markets hypothesis is that in a truly efficient market, the price of an asset is going to reflect all publicly available and relevant information about that asset and all these assets are Correctly Priced.

When we talk about efficient markets what we're talking about is the idea that my stock is going maintain a value that's relatively consistent to the activity of the company issuing the stock. Online retailers go up in the pandemic because nobody is going to the store, etc.

Efficiency assumes a free market with some emphasis on corporate stewardship, where corporations are incentivized to invest in things like infrastructure. It also only really addresses market-driven volatility (for example, crypto markets) and not massive natural disasters

Now we get to look at what we know. We know that ten years ago, freezing temperatures caused rolling blackouts in Texas. We know that back then, power companies were advised on how to winterize their facilities. We know that regulators in TX can't force companies to winterize.

(Pause, I have to go peep our hot water sitch real fast)

Still no hot water. Back to efficient markets. Some other stuff we know is that Texas has opted out of a shared grid system, and that Texas power suppliers have basically no contingency plans in place for emergencies, even when they have like a week's notice.

The entire premise of market efficiency is that efficient markets are designed to facilitate free trade and maintain price equilibrium. What we have here is basically the exact opposite of that. This system is DESIGNED to manufacture volatility in a fully captive market.

The other thing about market efficiency is that you absolutely cannot have an efficient market in a context where price volatility and poor corporate stewardship in one sector can cripple every other industry in one fell swoop.

This is part of it but beyond that the bigger issue is on the supplier's side of things. If you can't get your own power and you can't hook into your neighbor's grid, you're stuck paying whatever the asking price is from whatever game in town still runs https://twitter.com/ancientcarelord/status/1362080115677560832?s=19