ABOUT RISK

“The configuration of the financial hurricane will become clear soon enough. The sad thing is that the free market will likely get a disproportionate share of the blame, finding its wrists more tightly shackled if the bloodthirsty critics of free enterprise gain enough power in Washington. Whenever markets mess up, control freaks blame it on too much freedom, on undue latitude for plungers and gamblers and similar riff-raff, when the blame properly rests with the gambling instinct itself, which is a part of human nature. If it weren’t, and thanks goodness it is, the first man to peek outside the cave and see the possibilities of a home on the hillside would never have tried it. ‘Too much risk!’ he would have muttered (in caveman-ese). Nothing ever gets done without risk. Risk entails the possibility of failure, but also of growth and gain. If you don’t want growth, you shun risk. Fortunately, capitalists and entrepreneurs constantly seek growth. They gamble. They stick out their necks, sometimes fatally.” —William Murchison