Bill Clinton’s prisoner’s dilemma of the stock market.

One more thing from last night:

Clinton added that the ultimate basis for the present economic recession is trying to make money out of thin air through financial instruments, rather than by investing it in someone with a sound business to produce something real.

This is the prisoner’s dilemma applied to the stock market:

The short term big gains seem to come from destructive greed. The long term medium gains come from trust and co-operation, but if you choose trust and another chooses greed you gain nothing. And worst of all, you must choose trust or greed without first knowing what others choose.

So Clinton’s solution is decent people. In the remarkable view of Mr Clinton, the world seems to be full of decent people choosing financial instruments representing real businesses over financial instruments that seem to make money out of thin air.

I have faith his view is correct.