Forbes provokes Sumner to don the robes of hanging judge for the hypocritical right:

If Forbes is right, and the markets are made up by a bunch of fools, then why not go with socialism?

Here’s what I think is really going on.  The right has a political agenda.  When the stock market agrees with that agenda, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes love
to cite its response to policy initiatives.  For instance, in an
earlier post I mentioned how the markets were strongly opposed to
Smoot-Hawley, and seemed to favor NAFTA.  But when markets don’t agree
with the right’s deflationary agenda, suddenly the markets are just as
unreliable as a Marxist economist.

His verdict rings true, but it reminds me of an earlier question that’s still bugging me: Why did financial markets like Nixon’s price controls so much?  What gives, Scott?  Was it just a random error, or what?