If I'm dying of dehydration - the next cup of water is worth most of my future earnings. If I just had a glass - it's worth next to nothing. Dying because a fire is burning and you're running out of air? Oxygen tank would be pretty handy right about now. Got enough oxygen? Pfft don't need your tank.
These are examples of arbitrageable opportunities. The wealth you can create by moving a glass of water from a lake to a desert is a real thing. Valuations aren't "meaningless" in that way unless you take the extreme nihilist position of everything being meaningless because it would change in a different situation. That's not meaninglessness, it's just context-sensitivity.
The fallacy of reification only occurs if you assign value to the existence of things (like "we should reduce regulation because the market wants it"). It's perfectly useful and common to say things like "the market wants" to mean "the market acts in a way such that were it a sentient being it would act this way because of a conscious desire" without actually holding the view that the market is a sentient being. That's just how English works (see, I did it right there).
People conflict agency with representation all the time.
This is not a good thing for every situation - especially abstract concepts such markets and governments.
I never said statistical arbitrage was not possible. I merely indicated that another's valuation is meaningless to your decision about future profits generated by an entity.
I'm probably a nihilist then aren't I. Why bother arguing with me at all then? :-)
These are examples of arbitrageable opportunities. The wealth you can create by moving a glass of water from a lake to a desert is a real thing. Valuations aren't "meaningless" in that way unless you take the extreme nihilist position of everything being meaningless because it would change in a different situation. That's not meaninglessness, it's just context-sensitivity.
The fallacy of reification only occurs if you assign value to the existence of things (like "we should reduce regulation because the market wants it"). It's perfectly useful and common to say things like "the market wants" to mean "the market acts in a way such that were it a sentient being it would act this way because of a conscious desire" without actually holding the view that the market is a sentient being. That's just how English works (see, I did it right there).