Ignoring feedback loops and looking ahead

Over the last many years, I've written several times about the toxic effects of too much news on savers and investors. Now over the last two months, the pandemic has made this much worse. Last week, while rereading the fascinating book by the 'undercover economist' Tim Harford, 'Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure', I realised that the underlying problem with too much news is one of inappropriate feedback loops. In any process, be it your investments, or driving, or a government deciding on the best policies to limit the spread of a disease like Covid, success comes from fine-tuning the inputs based on their effects. The strategy that one sets out with is rarely, if ever, the correct one, as Harford puts it in the subtitle of his book. Almost always, one has to start with something th