This was an article I wrote in 2001, but it seems appropriate to repeat it…

I have been following your articles on the various arguments between those (American) economists who demand greater transparency in financial markets as a solution to recent instability, and those who believe in a supra-national regulator.  (Gordon Brown, yourself, me).

It reminded me of the description of Physics at the beginning of James Gleick’s book on Chaos theory.  “Physics”, he said, “has been going down a reductionist cul de sac in which more and more is known about less and less.”  The insight of chaos theory is that in the ‘natural’ world, there are things that are inherently unknowable because small changes have large effects in conditions of instability.

It therefore follows that during periods of economic instability one will never be able to disclose sufficient information to overcome the danger of the system running out of control.  Only regulatory institutions with the power to manage periodic crises can give us the security we all crave.