Welcome to Truth on the Market. We have launched this blog to provide the metaphysical subjective truth on abstract, concrete and invisible markets throughout the civilized world (whatever that means). More specifically, as indicated by our current tagline (we know it’s unoriginal; we hope to come up with something better soon) our blog will provide academic commentary on law, business, economics and more. The “more” will include observations on law school, blogging, being a law prof, smoking bans, payola, legal valuation, football, processed cheese, and calorie counts, among other things.
We currently have a lineup of six young turks as regular bloggers and may add more. We all teach and write in the business law area, broadly defined. We had hoped to have some non-law profs (economics, finance, IO, sociology, etc.) and business law practitioners, but our recruitment efforts have so far been unsuccessful. Note though that Josh has a Ph.D. in economics. We also have an anonymous blogger, “pseudonym on the marketâ€? (he/she is rumored to be the love child of Article III Groupie and Jaun Non-Volokh). Unfortunately, contrary to rumors, neither Henry Manne nor Kate Litvak will be joining us out of the chute, but we’re hoping one or both will join us in the near future for at least a guest stint.
We are aware of recent statements that blogging should be avoided by junior faculty. We are all junior faculty here and thus obviously disagree. Or, more correctly, as elaborated by Prof. Barnett in this post, we applied our local knowledge of our faculties and personal knowledge of ourselves and determined that the benefits of blogging outweigh the risks (other than Pseudonym on the Market who does think it is too risky, hence the pseudonym).
If all goes well with this blog, look for the Truth on the Market hedge fund. If not, maybe we can get jobs at Tufts (does Tufts have a law school?).
Finally, we look forward to Dave Hoffman of Concurring Opinions disagreeing with us often.
Note that the phrase “truth on the market” is a term of art under federal securities laws, although we’re not using it here in that sense, at least not exclusively. See below the fold for the securities law meaning.
The phrase “truth on the market� relates to Rule 10b-5 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Rule 10b-5 prohibits fraud in connection with the purchase or sale of a security. To prevail on a Rule 10b-5 claim, a plaintiff must prove, among other things, reliance on a material misstatement or omission. One way to meet this reliance element is through the “fraud on the market� theory. Under the theory, it is presumed that the plaintiff relied on the misstatement or omission by relying on the integrity of the stock price established by the market. The defendant, however, can rebut this presumption through the “truth on the market� defense. To establish it, the defendant must prove that notwithstanding its misrepresentation or omission, the stock price reflected the correct information because the information entered the market through other channels, i.e., the truth was on the market.
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Not that I want to make more work for you guys, but a it would be a great service to your readers if your blogroll was organized so that other blogs that traffic solely in business, economics, law and the intersections thereof were highlighted. There are lots of blogs on the topic but very few worth the electrons they take up in cyberspace. Yours is very good and as such, knowing what sources you go to would be great.
Just a thought. Everything else is great, though!
Many bloggers choose to license their work under a creative commons license (www.creativecommons.org), which is really helpful, because whoever wants to make use of your material knows in advance what freedoms they have. The non-commercial attribution license seems to be a favorite.
I appreciate the constructive critcism. I put the policies together through looking at what other blogs are doing. Your point is well taken on the quoted material. Its overlawyering on my part. I’ve revised it. I’m actually suprised someone read our policies.
In the spirit of constructive criticism, two more points about your blog policies:
First, are you joking with this?:
“Links to this blog. You are granted a non-exclusive, limited, and revocable license to link to this blog. We reserve the right to revoke this license generally, or your right to use specific links, at any time. If we revoke this license, you agree to remove and disable any and all of your links to this web site.”
Do you want to also grant me a license to use the Internet? Please rethink this, as it is ridiculous. Anyone can link to your blog with or without your permission, because the link on their website is not your property and you have no rights in it.
Second, regarding this:
“The credit must appear with the material, refer to “Truth on the Marketâ€? or the particular author and, if possible, include a link to the material on our blog. We reserve the right to rescind this permission at any time and for any reason, or no reason at all.”
“Fair use” aside, linking to another blog is a matter of courtesy and etiquette, mandating in your policy that I must link to you if I quote your post is inappropriate.