Fama claimed the efficient-markets hypothesis was confirmed by the 2008 crash.

Evidence

Eugene Fama: I think it did quite well in this episode. Stock prices typically decline prior to and in a state of recession. This was a particularly severe recession. Prices started to decline in advance of when people recognized that it was a recession and then continued to decline. There was nothing unusual about that. That was exactly what you would expect if markets were efficient. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 710

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader history of failed crisis predictions; Fama’s frame—that decline itself validates efficiency—is the same unfalsifiable move Keynesian critics flagged centuries prior. Echoes Mirowski’s argument that apologists make theory immune to disconfirmation. — connects to: LTCM’s collapse was read as vindication of the efficient-market hypothesis — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1120; Efficient-markets theorists treated the 2008 crash as confirming their doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 494; The efficient-markets hypothesis simultaneously justifies state failure and enabled the financial crisis — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 150
• DEEPTHINKING: Fama’s defense is a textbook case of an unfalsifiable paradigm: any observation—crash or boom—is read as confirmation, which is precisely the epistemic immune system Mirowski argues lets the thought collective survive crisis.

Broader Connections

• The efficient-markets hypothesis simultaneously justifies state failure and enabled the financial crisis #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 150