Locusts Animal spirits

Hedge funds might feel insulted to be described as locusts. Certainly, the chairman of Germany’s ruling party didn’t intend a compliment when he likened the faceless foreign investors who have engineered a revolution at Deutsche Boerse to the swarming pests. But the hedge funds shouldn’t be thin-skinned. Sure, they have a habit of swarming. And, true, they can be extremely irritating to their victims. But they play a useful role in the creative destruction of capitalism – just as locusts do in n...