Keynes argued that since the future could not be known with any degree of certainty values in the stock market ultimately depend on a state of confidence, itself the outcome of the “mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals.” Observing the ondulations of the market and the constant flux of credit more than two centuries earlier, Steele anticipated what has been called the “Castles in the Air” theory of value.

This theory suggests that shares have no intrinsic value and share prices are simply the product of investor psychology. One of the earliest associations of “castles in the air” with investment appears in Jonathan Swift’s poem The Bubble (1720), written after the collapse of the South Sea Company. In this poem, Swift attacks the company’s fraudulent directors and its credulous shareholders:

While some build Castles in the Air,
Directors build’em in the Seas;
Subscribers plainly see them there,
For Fools will see as Wise men please.

One can infer from the text that

Item 2 the worst effects of fraud can be contained by dissemination of pertinent information.