Given Enough Time

Published in Barron’s.

Randall W. Forsyth distorts Murphy’s celebrated law with a truncated version of it, writing “whatever can go wrong, will” (“Sometimes Things Can Go Right—and a Lot Did for the Stock Market Last Week,” Up & Down Wall Street, Oct. 11).

Although a common misquotation, this is an incomplete version. The full, correct, and much subtler statement of Murphy’s Law is, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, given enough time.” It is with enough time that structural flaws in a system will necessarily emerge, and that financial vulnerabilities will burst from potential dangers to an actual bust. As properly stated, Murphy’s Law will doubtless prevail once again in finance, as in other domains.