F aced wi th the repetition of a crash that will soon be systemic, we have no choice but to ask ou rselves about the powerlessness of savvy econom ists to interp ret the alarm bells that have been ri ngi ng steadily for a quarter of a century and, in particul ar, since the 1 9 87 crash .
T rying to describe the catastrophic swings observed over such a long period thro ughout the Single M arket, M andelb rot i ntroduced m ultifractal time and thus ushered the history of finance into a dynam ic world, where stock market tradi ng time no longer has anything in common with physical t i m e , since, in th is new model, ' t radi ng time speeds up the clock in periods of high volatil i ty , and sl ows i t down in periods o f stab i l i ty ' , 1 the space o f fractal geometry combi ning here with the ' multifractal ' chronometry of the fourth dimension .
With o u r professo r emeritus, the n , i t is no l onger j ust ' critical space' that is heralded, b u t the efraction o f H i story , the ' critical sp acetime' of times to come!
With Benoit M andelbrot, then, property bubbles suddenly turn tnto FINANCIAL
THE GREAT ACCELERATOR
I Ibid. , P · 2 2 .
8 1