Teasing out the Efficient Market Hypothesis

The media profits from selling stuff: newspapers, magazines, and airtime for ads. It seems that the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been shelved by the media mostly. We still get the top mutual funds and other crap that is based on past performance, even though, the print in the mutual fund prospectuses clearly state: "Past Performance is no guarantee of future results."

The responsibility to point out the effects of the EMH often fall on academics, like todays post over at Greg Mankiw's blog; he gets bonus points by pointing out the effect in a WSJ article, which curiously, fails to talk about what the results mean.