I have been in my house in France since the New Year.  The response to the massacre in Paris last week was deeply moving:  there were  spontaneous gatherings on Wednesday and Thursday evenings; ‘je suis Charlie’ signs are displayed everywhere. The scale of Sunday’s demonstrations was extraordinary – an estimated 1½ million people were in Paris, while in my own town, with a population of 30,000, almost 10,000 people marched silently through the streets.  French people talk a lot about solidarity:  they have shown that such talk is not empty.

I am here to finish a book on the finance sector, which seems a world away from the events that have dominated the local news.  And yet as I finished a chapter entitled  ‘The bias to action’, I realised there was an important lesson there .  In the face of an event like the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the urge to respond decisively  is natural and strong.  The excitable former President Sarkozy, who managed to push to the front of the crowd on Sunday, has already put forward numerous suggestions.

So I turned back to the chapter of my book, which begins with the homespun wisdom of the decidedly unexcitable Warren Buffett; ‘the trick is, when there’s nothing to do, do nothing’.  Most people in finance cannot act on Buffett’s advice even if they were temperamentally inclined to do so. They profit from trades, get paid for deals, earn commission on transactions. Without activity, there is no business.  Buffett’s good fortune is, as he explains ‘we don’t get paid for activity, just for being right.  As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely’.  Buffett, almost alone in his industry, is allowed to wait indefinitely, because he has acquired a reputation for being right.

        Buffett would pass, and Sarkozy fail, the marshmallow test – refrain from eating the marshmallow till I bring a second one and then you can eat both. Frank Partnoy’s little book Wait, on the joys of procrastination, explores the issue of how long one should wait before acting; a famously silly experiment found that the best time to receive a kiss from a favourite movie star was a week from now – soon enough to excite, far enough away to savour.

But the bias to immediacy and action is as pervasive in politics as in finance, and Buffett’s readiness to wait, and his reputation for being right, are correspondingly rare. In Britain, the Terrorism Act (2000) was, perhaps reasonably, thought to be inadequate in the light of 9/11, which led to the quick passage of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001).  These powers were extended in the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), which was insufficient to prevent the 2005 attacks in London and were therefore followed by the Terrorism Act (2006).  The Counter-Terrorism Act (2008) was next, and, even before the latest events a new Counter-Terrorism Bill is going through Parliament.

           Even if there is nothing to do, do something. Sarkozy hopes to run again for the Presidency (and must fend off a challenge from the far right Martine le Pen); a British election is imminent, and Home Secretary Theresa May, sponsor of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, is a potential Conservative leadership candidate. Sometimes, as after 9/11, something must be done; but with hindsight, less – a focus on tracking down bin Laden – might have been more.

Politicians around the world are holding meetings this week to persuade us that something is being done.   But the power of millions of people on the streets of France, engaged in a reassertion of ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ and the values of free speech and democracy, is far more reassuring. In Buffett’s words ‘when you are right, you can wait indefinitely.’