Paul's Blog

Greed Is Good But Envy Is Bad

“Greed is good,” said the Ivan Boesky-inspired Gordon Gecko in the first “Wall Street” movie. And greed certainly is one of the prime movers behind many a successful business, along with altruism, curiosity, necessity, etc. […]

Paul's Blog

Hoping For One L Of A Recovery

A few months ago I was speaking at a conference at which Nouriel Roubini gave a talk about his view on the future of the world economy. He spoke about V-shaped recovery, U shaped, W […]

Paul's Blog

Valuation Versus Risk Management

Valuation and risk management, two sides of the quant business, must be treated with equal sophistication, with equal respect, and with equal suspicion. And there must be closer interaction between them. In education, valuation should […]

Paul's Blog

Policing The Police

I was at the G20 protests in London on 1st April. I took this photograph of the ‘charming gentlemen’ who were supposed to be keeping the peace. As we know they were instead beating people […]

Paul's Blog

FSA: It’s Worse Than I Feared

Remember my blog about Magicians and Mathematicians in which I complained about the lack of imagination in risk management? If you don’t, then please take a look otherwise the rest of this blog won’t make […]

Paul's Blog

Celebrity Death Test

It is almost impossible for the layperson to rationally determine the seriousness of any new disease and whether it has the potential to be the next Black Death. I’m thinking of the new Swine ‘Flu, […]

Paul's Blog

Tax, Cut, Sell, Or…

First my standard disclaimer, Economics Makes My Brain Hurt. I am but a mathematician, and businessman, I suppose. And although I cannot and do not claim to know anything about running a country (which is […]

Paul's Blog

Numbers People And Symbols People

Are you a numbers person or a symbols person? You should instinctively know the answer. Let’s step back a bit, are you a cat person or a dog person? A cat person? Like me then. […]