Blogs

I’d never bothered to read a political manifesto before today. But I suspected that some fun could be had with them. If you know that someone has a tendency to be economical with the truth […]

“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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, according to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross the five stages of dealing with personal tragedy. I wonder if there’s something similar we are going through with financial derivatives? If so, I think Warren […]

A couple of years ago I damaged my right hand trying to hold open the door of a London Underground train. For about 18 months I was unable to shake hands, especially with Americans. I […]

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, […]