Big Data versus the SAT
In a recent Time Magazine article, the president of Bard College, Leon Botstein, joined a chorus of criticisms of the SAT, going so far as to call it âpart hoax and part fraud.â Criticisms are...
View ArticlePiketty Myopia
Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twentieth Century has been lauded for its detailed analysis of data and for the end result of that analysis, a sweeping statement of an inexorable widening of the...
View ArticleMy Recent Work on Agent-based Modeling
As is obvious by looking at the time span between recent posts, I have not been active in blogging. I am planning to get back into things. As a start, to help catch up on what I have been doing, here...
View ArticleEx Ante versus Ex Post Social Policy
I have written various posts on social policy related to the question of whether and how we redistribute income. One argument of equal opportunity and social egalitarianism is that it is fair to...
View ArticleOn Death with Dignity
We take the will to live as a positive attribute, and naturally so; it is, of course in our genes. Whatever subset of our species took a lackadaisical view toward the prospect of death was screened...
View ArticleUber: What could possibly go wrong
Uber at the core is nothing more than a bunch of guys who came up with a clever app for streamlining the way you call for a car. Rather than phoning or texting, you tap on the app. Rather than paying...
View ArticleI'm going to start blogging again
I stopped doing posts on this blog in 2014. I found it too time consuming, and I had painted myself into a corner by the narrow topics, the tone, and the article-like discourse. So I'm going to do a...
View ArticleMegalomaniac
Many of us wonder what drives President Trump. Or more uncharitably, what is the nature of his mental instability. The natural place to turn is the psychiatric community, but they have walled...
View ArticleHas the UFC Jumped the Shark?
Now, in the middle of hurricanes, Trump, and a (possibly) overheated stock market, here's a blog about something different and somewhat inconsequential: The mixed martial arts world, which pretty much...
View ArticleRisk Management in the Long Term
I work in a pension fund. And pension funds, as well as sovereign wealth funds, which are like pension funds for an entire country, need to have a long view. The liabilities can stretch-out for twenty...
View ArticleOut-there Scenarios I: ISIS is Funded by a Major Asset Management Firm
I break risk management into three levels, Versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.Risk Management 1.0 is the standard risk management of VaR and the like, where history is used as a guide, and thus where things...
View ArticleCan We have an ETF Meltdown?
What is the magic that allows us to have intraday liquidity through an ETF on a market that itself trades more or less by appointment? Case in point: the high yield bond market. Or emerging markets....
View ArticleThe Crash of 1987 -- Happy 30th Anniversary
I was at the center of the October 19, 1987 stock market crash, when the U.S. equity market dropped 20% in a single day. The second chapter of my book, A Demon of Our Own Design recounts my experiences...
View ArticleOn WealthTrack for the 30th Anniversary of the 1987 Crash
I was the guest for the PBS show WealthTrack for the 30th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash. Here is a link to it.
View ArticleThe Vanishing Pavilions: The Gutting of the Government and the Loss of Oral...
What will be the longest-term damage of the Trump era? A strong, principled leader will restore some semblance of decency and ethics. Foreign governments might view this period as a bad dream, or an...
View ArticleInterview in the U.K. for the Daily Mail
I had a video interview in the U.K. on my recent book, The End of Theory, with Rachel Straus, (Big Money Questions), that just came out with the Daily Mail. You can get to it here.
View ArticleOur Low Risk (Low Volatility) World
In case you haven't noticed -- and I haven't -- we apparently are in a world of exceptionally low risk. To see this you need look no further than the volatility of the major markets. The volatility of...
View ArticleMore on ETFs -- A Little Craziness in High Yield Bond ETFs
I wrote a post a month or so ago on the risks from ETFs, in particular how ETFs on less liquid markets -- with high yield bonds being my poster child -- could cause problems for the market generally....
View ArticlePension Actuaries: The Joke is On Us
...An Actuary is someone who wanted to be an accountant but didn't have the personality for it....An introverted actuary stares at his own feet, and extroverted one stares at the other person's...
View ArticleThe Tesla Roadster Will Turn the Bugatti into a Wrist Watch
In three years Tesla will be rolling out the fastest production car in the world. And not a "production car" as in, we made ten or so of these so it can be called one. No, a production car that rolls...
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