Money and Finance
- Charlie Munger On Projections
From his speech “Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary Needs” (available HERE, HERE, or in Poor Charlie's Almanack): Usually, I don’t use formal projections. I don’t let people do them for me because...
- John Mauldin: The Theology Of Inflation
We begin this week with a simple pop quiz. Is inflation good or bad? Answer quickly. I’m sorry – your answer is wrong. Or rather, we can’t know if your answer is right or wrong because we are not sure what is meant by the question. We may...
- Barry Schwartz Interview
Found via Simoleon Sense. The European: The classical economic point of view is that peoples’ decisions results from a careful weighing of what will create the most desirable result. What do you advocate? Schwartz: Well, I think this picture is completely...
- Nassim Taleb's Foreward To "lecturing Birds On Flying"
From a couple of years ago. January 2009: I am at the World Economic Forum in Davos, looking at the sorry crowd of businessmen, journalists, and bankers. There are also a few finance academics. Many practitioners look like they have just fallen off a...
- Keep It Simple, Fool
During the height of his career, Albert Einstein was in the middle of hearing his notes dictated to him by his secretary when he stopped and asked her, "Did I really write that? I could have put that so much simpler." - Just as Einstein was able to simplify...
Money and Finance
Beware of Economists Peddling Elegant Models - By Mark Buchanan
Found via Pragmatic Capitalism.
Mathematics can be beguilingly elegant. It can also be dangerous when people mistake its elegance for truth.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity might be the best example of elegant math, capturing a wide range of subtle and surprising phenomena with remarkable simplicity. Step toward the practical, though, and physics moves quickly away from elegance to makeshift usefulness. There’s no pretty expression for the operation of a nuclear reactor, or for how air flows past the swept wings of an aircraft. Understanding demands ugly approximations, or brute-force simulation on a large computer.
In one very practical and consequential area, though, the allure of elegance has exercised a perverse and lasting influence. For several decades, economists have sought to express the way millions of people and companies interact in a handful of pretty equations.
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Related speech: “Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary Needs” – By Charlie Munger
- Charlie Munger On Projections
From his speech “Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary Needs” (available HERE, HERE, or in Poor Charlie's Almanack): Usually, I don’t use formal projections. I don’t let people do them for me because...
- John Mauldin: The Theology Of Inflation
We begin this week with a simple pop quiz. Is inflation good or bad? Answer quickly. I’m sorry – your answer is wrong. Or rather, we can’t know if your answer is right or wrong because we are not sure what is meant by the question. We may...
- Barry Schwartz Interview
Found via Simoleon Sense. The European: The classical economic point of view is that peoples’ decisions results from a careful weighing of what will create the most desirable result. What do you advocate? Schwartz: Well, I think this picture is completely...
- Nassim Taleb's Foreward To "lecturing Birds On Flying"
From a couple of years ago. January 2009: I am at the World Economic Forum in Davos, looking at the sorry crowd of businessmen, journalists, and bankers. There are also a few finance academics. Many practitioners look like they have just fallen off a...
- Keep It Simple, Fool
During the height of his career, Albert Einstein was in the middle of hearing his notes dictated to him by his secretary when he stopped and asked her, "Did I really write that? I could have put that so much simpler." - Just as Einstein was able to simplify...