AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF INVESTING IN A PITCHER’S EARNINGS. I posted here about the opportunity to invest in a percentage of pitcher Randy Newsom’s major league earnings. Now three journalists at Slate have made the investment. This article has a good analysis of the economics of this investment opportunity.
Archive for January, 2008
AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF INVESTING IN A PITCHER’S EARNINGS.
Thursday, January 31st, 2008WHY BANK EMPLOYEES SHOULD TAKE THEIR VACATIONS.
Thursday, January 31st, 2008WHY BANK EMPLOYEES SHOULD TAKE THEIR VACATIONS. Many years ago, an economist laughed when he told me that the Boston Federal Reserve Bank acted as if it were a real bank with money inside. They had the same security guards that they would have if they were at risk of bank robberies. And they required employees to take at least two weeks of vacation in a year just as if they were at risk for embezzlement. That was the first it occurred to me that it would be good if bank employees were away from the account books for a time every year. Several letter writers and columnists have pointed out that the Rogue Trader could not have kept up his juggling of fake trades if he had had to take a vacation.
THE ROGUE TRADER’S JOB DESCRIPTION.
Thursday, January 31st, 2008THE ROGUE TRADER’S JOB DESCRIPTION. About ten days ago, it was announced that a “rogue trader” at Societe General had taken stock trading positions that had cost that bank almost seven billion dollars. The bank made it known that while it had worried about the risks taken by its higher ranking traders, the Rogue Trader was too far down to worry about; he was dealing with low risk trades that were “designed to generate very little market risk” even though he traded very large amounts of money. What astounded me is this: the Rogue Trader was given an annual target to earn between 10 million euros and 15 million euros a year (roughly between 14 million dollars and 21 million dollars a year). I wouldn’t know how to make an amount of any size trading each year, much less count on making an amount each year, much less count on making millions of dollars trading each year. And yet that was his target.
DEAD DONKEYS.
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008DEAD DONKEYS. Adam Gopnik reported here that “during the war between Siena & Florence in the middle of the 13th century, the Florentines attempted to start a plague in Siena by catapulting dead donkeys over the city walls….”
FLAMING PIGS.
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008FLAMING PIGS. Nick now has a blog reporting on his experiences studying at University College in London this semester. He reports here that he has learned that “in the First Punic War the Romans lit pigs on fire and sent them amongst enemy elephants in order to panic them.”
WORDS LONG AGO RAN FREE….
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008WORDS LONG AGO RAN FREE…. Here is the story of how words and humans first came together.
WIDE SARGASSO SEA.
Monday, January 28th, 2008WIDE SARGASSO SEA. Annalisa, I recommend WIDE SARGASSO SEA, which was one of the books that your mother and I read aloud to each other. As with all of the books by Jean Rhys, be careful not to read about the book before you read the book.
JEAN RHYS.
Monday, January 28th, 2008JEAN RHYS. I was pleased to see that Art Garfunkel placed three books by Jean Rhys on his list of 135 favorite books. She is in distinguished company. (Tolstoy is the only writer with more than two if you count REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST as one book). Jean Rhys had a dramatic life. She wrote four very good novels in the twenties and thirties, all rooted in her life experience. They were novels about young women down on their luck and adrift in Europe. AFTER LEAVING MR. MCKENZIE begins with those words, and describes what happens to the heroine after she leaves Mr. McKenzie, the man in Paris who has been keeping her. Jean Rhys had been a chorus girl, the mistress of a rich man, and a member of a menage a trois with the novelist Ford Madox Ford and his wife. Perhaps the most dramatic thing in her life was that Rhys disappeared from public view for almost 25 years until the BBC asked, “Whatever happened to Jean Rhys?” in connection with a dramatization of GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT. Rhys then came out of retirement with the triumph of WIDE SARGASSO SEA, which won the prestigious W.H.Smith Literary Award in 1967. Like her earlier books, WIDE SARGASSO SEA is rooted in her life, this time her early life in the Creole community in Domenica.
ON NOT READING KING LEAR.
Sunday, January 27th, 2008ON NOT READING KING LEAR. Christopher Morley wrote a book years ago in which the hero had never read KING LEAR. His theory was that he would be dying, and would say to himself, “Wait, you can’t die yet, you haven’t read KING LEAR yet.” And he would recover. I think myself that there is no risk of running out of great books.
WHY GARFUNKEL IS RIGHT TO READ THE CLASSICS.
Sunday, January 27th, 2008WHY GARFUNKEL IS RIGHT TO READ THE CLASSICS. When I retired, I thought, “Now, I have the time to read all the books I want.” I soon realized that I can’t even keep up with the new books I want to read. Garfunkel’s list is a sobering reminder that even reading at a steady pace, there is a limit to the number of books you can read in your lifetime. There isn’t time to read anything, but the very best books—or any kind of mystery story.
