Monthly Archives: October 2008

DELEVERAGING.

Posted on October 26, 2008 by Philip

DELEVERAGING. The weekend editions of the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal both have articles which cite the need of hedge funds to raise cash to meet current and possible future requests for redemptions as one of the factors … Continue reading →

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WE KNOW LESS THAN COMPUTER MODELS SAY WE DO.

Posted on October 25, 2008 by Philip

WE KNOW LESS THAN COMPUTER MODELS SAY WE DO. My post earlier this week on findings by John Ioannidis that a sizable percentage of published scientific studies are later invalidated is important for understanding the current financial crisis. Studies based … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Science | Leave a comment

WE WERE HERE TEN YEARS AGO (COMMENT).

Posted on October 25, 2008 by Philip

WE WERE HERE TEN YEARS AGO (COMMENT). The kinds of financial problems that we are seeing are not new, although the scale of them is. My brother Elmer commented here that we have had four crashes in the last twenty … Continue reading →

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AN EARLY THANKSGIVING STORY.

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Philip

AN EARLY THANKSGIVING STORY. On Thanksgiving two years ago, I gave thanks to the Americans who have gone before us for what they gave us (it was the 9th post on this blog). In that post I typed out the … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Politics | 1 Comment

BUT WE DO KNOW SOMETHING.

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Philip

BUT WE DO KNOW SOMETHING. Kids, I quoted John Maynard Keynes yesterday on how precarious our knowledge of future economic events is. Nevertheless, people do know enough about the future to invest successfully. Keynes himself illustrates the pitfalls and opportunities … Continue reading →

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“THE RACE IS NOT ALWAYS TO THE SWIFT….”

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Philip

“THE RACE IS NOT ALWAYS TO THE SWIFT….” Here is an article about the lady who had the fastest time out of some 20,000 competitors in the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. In fact, it seems that her time … Continue reading →

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KEYNES ON HOW LITTLE WE KNOW.

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Philip

KEYNES ON HOW LITTLE WE KNOW. Kids, many economists would say that John Maynard Keynes was the greatest economist of the last century. I think he was. His biographer, Robert Skidelsky, had an article in the Washington Post which quotes … Continue reading →

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JOURNALS OF NEGATIVE RESULTS.

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Philip

JOURNALS OF NEGATIVE RESULTS. The Economist article on the explanations advanced by Ioannidis for why so many scientific articles in prestigious journals are wrong says that “There also seems to be a bias towards publishing positive results…. even though negative … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | 1 Comment

THE WINNER’S CURSE.

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Philip

THE WINNER’S CURSE. The Winner’s Curse is an economic theory developed first in the oil industry. This article, applying the theory to bidding for baseball free agents, gives a good history of the first publication on the theory. The theory … Continue reading →

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WHY ARE ALMOST ONE THIRD OF ARTICLES IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS WRONG?

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Philip

WHY ARE ALMOST ONE THIRD OF ARTICLES IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS WRONG? This article in the Economist for October 11 reports on an article by John Ioannidis and others which advances explanations for why so many published scientific articles turn out … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | 2 Comments