Absurdly Rational

How to get interests of the 99% (or 99.95%) represented in congress ...

2011-12-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Lessig explains that 0.05% of the population is pretty much funding the congress campaigns, and it is not surprising why congress does not represent the 99.95%. A possible modest solution - base campaign finance solely on vouchers from citizens, and the incentives will align properly. 0.05% is also the probability of this change happening anytime soon. Prof Lessig, can you raise some money to get this reform passed?

Video with Jon Stewart.

If you need $1K, the rate is 25% per annum - $1M? 4%. $1Trillion? 0.01%.

2011-12-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

Update(12/6): Ben Bernanke's response to the article. Appears there were some inaccuracies in how it was reported. However, the point about material reform not happening still stands.

Now the details of the bailout way beyond the TARP are finally out [Bloomberg Report]. Its not pretty, trillions of dollars loaned out practically free - protecting the bonuses of the banking execs who brought on the crisis with their leveraged risk taking. So thats what the "free" part of the "free markets" meme is referring to. And the banks are bigger and more concentrated than ever, and there have been no substantial reforms. This will end well, no doubt.

Money - where is it?

2011-11-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

xkcd has the answer.

The Valley - How It All Started ...

2011-11-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

I'd never heard of this Tom Wolfe piece on the valley pioneers - Noyce, Moore, Grove, and some others less well known today. Absolutely riveting bit of history - for anyone who wonders where and how the silicon valley ethos germinated and blossomed. The parallels to today are ridiculously apparent. History doesn't repeat, but it indeed does rhyme.

California Bleeding

2011-09-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

What happens to local governments when the economy goes south and taxpayers refuse to pay more. Cities go broke, services get cut, and we go quickly from a fiesta to a fiasco.

The succession of financial bubbles, and the amassing of personal and public debt, Whybrow views as simply an expression of the lizard-brained way of life. A color-coded map of American personal indebtedness could be laid on top of the Centers for Disease Control’s color-coded map that illustrates the fantastic rise in rates of obesity across the United States since 1985 without disturbing the general pattern. The boom in trading activity in individual stock portfolios; the spread of legalized gambling; the rise of drug and alcohol addiction—it is all of a piece. Everywhere you turn you see Americans sacrifice their long-term interests for short-term rewards.

What happens when a society loses its ability to self-regulate, and insists on sacrificing its long-term interest for short-term rewards? How does the story end? “We could regulate ourselves if we chose to think about it,” Whybrow says. “But it does not appear that is what we are going to do.” Apart from that remote possibility, Whybrow imagines two outcomes. The first he illustrates with a true story, which might be called the parable of the pheasant. Last spring, on sabbatical from the University of Oxford, he was surprised to discover that he was able to rent an apartment inside Blenheim Palace, the Churchill family home. The previous winter at Blenheim had been harsh, and the pheasant hunters had been efficient; as a result, just a single pheasant had survived in the palace gardens. This bird had gained total control of a newly seeded field. Its intake of food, normally regulated by its environment, was now entirely unregulated: it could eat all it wanted, and it did. The pheasant grew so large that, when other birds challenged it for seed, it would simply frighten them away. The fat pheasant became a tourist attraction and even acquired a name: Henry. “Henry was the biggest pheasant anyone had ever seen,” says Whybrow. “Even after he got fat, he just ate and ate.” It didn’t take long before Henry was obese. He could still eat as much as he wanted, but he could no longer fly. Then one day he was gone: a fox ate him.

The other possible outcome was only slightly more hopeful: to hit bottom. To realize what has happened to us—because we have no other choice. “If we refuse to regulate ourselves, the only regulators are our environment,” says Whybrow, “and the way that environment deprives us.” For meaningful change to occur, in other words, we need the environment to administer the necessary level of pain.

(Premature) Obituaries for Steve Jobs

2011-08-25T23:48:00.000-07:00

It is a mark of respect Steve commands in the valley that the media is treating his resignation like an obituary for a lesser celebrity. I would not be surprised if he still has something in the tank - this is a man who keeps coming back and one upping himself, every time.

Couple of worthwhile links:
* Playboy Interview from 1985
* Notable Quotes
* Interesting Anecdote from Vic Gundotra

S&P - Stands for Silly and Pathetic?

2011-08-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

S&P says US unlikely to regain AAA soon - thats okay, S&P is unlikely to regain anything resembling respect from investors either. Note that Prof Krugman points out that the downgrade actually dropped down the rates for treasuries.

Ratings agencies, we remember how much of tools you were to inflate the real estate mortgage bubble. Doing these shenanigans is not likely to help your image. Go back and do something useful - like downgrading some companies before the market punishes em, not after like you usually do.

Random thoughts on Overrated/Underrated products

2011-08-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some appliances/products that have caught on even though they have significant shortcomings.
Automated Towel Dispenser: Usually is stuck with paper half the time.
Dishwasher: Takes an hour to do what it would take a person ten minutes with half as much water and detergent.
Volume Controls on Steering Wheel: Hard to hit buttons while turning. And was it really that hard to reach the dashboard?
Blackberry: People rave about the keyboard, but it is just as hard to use as the iphone touchscreen one.

And some that are clearly superior than old products.
Electric Toothbrush: Way better at cleaning back of teeth than a regular one.
Electric Shaver: No more dealing with shaving cream, or razor cuts.
Digital Watch: I'm convinced my $20 Timex is way better than $2000 Rolexes.
Turntable.fm: Way better for discovering music than radio, itunes, or spotify.

Why Fox News is in a cycle of getting progressively conservative ...

2011-07-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

... it appears its because their viewers prefer news and opinions that align with their own point of view. A larger proportion of viewers/listeners of NPR/CNN prefer news with no point of view. This and some very interesting findings in this hefty research from Pew Research Center.

Ten Design Commandments from Dieter Rams

2011-05-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

My favorite: Good design is as little design as possible. Full list here. And an interview with the man.

Being Goldman

2011-05-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

Its good to be Goldman. While trivial entertainers Bonds and Clemens get skewered by congress for popping some pills, Blanfein laughs all the way to the bank w $12B of taxpayer savings.

Balancing Personalization and Exposure to New Ideas

2011-05-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

How automated personalization can lead to insular bubbles and why the internet needs to provide transparency and controls on how these systems work.

Keynes vs Hayek - Hilarious and Awesome.

2011-04-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Financial Statement of USA Inc

2011-02-24T21:44:00.000-08:00

Mary Meeker's analysis of USA as a business.

Solitude and Leadership

2010-12-25T08:11:00.001-08:00

A lecture delivered at West Point - makes some great points about thinking, books, twitter, and Joseph Conrad. The writer is clearly an intellectual - someone who is able to bring together learning from multiple disciplines.

“Your own reality—for yourself, not for others.” Thinking for yourself means finding yourself, finding your own reality. Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.”

Shirky on social software ... (and why reddit is successful).

2010-11-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Shirky published this piece in 2003 - and a number of sites seem to have been, if not influenced, then affected by the described dynamic.

Key tenets that have to be accepted by social software(slight edits):
1) You cannot completely separate technical and social issues.
2) Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole.
3) The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations.

and Four things to design for:
1) Handles the user can invest in.
2) You have to design a way for there to be members in good standing. Have to design some way in which good works get recognized.
3) You need barriers to participation.You have to have some cost to either join or participate, if not at the lowest level, then at higher levels.
4) You have to find a way to spare the group from scale.

The difference between digg and reddit is (4).

Hypomaniacs and Venture Capital - a match made in heaven

2010-09-19T08:49:00.001-07:00

Profile of an entrepreneur in NYTimes. Choice quote: "Academics and hiring consultants say that many successful entrepreneurs have qualities and quirks that, if poured into their psyches in greater ratios, would qualify as full-on mental illness."

Lewis does Greece

2010-09-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

And the Michael Lewis world tour of financial disaster hotspots continues - he now finds himself in Greece, a country where government existed to hand out kickbacks to citizens and active non-enforcement of tax laws. In other words, the Nepal of Europe.

How The Senate (Not) Works

2010-08-08T09:03:00.001-07:00

George Packer of the New Yorker outlines how the great deliberative body proceeds. The image is of dysfunction - arcane rules, paucity of any meaningful cooperations, or even engagement in debate.

String Theory - (no not that one ...)

2010-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Another transcendent piece from David Foster Wallace about tennis. A nice companion piece to his famous Federer article that made me pick up tennis again.

The Mankiw Trilemma

2010-07-17T08:44:00.001-07:00

Excellent NYT article by Greg Mankiw on the choices nations face on monetary policy. They basically have a choice of picking two out of three.

1. Make the economy open to flows of currency
2. Use monetary policy to manage the economy
3. Maintain stability in the currency exchange rate

USA chooses 1 & 2. EU - 1 & 3. China - 2 & 3. Whenever one of these guys criticizes another, they are expecting the other to change over to their own policy choices.

Dealing with complexity in the financial systems

2010-07-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

The Dodd bill that is going through congress - all 2000 pages of it - seem like a knee jerk reaction (with emphasis on Jerk). Legislation is not necessarily bad, but overly specific laws are useless, firms will just find ways of maneuvering around it. And as time goes by they become irrelevant.

The key learning from the crisis for me was that leverage is dynamite, and it makes no sense having that lying around institutions that are required for daily functioning of the economy. I have yet to hear that the bill that was passed does anything to bring back the leverage in the financial system back to historic norms.

Naseem Nicholas Taleb - aka NNT - just published a fine article on how to deal with catastrophic risks in the financial sytem. It is so good that I have to quote it in full - like any good article, it does not take well to summarization.

This should be required reading for any lawmaker.

----

After completing my book The Black Swan, I spent some time meditating on the fragility of systems with the illusion of stability. This convinced me that the banking system was the mother of all accidents waiting to happen. I explained in the book that the best teachers of wisdom are the eldest, because they may have picked up invisible tricks that are absent from our epistemic routines and which help them survive in a world more complex than the one we think we understand. So being old implies a higher degree of resistance to "Black Swans" (events with the following three attributes: they lie outside the realm of regular expectations; they carry an extreme impact; and human nature makes us concoct explanations for their occurrence after the fact).

Take Mother Nature, which is clearly a complex system, with webs of interdependence, non-linearities and a robust ecology (otherwise it would have blown up a long time ago). It is a very old person with an impeccable memory. Mother Nature does not develop Alz heimer's - and there is evidence that even humans would not easily lose brain functions with age if they took long walks, avoided sugar, bread, white rice and stock-market investments, and refrained from taking economics classes or reading the New York Times.

Let me summarise my ideas of how Mother Nature deals with the Black Swan. First, she likes redundancies. Look at the human body. We have two eyes, two lungs, two kidneys, even two brains (with the possible exception of company executives) - and each has more capacity than is needed ordinarily. So redundan cy equals insurance, and the apparent inefficiencies are associated with the costs of maintain ing these spare parts and the energy needed to keep them around in spite of their idleness.

The exact opposite of redundancy is naive optimisation. The reason I tell people to avoid attending an (orthodox) economics class and argue that economics will fail us is the following: economics is largely based on notions of naive optimisation, mathematised (poorly) by Paul Samuelson - and these mathematics have contributed massively to the construction of an error-prone society. An economist would find it inefficient to carry two lungs and two kidneys - consider the costs involved in transporting these heavy items across the savannah. Such optimisation would, eventually, kill you, after the first accident, the first "outlier". Also, consider that if we gave Mother Nature to economists, it would dispense with individual kidneys - since we do not need them all the time, it would be more "efficient" if we sold ours and used a central kidney on a time-share basis. You could also lend your eyes at night, since you do not need them to dream.

Almost every major idea in conventional economics fails under the modification of some assumption, or what is called "perturbation", where you change one parameter or take a parameter henceforth assumed to be fixed and stable by the theory, and make it random. Take the notion of comparative advantage, supposedly discovered by David Ricardo, and which has oiled the wheels of globalisation. The idea is that countries should focus on "what they do best". So one country should specialise in wine, another in clothes, even though one of them might be better at both. But consider what would happen to the country if the price of wine fluctuated. A simple perturbation around this assumption leads one to reach the opposite conclusion to Ricardo. Mother Nature does not like overspecialisation, as it limits evolution and weakens the animals.

This explains why I found the current ideas on globalisation (such as those promoted by the journalist Thomas Friedman) too naive, and too dangerous for society - unless one takes into account the side effects. Globalisation might give the appearance of efficiency, but the operating leverage and the degrees of interaction between parts will cause small cracks in one spot to percolate through the entire system.

The debt taboo
The same idea applies to debt: it makes you very fragile under perturbations. We currently learn in business schools to engage in borrowing, against all historical traditions (all Mediterranean cultures developed over time a dogma against debt). "Felix qui nihil debet", goes the Roman proverb: "Happy is he who owes nothing." Grandmothers who survived the Great Depression would have advised doing the exact opposite of getting into debt: have several years of income in cash before any personal risk-taking. Had the banks done the same, and kept high cash reserves while taking more aggressive risks with a smaller portion of their port folios, there would have been no crisis.

Documents dating back to the Babylonians show the ills of debt, and Near Eastern religions banned it. This tells me that one of the purposes of religious traditions has been to enforce prohibitions to protect people against their own epistemic arrogance. Why? Debt implies a strong statement about the future, and a high degree of reliance on forecasts. If you borrow $100 and invest in a project, you still owe $100 even if you fail in the project (but you do a lot better in case you succeed). So debt is dangerous if you are overconfident about the future and are Black Swan-blind - which we all tend to be. And forecasting is harmful since people (especially governments) borrow in response to a forecast (or use the forecast as a cognitive excuse to borrow). My "Scandal of Prediction" (bogus predictions that seem to be there to satisfy psychological needs) is compounded by the "Scandal of Debt": borrowing makes you more vulnerable to forecast error.

Just as Mother Nature likes redundancies, so she abhors anything that is too big. The largest land animal is the elephant, and there is a reason for that. If I went on a rampage and shot an elephant, I might be put in jail and get yelled at by my mother, but I would hardly disturb the ecology of Mother Nature. On the other hand, my point about banks in my book - that if you shot a large bank, I would "shiver at the consequences" and that "if one falls, they all fall" - was subsequently illustrated by events: one bank failure, Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, brought down the entire edifice.

The crisis of 2008 provides an illustration of the need for robustness. Over the past 2,500 years of recorded ideas, only fools and Platonists have believed in engineered utopias. We shouldn't think that we can correct mistakes and eliminate randomness from social and economic life. The challenge, rather, is to ensure that human mistakes and miscalculations remain confined, and to avoid them spreading through the system - just the way Mother Nature does it. Reducing randomness increases exposure to Black Swans.

My dream is to have a true "epistemocracy"; that is, a society robust against expert errors, forecasting errors and hubris, one that can be resistant to the incompetence of politicians, regulators, economists, central bankers, bank ers, policy wonks and epidemiologists.Here are ten principles for a Black Swan-robust society.

What is fragile should break early while it's still small: Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks become the biggest.

No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains: Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bailout should be free, small and risk-bearing. We got ourselves into the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France, in the 1980s, the Socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.

People who drove a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus: The economics establishment lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system in 2008. Find the smart people whose hands are clean to get us out of this mess.

Don't let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant - or your financial risks: Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show "profits" from these savings while claiming to be "conservative". Bonuses don't accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives.

Time to definancialise
Compensate complexity with simplicity: Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. Complex systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy, not debt and optimisation.

Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning label: Complex financial products need to be banned because nobody understands them, and few are rational enough to know it. We need to protect citizens from themselves, from bankers selling them "hedging" products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.

Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence: Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. We just need to be able to shrug off rumours, to be robust to them. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains: Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homoeopathy, it's denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it's a structural one. We need rehab.

Citizens should not depend on financial assets as a repository of value and rely on fallible "expert" advice for their retirement: Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as warehouses of value.

Make an omelette with the broken eggs: The crisis of 2008 was not a problem to fix with makeshift repairs. We will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into a robust economy by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties. Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller firms and no leverage - a world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks, and in which companies are born and die every day without making the news.

What Drives People - Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.

2010-05-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Nice video that summarizes the current thoughts on motivation theory - its not about the money (as long as it meets expectations), but rather about things higher on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Nothing super fresh, but well presented anyways.

This American Life on Healthcare

2010-02-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

Many insights on the american healthcare system from the stellar NPR show, such as:

Having more doctors raises healthcare costs (the supply drives the demand, unexpectedly - an upward sloping demand curve, egads)
One third of medical spending is on procedures that do not make us any better ... (like that time when a doctor prescribed a CAT scan for me when I reported a blocked nose)
Perverse incentives - doctors get paid more for prescribing more procedures, even when they might hurt more than help
The Prostate Cancer PSA test - the issue with false positives. When you run a test across the entire population, you are going to identify a whole lot of people as positive who never would have developed the cancer.
Patients as Plaintiffs - doctors reject guidelines and do not follow evidence based treatment, just to minimize the chance of getting sued
Hospital monopolies are just as bad for consumers as insurance monopolies.
Costs will keep rising until consumers make sacrifices (and they will not make sacrifices if part of the costs are not passed on to them).
Patients unwittingly side with doctors when negotiating prices of procedures, even if if makes sense to side with the insurers as they are the ones representing us financially
Medical facilities and insurers have similar levels of profitability. And if they are running on a fixed margin basis, there is no incentive to keep costs down.
Costs are going up so fast that there is broad consensus that something has to change. Things are hopeless across the board, and that gives us hope that something will be done.

Not only is the earth flat, its also brutal.

2010-02-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

Matt Taibbi takes some time out from burying Goldman Sachs to bury Tom Friedman. Hilarious, and with prose that is ... lets say, unrestrained.

Fisherman Bankers of Iceland

2010-02-27T10:16:00.000-08:00

Michael Lewis with an ethno-analysis of Iceland crash, rather than the standard economic one. Vivid writing, and interesting conclusions. Reading it almost felt like watching a documentary. Definitely one of the best bits of journalism last year.

Link love

2010-02-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

Just throwing reddit some link love so that they can unseat scientology for #1 rank for the query "is it possible to be happy".

Key Concept: Thought Terminating Cliche

2010-02-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
- Robert Lifton, M.D from book Psychology of Totalism

Goldman and AIG and Express Suicide

2010-02-07T07:16:00.001-08:00

Hank Paulson was on Charlie Rose couple days ago claiming that Goldman Sachs did not see the housing bubble blowing - but this NYT article clearly shows that GS bet billions on the fact that the housing prices would go down.

Another strange thing in the article - AIG sold insurance that was, in part, contingent on its own financial health. That is, if it ever was in a compromising position, it would be required to pay out more. I would call it the Express Suicide clause. The consensus in this whole debacle seems like GS was able to find a trading partner who was rich and incompetent, and just big enough that it could be deemed too big to fail.

And now if the banks claim that they have returned the TARP funds, the follow up should be - has AIG? AIG is just as likely as GM to pay back anything. And those losses directly paid off GS ($12+ billion) and others like Societe General.

Healtcare - is more better?

2009-12-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Riveting piece of writing from New Yorkers' Atul Gawade. He parachutes into McAllen, TX and tries to find out why the county has the highest healthcare costs per capita in the country. I wont even try to distill what he has to say - worth reading every single word.

Free the markets? ... Now right now, not right now.

2009-12-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

The housing crash has encouraged the government to get very hands on in managing the economy and put the free market principles on hold indefinitely. Calculated Risk has a list of government programs that are in place that impact the housing pricing.

The US government is now in the business of propping up house prices, and that is going to be bad for the economy and taxpayers in the medium and long run. The true price of housing is very hard to figure out right now - and certainly prices will be lower if these programs go away. And many of these programs are extremely inefficient, costing the taxpayers 10X more than the actual benefit delivered to the homeowners. And the artificially low interest rates are also wreaking havoc on many parts of the economy and causing a boom in risky assets - and that bubble will pop sooner or later. The quicker these distortionary policies end, the better off the economy is going to be. Until then, rational people will stay clear of investing in anything that has to do with housing - that puts your financial fate on the hand of the government, a risk that caclulates out to be not worth taking.

Steve Jobs Keynote Marathon

2009-12-27T06:50:00.001-08:00

Watching a series of Jobs' keynotes at Macworld after he took over the reins in 1997. A summary of his presentations:

1997:
* Select a new board of directors
* Create meaningful partnerships (adobe, intuit, and MICROSOFT)
* Focus on being great, and not on competitors
* Key message in sober tone - focus on survival

1998:
* Kick off talk with Maslow's hierarchy of needs - survival, safety, social, esteem, self actualization - and how apple is progressing in these areas
* iMac
* Simplify product lineup (Pro/Consumer, desktop/laptop) - Classic!
* Transition from Os8 to OsX

1999:
* Quicktime streaming server (limited impact, but contributed to iTunes)
* Os9 (key feature: Sherlock). This was a stopgap anyways until OsX.
* iMac (new usb devices, software - including Halo, IBM Viavoice, MS Office 98)
* The big announcement is iBook - the consumer laptop. (Kodak Moment: It has a ... HANDLE. crowd goes nuts)
* And ONE more thing - Airport wireless networking (crowd goes nuts again)

2000:
* Mac OsX. Single OS strategy.
* Carbon, Cocoa, Aqua
* ... you spend months working on a button ...
* Red, yellow, green traffic lights for close, minimize, maximize.
* Key technique - set up a challenge for yourself and blow it away. (But how do you view the dock if its too small --- well we have something called magnification - crowd goes nuts)

2001:
* Retail stores
* powerbook titanium g4
* OsX launch in summer
* iTunes - more powerful yet simpler. And iPod. The shoots of apple's media strategy.

The story is pretty clear - Jobs focused on what was key at any given point in the company's history and put his all and his best people into that problem. He obsessed over it - and out thought everyone else. The results are nothing but spectacular.

The presentation technique is outstanding as well. No bullets. The projector is to show graphics, and not a mnemonic device. The audience is there to listen to you, and not to read stuff off the screen. His style is thoughtful and respectful - he makes the audience believe that he is in analysis mode and their feedback is valuable. The phrasing is precise - with emphasis on key phrases, which are reinforced on screen. The excitement comes through. There is very little focus on self, and everything is about the products.

California vs Texas

2009-12-25T22:07:00.001-08:00

Couple of months ago Economist did a cover story comparing California and Texas, and now I noticed another article harping on the same topic.

The net migration out of the state is troubling. If it were not for the immigrants (both high tech and low tech), the state would be significantly shrinking. A few of the contributing factors are: budgeting by ballot, 60% majority required to pass budget, ceiling on property tax (which is pretty much older californians voting themselves a tax cut), and a mushrooming prison population. The high tech ecosystem is still well and alive, but with the education system falling behind, its not clear if we are going to be able to compete with the likes of bangalore and beijing. And unless there is a catastrophic crisis - things wont change.

Pinker on Decline of Violence

2009-11-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

As we get caught in the constant focus on negativity in the media, its hard to lose track of the grander picture. Violence has been on decline over the ages, centuries, decades and years. Thanks, Professor Pinker for not limiting your talks to linguistics!

Eight Best Questions from Venture Capitalists

2009-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

Great post on Techcrunch by Redfin's Glenn Kelman.

1. What’s your deadly sin?
Sequoia’s Roelof Botha said he only invests in companies that let consumers indulge in one of the seven deadly sins. He rattled them off with alarming familiarity. “You don’t want to be the site that people should use,” Roelof said. “You want to be the site they can’t stop using.”

... and many more.

Cautionary Tale of How Not to Respond to Critical Questions

2009-11-06T11:36:00.001-08:00

When Michael Arrington (or any media rep) asks a tough question, its better to be transparent and respectful, rather than take the route of aggression and denial. The CEO in question here responded with french, and started a war of words with the TechCrunch head. It was quite futile really - as a friend of mine said - "People listen to Bloggers, not to bland CEOs".

It started out here:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/

And ended with this:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/05/scamville-new-offerpal-ceo-admits-mistakes-makes-bold-promises/

Its all quite tragic really - a founder who probably worked years to build their company gets edged out because of a public faux pas. However, it was not just the outburst that led to the demise, but really shady business practices that were spotlighted because of the vehemence of the response. And most people, including investors, figured there must be something behind all of this.

In order for online advertising to gain legitimacy and share of budget proportional to attention share, there must be transparency across the whole value chain - all the way from the users, to the site publishers, to the ad networks, and advertisers. Thanks to Michael, this conversation has been initiated - lets see where it goes from here.

Vacation Stress Level

2009-09-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

From Piled Higher and Deeper

Public Relations - Propaganda's Teenage Cousin

2009-09-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

Interesting Google tech talk.

"People's perception of sizes of risks are based on emotional and not national factors"
"Managing the outrage is more important than managing the hazard"
"Marketing is a battle of perception, not products. Truth has no bearing on the issue"

What we have seen in the last decade, or even the last few weeks, is that we are still quite susceptibility to propaganda techniques. While people may think and claim to be rational and logical, they are inherently biased and tend do gravitate towards opinion sources that line up with their own. There is also the herd effect or the tipping point type behavior that still is stronger than ever. Framing tactics are still used frequently and effectively both by politicians as well as corporations.

Question authority and your own instincts, ask for facts, separate the message from the messenger - and encourage everyone else to do so. One day, we will, as a species overcome the shortcomings of our fish brain.

I Learned Everything About History From Cartoons

2009-09-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

Somewhat less, lets say ... polished, than the Cartoon History of the Universe but equally enjoyable - World War One: Simple Version and World War Two: Simple Version.

Charlie Wilson's Movie

2009-09-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

Re-watching Charlie Wilson's War on HBO. A movie that truly gets better each time you watch it, and its chock full of good quotes and WTF moments. Just in the last 15 minutes:
* Gen Zia gets introduced in his fete as "Zia didnt kill Bhutto"
* A bellydancing baptist girl entertaining an Egyptian minister
* Gust Avrakotos to Joanne Herring: "I dont see god within miles of this conflict, but if you sleep with me I may change my mind mighty quick" and
*"As long as the press sees sex and drugs behind the left hand, you can park a battle carrier behind the right hand and no one's gonna f***ing notice. "
* Israeli arms dealers shipping tanks to the Pakistani government
* A US Senator lecturing the afghans on how America is always on God's side and they respond with Allahu Akbar.
* Kovraktos to Wilson: "Youre not really stupid, just in congress"
Truth, as always, is stranger than fiction, and if a good storyteller presents it, a whole lot funnier as well. Related: Wag the Dog

Motivational Rewards - DONT WORK (well most times)

2009-09-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

When it comes to complex cognition oriented tasks, rewards actually hinder progress rather than facilitate it. In the kinds of challenges we deal with in a knowledge based economy, pay for performance is precisely the wrong way to structure compensation. A better model to understand performance : Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. Align your organization to these goals and values, and you are more likely to succeed. Case in point: Britannica vs Wikipedia (ie unpaid unmanaged yet self motivated hordes create a product that makes obsolete a product created by experts over many decades).

Warring Economists

2009-09-04T09:20:00.001-07:00

The eighty years of peace and the great moderation is over, and the battleaxes are out - Paul Krugman reports that hostilities are breaking out among the Freshwater and Saltwater economists. Good overview of evolution of economic thinking over the past century, and how finance and economics play off of each other. Some choice quotes:

"...because a two-quart bottle of ketchup costs twice as much as a one-quart bottle, finance theorists declare that the price of ketchup must be right."

“the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

"Larry Summers once began a paper on finance by declaring: “THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look around.”"

Crowdsourcing Awesomeness

2009-08-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

In addition to showing traffic on the highways, Google Maps now shows it for city roads as well. The awesome part is how they do it - they compute the speed of geolocation enabled phones to figure out what the average speed on a given stretch of road is. All this without needing to dig up roads and installing sensors - pure genius!

Lectures on Godel, Escher, Bach

2009-08-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

MIT Open Courseware has lectures from a course in GEB, one of my favorite books. Havent watched any yet, but intend to do so over the weekend.

Nominating Michael Pollan

2009-08-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

... to be the secretary of food. A compelling investigation into how Americans devolved from cooks to spectators.

The usual Pollan arch-villian, corporations, are of course to blame. On a meta level, the concept is not limited just to cooking. There are a lot fewer doers compared to watchers. Thats why Nike switched from "Just Do It" to "Witness" (I despise those commercials and tshirts). Why bother to get your bottom off of the couch, just watch someone gifted perform - and make sure you wear whatever they are wearing. Now where is my copy of No Logo ?

New Money in An Ancient Land

2009-07-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

A fleeting, ethereal piece published on Granta about the newly rich in Delhi. Quite a strikingly different world from the one that used to exist a couple decades ago. Just like in Russia, Brazil, and China - the economic liberalization has produced a new strata of newly rich who are grappling with what to do with the seemingly endless wealth that is now on their fingertips. A sales girl in the article blurts out:

‘When someone comes in here looking to buy a Bentley, we don’t ask him what he’s driving now. Just because he drives a BMW doesn’t mean he can afford a Bentley. We ask if he has a jet or a yacht. We ask if he has an island.’

And as usual there is the predictable lamention of the existing rulers who see the crass attitudes of the newcomers:

'You see, there are two kinds of rich. There are people who’ve had money for a long time and they don’t give a f*** who you are. They’ll be nice to you anyway. Like I’m nice to people. You may get bored being around them, because all they talk about is how they’ve just got back from Cannes or St-Tropez, but they won’t kick you out. But the people who’ve got rich in the last five years, they turn up at a party and the first thing they do is put their car keys down on the table to show they have a Bentley. They don’t know how to behave.’

Very different portrait of a city from that of Mumbai, which was painted so vividly by Suketu Mehta in Maximum City. I hope Khuswant Singh writes a contemporary update to his absorbing historic novel about Delhi someday.

And now the AIG post-mortem

2009-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle - as the world pieces together the making of the subprime bomb. Michael Lewis writes about the dealings at AIG.

Nadal (and Kobe)

2009-06-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

Couple of weeks ago, I watched last year's epic Wimbledon final: Federer vs Nadal. It was quite a match - a contrast of styles, an upstart knocking on an established champion's door, ebbs and flows of competitors hitting their strides, and the microscopic margins of error. Made me wish for something that provided a background for Nadal like Chuck Klosterman's piece did for Federer. It is now here - this week's NYTMag has a superb feature on Rafa. It is a solid article touching on his game style, character, and upbringing. The most interesting part was how he was coached (and raised) by his uncle Toni Nadal. It just appears to me that what makes Kobe Bryant a brilliant athlete but a fatally flawed character, is the lack of someone like Toni in his life. Never has any article about Kobe mentioned a mentor in his life that taught him how to be a human being - everyone around him exists solely to remind Kobe that he is untouchable. Kobe's is an otherwordly talent supremely unmatched by his inability to become a inspiring man in his life outside the court. Lets hope there is still time left for him to figure this out.

Clay Shirky on the Changing Nature of Media

2009-06-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

How social networks and blogging/microblogging are changing the media landscape.

Tom Vanderbilt on Digital Traffic

2009-06-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

Tom Vanderbuilt, who wrote the entertaining "Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do", now has a piece on the virtual digital traffic. "Data Center Overload" profiles how companies are managing server farms that number up to 45000 machines in a single location. Data centers are the factories of the internet age, and for companies that rely on computation - their efficiency directly translates into the bottom line (Amazon estimates that each average 100ms delay per page load decreases their sales revenue by 1 percent).

The trend these days is to move more and more software infrastructure to the cloud, which means that data centers will migrate to locations that have the lowest energy and bandwidth costs. There it is - an opportunity for economically depressed towns with excess power generation capabilities ...

California High Speed Rail

2009-06-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

I was driving down to LA from San Jose this weekend, and it took a good six hours of mind numbing driving through the monotone central valley landscape (farms on both sides flanked by foothills close by to the west and more further out the east). So I was quite excited to notice the NYT Magazine article that has the details about the route, challenges, and timeline for the recently funded high speed rail. It seems somewhat absurd that it is so difficult to build a new train line in the relatively sparse and flat california landscape when they have been built decades ago in the dense european and asian capitals. Here's hoping that the impediments raised by petty politics (e.g the city of palo alto refusing to play ball), tough forecasting (imagine estimating ridership in 10 years), and inexperience (acela is the only other high speed line in the nation) - will not hold us back and we will take a bold steps towards creating a blueprint for modern long distance public transportation for the United States. LA to SF in 2 hrs 40 minutes - si se puede!

Succeed - Iterate

2009-06-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

Short and to the point TED video about success.

Pico Iyer on the Simple Life

2009-06-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

Pico Iyer writes about his choice to live a monastic life in Japan and why he renounced New York. Its been very interesting to experience how his prose has evolved towards simplicity over the years - it now resembles a late Mondrian, or a piece by Miles Davis. Sparse, with all clutter and ornaments removed - probably very similar to how his life in Kyoto is.

The good, the bad, and the hard to decipher

2009-05-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

NYT usually does a good job with their infographics, but this one is an absurdity. The chart comapres mall retailers' quarterly revenue between 2008 and 2009.Using a mall visual to dress up the data adds nothing but confusion. It is hard to find the stores you want to look up (just like in the mall, but the mall designers want it that way - unlike designers of this graphic). And once you have found the store, you have to scroll all the way down and find the corresponding metric for the current year. In this case, a simple bargraph might have sufficed - the polygons and color coding add very little value.

Insurgent Strategy

2009-05-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Insurgents need to be socially disruptive - not play by the rules or at least not play how the game is "supposed" to be played. Do things that incumbents do not expect, and hit them where they least expect it. The insights are not jaw dropping, but the examples are fabulous coming from basketball, TE Lawrence, and war simulations - another vintage Gladwell piece: David vs Goliath.

Net Migration

2009-03-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Turns out net migration to California in the last couple years is negative - surprising. Great data set from the Pew Research Center.

Godin on Presentations

2009-03-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

Some of the best things in life are free, and I just discovered one of them - Seth Godin's blog. He just posted a brilliant bit on presentations. Key point - presenters should get respect from the audience and give them love. So if you are not a world renowned celebrity (a la Thatcher, Robbins, Patton), establish early in the presentation why the audience should listen to you (experience, background, achievements) AND be genuinely excited that this roomful of people is here to hear you. Respect and Love. Amen.

Barry Schwartz on Rules and Practical Wisdom

2009-02-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

Another excellent TED talk - among other things, Barry Schwartz makes the obvious yet profound observation that rules prevent disasters but encourage mediocrity. In asia, rules are few, disasters many, but a story like "dad forced to leave house because he served mike's hard lemonade to son not knowing it contained alcohol" would never ever happen. You do lose something by programming the people to follow rules, and then coming up with many of them that do not generalize well, and leave little room for thought, responsibility, or improvisation.

Entrepreneurial Survival

2008-11-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

Bad things happen to good startups, and frequently. The worst being having to live through a downturn. Online realestate site Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman writes about how he is getting through it. A lot of it is quite sound advice. My favorites: "Compete with your successor" and "Be a Roman".

Books that correlate with high or low sat's

2008-11-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

Interesting analysis, bad tagline. I think a more modest and accurate heading would have been "Books that high/low SAT scorers tend to read". Check out the list here . Could be easily extended to movies, bands, hobbies - hours of fun.

Sculpting with Words

2008-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

Every now and then you come across a performance, a product, a skill - so sublime that it leaves you with your mouth open in awe and a sinking realization that no matter how much you practice, however much you study for the rest of your life - you will never be quite as good. Steve Nash on hardwood, BB King on the guitar, Roger Federer on the court. This piece by David Foster Wallace is an apt example. In an abstract way stylistically reminiscent of Tom Wolfe (The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test) it captures the spirit, mood, and soul of a luxury cruise. I dont think will be able to step foot on a cruise ship and not look at it with his eyes - full of curiosity, fear, and bewilderment. 5/5 stars.

Finally an explanation ...

2008-11-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

... of how these MBSs became worth hundreds of times worth more than the mortgages they were based on. Keep up the good work, Michael Lewis. Article.

Capitalism Defined

2008-09-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Capitalism: The system under which the government provides bailout capital when large rich firms are about to go out of business. Article.

Booming Economy != Rising Stock Market

2008-09-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

Shanghai Composite index plunged from 6000 to 2000 in a matter of months - with no fundamental changes in the Chinese economy. Another year, another bubble. Reminds me of this hilarious onion article. I'd be laughing if my emerging market funds were not scuba diving.

Ambient Awareness

2008-09-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

... and here we have it, a new term to describe what Facebook news feed and Twitter are creating.

Talking Head Accountability

2008-09-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

Historically news anchors have a hard time keeping up with talking heads as they spew out facts and opinions real time. But these days, shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report can dissect, fact-check, and rip apart these pontificating blowhards. Case in point:

Blogs I follow

2008-08-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

A good blog is hard to find - most of them are not worth checking out twice. Here are a couple I find myself going back to periodically - because they have solid information and/or interesting opinions.

* Calculated Risk
* Greg Mankiw
* TechCrunch
* VentureCapital Wire

Now I know why the Wazzup ... ads were playing

2008-07-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Its all about forming habits (in this case - drinking with your buddies). Great NYT article

Faith In The Economy?

2008-05-22T03:23:00.000-07:00

Kevin Philips argues that official CPI, GDP, and Unemployment numbers are all fudged. Not a conspiracy, but just a result of desire of governments to report things as being better than they are in reality.

Airports

2008-05-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Its good to be back in asia and experiencing the firsthand the changes that are afoot (sorry, that was bad - I know). The two airports I just passed through - Singapore Changi and Seoul Incheon - were both equally impressive. Seems like while the US is busy spending money on bombs, oil, and health insurance - Asia is plugging away building infrastructure and making money. What will be the competitive profile in twenty years? I will just say that my 401(K) is mostly in emerging markets.

Brooks on Religion

2008-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

David Brooks has a unexpected and eclectic NYT OpEd on the scientific/religious debate. Key quote:

"In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism."

Deploy Cognitive Surplus? Yes please ...

2008-04-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

2008-04-20T09:24:00.001-07:00

GMO Crops Turning Farmers to Suicide

2008-04-06T22:14:00.001-07:00

The high costs and problems associated with planting GMO cotton crops leading thousands of farmers to suicide in India. Quite alarming - I hope the Indian government takes a long hard look at the business practices of Monsanto. This wont do anything to improve the image of GMO crops ...

Update: Vanity Fair has an overview of Monsanto history and practices.

Professor John Taylor

2008-04-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

... aka the raisin. Profile.

Hello, Flocke!

2008-03-13T21:25:00.001-07:00

Free Trade and Rust Belt

2008-03-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

Free trade only hastens the process - what drives out jobs is costs (union/taxes) and policies. Article.

Ouch!

2008-03-03T14:44:00.001-08:00

Prof Jeff Miron's Rational Perspective on the Effects and Policy Implications of Drug Prohibition

2008-02-28T13:51:00.001-08:00

Now if we can find a politician who can explain this to the broader population. Not happening in my lifetime for sure. And now studies show that more than 1% of the US population is in prison. Awesome. On the bright side California is one of the few states that has seen a decline in the number of prisoners since 1987.

Americans Switching Religions - And Becoming Unaffiliated As Well.

2008-02-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

NYTimes reports on a new Pew Study - the number of unaffiliated/agnostic individuals is rising. You wouldnt know it from the media coverage. (Click the image to expand it)

Lessig for Congress (or President)

2008-02-21T10:01:00.001-08:00

Is there anyone better with powerpoint than Prof Lessig? Good material if you are trying to decide between Barack and Hillary. Also, he may be running for congress - encourage him by joining this group . He will bring some sanity and rationality into the political discourse.

Japanese/Koreans - Whats the Relationship?

2008-02-17T22:03:00.000-08:00

Jared Diamond argues that the Koreans had a much more active role in shaping Japanese society than they like to admit ...

Infographic: Suicides at Golden Gate

2008-02-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

Another well done graphic of suicides at each pole of the golden gate bridge - Edward Tufte would approve.

A Graphic worth a Thousand Words

2008-02-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

NYTimes has a fascinating graphic that tells the story of Superbowl XLII concisely and with brilliance. There is no substitute for watching the game, but this serves as handy a summary as a multi-thousand word tome. The only improvement I can suggest is adding two markers for the game changing plays

1) The long 3rd down reception by tight end Boss, and
2) The fabulous catch by Tyree where he caught the ball with a hand and his helmet while Rodney Harrison wrestled him in the air

(Click through to view the full image)

Bernanke's Mountain

2008-01-17T16:53:00.000-08:00

Timely article from NYTMag about how fed chairman Ben Bernanke's handling the incoming (or underway) recession.

Be Not Afraid

2008-01-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

Here is one campaign I can get behind - stop being afraid on my behalf. The fear of terrorism is way overblown and is making the economy inefficient (just take a look at our airports). Lets stop focusing on the very unlikely attack scenarios and instead work on making local government and security better. And lets support politicians who espouse non-interventionist foreign policies.

Traffic Simulation

2008-01-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

I always wanted to do a project like this - would be hours of fun while driving to Tahoe.

US Today Compared to the Ottoman Empire

2008-01-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

Niall Ferguson makes the case that the current US indebtedness is moving cash flows to Asia, and is an indicator of decline of the empire.

Apple, Beneath All That Fuzzy Marketing ...

2007-12-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

... is a soulless corporation just like any other. After paying money for shutting down ThinkSecret, they are after the FakeSteveJobs blog - all very sinister (if its true). Dont buy a Mac, dude. My next machine for sure will run some variant of Linux.

Update: Yep, it was made up as I expected.

Krugman on the Current Financial Mess

2007-12-21T10:09:00.000-08:00

Paul is one of my favorite authors, and this is his first lectures I've been able to watch (I actually listened to most of this while driving to work). Thanks, YouTube!

Free the Markets!

2007-12-21T08:08:00.000-08:00

Some monopolies are natural, ie the underlying market dynamics are such that it makes sense for a single company to be the sole provider of a particular good or service (utilities with a high fixed cost of distribution are typical examples). Other monopolies (or oligopolies), are legislated - ie the government decrees that a particular company (or set of companies) will provide a good or service. Examples in this category includes the TSA (airport security) and gambling. Online gambling is a particularly egregious example where local oligopolies are forced, so that a minority segment of the population can profit off of gaming. The segments that gain off this scheme are casino owners of Vegas, a number of indian tribes and their financiers, and politicians who receive contributions. The cost is to the society as a whole in terms of deadweight loss (high prices and unnatural profits). The internet has a tendency to eliminate boundaries and make the entire globe a single market. In the case of gambling, anyone with a gaming site can serve citizens of any country. Now there is an added cost to the US economy in terms of settlements with other WTO member countries which are suing as these laws go against the competitive requirements of the WTO. The US is taking a "rules dont apply to us" approach and paying off the EU, Japan and several other countries so that the complaint from Antigua does not get the required support. Tsk tsk - all this in a country that prides itself on free markets and every single student who takes an introductory economics class is taught that monopolies are wasteful to the economy.

The morality of gambling, whether we should allow people to gamble or not is a completely separate question. The issue is that if gambling is legal, should participating in that industry be limited to a few individuals or companies with ties to the government?

Your Suspicions Are True

2007-12-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

Those annoying searches at the airport only slow you down and dont do much to secure the flights ... now confirmed by research.

And You May Ask Yourself ...

2007-12-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

David Byrne of Talking Heads has a great article in Wired about (at least) six models for producing music today. Among other things, what jumped out at me was the metric that about $7 of each CD goes towards Label Overhead and Retail Overhead. If online distribution can eliminate that, then a whole new market segment opens up. iTunes gets us partially there, but currently they take a 30% cut - that should rapidly drop to zero if another company could break the monopoly. Hello, Amazon?

Housing Futures Point to Trouble

2007-12-17T09:43:00.000-08:00

The futures market says that SF housing is expected to be down 6% in 2008 - great information for bargaining house prices. As Greg Mankiw is fond of saying - arent markets great?

Why is copyright expanding like a pufferfish?

2007-12-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

Prof Netanel has written a paper on it.

Red Meat and Cancer

2007-12-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

According to research published by Public Library of Science, eating habits are correlated with cancer as much as smoking is. In particular, the red and processed meats seem to have the most carcinogenic compounds, and risk of certain kinds of cancer increases more than 20% for individuals who eat substantial amounts.

Foreclosure Drivers

2007-12-06T21:59:00.001-08:00

Interesting research paper from the Federal Bank of Boston - finds that the prime driver of foreclosure is depreciating housing prices, rather than recession in the economy. Havent read the whole thing yet...

Tom Friedman's Been Watching Jon Stewart Apparently ...

2007-12-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

So he's written an op-ed thats so funny that it wants to make you cry, like any good satire piece should. Who knew Tom Friedman had it in him?

A Young and Prescient Jon Stewart

2007-12-02T09:36:00.001-08:00

Conflict of Interest at Goldman Sachs?

2007-12-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

Ben Stein questions the ethics at GS. Customers of investment banks, check to make sure they are putting their money where their mouth is.