Does streaming music reduce productivity?
Well, whadya know? US worker productivity growth rose sluggishly in the last quarter (at 0.9%). So what? This is kind of boring stuff after my usual posts on quantum brains, love force-fields and the like. What could possibly be of existential interest here? Productivity growth is usually said to be caused by eye-glazingly boring phenomena such as […]
Bitcoin meets behavioral finance – what happens next?
So now Bitcoin has split between two camps, the miners and the rest. That gives us a bit of insight into the psychodynamics of the Bitcoin community. Can we figure out more of them? How about a behavioral finance analysis? To wit, what are the cognitive biases of the Bitcoin crowd? That is, both the rational […]
What’s wrong with quant approaches?
You know the old story: when a celebrity gets to be Time Person of the Year, it’s time to short them. Obama received the honor twice, in 2008 and 2012 and look where that got him! Trump was Time Person of the Year 2016 so look out! In the same vein I notice that the Wall Street Journal now has a […]
Are dynasties the future of democracy?
So I know I don’t have to remind you that we have a family running the US of A. Let’s say that it continues, with or without a gap between other family members also getting into the saddle. That’s what a dynasty is, in both cases. And this is hardly new. In modern times we’ve […]
Quantum economics – can 2 (or more) minds be entangled?
I just read “The Undoing Project” by Michael Lewis. You remember him? The author of Moneyball, the best-selling book about a new way to win at baseball. “The Undoing Project: is about the emergence of behavioral economics and behavioral finance. It focuses on the two key figures in the drama, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and […]
Can refugees be the key to a new and vibrant immigration policy?
I think the debate about immigration is missing something really big. The biggest thing we should be worried about is the vitality and energy of our country. If we get that right everything else falls into place. I was just watching a documentary about Japan and the ongoing depopulation there. With more and more seniors […]
Are celebrities better venture investors than the professionals?
We Americans are obsessed by celebrities. Many of them have lots of moolah. So I’m sure you took notice of the recent announcements that Leonardo DiCaprio has joined a Boston VC firm. Maybe you also happened to notice another recent announcement that Kobe Bryant had launched a $100 MM VC fund, with one Jeff Stibel. This is […]
Can we unify traditional and behavioral economics?
So active investing is dead. Even the investment literati have finally figured that one out even though the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. I’ve been heralding the issue (“An Inconvenient Truth – Alpha Financial Styles Beget Ginormous Returns” and “Less Algebra More Fudge Brownie – What Will Managed Investing 2.0 Look Like?”). […]
ECB Should Push Issue of Refugee Bonds to Turbocharge EU Growth!
Useless factoid for the day: the European Central Bank (ECB) recently let it be known that it will likely start buying equities as part of its radical approach to quantitative easing. Apparently there aren’t enough bonds around for it to be able to buy. Mario Draghi, its head, really meant it when he said the ECB will […]
How do negative interest rates impact leadership and risk globally?
It just came out that the Bank of Ireland and RBS bank have introduced negative interest rates on large deposits. Germany and Japan both have banks with negative interest rates, as well as some of the Scandinavians. That’s got to qualify as a megatrend. It looks like negative interest rates are spreading fast. We are in uncharted […]