Nassim Taleb has added an update to his recent Black Swan-centric comment about Asperger’s Syndrome and risk:
Note that the very same people who attack me, on grounds of political correctness, for discussing Asperger as a condition not compatible with risk-bearing, and its dangers to society, would be opposed to...
Didn't realize until today that video was online of the Economist debate between Myron Scholes, Jeremy Grantham and Rick Bookstaber about the merits, or lack thereof, of financial innovation.
McKinsey has out a new report with some useful figures showing the rise of leverage worldwide, where it must fall, and the corresponding GDP consequences. 
Good quote from Taleb:
It is particularly shocking that people do what is called “stress tests” by taking the worst possible past deviation as an anchor event to project the worst possible future deviation, not thinking that they would have failed to account for such deviation had they used the same...
The Dutch disease – the economic hollowing-out and corruption effects of domestic resource exploitation – has an interesting twist when it happens in Brazil:
Oil windfalls and living standards: New evidence from Brazil
...
Francesco Caselli, Guy Michaels, 20 January 2010
The trailer for the Ray Kurzweil biopic "Transcendent Man":
I haven't mentioned any books here in ages, so let me redress that by briefly singing the praises of a new edition of the classic Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Nominally about the experiences of trader Jesse Livermore in the early part of the last century, this classic remains among the best books about...
When a capitalist says that he is pleased to see profits increase as his competitors disappear and the remainder hold the line on price is that a cartel? How is it different from the CEO of, say, Honda, gloating about the elimination of other auto companies, and then asking the remaining companies to hold car...
While I hesitate to believe that yesterday's ill-described changes to banking regulations will stand as stated, in their current incarnation they would be bad for venture capital. The proposed regulations would prevents banks from "owning, investing in or sponsoring" private equity (a category that broadly includes venture capital).
How big are banks as...
New research from Reinhart and Rogoff on the relationship between GDP growth and government and external debt:
Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff
We study economic growth and inflation at different levels of government and external debt. Our...
