Recently in World News Category

The current political and financial scene in Washington and New York could not be unfolding in a more dramatic fashion.  Key congressional leaders, the President, McCain, Obama, and Secretary Paulson met late into the evening yesterday only to walk away with no deal to rescue US banks and the ailing markets.  Click here for a brilliant account of the events via Stolberg of the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the US Government seized control of Washington Mutual and sold parts of it to JP Morgan Chase.

This is high drama with tons at stake, folks!

If you're fully engaged in the modern world then you've probably used statistics to make arguments and push a particular interest (like predicting orders or market conditions, if you work at a consumer product company, for example).

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in both his book, The Black Swan, and more recently in his essay, THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS, argues that the banking industry has used statistics to lose over 1 Trillion dollars thus far (more than the industry has ever made)!

Prima facie, the argument seems convincing, but go ahead and read the essay critically and let me know what you think.

Here's some content from the essay:

Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science"; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology; you can't be a modern intellectual and not think probabilistically--but... let's not be suckers. The problem is much more complicated than it seems to the casual, mechanistic user who picked it up in graduate school. Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now. It can even bankrupt the system (let's face it: use of probabilistic methods for the estimation of risks did just blow up the banking system).

If you're any where near the NYC metro area, then you're bound to notice great tension in the air.  The tension is the by-product of recent financial news headlined by the financial giant Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy.  Today's NY Times summarizes the current state on Wall Street well:

Nervous investors tried to make sense of a rapidly changing financial landscape on Monday as the State of New York offered American International Group a lifeline, the Bank of America began the task of assimilating Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers started its journey into bankruptcy.

The surprising development surrounding this disastrous Monday is that the Fed allowed Lehman to file for bankruptcy.  If you remember, the Fed rushed in to bail out Bear Stearns over concerns that if a major bank was allowed to go bankrupt, financial disaster would follow. 

So what can we make of the recent developments?  From the latest news reports, there are certainly more banks to fall (even the mighty Goldman Sachs is mentioned) and with no real, grand, government intervention likely, we may see some real downturns before the Banking sector can recover.

Read all about the current financial misery at:

NY Times Business section

Wall Street Journal

Financial Times

OPEC is taking measures to cut oil production in order to control market pricing - don't you love the oil cartel.

George Bush has ordered fighting to begin in Pakistan.

The world didn't suck itself into a man-made black hole.

You think your family was competitive, see the latest review on The House of Wittgenstein.

Finally, what makes working class and rural Americans vote for pro-business Republicans when their interests will not be served?  Psychology Professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia attempts to offer an answer.

- Why do certain countries prosper while others find it so difficult to grow?

- Why did the Industrial Revolution occur in England during the 17th century?

- How do cultural attitudes play a role in economic development?

Clark also challenges modern day economists to better understand history and I couldn't agree with him more. After all, economics is not just about number crunching, hedging, banking, international trade, etc., rather the field is also about understanding current economic conditions in relation to what has happened in the past. 

The NY Times has a terrific interactive map on how people across the world spend their discretionary income.  Some interesting findings include Japan spending more on recreation than clothing and Greece throwing money at clothing versus electronics.  Read the full article here.

The US Government likes to keep unemployement between 2-5 percent, 0 unemployment is actually a bad thing (according to some economists), so it's quite surpising to see the latest unemployment figures at over 6 percent.

Have you ever given much thought to what it must have been like for an intellectual during the Inquisition?  Say, for example, you opposed the Church and read a little Plato; that could get you in some serious trouble, as it did for the sixteenth - century heretic Giordano Bruno.

NPR ran a piece on US born psych-folk singer, Rodriguez.  Rodriguez is a completely obscure artist (outside of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand), but is know enjoying a renaissance after the re-release of Cold Fact.

You can read Rodriguez's bio at Joe's Pub here and listen to his single Sugarman here.

NPR aired a series of radio reports on the US health care system as it relates to Europe and Asia and they, in sum, described how other countries manage to run state sponsored, universal, health care programs.

The program was eye opening!

Given a recent conversation on "where would you live in the world" I dug up some info on 1., standard of living and 2., human development index.  Here are some fun facts to consider next time someone asks the "where should you live" question:

• The United States ranks 4th in GDP (or gross domestic product), but 92nd in terms of distribution of wealth (in other words, if you have money in the US it is a great place to live <but given the concentration of wealth in the US, most individuals don't benefit from high GDP and associated increases in productivity>). 
  
  
• HDI or Human Development Index measures average achievement of a country based on life expectancy, adult literacy rate, and gross domestic product per capita at PPP or purchasing power parity (basically, how to compare the purchasing power of two currencies). 

Here are the top ten:

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Australia
4. Luxembourg
5. Canada
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Ireland
9. Belgium
10. United States

So, where would you live?  If you got bucks, set up camp in the US; if not, pack your bags and move the clan!

- from the UN (http://hdr.undp.org/en/)

You can always count on HBO to experiment with new series and this summer is no exception with the premier of Generation Kill.

Generation Kill is based on Evan Wright's book which follows the Marines of the First Recon Battalion through the first forty days of the Iraq War.

The series is nicely done, including a great performance by the highest ranking official on the ground, "the Godfather:"

The writer Chrisopher Hitchins participated in a water boarding session to truly understand the techniques used by the American government at Guantánamo and elsewhere.  You can view the video here, courtesy of Vanity Fair magazine.

If you've spent any time in New York City then you're probably well aware of the NY / NJ Port Authority; they run the Hudson River crossings (and constantly increase tolls), World Trade Center re-building project, etc.  The NY Times recently ran a nice article profiling the Executive Director of the agency, Christopher O. Ward, who happens to have a degree from the Harvard Divinity School (should we be praying when we cross any of the bridges?).

If you were lucky enough to view the Wimbeldon final this weekend, you most likely watched the most epic, modern day, tennis match of all time.  The match lasted a record 4 hours and 48 minutes (the match started at 9AM EST), including two 25 minute plus rain delays.

Nadal took the first two sets and Federer won two tie-breaks to earn the 3rd and 4th sets.  The final set came down to a Nadal break of serve, who eventually went on to win 9-7 when Federer hit a forehand into the net.

Here's the championship point:

The NY Times frontpage included an exhausted Nadal slumped to the ground (or grass).  And here's some coverage from the BBC.

The New York Times ran a front page article this morning with the title, "Monkeys Think, Move Artifical Arm as Own." and my first thought was how are we defining "think?"  For example, there are certain bees that engage in very organized flight patterns that convey, "danger", "food", etc. to other bees, but the academic community hasn't come out and declared that bees have language!  The same holds true for the monkeys in the experiment cited in the New York Times; that is, while the primate has willed the artificial arm to move, we can't logically conclude that the monkey can now ponder whether God exists or if chicken would make for a nice dinner.  "Think" is a very strong word and the New York Times should have thought longer about the usage in a headline on the front page.

There is a moving article in the New York Times this morning about a couple (Wang Zhijun and Li Wanzhi) that survived last Monday's earthquake in China. 

The article reminded me of the book, The Long Walk the story of a group of Siberian prisoners who escaped and trekked 4,000 miles to their freedom in India.