August 19th, 2008 by shashi

In an interview with the Portfolio magazine, Nassim Nicholas Taleb says

Do you realize that we don’t understand globalization? Globalization increases Extremistan. That’s one problem with this Tom Friedman guy—he [the bestselling author of The World Is Flat, which argues the advantages of globalization in the internet age] didn’t seem to understand the very simple dynamics that globalization forces redundancy out of the system. And whenever you don’t have redundancy, you have Extremistan. Things are way too efficient, so the smallest mistake blows up. We depend so much on the internet. Tomorrow, if there’s a problem in Bangalore, we’re toast for a long time, you see?

I’m on a committee at the Pentagon, [the Highland Forum, a study group on risk] and one of the founders of the internet is on it and all these people understand that we need more redundancy in the system to avoid a second crisis that may come from the internet, because we don’t understand it.

And to think of it, the Internet was founded to provide redundancy in case of an emergency.

Life’s awesome

June 5th, 2007 by shashi

Today, I’d been to a session where I was educated about the importance of hedging against the Dollar falling again against the Rupee. The gist was this, “you buy Futures the bank’s gonna profit through margin money. You buy Options, the bank’ll debit your fees”. “You may lose some money but it’s all about minimizing risk, honey!!” “Hedging is not about another way to increase your profit, but a way to minimize your losses”.

Well! not exactly their words, but they meant it.

If it’s so risky, WTF are we using Dollars to trade then ? “Then, Uncle (Sam) had heap many dollars. Now, Uncle borrows heap many dollars to pay us”. If this news’ anything to go by, it’s a matter of time, countries switched to saner alternatives.

Now, what are the alternatives ?

Why not bill in Rupees ? Will the rupee hold ? Won’t it fall if the boom is not sustenable ?
How ’bout the Euro ? Who says the Euro will not go the dollar way ?
Hmm. How ’bout gold ? Ha! Ha!! How are you going to bill ? One gold bar per hour

So, the alternatives suck. And we need to hedge against the Dollar falling yet again. Or rising up!!
Whatever happens, the bank makes money!! Why not close shop and help others hedge as well ?

In Over the Hedge, RJ says:

RJ: Now, the traps are set here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Here, here, here, here, big one here, here, and maybe a few over here.
Stella: Gee, it’s that all?
RJ: No. There’s bunch of red lights all over here. You OK, Verne? Look a little green.
Verne: I blacked out for a second there, but… I get the idea: there’s lights, traps and I might need to change my shell.