Infinite Guest

  • 23 Jan 2013 at 4:15 PM

Rarefied Air

By Infinite Guest

The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

A few years ago I was fortunate to attend a lecture given by Paul Wilmott challenging the wisdom of modeling derivatives on the assumption that there is no arbitrage. He floated an alternative approach (as but one of many possible heterodox approaches) outlining the pitfalls therein – chiefly the difficulty of convincing investors to bear with you until your thesis proves out – and toward the end he took questions. Some brave soul asked him, “Where does the money come from?” Read more »

  • 02 Sep 2011 at 12:30 PM

Karl Marx Was Wrong

By Infinite Guest

The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

First Nouriel Roubini, soon afterward George Magnus, and since then the vast and vacuous consensusphere have lately given currency to notion that Karl Marx was right after all. “Marx was right” is just the sort of opinion a person might venture late at night during a navel-gazing undergraduate debate, or at a party — if he needed some privacy– or perched on a soapbox in Times Square. A well-heeled literary critic might work it up into a sly, chatty, modestly successful book. It’s difficult to accept at this late date that any serious thinker actually believes that Marx was right. Belief in Marxism serves no one but Marxist thugs. Marxism is dead and buried, and deservedly so, because Karl Marx was wrong. Read more »

  • 21 Apr 2011 at 3:56 PM

Naughty Hawks

By Infinite Guest

The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

This is the worst time in decades to try to reduce the deficit. Unemployment is immorally high, growth remains anemic, private deleveraging shows no signs of abatement, infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating and the prospect of a stagflationary double-dip recession is all too imminent. Yet the drum beat for deficit reduction is deafening, with everyone from Standard & Poor’s to the Committee for Economic Development to the AFL-CIO keeping time, and the rest of the world joining in, marching for a cure to our ailing fiscal health. But if Dr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn prescribes it, and Dr. Zhou Xiaohuan concurs, then it’s snake oil. Don’t drink it. Read more »

  • 04 Oct 2010 at 1:54 PM

DB At The Movies: Inside Job

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The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

Had Travis Bickle had made a good-looking documentary about the perils of deregulation, he would have made “Inside Job.” Sony Pictures Classics gave auteur Charles Ferguson complete creative and editorial control over his sophomore effort. It shows. Read more »

  • 09 Aug 2010 at 12:45 PM

Money And Votes, Checks And Balances

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The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

When Congressman Barney Frank said “money is influential, but votes will kick money’s ass any time they come up against each other,” he wasn’t referring to votes on the floor of the House and Senate, nor to the money our elected officials are paid, nor the money they tax and spend. Those votes and that money are never in conflict, but they should always be. Read more »