Wait a Second, Monkey Boy . . .
I did a long video interview with Steve Forbes — it should be posted later this week. Meanwhile, this is part of the pre-interview I did prior to that shoot:
What is the greatest financial lesson you’ve ever learned?
You’re a monkey. It all comes down to that. You are a slightly clever, pants-wearing primate. If you forget that you’re nothing more than a monkey who has been fashioned by eons on the plains, being chased by tigers, you shouldn’t invest. You have to be aware of how your own psychology effects what you do. This is why we as investors sell at the bottom, get panicked. All the other lessons I’ve learned have come out of that. As has the field of behavioral economics.
Wall Street clichés, like “cut your losses and let your winners run” come back to prevent the monkey part of your brain from doing what it does. There’s a banana–I want it. That’s how chimps behave. Us humans react to greed and fear in predictable ways. We are predictably irrational. If you understand that you can take steps to prevent that–we don’t own anything in the office that doesn’t have a stop-loss on it. In 2008, we watched the market go down 40%. We figured out we’re chimps, and don’t let the chimp inside us make those chimp-like decisions.
Every good financial decision I’ve made comes from, “Wait a second, monkey boy, step back, don’t do that.” Once you realize how your own brain chemistry works against you, it gives you a chance to not panic at the bottom.
Yes, I called myself Monkey Boy.
The full interview is at Forbes; I’ll post the video this week when it goes up
>
Source:
Monkey Theory
David Serchuk,
Forbes, 03.13.09, 06:00 AM EDT
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/12/barry-ritholtz-interview-intelligent-investing-ritholtz.html
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March 14th, 2009 at 10:37 am
uh-oh. Ritholtz dropped the evolution grenade
EVERYBODY DUCK!
March 14th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Forbes is interesting. I’ve always liked the fact that he rails on the tax code, even if I don’t necessarily agree with his solution. He also seems to like the bailouts. Hmm.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
:-) as I look around at all the stuff I’ve collected in my treehouse … brings to mind that NatGeo provided quote by a backwoodsman of a non-industrialized native “why do you travel with so much stuff” …. this time I’m gonna try a good comeback … if I was the one asked ………. “it makes for a cozy walk thru life .. wanna come back with me and see ( knowing the moment I offered it – that it would be a mistake )
March 14th, 2009 at 11:20 am
“You’re a monkey. It all comes down to that. You are a slightly clever, pants-wearing primate. If you forget that you’re nothing more than a monkey who has been fashioned by eons on the plains, being chased by tigers,…”
I’m with Common Man on this. This is a much bigger story than it looks. In the real parts of America, the theory of evolution is banned in public schools, yet here we have, perhaps, the premier exponent of American Free Market Capitalism, Capitalist Tool, Steve Forbes, endorsing primate collectivist, Charles Darwin. The next shoe to drop, I fear, will be kind words from Forbes regarding stem cell reasearch.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Basic ‘Origin of Species’ evolution is truly illuminating beyond primate behavior, and explains not only investing decision-trees but also hiring, promoting, and who followers choose to follow.
We give inadequate weight to where and why so-called ‘dumb’ animals seem to thrive: alligators/crocs since the dinosaur era, and urban pigeons and roaches and ‘mindless’ ants in the modern era. The oft mis-understood ‘survival of the fittest’ theory is shaped as much by the environment, changes in the environment, and who propagates most prolifically in a particular type of environment.
Our boom-boom-cycle economy spawned excess ‘bubble’ money that shaped office & boardroom environment to where all manner of questionable managerial abilities and decision-making (non)abilities could thrive in mind-boggling numbers. Exhibit A is the rise of “Emotional Intelligence” as a trump to methodical cause-n-effect decision-making. Also toss in allowing ‘passionate’ to carry more weight than ‘track-record of competence’ and ‘ability to execute’.
How many 21st century firms had wretched decisionmakers and undisciplined ‘passionates’ rise to the levels of VP of This and chief officer of That? Only in the bizarre environment of no-risk bubble money could that have happened on the scale it has happened in the American business landscape.
This shape-shifting credit/debt crisis has now tossed all of us into an Economic Culling Zone. It is painful to watch people who truly believed their passions made them ‘Visionary’ and/or ‘Cutting-edge’ leaders, now face mounting evidence that they are actually wretched decision-makers with no execution abilities and minimal emotional anchoring, and were simply propped up by environmental distortions created by bubble money and the egregiously long absence of badly-needed shake-outs-via-deep-recessions.
When I entered the white-collar workforce in 1982 at the end of the triumphirate of 70s-80s recessions, the middle-managers talked incessantly of how those recessions allowed them to unload all the accumulated deadweight of a decade. Decades later I now see what they meant.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am
don’t hold me to NatGeo being the copyright holder catcher .. don’t wanna be zero patient of mis-information
March 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Sorry, but I won’t bite.
As far as I am concerned, if you do not understand the theory of evolution, and its place within the scientific methodology, then you are a clueless idiot. Debate over.
This is not a debate. This is not an opinion. Evolution is the single best scientific explanation for how we got here.
I look at the global warming deniers as primarily misguided dipshits who don’t understand math. And if you can prove me wrong mathematically, I will happily reverse my position. Until then, you are just pawns of Exxon Mobil. (I prefer BP or Chevron for my hi-test)
But the anti-evolution people are simply clueless fuck ‘tards.
Everytime some State bans the teaching of evolution, I put them on my BUY NOTHING/HIRE NO ONE from them list. If you insist on imposing your ass backwardness on everyone else, then there needs to repercussions for those actions.
I have zero tolerance for Anti-science, Anti-math blowhards.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
BR said:
…. are simply clueless fuck ‘tards.
Comment:
Thank you for improving my word power. This is a good word and a new one for me.
Also, re your monkey observations … Do you ever wear T shirts that say “I do what the voices in my head tell me to do”?
March 14th, 2009 at 11:56 am
“Fucktard” is an excellent example of Modern American English.
Like “dickwad”, “shithead”, and my personal favorite, “ratfuck”.
:)
March 14th, 2009 at 11:57 am
And how could I forget, especially in light of our daily business headlines.
“Asshat”.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
We could probably some up the last 25 or so years of Wall Street financial engineering as “Monkey See. Monkey Do.”
One of the Founding Fathers of the MonkeyFuck AssHats is still in full blown denial mode.
http://marketoracle.co.uk/Article9384.html
The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble
Any new regulations should help direct savings toward productive investments.
By ALAN GREENSPAN
We are in the midst of a global crisis that will unquestionably rank as the most virulent since the 1930s. It will eventually subside and pass into history. But how the interacting and reinforcing causes and effects of this severe contraction are interpreted will shape the reconfiguration of our currently disabled global financial system.
There are at least two broad and competing explanations of the origins of this crisis. The first is that the “easy money” policies of the Federal Reserve produced the U.S. housing bubble that is at the core of today’s financial mess.
The second, and far more credible, explanation agrees that it was indeed lower interest rates that spawned the speculative euphoria. However, the interest rate that mattered was not the federal-funds rate, but the rate on long-term, fixed-rate mortgages.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Barry, consider reading “The Hypothesis of Formative Causation,” if you haven’t already. By Rupert Sheldrake. Called “the missing link” in Darwinism…explains how “information” is passed on from generation to generation NOT through genes, but something else. Uses the scientific method to explain “what’s in the air”–energy. Totally mainstream science, but mindblowing. Explains why it’s easier for succeeding generations to master tasks that took the trailblazers much longer…for instance, why your 18 month old can operate cable TV but it took his never quite learned how to program the VCR back in the old days….And why ideas arise simultaneously (as opposed to just being ripped off…thinking of The Five Stages of Grief, LOL).
~~~
BR: Garbage pseudoscience repeatedly disproven (“Disconfirmed” is the technical term) in scientific experiments — including some with Sheldrake.
You should know better than to bring this weakass shit here . . .
March 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
sum folks shouldnt post am…
March 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Barry,
I agree evolution won the day…and thought you might be interested in this about maternal dna in mitochondria and how the piecing together of the diaspora from Africa occured…
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/03/human-journey/human-journey-learn
Since in mitosis, the dna in maternal mitochondria is not split, but transferred intact from female to female, this allows researchers to sample modern dna, and travel back in time to our origins…really rather simple when you think about it…you follow the trail until a mutation occurs, and the people later who have that mutation had to come from people who up to that time didn’t have the mutation…and so forth…anyway, Monkey Boy, it is here if it interests you.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I think I need to start at Barry Ritholtz Fan Club, LOL. I was gonna buy your book before your most eloquent reply, but now I’ll probably buy 10. : )
March 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
As far as I am concerned, if you do not understand the theory of evolution, and its place within the scientific methodology, then you are a clueless idiot. Debate over.
You spelled mythology wrong
March 14th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
@ImJustSaying…
What you describe is classic Lamarckism…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism
This idea has been around for ages..
March 14th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Quoting:
If you think about it, you’re rewarding yourself with a different banana.
You’re going to pay a price for that one. If you’re not familiar with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, my guess is that you’re going to hear some select quotes from it on a regular basis….
~~~~
BR: It’s not my goddamn planet. Understand, monkey boy?
I worked in the campus theater during college. If it was out during the early 80s, I probably saw it 6X . . .
March 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Steve Forbes thinks that by reinstating the uptick rule, the DOW will head right back up to 14K.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Steve Forbes? May as well do a video interview with Krusty the Clown. Probably reach a larger audience and he actually has a monkey sidekick (Mr. Teeny) who would probably contribute more to the dialogue than Forbes.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
ImJustSaying Says:
March 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
” . . . Explains why it’s easier for succeeding generations to master tasks that took the trailblazers much longer…for instance, why your 18 month old can operate cable TV but it took his never quite learned how to program the VCR back in the old days . . .”
__________
Haven’t read it, but your synopsis reminds me of the ’100 Monkeys’ theory. On the opposite side of the observation, it might be asked how it is that our ancestors could flake spear-heads from chert, survive in the wilderness, domesticate plants and animals, and eat half-spoiled meat without dying, when we can do none of those things (at least, not as easily as we can learn to program a VCR). I appears that what we add to the front end of capabilities, we lose, in equal portion, from the back end – depending on our needs at the time. Adaptation is required to survive.
BR: thanks for taking an unambiguous stand on this issue. You have defied your inner chimp (glad it’s not a freekin’ Bonobo).
March 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
“Evolution is the single best scientific explanation for how we got here”.
I agree with the foregoing statement. I also have no difficulty believing that we evolved from apes. I recognize that genetic changes in bacteria (and other rapidly reproducing organisms) in response to external stimuli can be demonstrated in the laboratory. I am mindful of experiments (e.g., by Harold Urey and Stanley Miller) which show that some basic building blocks of life could have been produced under prebiotic conditions.
But at the same time, the processes of living organisms, at the physiological and biochemical level, are just too complex, IMO, to be fully explained merely by a process of evolution, no matter the time period over which it may have occurred.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/monkeys-vs-apes.htm
March 14th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
This reminds me of a mildly interesting anecdote that may be instructive in any type of decision making–be it as a leader or a trader:
My girl friend studied the cognitive abilities of chimps. In one study, the chimps were individually given a challenging task, the successful completion of which would result in a treat (actually, all the studies are like this, but that’s an entirely different matter). The purpose of this particular study was to see if they could use tools and innovate. But that’s not why it was interesting….This study was interesting because of what it showed about the chimps who just couldn’t get it right.
In analyzing the performance of the bottom 1/3, it was revealed that many performed significantly worse than chance. For these bottom-dwellers, it was like getting 10% correct on a True-False exam. True ignorance in a True-False Exam should range from 40-60% correct—as the T or F choice is simply a coin flip.
A 10% success rate in coin flips is bad freaking Karma…and in a T or F cognitive challenge….well, it’s entering the realm of perverse self-destructiveness.
And what did the bottom 1/3 of these chimps have in common?
They all changed strategies too often. When Method A didn’t work, they immediately switched to Method B….and to Method C, back to A, etc….They not only didn’t give any particular method a chance to work, they didn’t give any particular method enough of an opportunity to show why it’s NOT working,…so they couldn’t apply what actually worked in Method A to improve upon Method B.
It’s helps, for me anyways, to explain to high correlation between Losers and Chasing Fads. It’s not that the Fad is so bad—-it probably has its pros and cons—but the Loser demands his Silver Bullet…the Magic Pill to make all his problems go away…and so he chases on to the next, never giving any method a chance and never refining his strategy.
And its this bottom 1/3 reminds me of our Congress: A bunch a trend-sucking, fad seeking, magic pill poppin’ losers….spending our money chasing the next Silver Bullet, Get-Elected-Quick Scheme. Going forward, I do not doubt for a minute: Uur Congress will choose the least optimal course in a way that suggests Failure is the only Option.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
DL opined
March 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
But at the same time, the processes of living organisms, at the physiological and biochemical level, are just too complex, IMO, to be fully explained merely by a process of evolution, no matter the time period over which it may have occurred.
The Answer
——————————
You’re all wrong. I can reconcile both evolution and creationism easily.
Imagine a computer 500 years in the future. Assume a Sims game appropriate for that technology. You, my friend, are just a character in a futuristic Sims game. This Universe coexists next to another in another window on the same computer. It’s as big as it has to be since all of it is imaginary.
You might be a character in a game, or God might really be a snot nosed kid wearing futuristic ear buds. Or this Universe might just be a 4H experiment in physics and theoretical biology.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Marcus Aurelius Said:
March 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I appears that what we add to the front end of capabilities, we lose, in equal portion, from the back end – depending on our needs at the time. Adaptation is required to survive.
question:
So the future will be filled with large breasts and tiny butts?
March 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I have instructed the editors to aggressively delete wingnut comments — that’s 6 gone in about two minutes.
Go sell crazy somewhere else.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
@dead hobo Says:March 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
And did that highly advanced computer just evolve or did some of the most brilliant minds have to put all their brain power into it for 500 years to get it where it is? God isn’t the snot nosed kid, He is the One Who built the computer.
If you look at the video on the inner workings of the cell you’ll see that some incredible brain power went into building it also:
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html
March 14th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@dead hobo:
“So the future will be filled with large breasts and tiny butts?”
No, from what I see daily the future is tiny breasts and very large butts…..
March 14th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
@Bruce in Tn Says:March 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
“I agree evolution won the day…and thought you might be interested in this about maternal dna in mitochondria and how the piecing together of the diaspora from Africa occured…”
You can also read in book form “The Seven Daughters of Eve” (2001, ISBN 0-393-02018-5) by Bryan Sykes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Daughters_of_Eve
Last 1/3 fo the book is a waste of your time in my opinion. Why write a scientific book ending with some fiction about the lives of the 7 first women?
March 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I think it will be verrrry interesting to see how the interview appears in Forbes. One of my major reasons for not re-upping my subscription with them was a disturbing number of stories that were palpably distorted to fit the editorial slant of the magazine, up to and including more than a few hatchet jobs.
I’ll be interested to see your reaction to how the interview is sliced & diced on the way to the formal publishing.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hey Barry-
do you think the ice age folks were sitting in their shelters wetting themselves because the sea ice was receding? Global warming or not- the earth is not a static place and as much as people think that they are the end all and be all- the earth will be here with or without us and is indifferent to our survival. So when people are clamoring about saving the earth I laugh because there only concern is that the earth remain the same and to their liking and that is not going to happen no matter what amount of hysteria is generated. Push on Barry- life’s short- enjoy it!
March 14th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I second eren in that we have not evolved from monkeys, but rather apes and marcus aurelius in that evolution is a manifestation of adaptability, which is one of the keys to life on the whole. We civilized nations like to think we are the apex of all evolutionary forces in the world, just like we used to think that the sun and stars all revolved around the earth. This is not true and can only be based upon the horrible flaw of too much ego in humans in general. I came to this conclusion of humans being merely “apes wearing pants” long ago–the hard part is when you realize it, but have to fit into the reality all the other dumb apes with money and power have created. I have long believed that I am unfit for societal immersion due to these beliefs, thus I have taken to learning as much as I can about influence and subconscious compliance in order to succeed in this environment and convince the other apes to do what i want them to do. Once again, adaptability.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I agree with you Barry, but I would take it one step further. It’s not the most important _financial_ lesson, it’s the most important lesson period. I remember reading Wright’s “The Moral Animal” when I was 14 or 15, it was easily the most influential book I’ve ever read. After reading it the world made SO much more sense to me, and gave me a weapon to cut through all the bullshit ideologies masquerading as philosophies. If everyone understood the basics of these theories, no one would take seriously Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, and all the other crackpot writers out there with too much ink and not enough data.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I think there is also the Pavlovian idea here Barry..that everyone who took psychology 101 in college is familiar with…sometimes called operant conditioning or psychological conditioning…
response to a bell with salivation by a dog and all that…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
I would posit that the reason you put stops on your long positions now is because you were conditioned by the “bell” of seeing your losses accumulate, and so, you learned…
Then again, I’ve never seen you while you were eating bananas….
March 14th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
diver DanD “this bottom 1/3 reminds me of our Congress: A bunch a trend-sucking, fad seeking, magic pill poppin’ losers….spending our money chasing the next Silver Bullet, Get-Elected-Quick Scheme”
I always thought the Billboard ratings worked well for music advancement .. but imo I’m thinkin of “in the old days” it was a simpler more defined less splintered platform … that being plop a buck down for an idea stream .. and I’m not bringing in the stock market here .. that game plays onto another level of cash creation …. simply put intelligence of the masses
March 14th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Barry -
As much as I enjoy your rants, I fear for your blood pressure – best to just avoid evolution, global warming, and all other issues which tend to bring drooling idiots out of the woodwork…
BTW in my perusal of the sports car message boards (just bought an E90 M3) the guys are telling me to stick to Shell and Chevron hi-test, and that BP should be avoided, FWIW.
~~~
BR: It was really the Amoco Hi-Test — not all BP sell it
March 14th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Even a few evolution ‘believers’ do not have a good handle on how evolution is a 2-edge sword in the way it works with environment. Richard Dawkins is good at breaking it down for ‘lay’ folks. As mutation/natural selection work with the host environment, evolution can allow incredible numbers of ‘stupid____ to propagate IF their stupidity is what is rewarded by their environment.
For example, if ur a Miami realtor circa 1996-2006, you reaped incredible $$ reward and stature by reducing ‘the biggest investment decision’ of a lifetime into ‘buying a house as a fashion accessory’ and buying a condo as a ‘social’ event. If you create ur own RE firm and control hiring and hire like-minded dimwits who thrive in that world of realty sales, you will re-shape part of the RE landscape; u still business from the ‘boring’ methodical realtors who treat realty as a solemn biz investment and not an emotion-laden decision.
It doesnt matter how stupid it is to buy RE emotionally; evolution will not stop you UNTIL the environment changes and suddenly the affects of (stupid) emotional decisions become painful/fatal and you no longer possess enough competitive advantages to hold onto ur market gains and to stop the rising discrediting of ur particular silly way of reducing realty to the equivalent of a fashion accessory or social event.
Unfortunately today’s Economic Culling is only punishing people financially; it of itself will not improve the decision-making ability of any individual. But if the ‘L’-shape recession lasts at least 48 months, it should notch-down enough of the hordes of emotional decisionmakers to render them irrelevant to management ranks. They will still be free to inflict their silly emotional decisionmaking at the voting booth, in raising their own kids, etc. So we’re still stuck with their presence and effects.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
> I have zero tolerance for Anti-science, Anti-math blowhards.
- BR
Bravo and my sympathies as well !
March 14th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
The implications of nature’s rendering us genetically, environmentally and behaviorally ‘hostage’ to this fascinating and powerful ’2-edge sword’ , called evolution and natural selection, are far-reaching…and makes people very uncomfortable.
If I had not actually read ‘Origins of Species’ AND had a deep background in science/math, I’d be befuddled about evolution too, particularly the dumbed-down version parroted by well-meaning teachers & professors, as well as the version shared as a social meme.
When people say, ‘the mammals needed longer necks to reach the food growing on higher limbs, and thus the giraffe was evolved”, I’d be unconvinced too and think evolution might be bogus.
Evolution is not willful nor is it directed. This was Dawkins’ great point to lay folks.
A bear ‘needing’ a heavier winter coat will not will its offspring into the species called polar bear. Sadly, even many evolution supporters believe that is how it works.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
«There are at least two broad and competing explanations of the origins of this crisis. The first is that the “easy money” policies of the Federal Reserve produced the U.S. housing bubble that is at the core of today’s financial mess.
The second, and far more credible, explanation agrees that it was indeed lower interest rates that spawned the speculative euphoria. However, the interest rate that mattered was not the federal-funds rate, but the rate on long-term, fixed-rate mortgages.»
There are several, and they differ in enabling factors and ultimate factors.
The Greenspan “easy money” and “lower interest rates” are much the same thing…
Then there is the phenomenal importance of the 0% nominal interest rate on the yen, feeding a colossal carry trade.
Then there is the political situation, where the Republican party became the mouthpiece of speculative southern rentiers instead of oppressive northern industrialists.
Then there is the guns/butter dilemma which started with the Vietnam war and was made critical by Reagan, which has always been resolved by choosing both guns and butter, financed by ever more debt on easy easy easy terms.
Then there is that USA oil imports have grown so much since 1984.
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/output/BP_2008_Oil_Export_US_0_E.png
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/output/BP_2008_Oil_Export_US_0_D.png
March 14th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Speaking of evolution being a ’2-edge sword’ that is neither willful nor directed and can and does , as Dawkins highlights, produce hordes that choose stupidly and who are slow-acting just as likely as it may produce hordes that are cunning and quick-footed- depending on the environment and what the environment ‘rewards’ (e.g. via propagation) – we have this piece in the NYT.
Madoff Had Accomplices: His Victims
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/14nocera.html?_r=1&8dpc
‘Nuff said.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
To lighten the mood somewhat
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/madoff-pleads-guilty-to-not-being-a-bank-200903131639/
Begins
FRAUDSTER Bernard Madoff yesterday pled guilty to not realising he should just have turned his failed investment firm into a bank. The former darling of Wall Street told a New York court he was ‘deeply sorry and ashamed’ for being prosecuted when it would have been so much easier to have been bailed out.
On evolution, do watch out for ‘The Genial Gene’ when it comes out next month.
http://www.amazon.com/Genial-Gene-Deconstructing-Darwinian-Selfishness/dp/0520258266/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237056709&sr=8-1
March 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
You, sir, may be a monky. But I will have you know, Barry, I am no monkey. I am an ape. Yep, 99% chimpanzee. Now if someone can pass the bananas I have a sucker rally I’m late for…
March 14th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Actually, Forbes is a much improved monkey as compared to the rest of us. Forbes nows we all want that banana and has figured out varios ways of luring us in with the banana and leaving us with a banana peel instead. This is the wall street business model.
Since I believe in the amazing power of positive thinking, I shall now engage in a detailed study of the nutritive qualities of banana peels.
March 14th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
After much study I have determined that it is far better to eat a banana peel than to slip on it.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Laugha while you can, monkey boy!
(Lithium is no longer available on credit!)
March 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
There are monkeys and there are 800 pound gorillas. They are even bigger than elephants in the room.
This from Weissman at Counterpunch just shows you how these gorillas made a monkey out of all of us. And as long as they, like Cox the corporate crook, are not in jail, the banana peels will keep coming our way:
In 1995, Congress passed the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which made it harder for defrauded investors to sue for relief. Representative Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, introduced an amendment that would have exempted financial derivatives from the terms of the Act. Representative Chris Cox, R-California, who would go on to head the Securities and Exchange Commission under President Bush, led the successful opposition to the amendment.
Markey anticipated many of the problems that would explode a decade later: “All of these products have now been sent out into the American marketplace, in many instances with the promise that they are quite safe for a municipality to purchase. … The objective of the Markey amendment out here is to ensure that investors are protected when they are misled into products of this nature, which by their very personality cannot possibly be understood by ordinary, unsophisticated investors. By that, I mean the town treasurers, the country treasurers, the ordinary individual that thinks that they are sophisticated, but they are not so sophisticated that they can understand an algorithm that stretches out for half a mile and was constructed only inside of the mind of this 26- or 28-year-old summa cum laude in mathematics from Cal Tech or from MIT who constructed it. No one else in the firm understands it. The lesson that we are learning is that the heads of these firms turn a blind eye, because the profits are so great from these products that, in fact, the CEOs of the companies do not even want to know how it happens until the crash.”
March 14th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
BR,
as an aside, with this: “Yes, I called myself Monkey Boy.”
there’s a theory about, loosely: “By the level of Humility, the measure of the Man.”
not an inverse relationship, I presume..
March 14th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
And here’s a poor monkey that hit a tree. However, in an article in the Australian, some 800 pound gorillas (Someone in 1998 who was perhaps tying up loose ends before his presidential bid in 2000?) were in the vicinity of that tree..
.”This was an evil plot that was carried out to almost perfection by ruthless assassins,” Mr Gunderson told the paper.
The former agent, who has been researching Bono’s accident for the past decade, said top officials linked to an international drug and weapons ring feared the singer-turned-politician was about to expose their crimes – so they had him killed on the slopes.
Bono, an experienced skiier, was ambushed on the slopes by hired hitmen, who beat him to death and then staged a tree collision, Mr Gunderson said.
He called for authorities to dig up Bono’s remains and open a homicide investigation.
His claims have reportedly been backed by top forensics experts who fear Nevada authorities were too quick to call the death a skiing accident.
Investigator Bob Fletcher had also confessed he sent evidence of a 10-year study that linked top US government officials to arms and weapons dealers to Bono less than a month before his death, the Globe reported.
“(Bono) was going to make it his No.1 priority… There’s no doubt in my mind Sonny was murdered by someone who needed him silenced,” Mr Fletcher told the paper.
Hold on to your bananas, folks. Peels areally are edible, you know.
March 14th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Monkeys in suit and tie. No doubt. But monkeys are the cartoon version of evolution.
Go back farther, as evolution requires, and pretty soon there is nothing where the Earth is now but a cloud of gas. We are literally, physically, fundamentally, that cloud of gas; the pure energy that preceded the gas; and the quantum vacuum that came earlier still.
The great lesson of evolution is that all biology is a continuum with all physics.
Which means, I think, that the quants may be right in the end.
March 14th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Hey
I have a funny song called
“I’m A Monkey”
available for free download (along with the rest of my debut album) at
http://www.letgoandrelax.com
I think you might like it! Please let me know if you do!
March 14th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Barry Ritholtz says:
“I have zero tolerance for Anti-science, Anti-math blowhards.”
This is because you don’t understand the relative nature of math nor science. All knowledge is in constant flux. What is true today is not tomorrow, etc. It’s not a matter of being anti- or pro-, but instead of allowing your reality to change with time.
Btw, your colorful language really detracts from your wonderful blog.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
@ impermanence Says:
This is because you don’t understand the relative nature of math nor science. All knowledge is in constant flux. What is true today is not tomorrow, etc. It’s not a matter of being anti- or pro-, but instead of allowing your reality to change with time.
I think not. Humanity’s knowledge may…heck, is…in flux. But whatever the true process is…be it galaxy-formation, the spark of life, or random mutation and non-random natural selection, such processes are NOT themselves relative or in flux necessarily simply because humanity’s (tenuous) grasp of it is. Ergo, IF evolution as defined in the sentence above is what happened on terra firma as it circled sol, then it is impervious to our tenuous grip on such knowledge or our capricious acceptance/denial of it.
Try this real world example: I once observed someone committing a major complex financial error in a spreadsheet. I say nothing. Hours later, I overhear a chat amongst two supervisors, neither of whom witnessed the error or the culprit and who lack evidence, or perhaps the financial and IT skills to grasp the tell-tale spreadsheet evidence, to determine the culprit. They then mutter to themselves in agreement, “well it’s impossible, no one could ever know who really did it”. Said in unison, it gives them shared comfort.
But it’s BS.
1) If they were better skilled, financially and in IT, they’d be able to analyze the evidence, 2) I exist and I do know who the culprit is.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
i wonder if we could get Jon Stewart to have Steve Forbes on his show? think Forbes would even dare arrive? and I wonder if we could have him do a show on eveolution having both creationist and a scientist on?
March 14th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
the “=” is responsible for more fallacies than all the politicians, together, that have ever existed..
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Reverse+Polish+Notation
March 14th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
We All Live in Darwin’s World
02.11.2009
“Survival of the fittest” is helping us understand not only the origin of species but also love, politics, and even the cosmos.
by Karen Wright
You could call Helen Fisher a Darwinian matchmaker. The acclaimed anthropologist from Rutgers University is also a best-selling author of books on love and the chief scientific adviser to an online dating service called Chemistry.com. This service utilizes a questionnaire that Fisher developed after years of research on the science of romantic attraction. It reveals which of four broad, biologically based personality types an applicant displays and helps identify partners with compatible brain chemistry. In designing the questionnaire, Fisher relied on the principles of evolutionary psychology, a field inspired by Charles Darwin’s insights. She has even used those principles to size up Darwin himself. (He is a “negotiator,” “imaginative and theoretical,” “unassuming, agreeable, and intuitive”–but also married, alas, and dead.)
Fisher’s work is just one of the innumerable offshoots of Darwin’s grand theory of life. In the 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, it seems no sphere of human thought or activity has been left untouched by Darwinian analysis. Evolutionary theory has infiltrated the social sciences, where it has been used to explain human politics and spending habits. It has transformed computer science, inspiring problem-solving algorithms that adapt and change like living things. It is cited by a leading theoretical physicist who proposes that evolution helped shape the laws governing the cosmos. A renowned neuroscientist sees ideas of selection as describing the honing of connections among brain cells. Literary critics analyze the plots, themes, and characters of novels according to Darwinian precepts. Even religion, the sector most famously at odds with Darwin, now claims an evolutionary evangelist.
“Darwinian thinking is a little bit like gravity,” Fisher says. “It has infused everything.”
…
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/mar/11-we-all-live-in-darwins-world
March 14th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
They Don’t Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To
02.09.2009
Our species–and individual races–have recently made big evolutionary changes to adjust to new pressures.
by Kathleen McAuliffe
For decades the consensus view–among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists–has been that human evolution is over. Since modern Homo sapiens emerged 50,000 years ago, “natural selection has almost become irrelevant” to us, the influential Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould proclaimed. “There have been no biological changes. Everything we’ve called culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain.” This view has become so entrenched that it is practically doctrine. Even the founders of evolutionary psychology, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, signed on to the notion that our brains were mostly sculpted during the long period when we were hunter-gatherers and have changed little since. “Our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind,” they wrote in a background piece on the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
So to suggest that humans have undergone an evolutionary makeover from Stone Age times to the present is nothing short of blasphemous. Yet a team of researchers has done just that. They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.
The new genetic adaptations, some 2,000 in total, are not limited to the well-recognized differences among ethnic groups in superficial traits such as skin and eye color. The mutations relate to the brain, the digestive system, life span, immunity to pathogens, sperm production, and bones–in short, virtually every aspect of our functioning.
…
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/mar/09-they-dont-make-homo-sapiens-like-they-used-to
March 14th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Avl Dao says:
“I think not. Humanity’s knowledge may…heck, is…in flux. But whatever the true process is…be it galaxy-formation, the spark of life, or random mutation and non-random natural selection, such processes are NOT themselves relative or in flux necessarily simply because humanity’s (tenuous) grasp of it is. Ergo, IF evolution as defined in the sentence above is what happened on terra firma as it circled sol, then it is impervious to our tenuous grip on such knowledge or our capricious acceptance/denial of it.”
Here’s the deal. You can not intellectualize reality, so regardless of what the “truth” is, you can not know or understand it. It just “is,” like it or not. Please give me an example of something you believe to be true.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Steve Forbes answers the following question:
Q: What is the greatest financial lesson you’ve ever learned?
A: You’re a monkey. It all comes down to that. You are a slightly clever, pants-wearing primate.
Ya know, he might be good at making money, but this isn’t the guy I want to be stuck on a desert island with.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
It is not what I believe to be true that is paramount. Supremacy goes to what is True; Relativity goes to what individual humans grasp individually, collectively, or simply go-along to get along, or what they can’t grasp or observe or understand because of limitations placed on them by access, time & space, or skill set.
Still it is simply more hubris to say that because one person lacks perfect musical pitch, all lack perfect pitch; or to say because some can not grasp certain complex financial-sociological-evolutionary realities, that no one can grasp it.
here’s a truth: I was in the gym at precisely 3:18 pm EDT. But if you did not observe that…or if you are in Bangladesh and cant read what I’ve written in English…or if you lack an internet connection and cant access this post…does any of those limitations on you make that truth untrue?
No.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
“here’s a truth: I was in the gym at precisely 3:18 pm EDT. But if you did not observe that…or if you are in Bangladesh and cant read what I’ve written in English…or if you lack an internet connection and cant access this post…does any of those limitations on you make that truth untrue?
No.”
Let’s talk about time. I would suggest that it is simply a figment of your imagination. Consider the following. You and a friend are outside on a beautiful starlit evening. Behind your friend’s head you see starlight which emanated millions of light years ago while also seeing your friend in the (almost) present. How is possible that you could be seeing light from millions ans millions of years ago at the same time you are seeing light from the present? How can the present and the past co-exist?
March 14th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Photons, like airplanes, can arrive at the same point after departing different destinations at different times. I learned this in grade school physics. And after decades of being comfortable with physics, I am quite comfortable with the concepts. Photons are not a proxy for ‘past’ or ‘present’, they are simply particles.
No mystery there…yawn.
How many folks actually know what a photon is? How many know how long, on average, it takes a photon to escape from the sun and begin its 8-minute journey to earth to your eyes…if it emantes from the suns core? (hint: takes a long time to get out of the sun’s core. A very long time)
Wow…I can/could make it seem so mysterious and impenetrable to someone who has no grasp of astrophysics, cosmoslogy and math, let alone massless particles that travel at a constant speed in a vacuum but not within the chaos of a yellow sun’s core.
Ignorance = human belief of the relativity of “facts”.
Knowledge = accepting truths beyond individual or group human ignorance-generated “relativity”.
I use the word ignorance not as an insult or put-down.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I understand what you are saying and take no offense, but please consider the following:
It’s not what you know that counts, but instead what you know you can not know :).
Facts, in and of themselves are relative. Any physical property is relative. There is no such thing as “absolute” fact. Or can you give me one?
March 14th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
English…or if you lack an internet connection and cant access this post…does any of those limitations on you make that truth untrue?
No.
Impermanence, as my Zen buds say, “You are on your own journey. What others do, what they achieve, what they learn, or what they experience on their own journey can not be used as a substitute or accelerant for your journey. It can not be shared with you on your life path. What you learn, you learn. What you don’t, you don’t.
Westerner’s seem not to like this, hence the constant calls to ‘prove this to me’ or ‘share this with me’, or ‘convince me of this’.
I have no interest in that.
Good luck in your particular journey. Be glad and be grateful you have the opportunity to do so and that no one is denying you an opportunity to journey”
I love Zen Buddhism; it accepts that Life is neither fair nor equitable, nor inter-changeable.
I am finished here, Impermanence.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
the line: “English…thru untrue? No.” should have been erased.
Sorry for any confusion.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
“I love Zen Buddhism; it accepts that Life is neither fair nor equitable, nor inter-changeable.”
“Open your month and you have already lost it.”
Huang Po d. 850
I am finished here, Impermanence.
Enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
“On Darwin’s 200th birthday, only 39 percent of Americans believe in evolution.
Charles Darwin, who invented the theory of evolution, was born on Feb. 12, 1809. Marking the 200th anniversary of his Darwin’s birth, Gallup has a new poll out showing that “only 39 percent of Americans say they ‘believe in the theory of evolution,’ while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36 percent don’t have an opinion either way””
I’d put down big money to hear Joe Kernan or Rick Santelli explain the results of this poll.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
BR’s original point is quite valid. The only thing I find suprising is that the thread was completely hijacked…….atypical for the BP crowd isn’t it?
March 15th, 2009 at 12:43 am
@zitidiamond – Here’s a poll you may like:
The Harris Poll(r) #119, November 29, 2007
The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans
More People Believe in the Devil, Hell, and Angels Than Believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
That very large majorities of the American public believe in God, miracles, the survival of the soul after death, heaven, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Birth will come as no great surprise. What may be more surprising is that substantial minorities believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches, astrology, and reincarnation – the belief that they themselves were once another people. More than six in ten believe in hell and the devil. Overall, more people believe in the Devil, Hell and angels than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.
These are some of the findings of a Harris Poll of 2,455 U.S. adults conducted online by Harris Interactive(r) between November 7 and 13, 2007.
Interesting findings in this new Harris Poll include:
* 82 percent of adult Americans believe in God – unchanged since the question was last asked in 2005;
* Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (79%), heaven (75%), angels (74%), that Jesus is God or the son of God (72%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (69%), hell (62%), the devil (62%), and the virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary) (60%);
* Roughly equal numbers – both minorities – believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (42%) and creationism (39%);
* Sizable minorities believe in ghosts (41%), UFOs (35%), witches (31%), astrology (29%) and reincarnation (21%);
* While many of these numbers for people who hold these beliefs are the same or little changed from 2005, the overall trend is upwards with slightly more people believing in miracles, angels and witches than did so two years ago.
…
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=838
March 15th, 2009 at 1:00 am
@DL Said at 12:34 pm
“Evolution is the single best scientific explanation for how we got here”.
I agree with the foregoing statement. I also have no difficulty believing that we evolved from apes.
We DID NOT evolve from apes. Both apes and humans evolved from some common ancestor as two separate lines.
Re: Steve Forbes – I can only say a hearty THANK YOU that he did not become president of the USA.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:05 am
There is no such thing as “absolute” fact.
uhhhhh, is that an absolute fact?
March 15th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Excellent Barry.
That is the essence of successful trading….errr… “investing.”
March 15th, 2009 at 5:00 am
Hey Barry,
The monkey is described in the academic world by Thaler and Shefrin’s (1981) theory of self control, which modeled investors’ behavior exactly like you did.
It argues our mind has a ‘doer’, which is the primitive (or the monkey) and stronger part which makes the individual decisions, and a ‘planner’ which is the rational (but unfortunately weaker) part that tries to steer the doer’s actions. This part is responsible for things like “cut your losses and let your winners run”, which should protect us from our inconvenient instincts.
Shefrin and Statman (1985) later used this theory as part of their explanation of why we sell winners to early and ride losers to long.
Now I’m guessing your knowledge of behavioral finance probably exceeds mine (as I am still a student), but in case you missed these papers: It is all been written before and you’re not alone :-).
Thaler and Shefrin (1981): http://www.jstor.org/pss/1833317
Shefrin and Statman (1985): http://www.jstor.org/pss/2327802
March 15th, 2009 at 7:31 am
@zitidiamond: I think that a lot of the “non-belief” in Darwin’s theory stems from a lack of understanding of what consitutes a scientific theory. I have heard the “its just a theory” claptrap on TV as if a scientic theory was nothing more than someone’s opinion.
I theorize that the economy would have much less malinvestment if there was a flat tax with few or no deductions.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I wonder if your “monkey boy” comments will be deemed derogatory by the folks who were mad at the NY Daily News(or was it the post) over that cartoon? I can see the spin… “Ritholtz is a damn racist!”
March 15th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Editor Barry you initiated an interesting collection of threads this weekend.
How the Common Man Sees It – supplied in a thread “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!” … I had to run that over and over to get it
.. imo this one from Jesus has been in my mind (in simpler form) (Luke 17:1) … Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. … or my simpled down “better to drown oneself than harm a littleone (little-one .. who’s little)
and 2nd kudo to ya – thanks for the pickup CONcept on our bigPonzi of today .. maybe/maybe not
another good one (Mark 9:50) Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
or paraphrased by LedZeppelin .. “dazed and confused for so long its not true”
ps – to whom it may concern the exchange on Zen Buddhism was choiced for further study
pss – me thinks the sun is calling me to soak in it today
March 15th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
@ Greg0658 March 15th, 2009 at 10:47 am Says: “Editor Barry you initiated an interesting collection of threads this weekend…ps – to whom it may concern the exchange on Zen Buddhism was choiced for further study…”
I agree on the thread collection…I have to wonder if BR’s back-2-back posting of ‘Monkey Boy’ and ‘Smart People/Dumb Things” was simply coincidence or inspired. I’m going to push non-readers of TBP to at least read these two threads.
BTW, I was part of the singing duo on the Zen xchanges.
See you and others on future TBP threads.
-Avl Dao