Good article.
I think one of those geeks created a black hole that sucked all the $$$ out of Wall St.
We are told by the shills of hedge funds and crony capitalists that there is no reasonable way to separate investment from speculation and so we should not try.
They go on to argue that speculation actually helps and should even be encouraged, when in fact the latest economic calamity shows otherwise.
Quants who help venture capitalists to make reasoned investments, or who help corporations to properly price bonds, etc. should be praised.
Those that merely scan billions of financial transactions to come up with the financial equivalent of a card counting scheme should be sent back to the minors where their skills can be better used coming up with fantasy league player acquisition strategies.
Interesting article. Sometimes these guys are so smart they can’t see the forest for the trees.
I've never taken the models seriously because I have never found one that factors in key variables: the corruption, cheating, and constant rule-breaking.
Maybe it’s not relevant, but all I could think is that Stalin or Mao would have had these guys locked away in Siberia or the Gobi Desert, using them to design missiles or nuclear warheads.
Is the point of the article that as smart as these people may be, they are still just tools in the service of something they can’t control?
Here’s a news flash to all of the quants: you have spent your life studying models and developing models, but in the last year, it is been shown that YOUR MODELS AREN’T WORTH SQUAT.
You have wasted your lives on models that only worked when the market is going up. You would have bben better off devoting your lives to better society by working on alternative energy, national security, cure for cancer, etc. Instead, you are the Captain Hazelwoods of the financial markets.