Tim Geithner

Despite the post's title, I will not try to pass sweeping judgement on Tim Geithner's soon-ending tour of duty as Treasury Secretary. It seems like every newspaper, magazine and blog has done just that already so I probably have nothing new and/or intelligent to add.

This interview of him by Lords of Finance's - a decent book, although I remember it as a bit confusing/confused at times - author Liaquat Ahamed in the New Republic is interesting in that he answers some questions in a less politically correct and less guarded way than one would expect in an "exit interview", although still couched in fairly diplomatic language. Just maybe, Tim Geithner's book (because, surely, there will be a book) will make for more original/informative reading than most of the books written so far by some of the actors of the 2007 - ???? financial and economic crises.

Excerpts:

[...]  

LA: Was the talk about “fat cat bankers” counterproductive? 

TG: I’m biased but I felt that in the basic strategy that the President embraced and that we put into effect, we did something that was incredibly effective for the broad interest of the economy and the financial system. I feel the President’s rhetoric over that period of time was very moderate relative to the populist rage sweeping across the country. And I never quite understood why the financial community took such offense at what was such moderate rhetoric relative to what we have seen in other periods in history. 

[...] 

LA: Now you’ve had a pretty full four years as Treasury Secretary. What’s been the hardest and most frustrating part of the job? 

TG: [...] I knew with a fair degree of confidence by the summer of ’09 that the cumulative actions we took, on top of what Paulson and Bernanke did, was going to work. I was very confident about that by that time. Even though we still had a long, rough road ahead of us. 

The most frustrating part of this work, but in some ways it’s the most consequential, is how effective you can be in relaxing the political constraints that exist on policy. You can see that most compellingly now in the fiscal debate. Paulson before us and the President were very successful during the crisis in getting a very substantial amount of essential authority essential to resolving the crisis. But it has been very hard since then to get out of the American political system more room for maneuver both on near-term support for the economy, as well as reforms that would lock in a sustainable fiscal path. That is the most frustrating thing, to get the political system to embrace better policies for the country. 

[...]

Update 02/09/2013: There will indeed be a book!

01/18/2013 Session

No trades.

Standing order for 01/22/2013 - 01/25/2013 sessions:

Buy YMH13 @13,502 with 13,484 stop and 13,538 take-profit.

(Weekly Pivot Point @13,513)

[ For some background and a disclaimer, please read this post and especially this post. For a more general disclaimer, read the section at the bottom of the blog. ]

01/17/2013 Session

One trade:

Sold YMH13 @13,498, stopped out @13,517; P&L: - 19 points.

[ For some background and a disclaimer, please read this post and especially this post. For a more general disclaimer, read the section at the bottom of the blog. ]

01/14/2013 - 01/16/2013 Sessions

No trades.

Standing orders for 01/14/2013 - 01/17/2013 sessions:

Buy YMH13 @13,302 with 13,284 stop and 13,338 take-profit.

(Weekly S1 support @13,298, weekly Pivot Point @13,367)

Sell YMH13 @13,498 with 13,516 stop and 13,462 take-profit.

(Weekly R1 resistance @13,502)

[ For some background and a disclaimer, please read this post and especially this post. For a more general disclaimer, read the section at the bottom of the blog. ]

01/11/2013 Session

No trades.

Orders for 01/14/2013 session:

Buy YMH13 @13,302 with 13,284 stop and 13,338 take-profit.

(Weekly S1 support @13,298, weekly Pivot Point @13,367)

Sell YMH13 @13,498 with 13,516 stop and 13,462 take-profit.

(Weekly R1 resistance @13,502)

[ For some background and a disclaimer, please read this post and especially this post. For a more general disclaimer, read the section at the bottom of the blog. ]

Behavioral Economics Newest Enthusiastic Convert

I might be unfair here: maybe David Brooks, the New York Times' main "useful conservative", has been bullish on Behavioral Economics for a long time, unbeknownst to most of his readers. Strangely, I don't remember ever reading a column of his mentioning the subject (then again I can't say that I read all of his columns; actually it could be said that I very rarely read any of his columns, for some reason I forget just now).

At any rate, I respect him all the more for writing a column embracing Behavioral Economics wholeheartedly and even bemoaning the fact that its techniques aren't used more widely and for much more ambitious aims than just, say, gently nudging people to eat better, exercise more or stop smoking. Ambitious as in:

[...] How do we get people to restrain government commitments now so that debt down the road won’t be so ruinous? How do we calculate the multiplier effects of tax cuts or spending increases among different subgroups of the population, or under different emotional conditions? How do we rig the context of budget negotiations so participants can actually come to a deal? How are people in different cultures likely to react to drone strikes? How do we structure sanctions against Iran to cause the greatest psychic humiliation? [...]

Say what? Oops, I think I've been had! Now I remember why I don't read David Brooks so much.

MOOCs

I am a fairly recent user of Coursera, a leading Massive Open Online Course provider. I have started but not finished (which is, I understand, what happens to the "massive" majority of people who sign up) a few classes on statistics and programming. I am, however, trying to hang in there for the excellent Introduction to Computational Finance and Financial Econometrics by University of Washington's Professor Eric Zivot.

There is a lot of hype along with some controversy (for an overview, read this New York Times article for example) over this MOOC phenomenon, one that has only very recently reached critical mass (no pun intended here) and gained media attention. I find this post from the Simply Statistics blog sheds a welcome no-nonsense (which is what you'd expect from a Statistician) light on this new approach to teaching and learning:

[...] Top researchers end up at top universities but being good at research does not necessarily mean you are a good teacher. Furthermore,  the effort required to be a competitive researcher leaves limited time for class preparation. To make matters worse, within a university, faculty have a monopoly on the classes they teach. With few incentives and  practically no competition it is hard to believe that top universities are doing the best they can when it comes to classroom instruction. By introducing competition, MOOCs might change this. [...]

01/07/2013 - 01/10/2013 Sessions

No trades.

Standing order for 01/07/2013 - 01/11/2013 sessions:

Buy YMH13 @13,152 with 13,134 stop and 13,194 take-profit.

(Weekly Pivot Point @13,155)

[ For some background and a disclaimer, please read this post and especially this post. For a more general disclaimer, read the section at the bottom of the blog. ]