Physics Envy on Wall Street?

A fascinating story about the fallacy behind the rigor of Wall Street Quants and regulators' feeble attempts to manage them.  John Breit, the former head of Risk Management at Merrill Lynch, explains why successful risk management requires human spies gathering intelligence more that quantitative models which try to ape the hard sciences like physics.  It also includes a damning portrayal of how disconnected and isolated the senior management of financial institutions are from the real risk taking activities of the firms they lead.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/uncovering-the-human-factor-in-risk-management-models/?smid=pl-share

As a member of Freelancers Union since 2003, I am pleased to see its success and growth.  This quote seems to sum it up: “It reminds me of the old guilds” — the precursors of modern-day labor unions — “that focused on workers’ individual autonomy, trying to build their own careers, with the backing of a collective organization to assist them,” says Janice R. Fine, a professor of employment relations at Rutgers University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/freelancers-union-tackles-concerns-of-independent-workers.html?smid=pl-share

Are We More Than Digital Breadcrumbs?

Data-Driven Societies:
A snippet in the NYT about an M.I.T. Media Lab Conference on the Data-Driven Society introduced me to Alex Pentland and his thoughts on how we can now capture the difference between our beliefs and our actual behavior. These "micro-patterns" have profound implications when we try to apply them. A great thought piece for those thinking about systems change through structures such as social impact bonds and fields like microfinance.  http://www.edge.org/conversation/reinventing-society-in-the-wake-of-big-data