Ben Hunt had another superlative post on
Epsilon Theory. The following quote is spot-on. No further comment is needed. 3229431
I
mean, this is what it's come to, right? Where smirking Ph.Ds who have never
spent a day of their adult lives outside of the governmental or academic womb,
where earringed, pony-tailed apparatchiks who have never managed a dime, who
have never counseled a retired couple trying to live on their savings, now
unilaterally and without limitation make political decisions that determine the
fate of that retired couple. Not just in Sweden, but everywhere in the world.
Yeah,
I shouldn't mention the whole earring and pony-tail thing, but you know what?
It's an intentional statement of identity, an identity that I recognize from my
decade as a political science professor, an identity that not only elevates
elegant theory over practical experience, but more than that, dismisses practical experience as
inherently inferior to the tenets of an academic faith. It's the hubris, the
overweening pride that oozes from this photo that makes me cringe.
We've
seen this movie before, and it always ends in tears. There's a reason that
Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and nowhere is pride more dangerous than
when it comes to financial "innovation." What the Gaussian copula was
to securitized mortgages in 2008, negative rates are to monetary policy in
2016.
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