Category Archives: Reading

Financial innovation, Rockefeller style

Posted by on April 13, 2013 No comments

Reading through papers and books of economic history of early financial innovations, I came across this nice little setup.

The year was 1899. Henry Rogers and William Rockefeller wanted to buy Anaconda Copper Company without the expenditure of a single dollar. Here’s how to do that:

  1. Rogers and Rockefeller gave a check for $39 million to Marcus Daly for the Anaconda properties, on the condition that he would deposit it in the National City Bank and leave it untouched for a specified period.
  2. They then set up a paper organization known as Amalgamated Copper Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, and caused Amalgamated to buy Anaconda — not for cash, but for $75 million in Amalgamated stock which was conveniently printed for the purpose.
  3. From the National City Bank, Rogers and Rockefeller now borrowed $39 million to cover the check they had given to Marcus Daly, and as collateral for this loan they used the $75 million in Amalgamated stock.
  4. They now sold the Amalgamated stock on the market (first haven touted it through their brokers) for $75 million.
  5. With the proceeds, they retired the $39-million loan from National City Bank, and pocketed $36 million as their own profit on the deal.

Simplicity itself, albeit with a fair amount of “staggeringly dishonesty,” as Robert L. Heilbroner writes. This story is from his excellent book, the Worldly Philosophers.

Cyprus deposit tax reading [updated]

Posted by on March 16, 2013 2 comments

Much has been written today on the deal from last night, and I don’t have anything to add, except to say that the deposit tax on small depositors is a very, very dangerous route to take… Here are the best links to explain why:

Will update. Links in ~chronological order. In pictures [hat tips Mark Dow and Aurelija Augulyte]:Graphed Cyprus deposit tax reading [updated]   Learn to swim Cyprus deposit tax reading [updated]

Happy Pi day!

Posted by on March 14, 2013 No comments

I didn’t know this was a thing, but it is awesome. Today is Pi day in the US (3.14) and Europe will have it’s Pi day on July 22 (22/7). It’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday today. Here’s Climateer with more:

We first used this on March 14, 2009:

Also known as Talk Like a Physicist Day. A reader emails:

image 807 Happy Pi day!

From: TalkLikeAPhysicist.com

Thanks doc!

Much more here:
March 14: It’s Albert Einstein’s Birthday! (it’s also Pi day) — Climateer

Things you shouldn’t do

Posted by on March 5, 2013 No comments

Climateer posted a wheninfinance gif from last year, noting market-on-close commentary. Wheninfinance’s original title in bold below. That happened at work last year. Bravo, indeed.

When someone decides to email every person employed at the bank:

tumblr m6rgavSWU81rpphqm Things you shouldnt do

How comments change the story

Posted by on March 3, 2013 No comments

In today’s NY Times, there’s an op-ed based on a recent paper.

The researchers did an experiment where two groups of people were exposed to the same news story, but with one reading comments in a civil tone, and the other group reading very rude comments. The substance was the same, but the tone was different.

They found that the group exposed to rude comments found the story itself much more polarising. This is definitely a subject worth considering in this world of blogs, twitter, facebook, and interaction.

Here’s the abstact from the paper:

Uncivil discourse is a growing concern in American rhetoric, and this trend has expanded beyond traditional media to online sources, such as audience comments. Using an experiment given to a sample representative of the U.S. population, we examine the effects online incivility on perceptions toward a particular issue—namely, an emerging technology, nanotechnology. We found that exposure to uncivil blog comments can polarize risk perceptions of nanotechnology along the lines of religiosity and issue support.

The story of Nikola Tesla

Posted by on February 10, 2013 No comments

The rise and fall of Nikola Tesla and his tower, from the Smithsonian Past Imperfect blog. A remarkable life, both in accomplishment and sadness. Here’s the end:

Nikola Tesla would go on to make news from time to time while living on the 33rd floor of the New Yorker Hotel. In 1931 he made the cover of Time magazine, which featured his inventions on his 75th birthday. And in 1934, the New York Times reported that Tesla was working on a “Death Beam” capable of knocking 10,000 enemy airplanes out of the sky. He hoped to fund a prototypical defensive weapon in the interest of world peace, but his appeals to J.P. Morgan Jr. and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went nowhere. Tesla did, however, receive a $25,000 check from the Soviet Union, but the project languished. He died in 1943, in debt, although Westinghouse had been paying his room and board at the hotel for years.

A good read, and yes — I know him mostly from Red Alert, too. Hat tip to Climateer.

If you only read one thing today…

Posted by on January 20, 2013 No comments

… it should be this comment piece by Will Hutton in the Guardian:

Davos man thrives while the rest of us pay for his excesses

Hat tip to Charlie.

PMs vs. cat. Cat wins

Posted by on January 15, 2013 No comments

From NPR (with a hat tip to AV FR), which passes on a story in the Guardian:

A bunch of investment managers invested in the best stocks they could find, while a cat named Orlando randomly chose stocks from a list. The cat won.

You want to hire or interview the cat? Too bad:

A spokeswoman for Orlando said he was not available to give an interview because of a claws in his contract.

Sunday reading

Posted by on January 6, 2013 No comments

Some longer pieces that I plan to read tomorrow.

What we’re reading

Posted by on December 25, 2012 No comments

Long read edition, for this christmas day: