All in the head....

This week Missmarketcrash has been mired in derivatives and trying to channel her inner Bertrand Russell.  All a failure of course as Missmarketcrash is not terribly mathematically inclined, but, the exotic sounding iTraxx Crossover index is making the news this week as it is going through a bit of a hysterical spell and Missmarketcrash can sympathize.  Hysterical spells have been Missmarketcrash's speciality for the past few months - with tears a go-go bursting out at the smallest things.  Mostly these moments have been directed at the process of switching child number one to state school, rather than keeping him wrapped up in the cozy comforts of the private one which taught him violin, how to hold a fork and to look someone in the eye whilst shaking hands.  Alas, Missmarketcrash thinks child number one still will have a chance at understanding the iTraxx Crossover index should he choose to when he grows up.  Stick with that incomprehensible leap for a moment.  Both Bertrand Russell and J.S. Mill were home-educated which is essentially the way one must plow forward if your child is in the state system in inner city London.  Last night we read Samuel Beckett  together --to my delight, child number one (who is 7) enjoyed the story of the stone sucker and the mathematics involved with trying to suck 16 stones and switching them amongst four pockets and one mouth....I chose Beckett for our reading as child number one was writing a story about being bored and the futility of existence which he thought was hilariously funny.  So, Beckett made sense.  Which brings me back to this iTraxx Crossover index.  I still do not understand it completely, but, I understand it enough to spare you an explanation lest you wander off and never come back.  So, to put it simply, the iTraxx Crossover index is channelling its inner Beckett and reflecting the futility, the hopelessness and the loss of faith in anything restoring things back to where they were.  Now...we must all climb inside the head of a seven year old and try to find this all hilariously funny.