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.

A slight detour....

A glance backward to the philosophers that spoke about economics or economists that were philosophers or, both - well, I remember Marx, Keynes and John Stuart Mill from university days.  Bertrand Russell had some asides as well, but, seemingly, his works are probably suited more to the everyday traders and brokers than the high-minded economists currently being consulted by Obama and the like regarding the current situation.  I do not mean to say Bertrand was not an intellectual with a capital I, no - he most certainly could run circles around most folks - but, his ideas generally drifted toward applied and theoretical mathematics, which I reckon would be a good start if one were a trader.  In that, perhaps a philosophical hedge funder (there must be such a thing) might be a good addition to the economic team of advisors Obama has formed.  As my Keynes was in need of a refresher and he seems to be the man of the day in the current crisis I've done a quick consultation with Wikipedia which has provided volumes of fun -- I almost felt like a student again.  Anyway, I read an awfully depressing and shockingly mirror-like-to-the-current-situation treatise on the Great Depression before drifting into more cheerful Keynes gossip, such as the fact that he was a homosexual, had a fantastic collection of contemporary art, and was charitable to Sadler's Wells and instrumental in establishing the British Arts Council.  Afterward, I skimmed through J.S. Mill and again, I was diverted -- by one of his teachers - a friend of his father - Jeremy Bentham, who had a "Happiness Principle" that was somewhat simplistic and made a bit more interesting by Mill.  Bentham was all for doing the thing that brought the  most happiness to the greatest number of people.  Mills was a bit of an intellectual snob and took this utilitarian thought apart and decided really, that, intellectual and moral pleasures outweighed, well, sex I think.   That can't be right.  I've been thoroughly derailed in a good way this morning - thoughts of economics have given way to visions of lusty homosexuals buying contemporary art and consulting Bertrand Russell about the stock market....

Far more fascinating than that market-that-crashed-again-yesterday and my children I think.