A.I.G. Finds a Major Foe in Ex-Chief

Few people who know Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman and chief executive of the American International Group, thought he would go quietly. Now it is clear he is not going anywhere.

A recent spate of lawsuits between A.I.G. and C. V. Starr, one of two highly capitalized private companies that Mr. Greenberg controls, shows that Mr. Greenberg, who is 80, will do more than just use Starr's $22 billion worth of A.I.G. stock to build a private equity giant. He will also compete head-on with A.I.G

Behavioral Finance

One of the classes in which I am now enrolled is Behavioral Finance. This is the utilization of theories from psychology to explain patterns in the stock market (it can be used for other markets as well, but we've been chiefly dealing with stocks thus far).

This is in oppostion to most financial theory which assumes that the people taking part in the economic interactions are rational actors. The main thrust of the course so far has been calling doubt upon the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), which is one of the big theories in conventional finance. There are 3 forms to the EMH, with varying levels of predictions. Much of the evidence presented in class seems to contradict all three forms.

For a good intro to finance in general, I'd recomend my textbook from my intro course: Principles of Corporate Finance.

The texts for this class are: Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance by Andrei Shleifer and Beyond Greed and Fear by Hersh Shefrin.

Here are some other books on the topic.

What's in a name?

What is Hermetic Logisitics?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary (via http://www.answers.com)

her·met·ic adj.

• Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air.
• Impervious to outside interference or influence: the hermetic confines of an isolated life.
• Of or relating to Hermes Trismegistus or the works ascribed to him.
• Having to do with the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical.

lo·gis·tics n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

• The aspect of military operations that deals with the procurement, distribution, maintenance, and replacement of materiel and personnel.
• The management of the details of an operation.

In reality, hermetic and logistics are just my two favorite words. I love words with three or more syllables that end in "ic". Agnostic. Anthromorphic. Fantastic.

It's a nice benefit that the words happen to mean airtight operation. In reality this is anything but.

What's this all about?

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to write about yet. Right now I'm thinkin about politics, business, technology, philosophy, or whatever funny/interesting things happen in my life.

I've had a few web pages in the past, but all of the hosts I've used are now defunct. It's a little daunting starting without a clear goal, but the fact that I'm the only one reading for now makes things a bit easier.

I've long planned on starting a website that has a format similar to http://slashdot.org with topics similar to those covered by the New York Times' Dealbook newsletter (business, M&A, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, law, finance...). This site may eventually morph into that format, but no firm plans for now.

Test first post

This is the first post