Thursday, May 29, 2008

Libor-and problems with all surveys

The Libor controversy is in full swing: story here.

Banks are "polled" to determine what rates they would lend to each other to arrive at Libor. They lie.

This is a problem with all surveys. People say a lot of things which they dont do, or dont mean. Actions speak louder than words. The only way to determine a loan rate is to actually ask for a loan-or look at a previous trade price of the loan interest rate. Otherwise, it has no meaning.

This is a general problem in all surveys-psychology, sociology, etc. are full of these. Most give no information; Humans don't know themselves that well; inspite of their well developed vocabularies and "rational" talk. We are all animals-and mostly clueless about what we do and why we do it.

A good narrative of why I did something is always there---but prove to me that it is the reason? e.g. I want to eat melons today---so I go and buy a melon and eat it. The animal model simply says---the body needed melon, triggered the conscious mind to make a statement that I want a melon, and made the body go out and get melon. The desire is unconscious-but the actor thinks she is actually making a conscious decision to eat a melon.

This is also called attitude-behavior discrepancy in psych circles; we are full of it.

Sanjay

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Monday, May 26, 2008

When they have nothing to say...

Here's a quote which appeared today:
""This is going to be another difficult spring," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "I think we are at the beginning of the end of the housing downturn, but it is going to be a long and painful end."
Full story here.

Duh!

If you have nothing intelligent to say--just don't say anything!

-Sanjay

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