Is it just me, or is Paul Wilmott Full of Himself?

[Jim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed2FWNWwE3I

I just watched The Alchemsts of Wall Street. It was pretty entertaining. But I couldn't help but feel annoyed by how Paul Wilmott tries to talk about how he supposedly warned the planet about potential mathematician-led financial meltdowns.

Then why in the world is he training thousands of potential quants through his overpriced certificate program? If he was seriously concerned, I'd expect that he'd use his voice to shape up legislation.

He makes himself look like an attention whore.

 

[joel_b]

http://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/quants-the-alchemists-of-wall-street.3886/

 

[pruse]

I just watched The Alchemsts of Wall Street. It was pretty entertaining. But I couldn't help but feel annoyed by how Paul Wilmott tries to talk about how he supposedly warned the planet about potential mathematician-led financial meltdowns.

Then why in the world is he training thousands of potential quants through his overpriced certificate program? If he was seriously concerned, I'd expect that he'd use his voice to shape up legislation.

He makes himself look like an attention whore.

He's of the belief not that math is bad for finance, but that how you use it can be. It's like the saying: guns don't kill people, people kill people.

 

[Tsotne]

I just watched The Alchemsts of Wall Street. It was pretty entertaining. But I couldn't help but feel annoyed by how Paul Wilmott tries to talk about how he supposedly warned the planet about potential mathematician-led financial meltdowns.

Then why in the world is he training thousands of potential quants through his overpriced certificate program? If he was seriously concerned, I'd expect that he'd use his voice to shape up legislation.

He makes himself look like an attention whore.

It is inevitable that overwhelming invasion of mathematics in finance will take lead role in financial field as a whole. It is very interesting short talks in "The Midas Formula" at the end of the documentary how Alan Greenspan and one two congressman talk about the dependence of finance on mathematical modeling. Mathematics is pushing finance to even more sophistication which Alan Greenspan talks about is the threat that many people with no mathematical skills just don't understand what really happens around them. It is getting the 2nd world on earth where only mathematicians survive.

http://slquants.com/articles/77-intro-math-approcah-to-qf.html
Nothing new here, but we can extend the logic to other fields of finance as well.

P.S. I really wonder how one can imagine weakening the dependence of finance on mathematical modeling. Just legalize using math formulas as felony or what?!

 

[DominiConnor]

Having studied under Paul before it all went tits up, he was saying pretty similar things before.

...and yes people kill people, not guns.

Americans more frequently kill each other with furniture than Europeans kill each other with guns, knives, terrorism, poison and every other type of murder weapon put together. At various points in time most US cities have passed a point where a young man is more likely to be shot on the streets of his own town than if he were a combat soldier where the USA happened to be fighting at the time. Being sentenced to death in America increases your life expectancy.

Americans want to kill each other, the evidence is quite compelling. Its citizens are better armed than some national armies, and a politician is committing career suicide if he even suggests quite mild reductions in the weapons available to American children. Take the guns away and they'd spend more on rat poison, knives and baseball bat sales would rocket. This a country where supermarkets sell flashlights designed to be used as clubs.

Swiss citizens on the other hand are required by law to keep at home rather better weapons than issued to US ground troops, yet murder is really rare.

 

[Barny]

Being sentenced to death in America increases your life expectancy.

That is simply not true. It was true if you were a gang member in Chicago selling crack-cocaine in the late 80's/early 90's, but that's a pretty specific societal function to have.

 

[pruse]

That is simply not true. It was true if you were a gang member in Chicago in the late 80's/90's, but that's a pretty specific societal function to have.

I have a feeling he was being half-sarcastic about all that. That statement is pretty funny though.