I’ve been writing a lot of about college finances, most recently for Belt, and most of the stories of trouble colleges follow a predictable combination of enrollment dropoff and financial shortfall. The announced closing of Sweet Briar College in early 2015 deviated from this. Enrollment was declining, but the financial position was okay. What was… [Read More]
Blog
The Late, Great Chicago Climate Exchange
I’m doing a lot of research on derivatives markets for the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Options Trading, and it is fascinating how many different derivatives products are out there on an almost endless number of underlying assets and securities. One of the great experiments was the Chicago Climate Exchange. The Chicago Climate Exchange was founded… [Read More]
Calculus Made Easy, for Students and Options Traders
A while back, I interviewed a man who has degrees in both physics and economics, who taught economics for years and years, and who has great accomplishments in econometrics, the most quantitative branch of the field. Anyway, among other things, he mentioned a book that had been given to him in high school that he… [Read More]
See me talk about the City of Chicago’s finances
The City of Chicago’s finances are complicated, aren’t they? The city has pensions to pay, infrastructure to build, and children to educate. We all want stuff for free, which is a problem in collecting taxes. Back in 2015, I appeared on WYCC’s public affairs show, In The Loop. WYCC is no more, sold to help… [Read More]