Ehh wrong. I misrepresent myself on this forum on purpose, so that it's not obvious to dox me which people have threatened to do before elsewhere. Not only did I go to an elite school, but I graduated in the top of the class, without attending a majority of the time. To go from an undergrad to PhD was an exercise in hierarchy. I was recommended to go directly to PhD by my statistics professor with whom I had done some research in undergrad, and found problems in his textbooks. Some of it was due to the raw talent, but a lot of it was due to the fact that we just plain liked each other. We are still in touch. I also worked in trading at a very prestigious hedge fund which mainly hires from elite schools, therefore it would be impossible for me to get into said fund without an elite school on my resume. There it is. Now if I say I didn't go to grad school, despite being recommended to do so, you say "GOTCHA" you have no skin in the game. But actually, I did. I spent a lot of time talking to PhD candidates who uniformly said that it's a waste of time and to get a masters degree instead (I have two). But what you're looking to do is establish hierarchy. You're such a blatant IYI that it's almost hilarious if it weren't so sad.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/debt-elephant-middle-class-sitting-room/ Seems like the UK intelligentsia are up to their eyeballs in debt (sign me up for the masters in finance...it's the only way to roll!) On second thoughts, sign me up to old Larrys school of finance, this guy buries his cash in the back yard Way to go Larry! "Never a borrower or lender be." Wise words indeed
Dude sorry, again there's some pretty big internal contradictions in your own posts that call that all into question. Not least of all is this lack of basic logic that anyone with even an English undergrad would have let alone someone who is supposedly some kind of "raw talent" in statistics. Maybe attending classes wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all? -Back in 2010 you were, according to you, almost 30 and "My trading background is limited to following the stock markets for about 10 years and investing in stock of companies who deal with essentials like food. Day trading is new to me. Well, except I know someone who lost it all day trading." https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/noob-style.212219/#post-3039390 -In 2017 you pop up with this nugget "Our "traders" were people who just watched screens while the coders did the real work. I read recently that programmers will need to register as securities traders soon. This is the reality right now." referring to that "very prestigious hedge fund" where you "worked in trading". (https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/nooby-mcnoob-becomes-a-quant.307995/) Now why would one refer to our "traders" in quotes and third person if you were a trader? You also say in that same thread "I can't provide any advice for non-quants or would-be quants because I am not good enough to say that I am a quant." and then continue to ask very basic questions about trading that even I, who don't claim to have "worked in trading" at a "very prestigious hedge fund" know off the top of my head. So you clearly weren't a trader and you weren't a quant, what exactly did you do at this "very prestigious hedge fund"? Most likely write pricing software I'm guessing? -In that same thread in 2017 you announce that you "recently got accepted into a Masters program at a top 10 university for computer science (Artificial Intelligence)" Assuming you started in the fall as usual and blazed through that bad boy in 18 months, that would put you graduating....about now. But I'm confused, because you just told us all "I also worked in trading at a very prestigious hedge fund which mainly hires from elite schools, therefore it would be impossible for me to get into said fund without an elite school on my resume." Was there another elite school on your resume? But let's say you're not embellishing anything, you're exactly what you say. Are you seriously telling me that your presumably computer science undergrad degree at an "elite school" "put too much emphasis on what they know and not enough emphasis on what they don't know." I did an undergrad EE degree from one of the service academies, I don't even know how a technical program like mine or your presumably equally technical degree could possibly have that flaw? It's nonsensical. And your Artificial Intelligence degree from a "top 10 university", did that "put too much emphasis on what they know and not enough emphasis on what they don't know."? Again that's really not credible in any technical field, but especially not that one. Or are you saying that economics degrees (or in my case an MBA) from elite universities, which you clearly do not hold, "put too much emphasis on what they know and not enough emphasis on what they don't know." Which leads us back to basic logic and my original point about your internal contradictions. If you don't have an economics degree or MBA from an elite university, you know fuck all about what they emphasize or don't, and have zero actual experience or "skin in the game". Yet you insist that you know better than those of us who actually attended those programs what they emphasize? A characteristic that you've said is the definition of "IYIs"? And in the same sentence you claim these folks with actual real experience are the "IYIs"? Are you fucking serious?
Basic reading comprehension would tell you that I obviously throw in enough to throw you off. But the facts are: 1) you have a lot of time on your hands 2) probably a small penis 3) nothing is super contradictory. I throw in just enough to throw you off. Which you, due to being an IYI, must take literally because anything else implies there is something... That you don't know. I finished the degree in 12 months if you must know.
WTF does penis size have to do with anything? Project much? If it makes one an "IYI" to observe and point out blatant contradictions then sure, definitely an "IYI". But again, you've done a great job not addressing a single point I made, so one can conclude only that you're incapable of doing so. And you're apparently a fraud, except that's OK because you're making shit up to "throw us off". Most importantly the giant internal contradiction you just can't resolve....you haven't actually experienced what is taught in elite university economics programs but know better than those who have taken them what they teach. But you're not the "IYI", it's the guy who points out your lack of experience in a something you're criticizing who is. Alrighty then.
"As far as economists go, their track record is failure after failure." That must've been the other nooby mcnoob. As an economist, and one who has bitched and moaned about the policy-wise maladroitness of things like "student debt" and "treble-Pain&Suffering in medical malpractice" in the 80s and "firing all the Iraqi military will kill their society" and "housing debt outside of FHA standard 30% GAI is a baddddd idea" in the '00s, from the *simplest* application of classroom basics -- I find your statement hilarious. Ignorant -- and from reading some of your other invective, bile-laced screeds, practiced ignorance -- but hilarious nonetheless. In a decade or so, we'll look back at the economic horror show that is Trump-o-nomics, and blame "the economists" all over again. Yet the newly-minted Ph.D.s who taught me econ, finance, and stat all ended up at Princeton, Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, George Mason..... Not exactly second-run schools. And I can tell you that, were these departments *ANYTHING* like what Taleb describes, they'd have been laughed off the university grounds, muy pronto. I know that such places *exist*, but a quick look at their faculty publications -- the number of and the journal cites -- *quickly* separates the sharp cookies from the also-ran -- Names like JET, JPE, QJE, AER and Econometrica come to mind. And that's not even nibbling at finance. But if there's a dozen top-flight journals? There are a thousand obscure titles out there -- and these are where the IYI will "publish" the same title 13 times. This is not a hard calculus, and Taleb's chapter is hyperbole to the point of being a lie. And there are idiots in all professions (in case nobody noticed) -- but top flight econ departments don't tolerate them very well. That is all.