links for 2008-11-17

"[T]he mathematical concepts related to the current financial crisis leave over 95 percent of our population completely baffled. If your Ivy League education didn’t prepare you to understand the following, please ask for your money back."

It’s really sad how many steps you need to go through to get halfway decent graphs out of Excel.

"[I]n 1991, when I was the intern, the bulk of the denomination’s Wall Street investments lost money. So that 3.1 percent — and the 4.5 percent over all from the rest of the alternative investments portfolio — was looking pretty good. Thanks to George Bailey, the intern beat the markets."

"I’m sure that there are some devotees of central planning out there somewhere. But for the most part, those of us who reject free market fundamentalism do so not because we fail to recognize that market economies are generally best, but because we think that this, like most general principles, has exceptions."