A long time ago (in financial crisis terms), ozy_y2k and I had a discussion on the application of modeling to finance, and the potential implications of doing a lousy job. It's a new year, and people are starting to ask what happened ... they want to know how could so many smart, learned people have gotten everything so wrong. Joe Nocera provides a long piece on this very topic from last weekend's NYTimes Magazine. He introduces us to the world of the quants in a fashion which the... read more
