Chance News 107

From ChanceWiki
Revision as of 19:40, 19 September 2015 by Cibes (talk | contribs) (→‎Quotations)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Quotations

"Mr. Slemrod [a public finance economist at the University of Michigan] also urged economists to talk in terms of ranges rather than point estimates when discussing how taxes affect the economy, to reflect the fact that these figures are simply educated guesses. But he understands why they don’t. 'Washington wants a number,' he said. “Washington doesn’t like confidence intervals.'"

in: How economists forecast growth under Jeb Bush? By guessing, New York Times, 14 September 2015

Submitted by Bill Peterson


“If ten thousand people flip a coin, after ten flips the odds are there will be someone who has turned up heads every time. People will hail this man as a genius, with a natural ability to flip heads. Some idiots will actually give him money. This is exactly what happened to LTCM. But it’s obvious that LTCM didn’t know [bleep] about risk control. They were all charlatans.”

Nassam Nicholas Taleb, cited in The Quants, by Scott Patterson, 2010

Submitted by Margaret Cibes

Forsooth

The last edition of Chance News included a story on Lightning and the lottery, which is reminiscent of the following greeting card:

Lottery lightning.jpeg

Submitted by Alan Shuchat

Item 1

Item 2