Friday, May 6, 2016

Summer Reading List

Science/Mathematics/Medicine
The Big Picture by Sean Carroll
Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World by Lisa Randall
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count by Ken Ono and Amir D. Aczel

Globalization
Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna
From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization through Ten Extraordinary Lives by Jeffrey E. Garten
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First by Frank Trentmann
Free Trade under Fire (4th Edition) by Douglas A. Irwin

Financial Crisis
Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance by John Kay
Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance by Adair Turner
The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy by Mervyn King
The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath by Ben S. Bernanke
Europe's Orphan: The Future of the Euro and the Politics of Debt by Martin Sandbu 
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
New Old World by Pallavi Aiyar 

US Politics
Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government--and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency by William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe

Fiction – Small Town Americana
Everybody's Fool: A novel by Richard Russo
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Are Hedge Funds Overrated?

The Economist argues that hedge funds may be overrated:
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21698273-hedge-funds-havent-delivered-their-promise-losing-bet

Crony Capitalism – A Global Problem

An interesting read:

Related chart –
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/05/daily-chart-2

International Monetary Economics – Interesting Items

Harvard economist recommends EM central banks to acquire gold reserves instead of hard currency reserves:

Yanis Varoufakis imagines a new Bretton Woods:

ECB decides to ditch the 500 euro note
Related: http://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2015/09/are-we-headed-towards-cashless-future.html

Zimbabwe’s currency challenge

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Climate Change and Water Shortages

MENA region may become uninhabitable for humans if temperatures continue to rise:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/04/climate-change-could-make-north-africa-and-middle-east-uninhabitable.html

World Bank estimates the economic impact (and its not a pretty picture):

Jimmy Kimmel’s Brilliant Piece on Climate Change:

Monday, May 2, 2016

FINTECH and the Future of Finance