The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient read more »

On the evening of June 24, 2014, I suffered a heart attack. In this post I’ll describe what should have happened that night. In my next post I’ll describe what actually happened. After that we’ll consider why there was such a difference between the two, and what the implications might be – for you, my readers, not for me. read more »

Part One. Okay, we all know about the appalling behavior – fraud upon fraud – of the large financial institutions that either caused the global financial crisis or (most charitably) made it much worse. But let’s forget all that. Live and let live. Everybody makes mistakes. That was then and this is now. read more »

I was flying home from San Francisco not long ago, leafing through the Financial Times, when a particular juxtaposition of articles caused me to order another martini. The first article reported that the S&P 500 Equity Index had hit an all-time (nominal) high. The second article, not even referencing the first, reported that market volatility – the Fear Index – had hit a new low (since 2007). read more »