For Hettinga's nose coke blowing about the virtues of coding: New York Times reports today: "James H. Simons, a mathematician and former Defense Department code breaker who uses complex computer models to trade, earned $2.8 billion. His flagship Medallion fund returned 73 percent." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16wall.html What could NSA do in the market with its acres of computers and thousands of cryptologists? To be sure, Simons might just be stealing data in the NSA way and covering it up with the tall tale. Financial cryptography is not be trusted.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> wrote:
... "James H. Simons, a gambler and quant fund derivative facade code maker who uses complex computer models to trade, earned $2.8 billion. His flagship Medallion fund returned 73 percent."
and next year (or maybe the one after that, or ... you get the idea) ... he blows up. viva las vegas!
What could NSA do in the market with its acres of computers and thousands of cryptologists?
not nearly as much as the fed or congress. NSA has big ears for spear fishing the shiny little targets; when you have the power to shift the foundation upon which the market(s) sit, you don't even need to aim that blunt force trauma instrument. reserve currency status can't buffer the sheer magnitude of fiat spewing forth in debt and circulation...
To be sure, Simons might just be stealing data in the NSA way and covering it up with the tall tale.
nassim taleb has an informative explanation. for every james simons there are two bear stearns.
Financial cryptography is not be trusted.
financial cryptography is only as useful as the monies it moves. fickle fiat fads are fools gold in any shape or suit. best regards,
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:38 PM, coderman <coderman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> wrote:
... "James H. Simons, a gambler and quant fund derivative facade code maker who uses complex computer models to trade, earned $2.8 billion. His flagship Medallion fund returned 73 percent."
and next year (or maybe the one after that, or ... you get the idea) ... he blows up. viva las vegas!
well, it didn't even take that long: " The current turmoil will likely lead to consolidation of the industry, with experts predicting the death of more than 1,100 funds this year. The ones that remain are likely to be mega funds with stronger balance sheets and the best fund managers. But the scale of the shake-up is reflected in the fact that even the largest players with over US$30 billion each in assets are wobbling. Examples include ... Renaissance Technologies, with a nearly 15 per cent decline... " http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_285800.html (James H. Simons == Renaissance Technologies)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Apr 16, 2008, at 11:00 PM, John Young wrote: Financial cryptography is not be trusted. :-) Clearly. Obvious to *any* moron. Or at least active readers of the New York Times, which, I suppose, is redundant these days... After all, John, markets can't exist without the state, right? So, what should "we" do? Pass *more* laws? Should "we" abolish hedge funds so the NSA and the USG doesn't take over the world? Obviously, your analysis, and that of other poli-punks, is that there's this giant lump of wealth in the world that never changes in size, that new wealth isn't made, and lost, all the time, and, moreover, that wealth itself is evil and should be evenly distributed so it's not so dangerous anymore... Notice Soros made as much as the Feared NSA-oid, and I'm sure Red George is a hedgie you would find, um, "Common Cause" with... In the meantime, physics causes finance, which, in turn, causes politics. Change that order, and you end up sounding like (with apologies to Howie Carr) one of those silly old men with a grey ponytails who wear winter clothes in summer --the one, like Madame deFarge, takes his knitting to all public meetings... John, I do believe your Official Weatherman "Columbia '68!" Souvenir Tin-Foil Hat is cocked a little too far to the left this evening. Those "capitalist" mind-rays could leak through if you're not careful. Cheers, RAH "If we could just a few more laws, we could all be criminals!" --Vinnie Moscaritolo -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 9.8.2.3005 wsBVAwUBSAdSzMUCGwxmWcHhAQHMcwf8DasSbNTvStwIqrDK/7cInpXkULq/N2v2 K6t0UzTDxdw2XONhSp4JLybnSE1X12bi0hbneoBpRZ+Ogw4hg4dy5E2SD5KJ+vJZ /dJeEktjcMtF7hKTimQUaOJiZUYyfm3Cl/E9l5YIJqN9QPWu6k4oHARk5J67u7Lp k7GdScyb30sCTVznwcXdwjs8Fp4SvM3zImcwVXVwQ2KazN9b4Bd9oQBaSVWXK837 K63ZUbzSCLTVqhWUI1stF34AC0FtzSHUCqFW7lkKcPm29+hG/ToxKe/IdvrJzeaK e7j4PJ5tEOY8xSfQ1UvpLBNkmU8glhlMM9b3L9Ww3sShPJ2XVgH1YQ== =48VO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Bob, That was kiss blown to see if you read this list. What's Tim May doing? Have all the cryptographers been re-shackled by the authorities they were destined to slavishly serve, dumped by the Cold War die-out, rejuvenated by GWOT? Your asskissing fan
On Apr 17, 2008, at 10:29 AM, John Young wrote:
That was kiss blown to see if you read this list.
Okay. No tongues, though. Yes, I'm still here on this list. In meatspace, I'm, um, composting away in Anguilla, actually. Just resting. Pining for the fjords, and all that. Says I'm "retired" on my visa extensions, like my wife's do. Somewhere on the way to Hilo, or Puna, or someplace, an unscrupulous real estate agent got us on a south facing veranda at sunset, and the next thing I know, I'm moving to Anguilla. Vince Cate, the self-described "last hacker standing" around here, would say hello, I'm sure. Used to be something like 20 cypherpunks around here once. Then one day the government sent around a "questionnaire" asking them, exactly, what they were *doing* here, and the planes couldn't leave local airspace fast enough. Hushmail went to Ireland, for instance...
What's Tim May doing?
Google is your friend, viz, <http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author%3Atim+author%3Amay&start=0&scoring=d&num=100&lr=lang_en&as_drrb=q&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=17&as_maxm=4&as_maxy=2008&safe=off&
though you might as well just google "up the chimneys with you", and get the same number of hits, I bet...
Have all the cryptographers been re-shackled by the authorities they were destined to slavishly serve, dumped by the Cold War die-out, rejuvenated by GWOT?
Apparently, for the time being, political cryptography is the only cryptography that matters... :-). Though there's an argument to be made (okay, I'm the only one making it...) that the closer transaction settlement time converges to instantaneity, the more the risk of identity tends toward infinity, but the trend towards identified-to-a-fare-thee-well transactions proceeds apace. "Know your customer", etc., is the watchword of the day. Might as well have some, um, lubricant, because Uncle's gonna be engaging in military proctology whether you want it or not. Yes, there's still an annual Financial Cryptography conference, and they went to Cancun (say no more...) this year. They were in Anguilla two years (see veranda, above...) ago, but things here are... pricey, now. In 2001, gov.ai had to stretch the runway to 5000 feet in order to keep American Airlines still landing (Embraer Jungle-Jets apparently) here. Then the bottom fell out of tourism that winter after 9/11. No Jungle-Jets. Gloom all around. But then something weird happened. It seemed like everyone with a long- range Gulfstream decided to land at the new stretched airport, and, hey, presto, the stars fall on Anguilla. A land boom, a golf-course with two on the way later, (Vince's original "million-dollar view for $450 a month" is now, apparently, worth $10mil, $10mil being the default price for a vacation home on a golf-course for those who fly in Gulfstreams...), .ai's got actual paved roads, an actual negative unemployment rate -- and illegal aliens :-) --, the national car is the Ford F150 pickup, the national occupation is concrete mason (as apposed to money-launderer), and the national bird is the concrete pumper crane. Anguilla's now crawling with official certified Gulfstream-flying moonbats, instead of, heh, Columbian pharmaceutical salesmen looking for a convenient Chubb safe to park their cash... So, libertarian paradise is now just paradise, know your customer, as it were. Meanwhile, the view's nice. In the meantime, come on down, John, JFK/SXM on JetBlue is chumpchange these days, and it's a big house, plenty of room. I'll keep the blender on for ya. We can argue the future of mankind on a beach, or by the pool, or on the aforementioned veranda.
Your asskissing fan
Well, dammit, that's more like it. Remember, no tongue. ;-) Cheers, RAH
I've wondered about this, and I have my doubts. Oh, not that they can't do it, but that they would. And not that they wouldn't, but like their intelligence they'd save it for a really rainy day. Like, wasn't 9/11 big enough for them to spill the beans on what they could do? Or maybe, in fact, some of the 'warnings' from FBI, etc.., in the months prior to 9/11 were actually leaks from NSA. For them to be monkeying around in those big leagues in such a way that it could matter, they'd have to be visible in the markets...I think. Then again, with dozens of shell companies all trading biggish volumes, they could possibly make it look like no one company was consistenly guessing in the right direction. And then of course, maybe they aren't shell companies, but having mucked about in financial circles for a while I tend to doubt they simply make a call to a big fund manager. On the other hand, here's a funny notion to play with: Bush needs money, calls up NSA. NSA makes some deals based on what they sniff. The deals are big enough (what with the war and all) that the dollar starts to take it up the culo. And here we are... -TD
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:00:49 -0400 To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net From: jya@pipeline.com Subject: Codebreaker Makes $2.8B in a Year
For Hettinga's nose coke blowing about the virtues of coding:
New York Times reports today:
"James H. Simons, a mathematician and former Defense Department code breaker who uses complex computer models to trade, earned $2.8 billion. His flagship Medallion fund returned 73 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16wall.html
What could NSA do in the market with its acres of computers and thousands of cryptologists?
To be sure, Simons might just be stealing data in the NSA way and covering it up with the tall tale.
Financial cryptography is not be trusted.
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participants (4)
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coderman -
John Young -
R.A. Hettinga -
Tyler Durden