This time it’s different: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:41, 6 August 2020

The Jolly Contrarian’s Glossary
The snippy guide to financial services lingo.™

Index — Click the ᐅ to expand: Glossary

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Stiffen your sinews if you hear this one.

A laundry list of times everyone agreed it was different, but it wasn’t:

How you value businesses without reference to cashflow or profitability — © every investment banker ever, in the run-up to the dotcom bust in 2000
We have efficiently allocated risk to those best placed to bear it through credit derivatives — © every investment banker ever, in the run-up to the global financial crisis, 2004-8
Mark-to-market accounting of future income streams in a market that doesn’t exist yet is sensible — © Arthur Andersen^[1] Jeff Skilling and the crazy gang at Enron, continually up to October 2001
The Singularity is definitely going to happen, and the universe will wake up, rewriting the laws of physics as we know them etc. © Ray Kurzweil, 2005.
The machines are going to take over, breed us in slimy pods as battery fuel for Skynet which the machines will need because um they just will. Look! Chess-playing supercomputers! —© Daniel Susskind, A World Without Work

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 {{g}}Stiffen your sinews if you hear this one.
+A laundry list of times everyone agreed it was different, but it wasn’t:
+*The elimination of boom and bust — © Gordon Brown, April 2000.
+*How you value businesses without reference to cashflow or profitability — © every [[investment banker]] ever, in the run-up to the [[dotcom bust]] in 2000
+*We have efficiently allocated risk to those best placed to bear it through [[credit derivatives]] — © every [[investment banker]] ever, in the run-up to the [[global financial crisis]], 2004-8
+*Mark-to-market accounting of future income streams in a market that doesn’t exist yet is sensible — © [[Arthur Andersen]]<ref>Who? Ed.</ref> [[Jeff Skilling]] and the crazy gang at [[Enron]], continually up to October 2001
+*The [[Singularity]] is definitely going to happen, and the universe will wake up, rewriting the laws of physics as we know them etc. © {{author|Ray Kurzweil}}, 2005.
+*[[Software is eating the world]]: © Marc Andreessen, 2009
+*The machines are going to take over, breed us in slimy pods as battery fuel for Skynet which the machines will need because um they just will. Look! [[Chess]]-playing supercomputers!  —© {{author|Daniel Susskind}}, {{br|A World Without Work}}
 {{sa}}
 *[[The dog in the night time]]
 *[[Technological unemployment]]