Finally sent in my tax return today. Unfortunately, for some idiotic reason, nonresident aliens in the US cannot file their taxes online. I have half a mind to charge the postage to the IRS.
The catharsis of finishing off my taxes was unfortunately interrupted by a rather annoying discussion at dinner - another instance of loud, emphatic ignorance confident about their knowledge of finance. "Bankers are evil.. they contribute nothing to society.. the whole of Wall Street is ethically wrong[sic]... they produce nothing.." - etc., etc., etc.
The exact workings of the financial crisis were then explained to me - it never ceases to amaze me that people are ready to believe that they have perfectly understood something that eluded some of the best minds in the world. Very, very few people can claim to understand the recent crisis - a few central bankers, a couple of professors and doctoral students at Yale and Chicago, and perhaps some people at the US Federal Reserve. That's it.
I, being the utter imbecile that I am, was foolish enough to argue. I should have known that this particular variety of self-assured ignorance comes accompanied - almost invariably - by an ego that is incapable of handling any opinion contrary to the first one that it accepts. Confronting such a person is a nuclear option; one must tell them that they are utterly and completely wrong. And doing so is difficult - one must decide to tear down someone else's ego in public. I quickly changed tack and started talking about something else. Phew.
I'm going to try and write a post describing the financial crisis in a couple of days. It will likely be an amateurish attempt, but I do want to put my ideas - rather, the ideas I have gleaned from my conversations with Andrew Sinclair - down on paper.
For now, Adios!
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