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Tonight I graduate from a years-long MBA program that I’m ready to be over. Yesterday I wrote about the knowledge problem and how difficult it is to accurately predict what will happen in the future, especially when using statistics and data. Biases and incentives Unfortunately, the general population—and

More importantly than the time and valuation problems mentioned yesterday, the complicated nature of models like the DCF or those in new Keynesian macroeconomics, or what “value” or “money” even is, brings to bear how difficult it is to properly predict the real world on which many of these assumptions

At six o’clock Wednesday evening I’ll walk across the stage to receive a diploma for an MBA in finance from the University of Texas at Dallas. Over the past two and a half years, while working full-time and taking classes full-time, I’ve read books, watched lectures, met

In the last column, inflation was the top story. It continues to be a top story, but for now we’ll focus on the other mandate of the Federal Reserve and an important component of our economy: labor. The employment kind. Over the last few months, workers have reconsidered their

This week I started writing a new column for a magazine called Common Good, “a place for thoughtful commentary on and stories about the diverse people and ideas shaping faith, work, economics.” The column is called “Quick Notes on the Economy,” where I try to summarize in a few hundred

The talk of the town centers on inflation. The Wall Street Journal reports estimates of over 5 percent in the coming months. For many of us, we see these headlines and we have a general awareness that inflation is bad, but that’s about it. So what are we talking

Experts say that the top 10 percent of United States income earners have only grown richer over the last several decades. This has led many to criticize wealthier Americans for “taking” from poorer Americans. They show you charts like these in the New York Times that presumably prove the point,

Last night, I was on a Zoom call to pray for my Bible study leader’s health. He’s in the hospital on a ventilator, sick with covid. We prayed for a miracle. But I couldn’t help but think that the miracle happened a year ago when scientists used

Financial professionals are paid to predict the future. The challenge, as someone once said, is that making predictions is hard, especially about the future. Any future event is uncertain, and uncertainty brings risk, which is why the value of a dollar is worth more today than a dollar in the

New York City has GPS coordinates of 40° 43' 50.1960'' N and 73° 56' 6.8712'' W. But that doesn’t tell you much about the place. From those numbers you don’t see rays of sunset painted across an old church, you