Author

Rick Bookstaber 28 posts 0 comments

Rick Bookstaber is currently working in Washington as Senior Policy Adviser to the Financial Stability Oversight Council and Senior Policy Adviser at the SEC. Before the current stint, Rick worked at Bridgewater Associates, ran the Quantitative Equity Fund at FrontPoint Partners and was in charge of risk management at Moore Capital Management. In investment banking, Rick was in charge of firm-wide risk and a member of Salomon Brothers' Risk Management Committee. Rick also spent ten years at Morgan Stanley, designing derivatives, doing proprietary trading, and concluding as the firm's first market risk manager. Rick is the author of four books and scores of articles on finance including A Demon of Our Own Design. Bookstaber received a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.

Markets

The Volatility Paradox

Rick Bookstaber Dec 12, 2011

Volatility tends to drop when market risk is building up and leverage is rising, luring investors into complacency. Indeed, the lower volatility justifies investors taking on more leverage; if volatility has dropped by a third, why not take…

Political Economy

Managing the 99 Percent

Rick Bookstaber Nov 30, 2011

The McCourtny Consulting Group: We are witnessing a simmering backlash in the face of the widening class distinction. It is wise to address the fundamental issues behind the backlash and consider approaches to deal with the problem,…

Economy

Class Warfare and Revolution (Circa 1850)

Rick Bookstaber Nov 10, 2011

By Rick Bookstaber In a recent post I discuss six policies that spurred the Industrial Revolution in England – opening up immigration, weakening the guilds, investing in infrastructure, privatizing agricultural land, forcing a move to new…

Political Economy

Occupy Wall Street, Social Unrest and Income Inequality

Rick Bookstaber Oct 21, 2011

We are seeing the specter of instability in the growing protests of income inequality, economic distress of the middle class, and economic and political power of the very wealthy. There is Occupy Wall Street in the U.S., and similar…

Political Economy

What can we learn from the policies that spurred the Industrial Revolution?

Rick Bookstaber Sep 27, 2011

Some of the dominant policy issues of today – immigration, energy, the emergence of China – have their analogues in the great Industrial Revolution. The key government policies that laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution in…

Business

Workers of the world, good night!

Rick Bookstaber Aug 30, 2011

Rick Bookstaber argues that the rise of the super-elite is not a product of educational differences, but rather a result of the new capitalism which creates bigger winners, and does so much more quickly than in the capital-intensive…

Political Economy

The Internet’s Filter: Condemned to be Free?

Rick Bookstaber Jul 26, 2011

Rick Bookstaber opines about a future world in which the flood of information being produced will be filtered by third parties like Facebook and Google with as yet unpredictable consequences for society. Perhaps these filters are just…

Business

Does LinkedIn take advantage of weak links?

Rick Bookstaber Jul 20, 2011

Rick Bookstaber asks whether LinkedIn anything more than a resume warehouse? Is it simply a web-based Rolodex to make it easier to stay up with your business contacts? He doesn't know the business model for the company, and doesn't have any…

Markets

Commodity Prices and Paradigm Shifts

Rick Bookstaber May 16, 2011

People who are staring at a tsunami of demand for commodities from the developing world and predicting a doomsday of $400 oil and $4000 gold are missing the longer-term retreating tide of demand as citizens of the developed world actually…

Monetary System

Capitalist Evolution?

Rick Bookstaber Apr 24, 2011

By Rick Bookstaber M&A activity is showing signs of life, activity reaching its highest levels since 2007. What more appropriate symbol of the renewal of the economy, of the emerging spring-time of our business cycle, than the merger…