Tell It To Al

Sophisticated financial modeling and complex financial products don’t ruin economies. People do.

That’s the message from Jim Weatherall, a brilliant, young professor at the University of California at Irvine. Mr. Weatherall makes his argument in a book due out in January, “The Physics of Wall Street.”

Derivatives and other complex financial instruments took a lot of blame in the 2008 financial crisis, but Mr. Weatherall says it wasn’t because of their use, but rather their misuse.

He also argues that fixing our crisis-prone economy is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and calls for a new sort of Manhattan Project to focus  the nation’s best minds on the challenge.

Math and physics, he says, can lead to better management of the economy.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.

If you or I stood accused of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels or moving blood money around for the terrorist state of Iran, do you think prosecutors would let us off with a fine?

This is what they do for banks. HSBC is reportedly nearing a deal to pay a $1.9 billion settlement to settle money laundering charges. Click here to read the details from the New York Times.

These are major, international crimes being alleged, yet no one is going to the pokey.

On Monday, British bank Standard Chartered settled similar charges for $327 million settlement.

The lesson here is simple: Always to make more money than you’ll have to pay if you get caught. This is why the scandals never end.

Americans ranked car dealers as less trustworthy than members of Congress in a recent Gallup poll.

Don’t car dealers deserve a little more respect than that?

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal. And click here to read the survey from Gallup.

Ranking highest for honesty and ethics among professionals are nurses, pharmacists and doctors. Ranking better than you would think are bankers. And ranking worse than bankers are … journalists.

Before software guru John McAfee was finding trouble in Belize, he was trying to find peace in Woodland Park, Colo.

Mr. McAfee had set up a yogo retreat in the “City Above the Clouds.”

He even penned a couple books on the topic. One of them was called “Into the Heart of Truth.”

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.