Thanks! My finance buddies in IB/PE like to say that finance is the only portion of econ that actually works. The braindead portion = econ minus finance, is on

Thanks! My finance buddies in IB/PE like to say that finance is the only portion of econ that actually works. The braindead portion = econ minus finance, is only good for academia, a shot at the Nobel and a job at the treasury :) I actually think econ is a huge distraction net-net, because of the compelling number of contradictory narratives that cannot obviously all be simultaneously true. In that event, the only objective function is the asset price. In that sense, its important to latch on to asset prices and functions of those prices, understand how the slopes of those functions change, and then understand how the vector sum changes if you take a bunch of those products in tandem. Personally, I've been able to protect my portfolio only by not getting distracted by the underlying economic explanations( assuming those are even valid, given the dubious nature of the source ie. right-wing economist vs left-wing vs freshwater economist vs saltwater vs libertarian vs pseudo-socialist vs social-democratic vs conservative vs religious-conservative vs fiscal-conservative vs 100 other flavors ) and just focus on market indices that matter and derivatives that hedge those indices in case things go south. I will go out on a limb and claim that if you spend $100 subscribing to 4 trading forums/chatrooms ( whether day-trading or swing-trading or commodities or derivatives or fx ), you are saving yourself a lot of grief than if you spend the same $100 buying econ publications. Atleast the former opinions can be validated by simply buying/selling whatever asset they advocate ( not necessarily with real $, just paper-trade ). The latter cannot be validated at all. I remember attending a lecture where the reputed economist says unemployed people must be taxed at a higher rate because they are consuming oxygen but not paying revenue towards the GDP! That is actually very sound economics from some bizzaro school of thought ( http://healthcare-economist.com/tag/oxygen-tax/ http://healthcare-economist.com/tag/oxygen-tax/ ) taken to its logical conclusion! Rather than think about this dismally depressing scenario, tell me the price of such oxygen contracts and I'll see if the market is sufficiently liquid so I can take a position in those contracts :)