Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Four Horsemen

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 changed the world. There is little doubt about it. Apart from the two wars that followed, and the huge impact on security and international politics, it brought the attention of religious fundamentalism in the Western … Continue reading

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Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris

After reading The End of Faith and The Moral Landscape, and listening to many of his podcasts and debates, I anticipated that Sam Harris‘s Letter to a Christian Nation would not add much more to my atheist arguments. And I … Continue reading

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6th Emerging Scholars conference – some papers

I have been meaning to write these posts (I do not know how many they will be) but some things got in the way, mainly Christmas holidays and exam marking. We had a wonderful 6th Emerging Scholars in Banking and … Continue reading

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Mindfulness meditation

It has been several months since I started doing meditating every morning. In the recent weeks, I have discussed my practice with other people who have found it interesting, and hence I thought I could mention it here. There is … Continue reading

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Why Orwel Matters, by Christopher Hitchens

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (George Orwell in Politics and the English Language). And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias … Continue reading

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Youtube channels

I do not remember the last time I used my remote to browse through the different TV channels to find something to watch. That sucked. Luckily we have Youtube and Netflix and Amazon Prime nowadays. And while I barely watch … Continue reading

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HATE, by Nadine Strossen

This one is long overdue—I finished it months ago. I bought this book, “Hate: Why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship”, by Nadine Strossen, to talk about free speech with some friends in a podcast. We never … Continue reading

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The missionary position, by Christopher Hitchens

I got Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography, a month ago. I was about to start, but then I realised that most of what I knew about Hitch is what I have seen of him on Youtube—any video starting with “Hitchens destroys” … Continue reading

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Danske Bank and HSBC

We have learned today that Danske Bank is being charged for its money laundering scandal. It seems that its branch in Estonia (the only one there) handled around €200bn of Russian and other ex-Soviet money—apparently a large part of it … Continue reading

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More on central clearing and the leverage ratio

I talked some days ago about client clearing and some research that I have done on whether some new regulations (mainly the leverage ratio—LR) might increase its costs and reduce the willingness of banks to provide such services. I have … Continue reading

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