Monthly Archives: May 2012

JPMorgan 24601

May 16, 2012
JPMorgan 24601

Many of us are familiar with Jean Valjean, the protagonist from Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, made more famous in the 80s thanks to the musical of the same name. In the story, Monsieur Valjean is sent to a prison camp for stealing a loaf of bread: 5 years for the crime and 14 more for attempted escapes. Jump forward 200 years and people are no longer stealing bread but generating losses on a much larger scale for their financial institutions. Last year it was $2 billion and UBS and today it is $2 billion at JPMorgan (which appears to…

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You say risk management and I say shit management

May 3, 2012

I am always amazed that despite the enormous square footage of our planet and the tiny amount of poop produced by a bird that it is possible for my car to get hit. But it occurs despite how unlikely it would otherwise appear.   Shit happens.   We know this because history tells us it does. Shit happening is a universal truth. We do our best to live our lives and manage our businesses but the shit is always there. Look up or look down and it will be there. Call it bad luck, a black swan or an I-told-you-so.…

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Under the Dome risk management

May 2, 2012
Under the Dome risk management

  In Stephen King’s novel, Under the Dome, a small town in Maine becomes suddenly cut off from the outside world by “an invisible barrier of unknown origin”. If that sounds a bit too much like the Simpsons Movie or science fiction for you, simply replace the dome with any other sort of hazard (earthquake, avalanche, flood), force good (and bad people) to fend for themselves and watch mayhem ensue. It was an excellent book. Without getting into the details of the plot and characters it made me think about disaster preparedness: lots of folks had generators but not enough…

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