Introducing the BiX Exchange @ The DemoDay Conference in Shanghai Sept 22, 2016

Check out Our introductory video

at the International Blockchain Week in Shanghai

in slow

& 

fast

 motion

Which one do you like best?

And the presentation: https://youtu.be/K9I_NkAXZBk

In the news:

http://k.sina.cn/article_2118746300_7e4980bc020005qtq.html?vt=4

http://www.missfq.com/blockchain/blockchain-week-2016-bix-exchange-ceo-philibert-kongtcheu/

The Invisibles: Louis Bachelier and the Foundations of Mathematical Finance @ The HESAA Innovation Symposium

I am both very grateful - but possibly starting to be overwhelmed - by the selection to present some of the innovations of my screenplay at HESAA Innovation Symposium. If you are around Campus on Sunday, please check it out. It will also be live streamed & I will post the link if I can get it in advance.

Thesis Presentation of "The Invisibles" formerly "I, Bachelier (Invisible Man)"

Thesis Presentation of "The Invisibles" formerly "I, Bachelier (Invisible Man)"

Save the Date!
All invited: May 18, 2016 from 6pm to 9pm


http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/event/alm-thesis-forum-presentation-invisibles

Paris brisée, Paris martyrisée mais ... Paris! Paris! Nous sommes tous Parisiens.

Nous en avons vu des bien pires et nous avons survecu, et nous avons continuer a prosperer. Meme si aujourd'hui nous sommes a genoux, meme si aujourd'hui nos larmes debordent, meme si l'emotion est trop forte pour etre immediatement traduite en mots. Nul ne doit douter que nous emergeront de cette tragedie encore plus forts, plus resplendissants, LA PERLE DU MONDE ENTIER.

Vive Paris!

Vive la France!

In Memoriam - Alexandre Grothendieck

This linked article is written to honor his memory. May he rest in peace.
He was truly, the greatest mathematician of the 20th century.

+

A talk at Institut de Hautes Etudes Scientifiques providing an overview of the mathematics of Grothendieck

One of the rare instances of recorded voice of Grothendieck speaking on the meaning and value of scientific research in the context of rejecting research for the development of nuclear weapons:

Recent testimony from a variety of Grothendieck contemporaries (Courtesy Tony Iarrobino)/

Articles in AMS Notices :

1.   http://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201603/rnoti-p242.pdf 

2. http://www.ams.org/publications/journals/notices/201604/rnoti-p401.pdf

Article in Nature
3.https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7534/full/517272a.html

Reliving the Life of Louis Bachelier

My thesis "Reliving the Life of Louis Bachelier" which introduces the screenplay: "I, Bachelier (Invisible Man)" is now available as a book!

This book is a verbatim reproduction of the ALM Thesis in literature and creative writing that I have just completed at the extension School at Harvard University. It is a screenplay that brings to life, in dramatic installments, the key events in the life of the Father of Modern Mathematical Finance, Louis Bachelier ( 1870-1946). It is a spellbinding double odyssey of the trials and triumphs of gritty characters that pioneer industries creating intellectual revolutions, against the scorn of titled scientific establishments, against tragedy, at tremendous personal sacrifice. Through multifaceted narratives and circumstances, it emerges as a profound,  scientific  and artistic, human exploration of the human propensity for prejudice.
http://amzn.to/1S6Byqr
It lets sheds light on the struggles Bachelier had to overcome, as viewed in our time by a young black mathematician of African origin named K., starting in grad school in Paris in the mid-90s, and then on to Wall Street, as a proponent of a new theory of decision making based on a proto-probabilistic concept called BICs (Basis Instruments Contracts) that he has invented.

It spans Bachelier’s life from the death of his parents to his famous thesis in 1900, to the dramas of the Dreyfus affair in France, WW I, up to the death of his ephemeral spouse, and the climactic denial of tenure to him in 1926. The narrative unfolds as K. himself experience similar struggles and prejudices in modern times which lead him from Wall Street to inner city life in Newark, NJ, and then to Beijing China, and back to New York. The intertwined narratives unfold in at least four languages – English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Ghomala – serving as a clinical and scientific examination of the various dimensions of prejudice, language, deriving analytical insights that bind persuasion, risk, prejudice, rewards and punishments in the decision making process. It also features two heart wrenching love stories that grip hearts and reveal characters of great humanity. This is a universal story of the travails of the misunderstood and unappreciated underdog, who nonetheless keeps on soldiering to usher in a better world.

Profile in Courage: Sergey Aleynikov

If the standard of criminality is what this guy did...., I fear for what justice means


See Michael Lewis Account here.

Support Sergey here.

Corzine - BICs - Impressions - What is acceptable - Rent Seeking

 Everybody seems to be sporting about the latest travails of Mr. Corzine, but many if not most (or virtually all) of those who seem to be moralizing now surf or have surfed the same rent seeking privileges that have little to do with actual competence. Every now and then, the bubble pops, a few unlucky bad ones pay for all the systemic sins, but the system itself perdures, with incremental adjustment here and there.

True change, whether in politics, social values or rules for economic entitlement come only after a forceful clash in which absurd existing rules or laws may be trampled in the process for a fairer order to emerge.
The present crisis continues its slow bleed because that necessary purifying process did not occur. Even after the comparatively milder dot-com bubble popped, the clean up was more extensive and more were held accountable.

Despite all the gospel to the contrary, it can be uncommonly difficult for the uncompromising innovator that the system proclaims to value above all to be heard. This seems truer if such innovations precisely pertain to the core issues that have put the system to its knees.

We persist in looking for solutions where we are least likely to find them even though the historic record is unambiguous that lasting solutions to systemic problems more often than not come from outsiders. Up to now the system has failed to look/consider or even acknowledge solutions proposed by outsiders. One of the problems exarcerbating our socio-economic issues is that the existing power structure is poisoned by a system of "normative meritocracy" blinded by a codified system of merit that tend to undervalues when it does not simply obliterate all other forms of emerging and more relevant competencies.

 Democracy in politics, branded academic credentials, peer review and other idealistically sounding principles collude to create dystopian realities for true innovators whose ideas and works can actually benefit the greater good.


BICs in the many ignored ideas and works it leads and spread throughout this blog can only be seen as an ultimate example of a flawed system of incentives and punishments. See also:  US Patent No. 7,933,824 .


References:
 US Patent No. 7,933,824.
NYT Editorial Nov 2, 2011: Mr. Corzine's Big Bet
NY Times- Nocera: Corzine Crashes like It's 2008
WSJ: Corzine Agonistes 
Others Pay Price for Corzine’s Risky Revenge: William D. Cohan
Douthat: Our reckless meritocracy

Quantitative Easing: Fed to buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds to drive down long term interest rates

Comment:

Such a waste!
This is a very costly way of dragging down long term rates. As I have noted on many earlier posts, it once more makes me thing how much most cost-efficiently the fed could control long term rates with interest rate BICs that replicate the whole interest rate curve

See earlier posts on the topic:

http://kongtcheu.blogspot.com/2009/03/fed-will-inject-1-trillion-more-into.html
http://kongtcheu.blogspot.com/2009/04/ftcom-comment-opinion-let-central-banks.html

http://kongtcheu.blogspot.com/2009/07/op-ed-contributor-great-preventer.html

News References:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703506904575592471354774194.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/business/economy/04fed.html?_r=1&ref=business

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110305412.html

The Deficit Debate - BICs

This post is meant to refer to a knol Ihave written in response to a recent question posed on the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) community website : “Will public deficit reduction encourage private sector growth, or undermine a needed stimulus to recovery & lead to Japan-style stagnation?” This lead me, in view of my work on BICs, to wonder whether the deficit is really the right metric to focus on and analyze the extent to which it could be misleading.

I argue that the government balance sheet, rather than its cash flow position -from which the deficit is computed - should really be what eyes are focused on. The focus on balance would have and should better focus minds on stimulating high returns investments for sustainable recovery and expansion, some of which I discuss.

BICs enter in the picture because using their methodological prescription would make reliable and practical the complex and almost canutian task of computing the values of the different items on the government balance sheet.

I am gratified that the debate INET moderating team has picked on some of my suggestions and highlighted them in the debate summary(http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet-community-responds-deficit-debate) as: "As far as new, creative solutions to the debate, a few users, such as kongtcheu, have urged governments to invest in entrepreneurship and clean energy projects, suggesting that these investments will create jobs and growth in the future."" I meant to say more than that.

References

Kongtcheu, Phil. The Deficit Debate - BICs:Is the deficit the right metric to focus on ? And what prescriptions does this leads to? [Internet]. Version 45. Basis Instruments Contracts (BICs). 2010 Aug 25. Available from: http://knol.google.com/k/phil-kongtcheu/the-deficit-debate-bics/24v2kgtuvzk2v/30.


http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet-community-responds-deficit-debate