The Classic Case Against the Quants

Today the Captain conducts his job search kind of half heartedly.

He sees little reason to earn more than what he makes on book sales, DVD sales, online classes and rental income in that if he were to get a full time job the majority of that money would be taxed away and sent to bribe the parasitic masses who voted for Obama via social program, government jobs, etc., etc. In other words, does the Captain commit to waking up at 7AM every morning, work all day, teach dance at night, and then somewhere in there continue managing this awesome blog, only to have 50% of that money taken away, or does he just cut back on spending and live the ole college life, keep the majority of his money and sleep till 11AM every morning and keep the majority of his money?

It's a real tough choice.

But, still, out of habit I apply for jobs and look for speaking gigs whenever I can get them.

This being the case I came across a job that perked my interest, not because it looked like an interesting job, but because I had interviewed at the company many times before for similar jobs and it's one you and I and everybody else all knows;

GMAC.

And the reason it perked my interest is that it's a "senior model validation analyst."

Now let me tell you why it should not only pique my interest, but also yours. You see, GMAC received a $6 billion bailout from you, the taxpayer. The reason they received the bailout is because they got in head over heels on the sub prime mortgage debacle.

Now where this gets interesting is that while I applied for many of GMAC's analyst/statistician/modeler type jobs, I was summarily shot down for all of them. And presumably these jobs were given to people who were better qualified. You know, people who are better qualified enough to predict and shield GMAC from, oh, I don't know, A HOUSING CRASH?

Yet, despite these presumed better qualifications, could they have potentially screwed up any more? I mean, come on, these are "big time PhD's and masters degrees economists and statisticians. Why, we're so smart, we have incredibly powerful models that will predict the next time you'll have flatulence."

Yet despite all these genius quants and econometricians, they failed to predict something as easy as the sun rising; the housing crash.

Now I know quants like to brag about their models. Yes, you managed to use all the letters in the Greek alphabet in your model. Congratulations. Wonderful, that will impress the girls and allow you to brag in front of other nerds. Sadly though, these models, no matter how complex are finite and will inevitably fail in the fact the market is dynamic. Just ask the geniuses at Long Term Capital Management.

In the meantime, do you think maybe, just maybe, like girls you should approach the problem with a little bit less math and a little more common sense? A little bit of independent thinking? You know, like how girls like the individual guy, not the droves of Amber Crombie and Fitch wearing drones, maybe your "model" should include only half the letters of the Greek alphabet and maybe a little more "gut instinct?"

Never mind, large multi-billion dollar corporation that just received a $6 billion bailout? Right, try righting that ship. Who am I kidding?

I'll just continue to sleep in till 11AM.