Something Out There
In the New Yorker Money Issue, Nick Paumgarten writes about people who search for cycles and patterns underlying finance. (A subscription is required to view the entire article but the abstract is still fascinating stuff, especially if you’re, say, thinking of writing a conspiracy-minded thriller!!).
Paumgarten, as feature writers often do, uses a prominent example (here, financier Martin Armstrong) as the entry point for a wider discussion. It’s an effective rhetorical strategy, but frustrating; Paumgarten veers into the history of cycle theory just as he gets to Armstrong landing in jail for defrauding Japanese investors of billions of dollars.
Unsurprisingly, this touches on Dan Brown territory, discussing the Fibonacci sequence and Armstrong’s fascination with pi:
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