One of the most significant mathematicians of our time, Benoit Mandelbrot, who was the father of fractals and an important contributor to finance, died last week. This obituary in the Financial Times is worth a read.
Having already produced a book's worth of content on the subject (see, for example, here and here), I don't plan on writing much more about financial services reform. But for those interested, Ian Verrender and Terry McCrann have rather different takes on banking policy. Michael West proposes that Aussie Post actually get into direct banking, which I previously rejected in favour of using it as a distribution channel for smaller lenders (see posts below). Malcolm Maiden thinks otherwise. Danny John likes the idea.
For mine, one of the best recent speechs on financial services reform has been by Glenn Stevens here.
In other stuff of note, China has anointed a successor to President Hu, a process which is described in this interesting article in The Economist.
