“October” and “US” in the same sentence, there are connections about
Finance in, finance out, and rockets in between.
The century that was
October 19, 1987: Black Monday
The mother of modern stock market crashes. You should watch the intro of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), if you haven’t done so, and take stock in Mark Hanna’s (Matthew McConaughey) expression as down the index goes. Do watch the whole movie, actually.
October 16, 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis
The most prominent item in the list (to be fair, it lasted like a month or so). On the occasion of the Crisis’ 60th anniversary, a Greek article discussed US foreign policy. It may seem erratic, the author argues, because it is a weirding way (my choice of words) between the international frame and the administration’s affiliation. Hence, Presidents like Kennedy and Johnson projected a tough anti-communist face abroad (and sanctioned an active CIA), clinging to a patriotic credo to dispel fears of leftism, while proceeding internally with liberal reforms. Nixon, from the other hand, was keen to the international environment, so much that he quit Vietnam and even got closer to China. It was Kennedy’s jawboning and ill-advised, ill-executed Bay of Pigs invasion (an almost natural continuation of Eisenhower’s concerns for Cuba) that pushed a relatively indecisive (really?) revolutionary government to Soviet Union’s umbrella, the author claims. Nikita Khrushchev displayed an almost equally myopic stance, and (nuclear) winter was around the corner for some weeks before a mutual, sober compromise.
I have but a very incomplete mind sketch for what went on those days (and with US foreign policy in general), the article is well written but it omits references and sources. If there are any reading suggestions (or simply call BS), please chime in the comments.
October 4, 1957: The launch of Sputnik
Ok, not a US event per se, but it spun some wheels. According to this writer, the launch “shattered the drive toward statistical literacy…in the belief that calculus was necessary for national survival in the coming Space Age”. An interesting angle, nonetheless. Speaking of angles:
[Tyrone just backed into Franky Four Fingers' van]
Tyrone: I didn't see it there.
Vinny: It's a four ton truck, Tyrone. Its not as if it's a packet of fucking peanuts, is it?
Tyrone: It was a funny angle.
[All three turn and look back at the truck]
Vinny: It's behind you Tyrone. Whenever you reverse, things come from behind you.
(From the Snatch (2000) movie, take a look at it too if you don’t know who the hell are those people). In my (Greek) experience, trigonometry and then calculus indeed worked as a sieve for those high school pupils about to study Sciences, IT, Engineering and maybe Finance, on the way to the nationally administered university admission exams. Just how much you would need the thing was quite irrelevant. Still, the gist of the argument seems a stretch (at some point at probabilities, integrals kick-in I believe).
The century that is
October 15, 2014: The Flash Rally
A brief blip in the Treasury market. In a matter of minutes, yields melted by several basis points (that is, bond prices rallied) and then rose back, with no apparent headlines or other clear drivers. Such an incident in one of the world’s deepest markets rose concerns and produced a series of analyses and deliberations. If anything, ructions in sovereign debt markets have been more intense and severe since then, but at least there are some reasons behind them.