Maybe someone who knows more about options trading than I do can correct me, but I find it extremely hard to swallow the FBI’s apparent conclusion [*] that the massive pre-9-11 put-buying in UAL and American Airlines stock (and in the stocks of some aerospace firms and big reinsurers)[*] didn’t reflect someone’s pre-knowledge of what was to come. Nor does what I remember from my Justice Department days of the FBI’s sophistication in matters financial reassure me. The cultural homogeneity of the FBI is an asset in creating internal cohesion, but a problem when it needs to reach out for strange skill-sets, such as foreign languages and financial savvy.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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