Humphrey contemplates the economy...again

Humphrey was thinking about people we remember - sometimes for good things, sometimes for not-so-good things.

Humphrey in a patch of forget-me-nots the year he moved to Willowdale

His recent concern with all things economic (especially in light of skyrocketing oil prices, and now the threat of a Toronto tax again!) got him thinking about people who are remembered for their effects on the economy.

He has, not surprisingly, a list of top three people who really did a number on financial things!

There's Steve Perkins, a 34-year-old American oil trader who decided to go to work at PVM Oil after a three-day bender at a company retreat. It was June 30, 2009, and he was completely wasted. He bought 7 million barrels of crude oil without authoriziation, and caused the price to rise by $1.50 per barrel in less than half an hour - something that usually only happens during global catastrophes. He lost his company nearly $10 million, and needless to day messed up markets. Not to worry - he managed to get himself a new job with a brokerage firm in Switzerland within a few days.

Then there's David Li, a mathematician who was a contender for a Nobel Prize for his Gaussian copula function - a mathematical formula that allowed the financial industry to (supposedly) better predict risks. Wall Street jumped on this to sell all sorts of securities and expand markets. It worked for a while - but it had some major flaws. Li's formula was instrumental to the 2008 financial meltdown! In fairness, Li publicly stated in 2005 that few understood the complexities - but they used it anyway.

Finally, there's celebrity billionaire George Soros (the Euro zone's answer to "the Donald"), who managed to cause the British sterling pound to lose one-quarter of its value by short-selling it - that day, September 16, 1992, is known as Black Wednesday. He personally made $1.1 billion, so it wasn't all bad for everyone.