All Analysts Wrong

The Israel Corp. is a "BUY" for all the stock analysts (see note a few days ago). Yet in the last three days it fell like a stone, completing a 20-25% loss (graph). Are all the analysts's models wrong? No, the models are all right and show that the corp. is undervalued. Holding companies are always undervalued about 20% because it is assumed that they cream off the profits and the dividends. Yet! But, as seen, models are worthless. Came a new Minister of Finance, Yair Lapid, and he re-installed the Seshinsky Committee established to re-negotiate gas exploitation royalties and gave the order to tax white all companies exploiting natural resources. The Israel Corp. mines the Dead Sea phosphates, and now its taxes and royalties are being re-assessed. This comes after a very expensive arrangement that the company should pay for the supposed ecologycal damages it causes. Like Ecuador, we too suffer from the compulsion of killing the hen of the gold eggs.

Police Brutality

"I didn't know it was prohibited", said the Israeli police officer in the pic. She was brutally disciplined: "Nununu...!"

Pre-Exam

It's exam season here. We had a long pre-exam grinding of the material. For many it is the last exam before graduating as civil engineers. I found them quite well prepared - one of them had a 300 pg folder of lectures, exercises and background notes.

F(x) − F(y) ≤ (x − y)^2

Back in the seventies, the mathematics department at the Soviet Union's Moscow State University (one of the most prestigious departments in the USSR at the time) used a special collection of math problems, informally referred to as "Jewish" problems or "coffins" ("coffin" problems translating roughly to "killer" problems in English), to keep Jewish students and other so-called "undesirables" out of the department. The problems were notoriously difficult to solve, but had seemingly simple solutions, allowing the department to avoid criticism of the wait-a-minute-what-you're-doing-is-completely-unethical variety. Here's an example of one of the problems: Find all real functions of real variable F(x) such that for any x and y the following inequality holds: F(x) − F(y) ≤ (x − y)^2.

Folk Ceremonies

A 15-year-old rape victim has been sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex, court officials said. Place: Maldives. Source: BBC. Year: 2013.

Crazy Hungarian Jewish Mathematicians

Dear All:
It's time to play the quiz [drum roll]. 

QUIZ RULES CARVED INTO STONE
Round #1. You must NOT cheat.
Round #2. If you didn't pass round #1, you may cheat via Google and such. 

=====> THE QUIZ [aka intelligence test for mathematicians] <=====
QUESTION #1. True or false: one of Max Born's grandchildren is much more
famous than he is. I mean, incomparably more famous, leaves him in the dust
and even more.
QUESTION #2. Who is the most famous mathematician buried in the city which,
among others, used to be called Leningrad?
Oops, this was too easy. All of you know the answer: Euler.
QUESTION #3. True or false: the person buried nearby Euler is way more
famous than he is.
QUESTION #4. True or false: if the answer to question #3 is "true", then is
the person uniquely defined?
QUESTION #5. Who is the most famous mathematician born in the city which,
among others, used to be called Leningrad?
QUESTION #6. On the grand scale of things, which mathematician is more likely
to be remembered in the 4th millennium, Euler or the one from question #5?
QUESTION #7. Who is the most famous mathematician who was born less than 1 km
away from the place where I was born? ["place" means the house of the parents
not the hospital]
QUESTION #8. Who is the most famous physicist who was born less than 1 mile
away from the place where I was born? Is he defined uniquely? ["place" means
the house of the parents not the hospital]
QUESTION #9. Who is the most famous person who was born less than 1 km away
from the place where I was born? ["place" means the house of the parents not
the hospital]
QUESTION #10. Is Peter Lax more famous than his uncle? Is he also richer?
Well, we know the Peter is more alive.
QUESTION #11. If we pick the best soccer player mathematician and the best
soccer player physicist in the history of mankind, then the brother of which
one is more famous?
QUESTION #12. Who is the most famous mathematician buried in Columbus, Ohio?
QUESTION #13. Who is the most famous mathematician buried in Bloomington,
Indiana?
QUESTION #14. Who is the most famous mathematician born in Columbia,
Missouri?
QUESTION #15. Who is the most famous mathematician born in the the Polish
equivalent of Gottingen?
QUESTION #16. Who is the most famous mathematician whose co-author killed
more people than the Unabomber?
QUESTION #17. [WARNING: X-rated] Who is the most famous mathematician I ever
talked to while both of us were relieving ourselves?
LAST QUESTION. Have you ever seen a quiz better than this one?
If you pass a non-trivial portion of the quiz in round #1, you are eligible
for a grand prize from me. The actual prize, consisting of a significant
amount of calories is to be determined later.
N.B. If I already asked these question from you in the past and I provided
the answer, you are not eligible to participate.
Ready, set, go...
/PaulN [nevai@math.ohio-state.edu]
P.S. If you fail the test, don't despair. The only person I can think of
who's pass the test, besides me, would be Polya. Perhaps Gian-Carlo Rota and
Paul Halmos would pass it too since they are well-known not only to have
known everything but to have known it better than anyone else [I see I have
an internal contradiction here].
P.P.S. Feel free to distribute this quiz as long as you leave the text

intact.

The Triumph of the Idea

... and the defeat of reality, experience and common sense.

The Betzalel College of Arts has decided to build its new campus in Jerusalem following the design by two famous Japanese architects. It will have no walls, no stone walls and not even glass walls. A college without walls! What a contrast with the neighboring fortified Migrash HaRusim police station (of the underground torture chambers fame). A beautiful idea that will show the world!

Jewish naivite never dies. Twenty years ago Tel Aviv University built its open campus. The design was a large open place from Lebanon street ascending to the campus. From the Arts Gallery one could have an uninterrupted sight to the blue Mediterranean shore. Tel Aviv University wanted to show its openness to the city and the universe, contrasting with its rival the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, built as a fortified medieval (aka fascist) castle on Mount Scopus.

A few months after the opening, high steel bars were built on the campus perimeter with four or five steel turnstyle gates (pic) with uniformed armed guards. I am fat and hate to be enclosed in a small space behind iron bars.   So much for openness. The security people realized that the open campus idea was suitable, may be, for Scandinavia (as it was then, not as it is now) but not for here and now. That large empty place at the entrance of TAU could be paved and made a much needed parking lot. But that would be to be to declare total defeat and fit the campus design to the reality we live. And that...Never! Like in The 300, we shout: THIS IS ISRAEL!

Investments

Wasting time. What are professional stock analysts saying?  The Israel Corporation is unanimously recommended.  I had bought it because of ZIM, its shipping arm, which was considered promising, yet  collapsed. The Chinese car factory is a success. The analyst consensus is that Israel Corp. is selling at half its worth.

There is real estate bubble in Israel. A decent apartment in Tel Aviv is priced at 0ne Million Dollars ! Interest rates are zero and people is taking out mortgages. And many are simply getting very wealthy. Last week a startup was sold to Google for 1 150 000 000 dollars. Some will go to buy champage, some to the taxman and the rest to real estate. The demand is growing!

Jews in Hungary

1930	1949	2001	2011
444 552	133 861	12 871	10 965

The last four censii where religion was asked, show the fast shrinking of the Jewish population. About 50% of the persons declaring to be Jews are over 65 and only 7% are under 15. The last census asked religion and nationality, and surprisingly, about 10% of the Jews declared nationality other than Hungarian. Among them are Germans, Gypsies, Chinese and Vietnamese (sic!). One can presume that Judaism is a fashionable religion to choose, or they had no idea what they were being asked or it is mistake or a joke by the census taker. Like in Poland, Russia, Austria, etc. self-declared Hungarian Jews are increasingly Christians who for some reason feel like "Jews", without having a clear idea what a Jew is or having met one.

What is the cause of the disappearance of Jews in Hungary? WWII ended in 1945 and about 200,000 Jews had survived it. Assimilation? Yes, a percentage changed their names, hid their origin and married out. But it didnt work out. Antisemitism is so deep in Hungary that there is no way to hide one's remote Jewish ancestors, see the Jobbik (a quasi Nazi party) who was "outed" by his comrades. Emigration worked but Hungarian Jews are so identified with the Hungarian language and culture that many - specially the writers and actors - cannot imagine to remake their lives in a foreign culture.   So I think no more than 60 - 80,000 Jews left Hungary since the war, about 15000 to Israel and most to the USA and Australia. So at zero population growth, there should be about 100,000 Jews living in Hungary today, but they are not there. After the war there were no mass killings nor famines, so the only reason that they are not is that they died off without leaving offspring.

Why Hungarian Jews, historically most prolific, died off? The only reason is - they lost their religion. They did not keep the Shabbath and the Shabbath did not keep them. Should they have remained moderately religious, and I am not talking about Orthodoxy, with an annual 2% increase, today - with all the terrible human losses - there should be half a million Jews in Hungary. Or much more.  Hitler wanted a Jew-free Europe but did not succeed. Our own loss of faith did it.

Shabbath Shalom. 

Gorging on Free Cashew Nuts and Israeli Sushi

Yesterday the bank organized another of its investor education soirees and made the mistake of inviting me. And I made the mistake of arriving with my teenager daughter (wearing scandalous shorts). When she saw the old farts sitting there and they saw her, she run away. After an nano-second long appraisal of the food, I stayed. 

First they discussed investing in foreign markets, then a fund manager argued that for an Israeli it is stupid to invest in foreign markets, we dont know them, we have a miracle bourse at hand and the shekel is too strong or weak (I paid no attention). Then a big headed bald fellow spoke of cognitive errors but he had a speech defect and I was too busy consuming the cashew and small sandwiches in pitta-like bread, and missed much. See below Barry Ritholz's take on the issue. Read it and feel as you have been almost there sans the cashew:

"These are the errors that are inherent in our wetware – namely, the way your brain has evolved over the millenia. Suffice it to say that capital risk decision-making was not a big issue on the Serengeti plains. On the other hand,avoiding getting eaten by lions was.

Hence, Humans have a number of unfortunate tendencies as a result. These tend to  get in our way when it comes to investing:

• We see patterns where none exist;
• We have difficulty conceptualizing long arcs of time;
• We selectively perceive what agrees with our pre-existing expectations, and ignore things that disagree with our beliefs.
• We tend to forget our losers and over-emphasize our winners.
• Our inherent optimism bias turns out to be hard-wired as well — our brains are better at processing good news about the future than bad.
• We actually get a greater thrill from the anticipation of a financial reward than the actual reward itself. (Think what this means in terms of Buy the Rumor, Sell the News)
• We seek stimulus for the dopamine high — regardless of how. Whether you are a Gambler, Alcoholic, Sex Addict, Shopaholic, or Hyper-Active Trader — its all the same buzz.
• Story-telling is how Humans evolved to share information (Pre-writing). Thus, we are vulnerable to anecdotes that mislead or present false conclusions unsupported by data."

The Sunni West

The Syrian civil war is polarizing the planet into Sunni and Shi'a, the two poles of the Ummah, the Islam. The Alawi Assad has been embraced by the world's Shia (Iran, Irak, the Hizballah) while the rebels are increasingly receiving reinforcements from the Sunni: Saudi ikhwan fanatics and volunteers from the West and the Caucasus. The Europeans and America appear to have decided to arm the Sunni rebels, de-facto choosing the Sunni side including the Al Qaeda international brigades. We in Israel have only one goal, which is to stay our of this madness.
Pic: A Lebanese Shia boy celebrating the Asura ceremony. The Sunni seem to be the less crazed party, may be.

Ashkelon Project

 Yesterday I drove to Ashkelon to supervise the new Municipality complex project. Left is one of the sycamore trees that delayed the start some six months: the holy trees will stay. In the meanwhile the contractor is harvesting  their fruits, that taste like wild figs. From modern halachic viewpoint, it cannot be kosher since each fig houses a wasp and one finds many small insects inside.

The city is well planned and clean, probably the nicest place on the Mediterranean. It is full of French Jews, mostly of the Moroccan persuasion, cultured and entreprising people, that makes aliyah with money and open many restaurants and other small businesses.

Prism and the Troll

Still I can understand the logic of the troll. He/she/it hates Jews and sends death threats on the internet; on the other hand, he assumes that |Jews are all-powerful and the hidden government of the US. The US Government enjoys total access (through Prism) to all electronic communication, and stores it forever. Prism knows who the anonymous troll is and therefore "the Jews" know him too. Why should a troll expose himself to the worst? May be he doesnt really believe that Jews rule the universe, or he is self destructive.