Myles Udland

Back in 1998, the world of finance learned a very painful lesson: Models break and markets aren't efficient. And with the rise of Donald Trump from sideshow to presumptive Republican nominee, politics has learned the same lesson. Long-Term Capital Management was a hedge fund staffed by several Nobel Prize winners that possessed a supposedly unmatched grasp on how markets work. The firm had the most sophisticated methods for exploiting any and all inefficiencies, millions and millions of times over. And it blew up.Spectacularly.

Chronicled at length in Roger Lowenstein's brilliant book "When Genius Failed," the short version of LTCM's blowup is that a series of misplaced bets that certain interest rates would converge over time — because they always had in the past — went against the firm until they were out billions of dollars.

LTCM's core conceit was that it believed markets were efficient and any inefficiencies would be corrected in due course. They were wrong.

Gulfnews by Joseph A. Kechichian - Beirut: After it was widely criticised in 2013, the Lebanese joint parliamentary committees convened on Tuesday to study various electoral drafts and settled on the so-called “Orthodox Gathering Electoral Law” for serious consideration.

Under the controversial proposal, an expansion of parliamentary seats would be recorded — from 128 to 134 — along with a complex pattern that would allow each of Lebanon’s 18 officially recognised religious communities to elect their own deputies.

The proportional representation system will consider the country as a single district. Consequently, the draft stipulates that each sect will vote for its own representatives, with registered Shiite voters only be able to vote for Shiite candidates, Sunnis for Sunnis, Maronites for Maronites, and so on.