In Darren Aronofsky's 1998 thriller "∏" (Pi), troubled mathematician Max Cohen states the following 'assumptions' :
One: Mathematics is the language of nature.
Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge.
So, what about the stock market? The universe of numbers that represents the global economy. Millions of hands at work, billions of minds. A vast network, screaming with life. An organism. A natural organism.
My hypothesis: Within the stock market, there is a pattern as well... Right in front of me... hiding behind the numbers."
Could Neel Kashkari, the Treasury Department's 35-year-old rocket scientist turned Goldman Sachs executive turned Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, share these 'assumptions?'
Prior to his careers at the Treasury Department and Goldman Sachs, Kashkari worked for NASA on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project. According to NASA, JWST will:
"study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System."
By all accounts, Mr. Kashkari is an extraordinarily gifted and accomplished man. Indeed, the only reference point the rest of us have for an individual who has turned his talents to both the 'the largest mysteries in the cosmos' and 'the largest economic mysteries on Earth' is that of ∏'s main character, Maximilian Cohen. The physical resemblance between Kashkari and actor Sean Gullette's Cohen only fuels the speculation that our new bailout czar may, in fact, be continuing the same quest into the unknown he began at NASA. Only this time, his journey is leading him down a different worm hole – one of the economic variety.
If that's true, astrophysicists and bean-counters alike may want to devote their time, attention, and intelligence to what has clearly become the focus of Kashkari's inter-galactic/economic pursuit:
The Covered Bond Market.
Only time will tell if Mr. Kashkari's covered bond invention will save our small planet . . . or send it hurdling down an inescapable black hole.
Godspeed, Neel.