Nicolas Bourbaki: collective pseudonym of French mathematicians

Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians, with the aim of reformulating mathematics on an extremely abstract and formal but self-contained basis, wrote a series of books beginning in 1935. With the goal of grounding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for rigour and generality. Their work led to the discovery of several concepts and terminologies still used, and influenced modern branches of mathematics.

What Would a Le Pen Victory in France Mean for Markets?

‘It would be seismic, bigger than Trump or Brexit for markets, if Le Pen got into office and called into question the euro itself’

“It would be seismic, bigger than Trump or Brexit for markets, if Le Pen got into office and called into question the euro itself,”

..Ms. Le Pen has vowed to take France out of the euro and bring back the franc, which could cause the country to default on its debt while questioning the viability of weaker eurozone economies such as Spain and Italy.
.. French banks are seen as particularly vulnerable in the event of a political shock.
..If Ms. Le Pen is elected, “you cannot imagine a German or Italian insurance company would keep their [money] in France,” given the risk to the euro,
.. Foreign-based investors own a large share of French debt, holding around 60% of government bonds. If they flee France, borrowing costs would likely climb, hitting French companies and the wider economy
.. Investors would instead likely move money back into U.S. stocks and bonds, he said.
.. The eurozone is currently investors’ favorite region for equities, with France the second most popular market in the region, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s April survey of fund managers. In the last month, the rotation out of U.S. stocks into eurozone equities was among the largest since 1999.
.. “People are more optimistic about European equities than any time since the crisis,”
.. analysts predict a roughly 5%-10% fall in eurozone equities in the event of a Le Pen victory.
.. investors point to several major hurdles between Ms. Le Pen’s election and a so-called Frexit. She would need support from the French prime minister to call a referendum on euro membership, which is unlikely unless she also wins a parliamentary majority. Around two-thirds of the French population still supports the euro.
.. If a mainstream French candidate is elected, European stocks could be poised for big gains, given recent improvements in the European economy and corporate earnings.“There’s pent-up demand for European assets,” said Mislav Matejka, equity strategist atJ.P. Morgan . If the French elections don’t result in a disruptive outcome, “this is the year for European equities,” he said.

The Aspects of Health-Care Reform Republicans Don’t Like Discussing

Republicans should not hitch their wagon to any single, comprehensive bill, nor should they promise the voters a “Republican health-care plan.” Instead, they should seek to roll out a series of improvements to the health-insurance system, each with its own voting coalitions. That conclusion is supported by two observations. One, many parts of the AHCA were more popular than the bill itself, so the odds of passage — and sustainable entrenchment over time — increase as votes are broken into pieces.

.. But they can’t, any time soon, solve the basic problem, which is pervasive in education and health-care debates these days: The costs have spiraled so far out of the reach of ordinary middle-income people that they’ve despaired of paying for them from their own earnings.

.. I don’t like the fact that Obamacare added 10 to 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls. But I also don’t think it’s wise, fair, or good to yank Medicaid coverage away from these people without a reliable way to move them to alternative affordable private coverage. This doesn’t make for good table-founding talk radio or cable news segments, but it is a fact of life.

.. The Republican answer can’t be, “don’t worry, with enough competition amongst different insurers, you’ll find a plan with premiums, co-pays, and deductibles that you can afford someday, maybe in about ten years, based on the CBO score.”

The French Elites, Comfortable with American Elites’ Playbook from 2016

.. The prospect of a Le Pen presidency upsets a kind of political positivism: the view that democracy can go only from good to better, from being a necessity to being a right. Ms. Le Pen’s election would run counter to the course of history, the reasoning goes, and therefore it cannot be.

Fox News’s Steady Nurturing of a Certain Kind of Right

.. When much of Fox News de facto backed Trump, midway through the primary season, it could hardly come as a shock: It was already obvious that the same type of person Fox had targeted for 20 years was likely to be an ardent Trump supporter.

.. Tomi Lahren, a former host on Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, was attempting to re-create the glib, pugnacious Fox News model for a younger audience.

.. I recall a somewhat similar generational split in 2011 when easily forgotten presidential candidate Herman Cain was accused of sexual harassment and affairs. Prominent conservative voices of the Baby Boomer generation were quick to insist the accusers had to be lying and this was all part of a smear campaign by liberals. Generation-X conservative writers weren’t so eager to rush to the ramparts to insist there was no way Cain would behave badly.

.. It seemed to the older voices, Cain was “one of us” and thus deserved to be trusted and defended on faith; the younger voices weren’t quite so certain that “one of us” couldn’t possibly have done something wrong. They remembered John Ensign, Vito Fossella, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Mark Foley, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Bob Packwood…

A Le Pen-Mélenchon Runoff: Investors’ Nightmare Scenario in France

With the start of the French election just days away, investors are contemplating their nightmare scenario: a choice between far-left and far-right candidates.

In recent days, a surge in opinion polls has placed Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a left-wing firebrand who promises higher wages and fewer working hours, as a potential candidate to move past this Sunday’s first round of voting. That could set up a second-round vote in May 7 with Marine Le Pen, an economic nationalist who wants to pull France out of the euro.

.. A runoff between Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Mélenchon “would be a disaster for France…[and] a disaster for Europe,” said Patrick Zweifel, chief economist at Pictet Asset Management.

Under that scenario, investors would dump the debt of France and of weaker European economies and send the euro sharply lower, analysts say.

.. the cost of insurance against a sharp fall in the euro, as measured by so-called one-month risk reversals, hit levels seen at the height of the continent’s sovereign-debt crisis in 2011.

.. For months, investors prepared for a runoff that pitted Ms. Le Pen against a candidate from the political mainstream, either François Fillon, a center-right former prime minister, or Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister.

.. Analysts believe that either would beat Ms. Le Pen in a second round, as voters of different political stripes coalesced around a candidate that wasn’t the National Front leader.

.. The prospect of a victory for Ms. Le Pen, however distant, has long spooked markets. Ms. Le Pen’s desire to pull France out of the eurozone has raised concerns that the entire block could unravel.

.. In a runoff between Mr. Mélenchon and Ms. Le Pen, the sort of trading that hit markets during the eurozone’s sovereign-debt crisis, including extreme volatility in the euro and a selloff in the bonds of weaker members, would re-emerge, some analysts predict.

.. Mr. Mélenchon favors granting a sixth week of annual vacation; encouraging a four-day, 32-hour workweek; raising the minimum wage; and reducing the retirement age.

.. “It’s all very well having a mandate in the presidential election, but you need support in the national assembly too,”