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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

There's a big secret to finance, at least up to some level: It's a lot simpler than you think.

Even things like hedge funds, which are often popularly presented as impossible for mere mortals to understand are pretty simple conceptually. (Having said that, some of the specific hedges used can be complicated are require a high level of economic literacy to follow)

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So it's more an issue of: 1) understanding how something specific works and 2) understanding all the related jargon. While both of these might be relatively simple (at least for the base case) it still takes the time to learn them. Many of these things cannot just be learned on-the-fly by picking up context clues in a discussion (though I think that the jargon is a large part of this).

Isn't this (partly) true of programming as well? And in fact, almost every field?

If someone drops in on a conversation between two programmers, he'll probably be lost in a sea of jargon, even though they could explain what they're talking about quite simply if they wanted to (it would take a little longer, but it could be done).

Marketplace Whiteboard does a great job explaining market concepts with analogies and simple whiteboard visuals (and is available as a podcast)

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/collections/coll_display....

I work in an Investment Bank and I can second it.

That secret is not just about finance, it is about almost everything. Most of complex systems were built from simple and understandable parts. The problem is - one should learn the underlying rules and principles first.

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