Finance & economics | Buttonwood

A Wall Street state of mind has captured America

Downtown New York is quieter than ever. Finance has never been louder

Illustration of a street sign in the shape of the USA that says Wall St
Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi

At what time and place should you meet a stranger in New York if you cannot communicate with them beforehand? This hypothetical puzzle was first posed by Thomas Schelling, a game theorist, in 1960, as a method of explaining “focal points”—the solution people default to when co-ordinating if they are unable to converse. The most common answer, according to students he quizzed, was noon at “the information booth in Grand Central Station”.

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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Forget about the tree”

From the September 28th 2024 edition

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