The Brookings Institute Should Hire the Entire Cast...

...of Armageddon, so that we can have more stunning analysis in the same vein as this:

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2008/06_nasa_easterbrook.aspx

So this letter (more or less, the internets ate my other copy) was sent to my Good Friends Who Make Money from This Sort of Thing:

Having just read Gregg Easterbrook's commentary on a few subjects (including the inane article about planet-killing asteroids), I can say with certainty that my opinion of the Brookings Institute has declined sharply. This man is so unqualified, it makes me wonder about all the other "Experts", and how they could NOT deserve that title.

This may not have been a good idea considering the ratio: number of jobs offered by Brookings institute / number of jobs I'm willing to take. ESPECIALLY considering the ratio: number of jobs / total number of people looking for jobs.

I get on CNN's case, a little

I dropped an email to CNN about this article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/09/biden.special.needs/index.html

The email:

I'm left wondering why the article "Biden's comments on special needs called 'new low'" had a quote from the republican spokesperson in the title but none from the democratic one. I'm not trying to accuse cnn of systemic media bias, I just think non-partisan headlines might be a better idea.

I mean, honestly people, you put the thing about the lady with the lawsuit against Alaska for failing to provide for special needs children in the last paragraph? When the case was filed on a behalf of an autistic child, and Palin's nephew is autistic?
Huh?
What?
Right...
Uhhh...

And this article couldn't have been called "Biden slams McCain-Palin on lack of support for stem cell research"?

In completely unrelated news, I googled this ridiculous string of words "stem cell research percentage americans support" and got:
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070616/poll-american-republican-support-for-embryonic-stem-cell-research-increasing.htm

Poll results show that 22 percent of Americans say the government should place no restrictions on funding embryonic stem cell, while another 38 percent thought the government should ease current restrictions to allow more research. In total, 60 percent of Americans support less restrictions on the research.

Support for expanding stem cell research has grown compared to in 2004 when 55 percent of Americans said the government should place no restrictions or ease current restrictions, and in 2005 when 53 percent supported this.

Remind me way were arguing about this again, except as another way for the McCain monkey machine to fling poop at everything:

Republicans

Barack Obama's running mate sunk to a new low today, launching an offensive debate over who cares more about special needs children," McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt said. "Playing politics with this issue is disturbing and indicative of a desperate campaign."

Democrats

This is a clash of policies, not a clash of personalities.

"A Brave New World" Was Too Goddamn Patronizing

In between your seat and the snack car on the Train of Stupidity that is politics in general is the boxcar full of shit that is McCain's Health Care Plan, as developed by Pfizer (Motto: Singhandedly keeping McCain's love life alive since '98)

Initially I can tell you without really reading the plans, that I trust Barack Obama's much more than McCain's. Look how much shorter in description each plank of McCain's plan is compared to Obamas. How about all that absurd rhetoric on McCain's page, militarizing/romanticizing about health care, with his "Call to Action", his "Vision", his "Plan of Action". You can't win by leading the charge on Health Insurance Hill - its going to take a lot of nerds working late nights in broom closets with calculators to figure this one out. Which leads me to my next quick thing: mentions of cold hard numbers. I counted 4 numbers in McCain's plan. There are 26 in Obama's. Instead of numbers? McCain uses the word "should" eleven times in his plan; Obama twice.

It's comparable statements about the same ideas which really demonstrate my point:

McCain:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Greater Use Of Information Technology To Reduce Costs. We should promote the rapid deployment of 21st century information systems and technology that allows doctors to practice across state lines.

Obama:
Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes it hard to coordinate care, measure quality or reduce medical errors and which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based
electronic health information systems, including electronic health records, and will phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT. Obama will ensure that patients' privacy is protected.

Here's another one:

McCain:
TRANSPARENCY: Bringing Transparency To Health Care Costs. We must make public more information on treatment options and doctor records, and require transparency regarding medical outcomes, quality of care, costs and prices. We must also facilitate the development of national standards for measuring and recording treatments and outcomes.

Obama:
Require full transparency about quality and costs. Obama will require hospitals and providers to collect and publicly report measures of health care costs and quality, including data on preventable medical errors, nurse staffing ratios, hospital-acquired infections, and disparities in care. Health plans will also be required to disclose the percentage of premiums that go to patient care as opposed to administrative costs.

And here's something which just flat out demonstrates how Obama's take on the world trumps McCain's:

McCain (this is under "Lowering Health Care Costs"):
TORT REFORM: Passing Medical Liability Reform. We must pass medical liability reform that eliminates lawsuits directed at doctors who follow clinical guidelines and adhere to safety protocols. Every patient should have access to legal remedies in cases of bad medical practice but that should not be an invitation to endless, frivolous lawsuits.

Obama (this is under "Lower Costs"):
Insurance reform. Obama will strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance and will promote new models for addressing errors that improve patient safety, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and reduce the need for malpractice suits.

Obama comes at this problem from two directions: The direct cost of the lawsuits themselves, and the indirect cost of covering the possibilities of the lawsuits (insurance). McCain only comes the problem in the former (and not the latter) way. Most importantly: Obama's plan is concerned with the prevention of malpractice; McCain's plan is concerned with the prevention of malpractice lawsuits.

Imagine a world under McCain's plan: Your doctor screws up while following procedure (since this seems to be the viable scenario for sueing in McCain's plan). Either the screw up was the doctor's fault, in which case you can't sue her/him because he was following procedure, or god forbid, the procedure was wrong in the first place. If the procedure was wrong either a) better luck next time, b) sue whoever developed the procedure. And voila, the blame shifting game goes on. McCain's plan could be: don't sue the doctor, sue big pharma/the hospitals! Great way to keep costs down...

Yes, Obama's plan is more touchy-feely, but also yes a good doctor patient relationship is crucial. What better way to keep a doctor from screwing up then by giving him an emotional investment in her/his patient. Obviously you people want some kind of "evidence".
Well here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/health/29well.html

Obama's plan is also much more adaptable - if the procedure is wrong, there are already people "addressing errors", and a reason to sue (force a change in the system) has been taken out of circulation. Plus I really like the bit about keeping malpractice insurance down - from what I know it's mandatory that doctors have it
most places, so it's probably really increasing overhead costs just about everywhere/is probably a noncompetitive market just about everywhere.
Annnnd here's some evidence:
http://insurance-reform.org/StableLosses2007.pdf
and ahahahahaha some more:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/02/eveningnews/consumer/main610102.shtml
(this one even goes so far as to refute even the existence of all those "frivolous" lawsuits)

The bottom line with regards to McCain's plan is this: it is like a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. I know I pay about 1500 dollars a year for health insurance, and that my employer coughs up the other 3/4s of the cost, so insuring me costs about 6000 dollars a year. McCain would give me a 2500 dollar tax credit (5000 for families, but god knows how much insuring a family costs, I don't even want to
know).

McCain: is that 2500 dollars in cold cash, or is that a write-down on my income, meaning that instead of getting the money I actually just don't pay the government 2500 dollars times my tax rate. Which in my case, making what I do (which is much more than an actually "poor" person according to the government) would be max about 250 bucks. Two months worth of employer-subsidized health insurance. Great.

Assuming it's actually 2500 dollars, good luck trying to buy insurance with that money if your employer doesn't provide any kind of plan (remember my plan is 6000 dollars). And how many people work for employers who don't offer a plan? 8 in 10 uninsured people (that's from http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml). That's 38 out of the 47 million unemployed. Mean McCain has the balls to tell people he's offering them this money "While still having the option of employer-based coverage". 38 million people in the US don't have that option. They can't do a damn thing with that 2500/5000 dollar check. Except that they can't do a damn thing with it anyway because McCain also says:

"...the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider". So I'm not even in the loop for that cash. I, along with the rest of America, would never even see it. So McCain's plan is: every year the U.S. Government would write a 500 billion dollar check (approx. 100 million households in the US times 5000) to the insurance companies.
Shit.

Obama: Mandatory insurance for children. Bam, that's 9 million of the uninsured insured right then and there. No checks to private companies, no "Health Savings Accounts", no mucking about with taxes. Just the Government stepping in and insuring our children. One step program: uninsured --> insured. Obama would also directly provide an option for insurance through the U.S. Government for the remaining uninsured. Instead of just mailing the insurance industry a gigantic check each year, he would create a competitive atmosphere across the public/private divide. Obama's plan would give us (we, the people) leverage over big pharma and the insurance industry, badly needed leverage. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies are profit-oriented, not people oriented. These industries need to remember - they provide a critical service; they do not exist merely to enrich themselves. Pharma and insurance should probably be non-profit - Obama gets us closer, McCain just momentarily satiates their lust for cash.

Sources:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm
href="http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

By the way, finding the sources of evidence for the things I write about is so blindingly easy I feel almost useless typing this stuff up. It took me four google searches to find everything I needed. I don't understand how people can quibble about facts so often, but never look shit up for themselves (not directed at you CH). It's the internet people! It's simpler than a dick in a box.

More ridiculous letter writing

As if this would make a difference, especially since I'm from a state which already voted in the primaries. Fuck politics.

"Ms. Clinton,

I greatly admire what you've done for the democratic process by sticking to your guns throughout this nomination battle, but I humbly request that you cede the ticket to Obama. Now is the time for party unity; we MUST set our sights on McCain and the Republican party; we MUST win the White House in '08.

I began as a supporter of yours, but times have changed. I sincerely bought the argument that experience was paramount. Then, you started endorsing policies which shook my faith. The summer gas tax, for instance. And your comments which followed, regarding the uselessness of economists. You've taken a lot of media-related heat on that issue, but I'm here to tell you it was the straw which broke the camel's back for this 1 in 300 million.

I'm tired of arguments about "electability", too. Essentially, "electability" and "experience" are different names for the same concept: "safe bet". Well, the world isn't safe anymore. We need someone to break us out of the status quo, and that someone is the one for change. Barack Obama.

Thank you for listening."

Letter I sent to all my congress-bots

"Mr. Olver (et al.),

In a May 7 2008 Wall Street Journal article I read that the Federal Reserve is going to go before Congress and ask if it could pay interest on the reserves banks are required to keep at the Fed. I am writing to express my complete disapproval of this request; I think it is a poor usage of tax dollars.

From the article, the argument by the Fed seems to be twofold. First, the Fed claims this measure will allow them to entice banks into holding more reserves for a rainy day. To this I say: the reserve requirement is set by the Government and as such, if the reserve needs to be higher, then just set it higher. Banks don't need to be reimbursed for this "lost" reserve money; the reserve requirement exists to protect banks from themselves (and protect America from banks) by preventing banks from lending more then they can handle. And banks will do this (ex: S&L crisis).

The Fed also claims this new measure will allow them to keep the market-set interest rate from falling well below the Fed-set interest rate when there is a lot of free cash in the market and lending is prevalent. This is an interesting argument considering the credit crisis might aptly be retitled the "cash-or-no-cash-we-aren't-going-to-lend crisis". The disjunction between liquidity and interest rates aside, I don't see when exactly market-set interest rates are going to fall below Fed-set interest rates - they haven't yet.

The bottom line again: I feel the Fed's idea is just a waste of money. Please don't support it.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,
Nathaniel Walton"

I might have just made up the part about market-set interest rates being higher than fed-set interest rates but I'm tired and I'm just trying to make a point, rather than discover the truth. Truth is for the well-rested.

cites:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121011673771072231.html

There is a difference

Today on NPR I heard a woman, in the context of privatizing water rights, confuse the difference between the concept of and the existence of "economies of scale." People do analogs of this all the time; the difference between concept and existence is not "academic", or "theoretical", or whatever. It's completely practical.

Practically, it is as easy to win against the concept of "economics of scale" as it would be to eradicate the usage of a word from the english language ("politics", for example), to wipe a disease from the face of the planet, to halt an internet meme, or to uninvent the atomic bomb. Less rhetorically, YOU WILL FAIL.

Practically, it is significantly easier to demonstrate the existence of "economies of scale." Due to the vagaries of statistics, I would bet real money that it's even easier to actually do what this woman wants to do (though she never says it), which is: disprove the existence of "economics of scale" in the case of water. By the way, there are terms for the lack of "economies of scale", before anybody tells me the jargon of economics itself limits the discussion. They are: "diseconomies of scale" and "constant returns to scale".

So, when you confuse concept and existence, you get a mixed bag of arguments; depending on the composition of the bag your opponents may be required to defend their position by doing anything from
a) stand around watching you defeat yourself to
b) ignore you

The bottom line is the level of economic ignorance in this country is staggering. And it's not because people are disconnected from the economy. 95% of the population has a job, more than that use money day-to-day. The government subsists on money flows; companies are some of the most powerful institutions in the country. But, left and right we still have people making logically incoherent statements about this system they are irrevocably entwined with, all the while expressing an intense dislike for the people interested enough in the system to study it. And when I say study, I do not mean profit.

Because when we discuss the people who study and the people who profit, we are talking about two different sets, neither of which is fully a subset of the other. In economics there are many things to discuss which do not offer opportunities for profit (succeed in making the study of poverty as profitable as investment banking, and I guarantee the world you create will look NOTHING like the world of today). In profiting there are many ignored economic concepts which offer opportunities for loss (pollution is an "externality", or something which a free market does not price into the cost of manufacturing something; this failure to account properly is known as a "market failure").

And don't get me started on the people who think they can use non-economic rhetoric to effect markets. This includes: politians; moralists. But specifically, not McCain or Hillary - these two belong to a slighty different crowd who believe they can craft excellent economic policy on the basis of:
a) sheer willpower
b) blinding charisma
c) how it sounds
d) whether they thought of it

I'm going to take credit for this because I can

Check out this recently made quiz:
http://www.bush-mccainchallenge.com/?id=12570-8588062-Zb9YFM

...and then check out my blog post on April 14 2008. The improbability that my words had an effect on someone at Moveon.org versus my egomania. Egomania wins.

Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

This is the one which originally made me angry and precipitated the post below this one. John McCain, I said previously you were trying to piss on a house fire to try and put it out but NOW you really ARE trying to piss on a house fire to try and put it out. You want to what?? You want to:

Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) To Reduce Demand

Excuse me, to reduce WHAT? Demand? Oh I thought you said "to Reduce My Political Opponents". Because here is why this plan will never reduce demand: I checked in with my pals over at the DOE and they said that they were required to store the maximum legally authorized amount for the SPR - 1 billion barrels of oil. Incidently, the reserve already contains 700 million barrels of oil. So John McCain has sworn NOT to buy 300 MILLION barrels of oil! OPEC would be trembling, except that the world drinks 300 million barrels of oil every three and a half days. Shit.

The DOE even told me the cost per barrel of storage! What a bunch of sweethearts (it's 3.50 a barrel). They also were happy to give me the (current) price of 87 bucks ber barrel of crude for domestic oil 110 for imported. Since we eat 60% imported, that's about 101 bucks per barrel weighted average. So 300 million additional barrels costs 304 billion dollars. Wow, the McCain Save-O-Meter is way back in the positive:

304 billion less
6 billion
=298 billion

Oh yeah, almost forgot: The two biggest single drawdowns in the last 20 years from the so-called "Strategic Petroleum Reserve" were:
Desert Storm
Hurricane Katrina

These were ~20 million barrels for Desert Strom ~10 million barrels for Katrina. We have GWBush to thank for doubling the SPF's target to 1 billion.

John, how about you stop filling the SPF to reduce your favorite: unnecessary government spending? Goddammit, politians confuse the living fuck out of me.

cites:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/4dbd2cc7-890e-47f1-882f-b8fc4cfecc78.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_dfp1_k_m.htm
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_wco_k_w.htm
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/spr-facts.html

Summer Gas Tax Holiday

I really can't fucking stand the Republican Party. Why won't America stop voting for them! What completely confounds me, especially in this election, is that people have no problem criticizing Bush and endorsing McCain in the same breath. It doesn't make any goddamn sense, guys! Politically, philosophically, they are alike; they are both Republicans. Jesus that's such a goddamn simple argument it leaves me looking around for more.

This is just sad. I'm starting right at the top of "Issues" on John McCain's website. This is beginning with "McCain's Economic Plan":

"John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day."

What I don't understand is how exactly this will help ANYTHING. First: assume that the gas tax was repealed forever and we STILL have problems - problems like knocking 18 cents off the price of gas is roughly a 5% discount (in today's prices). Have you seen my post two posts down about gas prices? Second: decreasing price leads to increasing demand, leads to increasing price. Third: U.S. consumes 9.3 million barrels of motor gasoline (July 2007). Motor gasoline per what? Per day. Thats roughly 400 million gallons. Per day. The "pissing on a house fire" analogy immidiately comes to mind.

Curious: how exactly will we move towards a balanced budget while this plan cuts revenues by 74 million dollars? Per day? That's only 6 billion dollars lost when you think it through, but it's still twice the amount McCain claims Clinton and Obama ever earmarked. Ever. John, my friend, you have no clue do you? You just don't know much at all. A loss is the same a cost. Read a book.

I'm going to do all of these parts of his various "plans" - just in different posts.

cites:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/4dbd2cc7-890e-47f1-882f-b8fc4cfecc78.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

Things I would like to have

I would love to have a way of storing little pop up alerts on my computer; when I opened a certain program it would give me little reminders about mistakes I might make in the future, etc. Like when I open MSExcel a warning would appear and say, helpfully, "Remember to manually format the precision of the numeric cells if you are going to save this file as a .dbf!"

I would also love to have a way of storing little pop up alerts on contact lenses; the alerts would appear when I did certain things. Like when I reached for the knob on the front door a warning would appear and say, helpfully, "Don't forget your keys again, dammit!".

Cars vs. Gas Prices

So, I was over at http://www.fool.com/ trolling for stock pitches by people with terrible CAPS scores; macheting through the dense message-board undergrowth in the internet forest I came upon a clearing within which stood a little sapling of knowledge, happily growing next to a stream of burbling factoids. My curiousity piqued, I knelt next to the flow. I scooped out a handful of water, and with it came a little creature. A reply! It said:

"You're being unfair saying that Hybrids have been in this market nearly 10 years. The introduction of the Honda Insight hardly qualified. A car that never sold more then 500 units.With all the excuses you have for Ford, you still don't address that Hybrid or not, they have the least effecient fleet in the industry, and gas prices are going to hit $4 this Spring. Ford's average vehicle returns 18 mpg. Compare that to Toyota at 23.5 mpg's."

To which I responded (Bearing in mind that I'm not the person, nor will I ever be, defending Ford in the conversation):

"Gas Prices, April of each year: (YoY % Change)
2004: 1.77
2005: 2.25 (27%)
2006: 2.76 (23%)
2007: 2.82 (2%)
2008: 3.47 (23%)

Let's predict Apr 2009 gas prices. Simple model: assume YoY prices increase linearly throughout the year (this is perhaps a slightly implausible scenario since from glancing at the data it looks like the curve is steep at the beginning of year and flattens over the summer months, though it look like does steepen again over autumn months). Jan 08 gas price starts at: 3.08. Thus over first four months of the year: .38 increase.

Predicted 2009: 3.96
40% YoY increase.

Difference between average MPG of Ford and Toyota:
(23.5 - 18) / 18 = 31%

'Nuff Said."

(cite: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html)

Lessons

Today I was reminded that hedging against a market downturn does not protect you from your own bad stock picks.

Give me your petitions, because I WILL sign them

...especially if they are conveniently delivered to my gmail inbox. If you've got my personal information already, even better, because I hate having to type it in over and over again. MoveOn.org sends me petitions all the time - I sign them without even looking! Select, Ctrl-C those "suggested comments", Ctrl-V in the right box and crank it up a notch with that big red "Sign the Petition" button. Bam!
Sometimes I include a little extra "something" to send to the people who are going to be receiving the petition; a little morsel to remind the hapless petitionees that MoveOn.org is composed of pyschotic leftists. Here is my tidbit for ABC and co. about the terrible job they did hosting a recent democratic debate:

"You people are bad for America; you use your wealth and ill-earned prestige to turn the first amendment into a joke. One day soon I hope youTube and blogging makes your entire industry obsolete."

One could argue that I'm just trying to live up to whats already been said about MoveOn.org. After all it was Mr. McCain who said "MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country". But, MoveOn.org is people (members even voted to determine which candidate MoveOn.org should endorse). I'm going to ignore the obviously idiotic (and irony-laden) notion that McCain has outlined - free speech should result in your U.S. citizenship being revoked. More interesting: how COMPLETELY integrated into our national rhetoric the concept is that an institution (especially political) speaks for itself instead of for the people who compose it. And that makes less sense the more I think about it.

Wow back to back posts on MoveOn.org. What was I thinking?

They got more than they asked for

So MoveOn.org asked me, late one night:
"How do you think we should use social-networking sites to make sure everyone is registered, and everyone gets out to vote?"

And my answer was:
"To be honest, I kind of wish Facebook had stayed out of political networking/work networking/all those 'networking's which preclude the fundamental nature of Facebook, that is: "largely a waste of time for a lot of people". If I had to say - an I'm not actually joking here - make a silly flash plugin/minigame for Facebook in which players expose right-wing lies and hypocrisy in some non-heavy handed way. Actually that's a great idea - maybe you could even have a more intense version of that where people take quizzes to see how well they score on things like "Republican lie detection". How bout a flash game that's a set of "Fox News" scales (balanced from fair and balanced, get it?). Then the player has to do various humorous things to try and keep the "liberal media bias" from unbalancing the scales like slander democratic candidates/politicians, cut people off mid-interview, make up facts, ceaselessly flatter a Republican politician/candidate, etc. Each round of the game, that is each round trying to keep the scales balanced, could be an election from a different year; this way you could include real facts about what Fox did. So, for instance, one round might be the 2004 election, and one thing the player can do to balance the scales is use "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth". Or whatever."

I guess it goes without saying that I've got too many words; I thought starting a blog was bad enough, but typing essays into 1-character x 15-character text boxes seems worse.

Fuck you, Patrick Schultz

Fuck you Patrick Schultz. Today (April 10) you said sovereign funds are good for us. Do you hate America? When sovereign funds give us money, its in exchange for pieces of America you fucking idiot; we're not taking about selling American products anymore. I want the United States to be owned by the people who compose the United States. Don't misunderstand me; I'm lenient about who composes the United States. I'm not violently against illegal immigrants, and I'm down with foreign direct investment, but god fucking dammit if your selling your assets for cash you're hooking.

Patrick Schultz, if you want to live like that you can spend the rest of your life giving twirls on the corner for all I care. Just don't try to pretend that, because you have an M.B.A from Harvard or some shit, somehow the meaning of your words change. You're a fucking hustler. Fuck you.

"Synthetic CDOs do not own cash assets like bonds or loans. Instead, synthetic CDOs gain credit exposure to a portfolio of fixed income assets without owning those assets through the use of credit default swaps, a derivatives instrument. (Under such a swap, the credit protection seller, the CDO, receives periodic cash payments, called premiums, in exchange for agreeing to assume the risk of loss on a specific asset in the event that asset experiences a default or other credit event.) Like a cash CDO, the risk of loss on the CDO's portfolio is divided into tranches. Losses will first affect the equity tranche, next the mezzanine tranches, and finally the senior tranche. Each tranche receives a periodic payment (the swap premium), with the junior tranches offering higher premiums."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation)

Fixed maximum gain, potentially unlimited loss, and they don't even own anything. Who ever thought of this needs to be slapped back to 1929.

Just read this, from Bloomberg, today (excerpt, thanks Yves Smith):

"Recent CLO deals have been ``eating into the massive overhang of leveraged bank loans and alleviating some of the stress in the capital markets,'' said Peter Plaut, an analyst at hedge fund Sanno Point Capital Management in New York.They're also ``an easy way for banks to reduce balance sheet risk, which indirectly helps reduce capital requirements, by funding the AAA through the Fed and selling the equity, which provides high yield to investors,'' Plaut said." (my bold)

High yield because they're high risk. So lets see: Banks/etc can't sell their sketchy loans, so they transfer said loans to what essentially amounts to a shell company (a CLO), buy the sketchy loans off themselves using money from bonds sold to the Fed, and sell stock in their new shell company to investors for a quick profit.

*Head in hands*

Thoughts

I had three distinct thoughts in, the shower, a single state of mind:

1) All events are infinitely improbable if you compare them with what could have happened.
2) History is cyclical in the process of fullfilling human needs and wants.
3) You can only account for what you did with each second of your life after after you know what happens in every second of your life.

Too Long

I'm reading this article called "Students of Virginity" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30Chastity-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=127b604e2236107e&ex=1207627200&emc=eta1) and I couldn't help myself - the running commentary in my head was too loud to ignore. My opinions might be objectionable, my facts might be wrong, but oh fucking well. P.S. - thanks R for sending this to me, I'm not sure this post was in your plan; I apologise in advance.

Quotes are from the article... [Q]
Thoughts are from me... [T]

Q: "It seemed to Fredell that almost no one had sex in Colorado Springs."

T: Did Fredell ever google "sex colorado springs"? Because I just did and I found (in ten seconds):
An escort service
A swingers night club
A list of the 610 registered sex offenders in Colorado Springs

Q: '“The hookup culture is so absolutely all-encompassing,” she said. “It’s shocking! It’s everywhere!”'

T: Self note: remember that this quote is from somebody who went to a high school where '“literally everyone,” wore chastity rings'...

Q: "...calling themselves True Love Revolution. They were pushing, for reasons entirely secular, the cause of premarital sexual abstinence..."

T: Quick: what secular reasons? Not any of these: Promote scientific accuracy, prevent the spread of disease, increasing the proportion of sex acts which are "safe", actually reducing the number of sex acts [all these things were gleaned from page 2 of the online version of the article]. Perhaps Jesus could ride a cloud down to earth and whisper the answer in my ear?

[Breakdown of Q/T convention...]
Ahhh god and by the third page of the article the whole fish is cooked. Now we are into the crux of things! Apparently these groups (at least at the Ivys) have a mascot! Elizabeth Anscombe! No jesus freaks here, just some good old philosophy of ethics; Anscombe even hob-nobbed with Wittgenstein! But in other Anscombe-related news, read this:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/AnscombeChastity.shtml

That article is straight from the horses mouth, as they say, and if you finished it, and thought it was reasonable, then congratulations: you are a fucking idiot! The woman uses a nasty combination of personal attacks, guilt by association, assumption of facts, the "snowball" effect (for lack of a desire to look up the proper term) to blow her implications way out of proportion, and many many appeals to the sanctity of the Catholic church when the logical ice she's skating on gets too thin.

Obviously the person who did this report believed all this bullshit, given the degree of respect she afford's these abstinence clubs. Look, just because you go to Princeton or Yale or Harvard, doesn't mean your off the hook when it comes to endorsing ass-crazy cultist wackos. Like Will Smith said in "I, Robot": "Does believing you're the last sane man on the planet make you crazy? 'Cause if it does, maybe I am."

What follow are some choice quotes. I'd love to take them out of context to make them worse, since I'm really here to slander those who disagree with me, but frankly trying to make these quotes sounds worse than they do in context would be more work than it would be worth:

"There always used to be a colossal strain in ancient times; between heathen morality and Christian morality, and one of the things pagan converts had to be told about the way they were entering on was that they must abstain from fornication... ...Christian life meant a separation from the standards of that world: you couldn't be a Baal-worshipper, you couldn't sacrifice to idols, be a sodomite, practice infanticide, compatibly with the Christian allegiance."

"People quite alienated from this tradition are likely to see that my argument holds: that if contraceptive intercourse is all right then so are all forms of sexual activity. To them that is no argument against contraception, to their minds anything is permitted, so long as that's what people want to do. Well, Catholics, I think, are likely to know, or feel, that these other things are bad."

"For we don't invent marriage, as we may invent the terms of an association or club, any more than we invent human language. It is part of the creation of humanity and if we're lucky we find it available to us and can enter into it. If we are very unlucky we may live in a society that has wrecked or deformed this human thing. "

[Return of Q/T convention]
Q: "early sexual activity is strongly associated with all manner of terrible outcomes, from increased risk of depression to greater likelihood of marital infidelity, divorce and maternal poverty"
T: Justin Murray, when I think about the mistakes you made when you used these numbers to support your cause, I actually get stupider. Here are two great reasons why your reasoning makes no fucking sense (they work together and seperately for [nearly] twice the destructive power!):
1) correlation does not imply causation!
2) causation is bidirectional!

Q: 'Since True Love Revolution did not condemn gay marriage, Murray hoped no one would feel “personally attacked.” “We just wanted it to be kind of humorous and lighthearted,” he said.'
T: Look, more sychophantic bullshit to cover up wanton suppression! Now I'm actually getting pissed off. Seriously, True Love Revolution: go fuck yourself. Not that I care, but is sychophantic even the right word? Anyway when I read sentences like the one above, I get a sudden blindingly clear image of an overflowing portapotty with one of those little scented pine trees hanging from the ceiling.

In the end I'm just confused - why can't abstinence and contraceptives groups work hand in hand? The abstinence groups draw the line in the sand. They protest education about sex. In a strange way, while I was reading Anscombe, I recieved the same impression. It's a feeling these people emit which is hard to pin down, but it definitely is nostalgic for the times when we were more ignorant about our bodies. Anscombe finds all contraception indefensible except the rythm method - citing numerous times the purity of the "laws of nature", and the impurities of human inovation (especially as it applies to forcing rewrites of Church doctrine). When True Love Revolution mailed those Valentine's Day cards just to woman, it could be thought of as merely a tactical error; when Fredell commented repeatedly that men only want sex, and that woman only acquiesce, the comments could have intepreted in light of her own limited sexual experiences. But, again the actions and comments of the people in the True Love Revolution could be said to be, slightly, willfully ignorant of the way the world is now, and thus, regretful that things are not now like they used to be.

Oh, and fuck spellcheck.

The Onion couldn't makes this up

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/missile_mistake



How the fuck did this happen? I'm sure no one was personally responsible for writing the incorrect address on the packages. Or what? Envelopes? This story really begs for details. I mean, how big are these fuses? They go into minuteman missiles for God's sakes; who got the, perhaps, mistaken order sheet and thought "taiwan + shit out of the ICBM spare parts warehouse" was a good idea?



Frankly, I actually just read the article after writing the above paragraph, and I have to wonder - in a world where members of the US fucking Airforce and willingly and happily, without question it would seem, load the U.S.'s largest bomber up with nuclear fucking bombs and fly all over the fucking place - how is it that nobody found WMDs in Iraq? Weren't we there in 91? Considering this story, aren't the odds good that some nukes just got left there? I mean, I'm sure nobody even ordered nukes into Iraq, but big fucking deal, it's obvious now it's not like it matters what our intentions are.



P.S. - This probably would never have been an issue had it been for the fact that our nation's absurdly large commitment to providing everybody in the world with a gun (and spare parts):
http://www.fas.org/asmp/fast_facts.htm

It's hard to tell what to do with thoughts like these...

For what purpose am I alive?

Am I alive...
...because I'm destined to do something?
What if I'm destined to do something worthless?

Am I alive...
...because I'm fulfilling a god's plan?
What can I do that a god can't?
Why wouldn't god do it her/himself?

Am I alive...
...because of a progressive series of events?
What kind of an excuse is that?

Am I alive...
...because two people decided they wanted one?
Why am I not just a servant?

Am I alive...
...because somebody, some people perhaps, wanted to see what would happen?
What's the difference between life and a complex simulation of life?

Am I alive?

I have had two thoughts today:

1) With regard to voting machines: I think the touchscreen notion is terrible, for reasons beyond just the fact that I have to usually enter my debit card pin at least once in the checkout line. I think the idea of updating voting technology is wonderful.

Here is what we would do INSTEAD of touch-screen voting machines: We would have regular paper ballots. BUT, when the paper ballots were counted, and everything was said and done, there would be a protected database with which individual voters could take a PIN they were given at the time of voting, and use said PIN to look up what happened to their individual vote.

First, it wouldn't be that much extra work (and relatively cheap) to store the votes in a database later accesible by the general public with their PINs. You have to count up the damn things anyway, right?

Second, the system could be made very secure simply by assigning a completely random PIN to each vote/voter pair. A PIN and a vote can be matched, but neither the PIN or vote could ever be matched to a person.

Paper ballots, you could say why bother? Electronic voting machines with no paper trail? You have to make one, and this idea is it.

2) I fucking forgot this thought.

lalala...

Things to Remind myself to Write About:
1) That one Harvard piece in which the middle class is supposed to be between "120000 and 180000" dollars per year, check Harvard press releases and NYTimes article
2) Oberlin's supposedly fantastic review of their investment strategies over the last 10 years - the Oberlin Alumni Review should have plenty of ammo.
3) This whole Iran NIE thing - John Bolton, ex UN Ambassador in an NPR interview claims title, which is something along the lines of "Iran stopped making nukes in 2003" does not actually mean NIE claims Iran stopped making nukes in 2003. Also, has anybody actually READ this NIE?