NEW YORK — President Barack Obama has committed an additional 30,000 troops to stabilize Afghanistan, supplemented by some additional allied forces from NATO, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. During a press conference, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Obama did not see the U.S. commitment to the Middle East country as open ended. With the war already lasting nearly eight years, earlier Gibbs had said the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan for another eight or nine years, though a specific time table isn’t expected. Following the latest addition, the U.S. will have about 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Since 2001, about 928 U.S. soldiers have died in the country, with casualty numbers climbing higher in each year, according to iCasualties.org.
Why are other parties shying away from asking the public about Scottish Independence?
OK, let me lay my cards on the table, I do not support full independence for Scotland, I support the Union, I don’t wish to see these islands broken up into their constituent parts. However that does not prevent me from supporting the SNPs Leader and Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond from asking the people for their thoughts in an ‘advisory’ referendum. At least, unlike both Labour and Conservatives, he appears genuine in his wish to carry out a manifesto commitment (remember Lisbon anyone?).
I am in complete agreement with both Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale on this one, it represents localism at it’s best, is not binding, and will more than likely lead to politicians listening rather than saying. The likelihood, also, is that the Scottish people will not vote for complete independence and that would deal a serious blow to the SNP’s hopes at the next election for a Scottish Parliament. Just what the other main parties are dragging their heels about is quite beyond me, have the debate now and get the question out of the way, it might dispose of the main plank in Salmond’s platform!
Guido, of course takes the admirable libertarian position of devolving more and more power and decision making capabilities further down into local communities, what he does not articulate, of course is how a largely independent Scotland would affect The House of Commons. It might be a monumental struggle for Labour to ever form a government again without the ranks of their Scottish members sitting in London! (Probably as a good a reason as any for the Labour Party to oppose a referendum over independence, but the Tories current position is perplexing to say the least.)
Boris Johnson, The Conservative Mayor of London marks St. Andrew’s Day by announcing that the Scottish Saltyre proudly flies outside of City Hall (and London is even being asked to create it’s own tartan) as he makes an excellent plea for a total renogiation of the Barnett Formula:
This system is the subject of all sorts of Scot-bashing polemics, but seems unlikely to be fundamentally reformed because, after all, we have a Union and it is right that the richer parts of that Union should help the poorer parts. The real question, and the one on which I would like our beloved Scottish Prime Minister and Chancellor to focus, is how come we can afford to pay the Barnett formula? Where does the money come from?
I will tell you. It comes from London. There are only three regions of the UK that make a profit, in the sense of contributing more to the Treasury than they receive in spending, and they are London, the South East, and the East; and London is the powerhouse that drives the other two, with a net tax export estimated at £19 billion per year.
Perhaps by allowing the people of Scotland their referendum on independence we could then have a balanced debate about the necessary redistribution of fiscal resources and investment that Boris is looking for in the capital, and perhaps find a little more cash for the north-east!
There will be no more second chance for the “research papers.” I will be grading them (albeit using an unorthodox standard) as they are. The problem is that no one told me that you don’t know what a research paper is and how to do it. Even if I rejected your papers for revisions, you’ll not be able to produce a viable one because you don’t know yet what to do. It was my fault; I operated on the basis of untested assumptions.
I’ll be conferring with your English teacher regarding this matter. Research paper writing is an integral part of academic training both in high school and college. Research topics may vary according to level, but the core skill of researching, as well as the values of intellectual honesty and responsibility is always there. There’s nothing collegiate about research paper writing – it is prescribed in the Basic Education Curriculum for High School. In most public schools, the rudiments of research are taught during the Second and Third Years so that by the Fourth Year students can apply what they have learned in all their subjects. It is not supposed to be hard – if you know what to do.
It says the video was shot in Ohio, but I think they shipped in some of my Utah neighbors to be interviewed:
If only John McCain had picked Mitt Romney for his running mate, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
In 2012, I don’t know which will be more interesting, a Palin-Romney ticket or a Romney-Palin ticket? Or throw Glenn Beck into the mix, maybe an all Mormon ticket? Can you imagine a Romney-Beck whitehouse with Sarah Palin as Secretary of State?
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove [ The music is We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn]
Dubai is the leading exponent of housing bubbles that have occurred worldwide. Eccentricity of management has turned a city in the middle of the desert in a field full of hotels and skyscrapers. It was a time – the golden era – when anything was little for the Emirate.
But the crisis has beaten hard Dubai. Works have stopped and credit flow is dead blocked. Up to the point that, yesterday the state holding announced a moratorium on payment of $ 4 billion debt – the same holding that built the famous Jumeira Palm Island. This did not sit well with international markets.
The problem is that the Emirate owes $ 80 billion and markets begin to have doubts about its solvency. As soon as the moratorium on debt payment was announced markets felt down. The worst financial crisis could recur. But instead of banks’ cessation of payments we may now witness States’ suspension of payments.
Meanwhile, in another part of the planet – the United States – the policy of the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates near zero is fuelling a wave of speculative capital that can initiate the next crisis. Many warn that a new bubble is brewing, and several specialists see in this quantitative easing an equivalent outcome Japan had for its crisis of the early 90s. Low Japanese interest rates did contribute definitely to the outbreak of the Asian crisis in 1997.
Ben Bernanke, an academic on the Great Depression, monitored the most massive injection of liquidity into the world’s largest economy, committing himself not to make the mistake of the 30s when the Fed officials pursued a strict and rigorous monetary policy that only aggravate the crisis further enough. The lack of available money in 1930 is regularly considered the reason why the crisis lengthened for a decade. The little response to current liquidity injections shows that the situation is all but comforting and that new limits of monetary policy may further alter the global imbalances that the crisis left uncovered.
One of these speculation operations is the so-called carry trade; investors borrow in $ (0%) headed for invest in other currencies that offer higher interest rates such as Australia, Brazil and New Zealand. Much of the flow in the capital markets moves ahead that direction. Hence the importance that Asian and Oceania assets are acquiring versus Europe and US assets. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore assets are rising to levels that are incompatible with the reality that replicates the real estate bubble of US in the 90s and Japan in the 80s – when the Imperial Palace Gardens in Tokyo came to cost more than the entire US state of Washington.
Despite this, former Fed Governor Frederick Mishkin assumed that there is no evidence that a speculative bubble is emerging, since not all bubbles present risks to the economy. Mishkin split good from bad bubbles. The former are instigate by a credit boom, whereas expectations lead to increased demand, generating a rise in asset prices, encouraging lending against those assets and positive feedbacks cycle until it explodes.
The second category of bubbles what Mishkin calls “pure irrational exuberance bubble” is less harmful because there is no credit boom, and if no credit boom occurs the bursting of the bubble can not damage the system – e.g. the bubble in technology in the ’90s and the dotcom’s of 2000, had no global impact. For Myshkin the rise of the credit stirs the bubbles. Now, there is no credit boom in small scale. But bubble is building on the macro scale of speculative capitals, those who move billions of dollars of pension funds, the very same that play in the stock market or speculate on the gold and oil at the expense of the dollar. And at macro levels, everything where bubbles get involved presage awful signs for the economy. Otherwise, it’s like thinking that a bomb may have some positive effect.
WSJ
Government Attempts to Ease Jitters After Standstill Announcement on Debt; Questions of Exposure
DUBAI—Investors sold banking stocks across Europe and Asia and jacked up the price of insuring against Dubai defaults, a day after the government said it would take charge of restructuring its corporate flagship, Dubai World, and asked creditors to accept delayed payments.
A Wednesday announcement of a six-month standstill in debt payments took investors and analysts by surprise. It followed months of positive moves and comments from government officials suggesting Dubai and the federal government of the United Arab Emirates were willing to step in to plug financing holes.
“The most negative effect of [the] announcement is a major shock to confidence in the U.A.E. and the region more generally,” said Richard Fox, a credit analyst at Fitch Ratings in London. “People will now question government support.”
Amid a scramble by international bankers and analysts to assess global exposure to Dubai, the company said Thursday that its cash-generating ports division, DP World, wouldn’t be included in the restructuring.
Company executives and representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment. Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al Maktoum, head of Dubai’s finance committee, said in a statement Thursday that “our intervention in Dubai World was carefully planned and reflects its specific financial position,” according to Zawya Dow Jones. “We understand the concerns of the market and the creditors in particular. However, we have had to intervene because of the need to take decisive action to address its particular debt burden,” he said, promising more details next week.
European and Asian stock markets fell, weighed down partly by concerns about bank exposure to Dubai. Markets were closed across the Persian Gulf for Eid holiday, and in the U.S. for Thanksgiving. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index fell 3.3%, while London’s FTSE 100 index was down 3.2%. The U.S. dollar rebounded after slumping in Asia, as investors flocked to the currency as a haven.
Dubai’s standstill request is one more troubling development for international banks, which turned in recent years to the oil-rich Middle East as a source of income. Both local and international banks also are licking their wounds from the debt troubles this year of two big family-run Saudi Arabian conglomerates, which owe more than 100 lenders a conservatively estimated $15 billion.
Dubai World is seeking a six-month moratorium on interest payments, a person familiar with the matter said. During that time, it could negotiate with creditors a restructuring that would pare liabilities, which include $20 billion of loans and bonds coming due in the next 18 months, according to estimates. If the lenders don’t agree, Dubai World will default on the notes, the person said.
The banks with the greatest exposure to Dubai World are Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Emirate NBD PJSC, people familiar with the matter said. Executives at the two banks weren’t available for comment Thursday.
Among the international banks that have large exposure are the U.K.’s Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC, Barclays PLC, Lloyds Banking Group PLC, Standard Chartered PLC and ING Groep NV of the Netherlands, the person said.
RBS has lent roughly $1 billion to Dubai World, another person said.
Dubai World Bond Values Plunge As Investors Fear Contagion
Bonds of Dubai World’s real-estate subsidiary plunged in value Thursday, a day after the troubled Gulf city-state rattled investors throughout Europe’s financial markets by delaying the state-run conglomerate’s debt payments.
Roughly $3.5 billion of Islamic bonds, called sukuk, from Dubai World real-estate subsidiary Nakheel dropped from around 110 cents on the dollar before the news Wednesday to around 70 cents, in a sign Dubai’s decision caught investors completely off guard. The bonds are due to mature December 14.
European stock markets also fell sharply in the wake of the Dubai World news, with investors fretting over the possibility of losses for European banks exposed to Dubai.
Nakheel bond holders sought legal advice Thursday on their options, including whether they could seize some assets.
Significant bond holders include QVT Financial LP, a New York-based hedge fund which manages about $8 billion in total assets, according to people familiar with the matter. Other recent holders of Nakheel bonds include money managers BlackRock Inc., of New York, and London’s Ashmore Group PLC, according to holdings disclosed on Bloomberg. BlackRock and Ashmore declined to comment.
The question now: Why were holders of Nakheel’s bonds surprised?
For months, investors have harbored concerns about Dubai, one of seven semiautonomous emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. After years of riding the credit boom, Dubai is struggling to overcome an economic crisis triggered by the collapse of its real-estate sector.
Investor complacency amid the global economic recovery may partly explain the rude surprise. But a deeper reason is that investors may have mistakenly assumed that recent emergency support coming from the broader United Arab Emirates would ensure Dubai would pay all its obligations on time.
The new fear: Any help from Dubai’s oil-rich neighbor, Abu Dhabi, may be used to help Dubai, but not its state-run corporate entities.
“I think people made the linkages they wanted to make,” says Jeremy Brewin, head of emerging-market debt at Aviva Investors in London. “We need to distinguish between sovereign and “sub”-sovereign debt.”
Local Newspapers are ignoring the problem. One, Gulf News, has a headline on its Business Page of “Investors show trust in Dubai!” Let us see: Nakheel bonds (in which I am indirectly invested) dropped 40% and that is a show of trust??
Cormac Herley of Microsoft Research has written a thought provoking paper which outlines economic reasons why security advice is often ignored.
The guts of the problem according to Herley is that:
most security advice simply offers a poor cost-benefit tradeoff to users and is rejected
If you are interested in security awareness then you should read his paper, partly because it will save me trying to explain it here (my brain hurt trying to get my head around some of the economic concepts) but also because it asks some searching questions of current security awareness practices. I for one will be tuning my delivery of security advice as a result.
The paper however does fall down IMHO in a few ways. It is more an economics paper than a technical one, and like all good capitalists Herley assumes a level playing field with everyone starting from zero. An example of this is where he estimates that the annual cost of phishing loses in the US is $60 million. He then goes on to explain that the cost of mitigating phishing (in the US) therefore works out at 33 cents (or 2.6 minutes of an individual’s time) if we were to spend more on fixing the problem than the loses incurred by that problem.
This all sounds reasonable, if we assume that the cost of phishing in the US is $60million without any prior phishing awareness campaigns taking effect.
As a colleague pointed out, the paper also assumes that there is a quantifiable cost associated with the time a person spends engaging with awareness information. This cost assumes that people are productive 100% of the time – which is of course how an economist would perceive the perfect workforce. Anyone living in the real world knows this to be different. Sure, if my awareness materials stop an employee doing something productive instead of encroaching on their Facebook time at work then yes, let the accountants have their day. But if my materials are engaging enough to replace that ‘non-productive’ time (because they’d rather play the new security awareness game than Farmville) then what they learn only has to reduce the attack surface of the organisation even minutely to be a worthwhile spend.
There’s a lot of other really good stuff in Herley’s paper, and a lot of good discussion about it.
My conclusion from reading it was that as security professionals we need to offer simple, realistic advice that is easy to follow, and focuses on quantifiable risks not worst case scenarios.
How we do this is a challenge. I’m currently writing a submission for AusCERT. Hopefully it will get accepted because the presentation will provide some of my own answers to the questions posed by the paper. More here soon.
I am still thinking about the George Soros quote from a recent posting. The billionaire financier and philanthropist was quoted in Niall Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money” saying that “Every bubble consists of a trend and a misconception that interact in a reflexive manner.”
What he meant was that trends become what we think the underlying idea is — and that can be very different from the original. That’s important because it neatly explains the drift from idea to misconception as well as the way the two feed off one another in a random walk to an outcome.
Think about that for a moment, every bubble, and here let me take some license and say that bubble and paradigm can be used interchangeably, contains the seeds for its own obsolescence. So, for example, the sub-prime mortgage mess started as a trend to make mortgages affordable to more people. It gained steam as unethical mortgage brokers, looking for a quick buck, began selling so-called NINJA loans (no income, no job or assets) to people who could not afford them. The misconception was the belief that the teaser interest rates were permanent. When these adjustable rate loans reset, the trend’s misconception was revealed and the bubble burst as tens of thousands of people defaulted.
Trend and misconception going hand in hand got me thinking about things closer to home. Haven’t we seen trends and misconceptions in CRM? I can think of a few. It seems that whenever we invent a new paradigm in computing we pursue it well beyond its utility and over a cliff.
Some examples
The client-server as an enterprise computing model is an early example. The architecture (trend) was great for building small applications but fizzled badly when vendors like SAP and Siebel tried to scale it to enterprise systems — the misconception was scalability.
Then there’s the idea of the experience economy and customer experience. In the late 1990’s Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore wrote “The Experience Economy” and in it said that what customers hungered for was experiences more than products and services. A transcendent experience based on a company’s product or service would ensure greater success in the market — that was the trend. But somehow every CRM vendor started adding the idea of customer experience to nearly every aspect of business — the misconception. To paraphrase Joe Biden’s critique of Rudy Giuliani, every marketing statement had a noun, a verb and the customer experience.
It didn’t help much. Today we’re a long distance from Pine and Gilmore’s original concept and customer experience is not much more than a band-aid covering poor service policies.
Social CRM and CRM 2.0
These ideas go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter but something gets lost. The trend of knowing your customers and communicating with them via effective and inexpensive social media makes a great deal of sense. But what makes no sense, hence the misconception, is using social media as if it were nothing more than glorified e-mail with which to broadcast your message.
When I go to conferences and hear vendors talk about their social media or social CRM’s ability to reach large numbers of people and accelerate sales processes, I shake my head. The misconception here is that it’s automatically good to reach all those people, to spray your message around. But the real point is that social media enables us to reach the right people with a message of relevance. Social media mediated lead generation might actually leave you working with fewer leads but they will be of higher quality. Less is more is proving to be a tough sell.
Cloud Computing
I was at a conference at Harvard Business School last Saturday and I sat in on a track that included a panel on cloud computing. Five vendor representatives were extolling the virtues of the cloud, which they limited to the benefits of low-cost infrastructure on-demand (i.e. the trend) a.k.a. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
For them cloud computing meant cheap, scalable and elastic availability of computing power delivered by the cloud. This being Harvard, the audience seemed especially impressed by the adoption of economic terms like scalable and elastic to describe cloud computing.
But cloud computing is far more than scalable infrastructure and that is the misconception. Inherent in any definition of cloud computing, there must be provision for rapid, real-time deployment of SaaS made possible by a multi-tenant platform. Otherwise you simply transfer the problems of your IT department to another computer room.
I fear this bubble will blow as soon as a critical mass of companies tries to do something as mundane as update en mass to a new version of a popular product hosted by these clouds.
So, somewhat un-surprisingly, it seems that we are good at developing new ideas but not always good at harnessing them to the right jobs. We tend to overshoot the mark. The corollary to “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is run it as long and as far as you can. While this approach might maximize penetration it predictably over shoots utility. It reminds me of the SNL skit about a product that is “A floor wax and a dessert topping!”
I have spent the last ten years watching and analyzing CRM trends and their misconceptions but I have never heard anyone put it as succinctly as Soros.
I’ve been hearing alot about Ayn Rand recently–Crackpot Adam Curry keeps trying to get Buzzkill to read Atlas Shrugged, while Chris Gondak has reviewed the Jessica Burns book “Goddess of the Market”, a biography of Ayn Rand. With two of my favorite podcasts mentioning her, I decided to do a bit more research. I found recent articles talking about the resurgence including: Huffington Post, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report.
My take on Ayn Rand is that she was definitely affected by her childhood and the injustice she saw with the Russian Revolution. As a philosopher with intelligence (by all accounts she was intelligent), she probably had some very good ideas that were within her realm of understanding and experience. But she could not fully grasp the entire understanding of free market economies and the role of government, mostly because I believe that it is practically impossible for one person to do so. (My new philosophy on philosophers!)
All being said, if I ever have time I just might have to read Atlas Shrugged–there are probably some interesting points in it.
The recent issue of The Economist has some good articles:
Sex and Pharmaceuticals — how Pfizer is trying to up its market share by developing a Viagra-like drug for women
Monsanto: The Parable of the Sower — Debate between whether or not genetically modified seed research company (Monsanto) is “good” or bad”
Less Poor, Less Free — how the new Zambian president (Banda) is chumming up to Chiluba (Former Zambian President) who was recently acquitted of embezzling $95 million in public funds
Sierra Leone’s Corruption — progress in taming corruption?
Congo’s Constitution — The tag line of this one is just ridiculous: “Is Congo’s Joseph Kabila flirting with Dictatorship?” Flirting? Really? You have to ask?
… and they are both Independents who meet in the Democratic Caucus.
“The overwhelming majority of Americans want to be able to choose between a strong public option and a private insurance plan. Without that competition, there is very little in this bill that would keep health insurance premiums from escalating rapidly. This legislation cannot simply be a huge subsidy to private insurance companies that will get millions of new customers and be able to raise their rates as high as they want.”
-Bernie Sanders (I – VT)
“My only resort, and every other senator — and there will be others who feel exactly the way I do about the public option, if the public option is still in there — the only resort we have is to say no at the end to reporting the bill off the floor.”
- Joe Lieberman (I – CT)
So how do we get this aligned (or how do we get the 60th vote from someone other than Lieberman?)
Although these terms are written with the transport industry in mind, they are highly relevant and applicable for other industries as well.
Minimum continuous break in a 24 hour period for a solo driver: 7 hours in the Standard Hours option, 7 hour continuous break or 8 hours in 2 parts (islimited) in the Basic Fatigue Management option, 6 hour continuous break or 8 hours in 2 parts (subject to conditions).
Night sleep: At least seven hours continuous rest between 10pm and 8am.
Shift: The period of driving and work time between two periods of continuous sleep opportunity. A shift is deemed to have started at the end of the last continuous sleep opportunity and finishes at the beginning of the next continuous sleep opportunity.
Short rest break: Any rest break that is 15 minutes or more in duration, but less than seven hours. Means time at work provided for rest and meals after a continuous period of active work and does not include non-driving work time or time not working. Short rest is recorded in minimum 15 minute periods (i.e. any non-work less than 15 minutes does not counttowards rest, any period of non-work of 15 minutes but less than 30 minutes is counted as 15 minutes rest etc.).
Night work: Any driving or work undertaken between midnight and 6 am.
Hazard: A source or situation with a potential to cause injury, illness or disease.
Hazard identification: Process of recognising that a hazard exists.
Risk: The likelihood of an injury, illness or disease occurring and the severity of any injury, illness
or disease that results from exposure to a hazard.
Risk assessment: Process of working out how big a risk is present and what risk factors are causing the problem.
Risk control: The process of applying appropriate prevention measures to eliminate or minimise any
risks.
Circadian rhythm: Circadian rhythms or the body clock regulates physiological and behavioural functions on a 24 hour basis. Sleep and wakefulness are programmed and sleepiness is greatest between midnight to 6 a.m. and to a lesser extent between 2-4 p.m.
Fatigue: Fatigue can be described as a progressive loss of alertness that ultimately ends in sleep.
Sleep debt: Failure to have a normal sleep results in sleep debt that accumulates and can only be paid back by undisturbed, restorative sleep.
Schedule: The pattern of driving and work covering one or more trips. For operators with rostered drivers a schedule might operate over a week or a month. For less regular or predictable situations a schedule may refer to a single trip.
Source: NTC’s Guidelines For Managing Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue August 2007
Jamaica vs. Singapore — The American, A Magazine of Ideas.
Jamaica: Followed socialism
Singapore: Followed capitalism
How many times now do we have to PROVE that countries following a capitalist system of economics explodes in profitability and success while countries that follow a socialistic example are mired in poverty?
Guess which one Barry Soetoro believes in?
FIL “FILVIS” RECHNITZER
When hard core topics from economics such as Inflation, Deflation and Stagflation prop up in a discussion thread, things start to get blurry for the uninitiated.
It’s almost head scratching time when basic questions like these beat you to death:
What is Deflation and How Can it Be Prevented? Is printing money going to solve this?
What is Stagflation?
Why does money have value?
Are Diamonds Forever?
Then I came upon two gems to unravel some of the mystery. Have a look:
While reading an issue of MoneySense, the last page had a review of 5 recent DVD releases concerning the current state of capitalism, including Michael Moore’s new movie “Capitalism: A Love Story”. Capitalism is certainly taking a hit right now, and maybe the lack of regulation has definitely caused some problems. But I don’t think Communism is the answer, and I don’t think hardcore Libertarianism would really work either. Some sort of free market economy with government regulations seem to be the answer.
But what should that mix really be? That is the eternal question all the nations of the world really face. And it brings up a different phrasing of the question: What is the role of government?
…and that, my friends, is a question for another whole blog post (one that will take much time)!
FCC regulators want to provide wider and cheaper broadband access by subsidizing it, raising taxes, and forcing network owners to share their network infrastructure with competitors.
A few things the FCC should consider:
-Subsidies don’t make broadband access any less expensive. They just change who pays for it. In this case, that would be anybody with a phone. Which probably includes you. The great economist Ludwig von Mises observed that “A government can no more determine prices than a goose can lay hen’s eggs.”*
-The tax would make owning a phone more expensive. And when something becomes more expensive, people consume less of it. With tax-exempt technologies like Skype and Google Voice now available, people can switch away from a taxed phone to something cheaper more easily than ever. The more people who do that, the less revenue the phone tax would generate, defeating its very purpose.
-If a company has to share its network infrastructure with its competitors, it loses the incentive to maintain and improve that network. Why invest millions of dollars if it will help your competition just as much as yourself? Quality suffers. So does innovation. In the long run, it is innovation, not FCC intervention, that will make broadband affordable and accessible for everyone. The long-run view is just as important as the short-run view here.
-Land-based networks are expensive to build in rural areas. The cost per customer is huge compared to denser urban areas. Fortunately, that isn’t as much of a problem for wireless technologies. The FCC seems hellbent on the land-based networks since wireless networks aren’t yet advanced enough for mass-market broadband service. But they will be soon enough. And every dollar spent on old-fashioned wired networks is a dollar unavailable for improving wireless service. An unintended consequence of FCC intervention would be slower innovation.
*Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th ed., (Irvington-on-Hudson New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1949], p. 397.
New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has received $1,173,400 in financial-sector contributions. She received more from the commercial banking industry than any other member of congress, and some of her biggest contributions from political action committees came from JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank.
Me:
Congratulations to Ms. Gillibrand for hittin’ the Wall Street tit in record time. Not that she’s corrupt, she’s just for sale. $1.1 million in less than a year is a pretty good take, but give her time. She’s just getting started wallowing around in the pig trough.
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-A
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-B
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-C
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-D
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-E
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-F
Glenn Beck-11-17-09-G
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The American People Confront Obama’s Red Shirts (ACORN) and Purple Shirts (SEIU)–Bullhorns and Beatings Over Obama Care!
Obama’s Marching Orders For His Red Shirts (ACORN), Purple Shirts (SEIU) and Black Shirts (New Panther Party)–Progressive Radical Socialists
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The Obama administration will propose that the federal government take over safety regulation of the nation’s subway and light-rail systems, responding to what it says is haphazard and ineffective oversight by state agencies.
Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak: set and enforce federal regulations to ensure that millions of passengers get to their destinations safely. Administration officials said the plan will be presented in coming weeks to Congress, which must approve a change in the law.
The proposal would affect every subway and light-rail system in the country, including large systems in Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
What Shall we Nationalize Today? Anything they can get their hands on, it seems to me.
I LOVE this idea. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I) has proposed a bill requiring the government to identify the corporations and entities it considers “too big to fail”, or requiring of a taxpayer bailout to keep the economy stable. The bill then gives the government a time-line to break up these entities into smaller firms that do not threaten the financial system. The bill is TWO PAGES LONG!!!! Is this not an amazing idea?
I encourage you to read the full text of the bill in pdf format or the main text below. It’s my kind of legislation.
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act’’.
SEC. 2. REPORT TO CONGRESS ON INSTITUTIONS THAT ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall submit to Congress a list of all commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies that the Secretary believes aretoo big to fail (in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Too Fail List’’).
SEC. 3. BREAKING-UP TOO BIG TO FAIL INSTITUTIONS.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities included on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.
SEC. 4. DEFINITION.
For purposes of this Act, the term ‘‘Too Big to Fail’’ means any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without
substantial Government assistance.
That’s it. That’s the whole bill minus the header. Why can’t all legislation be so straightforward?
Campus for Finance – New Year’s Conference is a conference organized by students of the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar in cooperation with the Dresdner Bank Chair of Finance held by
Prof. Dr. Markus Rudolf in order to
unite outstanding academics, leading corporate
representatives and selected graduate students
provide insight into latest topics on the financial agenda
encourage a sophisticated forum for challenging discussions
create a personal and team-oriented atmosphere by means of interactive workshops with international students
offer the chance to make new contacts in the financial community
The lecture given by Professor Sapra about the counterproductive aspects of some of the accouting measures US legislators are considering in order to strengthen the financial sector has been one of the best I have ever had in my whole life.
According to Professor Sapra:
Increasing the reporting frequency is an incentive for managers to focus in the short-term and neglect long-run growth, which is bad for the economy
Using fair market values in finacial statements will increase volatility in financial reports, companies will react more to the actions of other companies than to the fair value of fundamentals.
Analogy: The Millenium Bridge in London was built in with a special suspension design that allowed the bridge to react to vibrations, like the steps of people. The problem was that people tend to walk at the same pace, especially if there are many people and the bridge is vibrating. As a result of people moving at the same time, the bridge enters oscillates too much. The Millenium Bridge was closed for 18 months after its opening to change the suspension system.
The comparison with the Millenium Bridge Professor Sapra made, together with the clarity of his explanations and his sense of humor, made this lecture so great and memorable.
Here is an article in The Atlantic that carefully outlines all the problems in our health care system in words that just about anyone can understand. At last, I’ve found a resource that analyses the problem from the proper economic viewpoint!
Note that the solution that the author recommends is the exact opposite of the bloated behemoth that was passed by the House the other day….
From St. Matthew 7: 2… (Our Christ, as he was ending His “Sermon on the Mount”).
“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” …Amen
So many modern ministers appear to be exhausting their energies, condemning modern men and women. This disorderly order has created big business and the usage of all ways and means to express discontent and fear and wealth.
“My God is better than your god.” Big business…Churches survive not through peace and prayer but because the delivery of judgments, sin and sinners identification and “pass that plate around again my friend…” and the efforts to sell salvation is, well – great for careers?
Please note: That the above is not judgmental? Is it the truth? Oh-oops…Just who is judging? Surprised? Oh well?
Respect and Understanding and Peace and Love be with us all…Amen
I used to think that people who worried about a third World war were a bit crazy, but that was twenty years ago and the Berlin Wall had just been torn down. As a side note, it was a bit amusing to watch the Germans thanking Gorbachov for tearing down the wall and not mentioning the role of the kindly Ronald Reagan. This was similar to thanking the pit bull for not biting you after he has been tied up and muzzled.
Anyways, at that time I felt it was impossible for people to forget the horrors of the first two World wars and that people would be a bit more prudent in the future. But people forget and today just twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people have already forgotten the reasons why it fell and why the Soviet Union and it’s economy collapsed.
Today’s global situation in many ways reminds me of conditions prior to World War I. With Obama, we have another Woodrow Wilson in office with his head in the sand dreaming of World Order. In the meantime, Eastern Europe is just one cold winter away from being re-taken by the Russians, an Iranian dictator has nuclear weapons with technology supplied by North Korea and Russia, and Obama has cleared the way to bring the Iranian Revolution to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia while Japan and Taiwan are threatened by China.
To add gasoline to the fire, at any time, Lebanese based Hizbullah are ready to start lobbing rockets into Israel and all of the Middle East could be engulfed in war.
Economic, religious and nationalist tensions cause nations to go to war. We have all of these tensions present today and with Nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue states, the stakes have never been higher.
By Julianne Pepitone, CNNMoney.com staff reporter
Last Updated: November 6, 2009: 10:43 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Five banks failed late Friday, bringing the 2009 tally to 120.
The biggest to fall was United Commercial Bank of San Francisco, which had 63 U.S. branches as well as operations in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The bank held deposits totaling $7.5 billion.
East West Bank of Pasadena, Calif., agreed to assume all of United Commercial’s domestic branches, as well as its international subsidiaries.
United Security Bank of Sparta, Ga., closed its doors for the last time on Friday. Moultrie, Ga.-based Ameris Bank will assume control of all United Security’s deposits.
Home Federal Savings Bank of Detroit also failed late friday. New Orleans-based Liberty Bank and Trust Co. will assume control of its deposits.
Prosperan Bank of Oakdale, Minn., failed and will be taken over by Grand Forks, N.D.-based Alerus Financial.
Gateway Bank of St. Louis, Mo., also failed. Central Bank of Kansas City will take over its deposits.
Customers of the failed banks are protected, however. The FDIC., which has insured bank deposits since the Great Depression, currently covers customer accounts up to $250,000.
Customers can access their money over the weekend by writing checks or using ATMs or debit cards. Checks will continue to be processed, and borrowers should make mortgage and loan payments as usual.
As a follow up to my earlier post it now seems that it is Bobby Godsell who was pushed resigned in the end and Jacob Maroga is back in charge at Eskom. Well at least someone got kicked out of Eskom but I doubt it will change anything. I do not care if Robert Mugabe or Pol Pot runs Eskom, I only want cheap electricity delivered to my house effectively and efficiently. However this whole fuck-up at Eskom is, once again, a classic example of what happens when politicians get involved and put politics above reality. And in Eskom’s case it is probably no exception. Bobby Godsell had a simple plan to get Eskom going again and presented it to the Board. On the other hand we saw Jacob Maroga primarily bitching and moaning about politics in the company which somehow caused Eskom to be in the state it is in, primarily race based politics. Well Mr. Maroga is correct but he should have stated the whole truth: It is politics that sits at the root of the rot in Eskom – finish and klaar. Just look at the qualifications and history of Mr. Maroga and that of Mr. Godsell – Mr Maroga, on paper, should be light years ahead in sorting out the crap at Eskom…
But nope this is South Africa where the obsession-with-race-virus from the previous government has infected the new government just as badly. I say it again: The number one problem facing South Africa, throughout its history: Politics and its loathsome practitioners called Politicians. Mind you, it is a global problem… just look at every major war that was started or every major screw-up ever: Yip politics and politicians. And then it is always left up to the man on the street to pick up the pieces and pay the price.
I just wonder if there will ever be a revolution against the “political classes”? Hoof all the politicians out of government buildings – force them to go clean toilets, sit in the dark without electricity, fight their own wars, treat themselves for disease etc… and horror above horrors, force them to work for their own meals.
Anyway, good luck to whomever is going to run Eskom and do me a favour: Tell the politicians to take a hike, get your costs down and your service levels up because in the end it WILL be the poor who are going to suffer the hardest because politicians are playing games again.
O and could someone please let me know when ANCYL puts out a press release, it is bound to be a pearler.
Tomorrow morning I will start riding the trains for free until Christmas! Yes, that’s right, I said free. How do you do that, you may ask. Well it is really quite simple. When I moved to Ise in May, I bought a one month commuter pass for the train to try it out and see how I liked riding the train. Every day I calculated how many fares I avoided with the pass. In June I was sure I could ride the train for six months and the passes seemed like a good deal, so I invested in a half-year pass.
My pass is valid through December 24th and cost me 109,300 yen. My estimate is that by the end of the day, I will have used 109,290 yen in fares. Hence, excepting 10 yen tomorrow, my pass has paid for itself. Even though I took a two week vacation to America and had several hospital days after my accident, the pass is still a good deal. Also, it is extremely convenient; especially when I’m running late.
Next I need to decide, with the upcoming purchase of a car, whether to renew the pass or try commuting in a vehicle for awhile. We’ll see.
DVD purchase: http://infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net/faofreobdere.html
suitable for viewing with a circle of friends
making additional copies is encouraged by Alex
Alex Jones latest film is a quantum leap better than his previous
efforts. The production qualities are quite professional, the folks
being interviewed have very good credentials, and they each give an in-
depth perspective in their area of expertise. Whereas his previous
films had a right-wing flavor to them, annoying to many, Alex takes
the trouble in this latest film to present things in more balanced
terms, in an effort to get the message out to more people.
And it’s a message that needs to get out, of importance to people of
every persuasion. The story is told by brief interview segments,
alternating with clips from TV broadcasts that document the
observations being made in the interviews. For example, we see Obama
promising repeatedly on the campaign trail, “There will be no signing
statements”, and then in the next clip we see a news broadcaster
reporting, “Today Obama issued his first signing statement”.
Alex himself provides continuity, and sums up what’s been said in each
segment, but he doesn’t dominate the presentation, as he has done in
some of his previous work. Where previously we often felt we were
listening to Alex’s opinions and rants, in this latest film we’re
instead watching a more standard documentary, with the information
coming from qualified experts and backed up by the broadcast footage.
The focus is on the financial elites that run the global economy, and
in their own words we hear what they’re up to, and in the words of the
politicians who serve as their PR functionaries and agenda
implementors. We see that terms like “New World Order”, “global
governance”, and “global currency” are now on the table, referred to
specifically as objectives, by folks like Gordon Brown, and in
documents like those emerging from the recent G20 conference. These
things can no longer be called Fox News conspiracy theories. It’s all
now mainstream, as this documentary makes clear.
In all seriousness, I suggest that this documentary is the best single
presentation of How the system works and where it’s headed that you
can find. There are books that cover similar material, but seeing the
broadcast clips is much better than footnotes, as regards knowing that
you’re getting a true story. Anyone who watches this film will have a
better understanding of today’s political and economic reality than
they would get by pursuing a university degree in political science or
economics.
If you haven’t yet taken the red pill, this is the time to give it a
try. You have nothing to lose but your illusions. And if you’ve
already taken the red pill, the film will add depth and detail to your
understanding.
When the movie “White Men Can’t Jump” came out in the early 90’s, I thought to myself, “Damn, they got me.” And when a black person teases about rhythm difficulties for white people I have the same thought.
To a sensitive white person either of these comments could be considered racist, but they are not; they are stereotypical, but kind of accurate, and painfully funny.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
So why is it a problem if I say ‘black people eat fried chicken’ or ‘Mexicans eat tacos’?
True, these are racial stereotypes, but are they injurious enough to be considered racist? Isn’t the problem with racism the injury that it causes? If a racially-based comment is NOT injurious, is it racist?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Remember back to the days of Fred Sanford and George Jefferson and how much grief they gave us honkies. It was not injurious, but instead healing … and maybe even culturally valuable.
It seems to me that as a country we might be ready to graduate from the era of hyper-sensitivity. It seems that although there are still a lot of black people living within a struggle that is certainly the result of the racial oppression of yesterday, the tide of racial fairness is clearly moving in the right direction, and that to continue to be hyper-sensitive is counter-productive at this time in our history.
A long time ago on this blog we discussed the sociology of belief surrounding politics and religion, or more concretely, why it is that so many religious and political beliefs seem to come as a “package deal” (when a person believes x they also tend to believe y, even when there is no necessary logical connection between to the two).
This is something I’ve had to revisit in different ways over the past few years, and I’ve decided that I think the motivation behind the “package deal” mentality is ultimately rational, and probably based on the social nature of human beings: we have to trust people to function, and that includes trusting others in belief formation. At the same time, beliefs formed in this way ought to be held as corrigible if they are only held for that reason: if an individual in such a group comes up against a good argument against the social consensus of that group, then that individual is obligated to look into the issue more directly.
And this brings me closer to my point: I’m not sure where I fit on the contemporary political spectrum. I have a few political issues I’ve made my own through studying them fairly thoroughly (just war theory, abortion, gay marriage), and my opinions would tend to lead me, socially speaking, to support the Conservatives (or, if I were American, the Republicans). But, at the same time, I have seen enough intelligent criticism of the right wing on matters of geopolitics and economics that I find it fairly difficult, cognitively speaking, to just trust the right wing because I agree with them on other matters.
John Stossel documents his transition from a typical left-wing government-knows-best journalist hack to a thoughtful free-market libertarian — and the price he paid to make that journey. The experience has given him a unique perspective on the issue of bias in journalism.
Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view. So why am I the one called biased?
Automobile news site Edmunds.com released their analysis of the “Cash For Clunkers” program that ran during the summer. “Cash For Clunkers” was intended to offer consumers an incentive to trade in their older, less fuel efficient car for a newer vehicle with better fuel mileage. Given the state of the economy, that focus was lost and the program’s image became more about spurring new car sales to give the economy a boost. Back in August, I wrote about possible unintended consequences “Cash For Clunkers”. Edmunds.com ran the numbers from the summer and determined that “Cash For Clunkers” wasn’t as effective as was touted.
The most important numbers in Edmunds’ findings is 125,000, the marginal sales spurred on by “Cash For Clunkers”, and $24,000, which is how much each marginal car cost in federal funds from the $3 billion allocated to the program. Edmunds measured what the seasonally adjusted sales rate should have been using historical data and this year’s sales data to arrive at the marginal sales rate. Perhaps more importantly, using the same seasonal adjusted sales projections, Edmunds has been able to make predictions for the sales for the remainder of the year, and its not nearly as sparkling. Edmunds predicts that car sales will decrease on a seasonally adjusted basis for the last quarter of the year.
Predictably, the White House has issued a rebuttal to Edmunds’ findings. One of the major points the White House refutes is how “Cash For Clunkers” will benefit the US GDP in the second half of the year. When viewed on the macroeconomic level, I can believe this argument. The amount of labor and money that goes into delivering a car to a consumer is great. There are the part manufacturers making spark plugs and ignition switches, the freight companies that deliver components to the assembly lines in Detroit and elsewhere, where the components are assembled into a car. Then you have more freight delivering the cars to dealers, and the dealers themselves who employ salespeople, mechanics and an administrative staff. That’s a lot of hands that go into building a car. For now, the major manufacturers have to build more cars than usual due to the fact that cars traded in as “clunkers” have to be dismantled. But what happens when auto sales level off, production drops and layoffs occur? How far into the future will that occur? It could happen in a few years as part of a normal cycle, or it could occur in a few months if potential consumers still have difficulty obtaining a car loan.
As an aside, one would expect an official White House communication channel to sound more professional. Read the title of the post to see what I mean.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Edmunds’ research is the cost per marginal car. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the average selling price for cars stands at $28,400. Subtract the $4,500 maximum rebate available under the program, and you get $23,900. That means the government spent $100 more per marginal car than the average price. From an economic standpoint, selling for a loss is a dangerous prospect. I’ll be keen to see sales numbers for the last quarter of the year to see if those numbers hold up under the weight of the “Cash For Clunkers” program. If more than 125,000 sales are lost, then the program will have created negative net sales. If that happens, it will be hard to call the program a success.
Over the past few weeks, probably due to a lack of enough to do at work, I’ve become obsessed with finding my calling/purpose/passion. The reason for starting this blog was in part so that I can start voicing ideas in my quest for enlightenment (harhar). There are many ways in which I can explain what it is that I think I’m interested in. All of these conceptions are fundamentally connected – over the weekend, I came up with the following way of structuring it (I’ve actually essentially already thought about it in this way, but I’ve never really articulated it anywhere outside my brain). Basically, I’m interested in the most quantitative and qualitative extremes:
2) that which can’t be generalized or quantified, what is hard to explain and articulate (at least for me, since I’m not a writer) but what we intrinsically understand and sense, what lies within the boundaries of every person, what divides us and what connects us, the smallest differences between individuals, perception as a tinted window in front of everything as we know it
these poles of my brain are what motivate me in seemingly opposite directions -
…the former attracts me to economics, numbers, logic, strategy consulting;
…the latter to art, books, film, fascination with others and the smallest details of their lives and stories, voyeurism.
You could say that the former represents my assets and the latter my interests. I suppose for this reason, I’ve pursued the former professionally, but I think the opportunity, and thus, my “calling” lies in bridging the gap between these two domains.
I’ve thought about this extensively (probably too extensively).
For example, I can’t become a writer, and probably not even a filmmaker – I don’t have the rhetorical or creative talent or ability that drives creation from its conception. My ability rests in the logic that (usually, not always) must lie in the foundation of a successful novel or film. This is why I have been drawn to producing, but as I’ve realized over and over – I have no exposure to this field and I have no way to really know if this is something I’d be good at or interested in. And then there is of course the tiny issue of breaking into an incredibly exclusive and hard to penetrate field.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been considering other potential paths I can follow, paths that combine the aspects of these 2 poles. There is entrepreneurism in a creative field (i.e.: fashion, art) – this path requires other qualities and assets that I don’t possess – risk taking and connections, to name two. There is also the fact that while I think I would like running a handbag line, this path would neglect the humanistic questions that constantly drive me. I’m not sure if this is a deal breaker for me, but especially with a field like fashion (and even more so if it’s high-end fashion) I might feel divorced from meaning.
Then there is academia… recently I have been thinking about economics, behavioral economics to be specific. I realized the other day though, that I’m really not interested in economics…what appeals to me is economic thinking, economic process (econometrics). I think I’d be interested in applying this kind of process and thinking to the ideas and subjects that I’m interested in – I don’t know where they would really fall, some intersection between psychology, sociology, anthropology, maybe even literature. I don’t know if this is being done or if there is a place for this kind of work. I also don’t know if I’m committed to going through the ordeal that is graduate school, academic placement, tenure, etc.
For these reasons, I can’t seem to commit to any of these paths. All I know is that I somehow need to bring these poles together. With the latter pole, the obvious way to pursue my interest in human behavior and art is writing or filmmaking; but as I’ve explained, I don’t have the pure talent to pursue these paths. The former pole, dominated by logic, method, and science, is essentially the path that I’ve laid for myself thus far, it’s what I’m doing already, yet it’s become clear that this isn’t enough for me – I’m not fulfilled. Somewhere there has to be a bridge, I just need to find it… or build it.
This is a good article discussing tax redistribution and income inequality from 2000 to 2007. Notice that the top fifth of income earners received about $18,713 in tax breaks, while the bottom fifth only got $706. Well, of course, the high income families woudl be expected to get a larger break because they have more money in the first place; so, notice as well that on a percentage basis, the top quintile received a break of 12.82% versus 6.97%. This is known as a regressive tax policy. The top tier started from a higher base, so mathematically this is not entirely shocking. However, it does depict a trend diminishing the benefits of a progressive taxation system. There are some interesting responses after the main post, too.
WorldNetDaily
Less than 24 hours after WND reported a proposal from U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to audit the Federal Reserve was approaching majority support in the U.S. House, he is confirming the plan has reached that “crucial benchmark.”
“The tremendous grass-roots and bipartisan support in Congress for H.R. 1207 is an indicator of how mainstream America is fed up with Fed secrecy,” Paul said shortly after U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, became the 218th cosponsor, giving the plan, technically, majority support in the 435-member House.
“I look forward to this issue receiving greater public exposure,” Paul said.
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