nerdgirl

Neat research. Thanks for the link. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for the link. I'd like to read more of the underlying data that led Jones to his conclusions. I agree with some of what he suggests - that through technology (from domestication of animals & plants to advanced biomedicine, ergonomics, and reduced violence comparatively) and civilization, humans have short-circuited (or created new pathways around) the natural processes that drove evolution for hundreds of millions of years. Transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil and post-humanists might reach a different end-state than Jones. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Curiousity mostly. As I wrote, I thought I noticed a patterm (humans are very good at detecting patterns, even some that aren't meaningful, e.g., religious figures on grilled cheese sandwiches), posed a hypothesis, and sought to collect some feedback on that hypothesis. That's all. Haven't written an article yet. Do concur that the error bars for polls here are likely to be quite large and the sample size small. Given the results, I would revise the hypothesis somewhat. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

You mean other than co-authoring, with Sen Dick Lugar (R-IN), legislation (signed by President Bush) to limit the threat of nuclear terrorism and unsecured nuclear material? Or other than editor Harvard Law Review? Or other than giving up a corporate job to go work with community services (including Christian church-based ones) assisting middle class and working class people who had been downsized from manufacturing jobs? Or other than being named Crain's Chicago Business "40 under Forty" powers to be? Or other than teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, including while serving in the Illinois Senate? Or other than ‘pulling himself up by his bootstraps’ in classic American dream way to pay for his undergrad? “Not much of a past” is akin to saying Michael Phelps hasn’t done much other than swim a few laps & take a trip to China … ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ How do you reconcile that "lack of a past" with your own post (5 later), which seems to suggest a very different knowledge and level of past? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that when these institutions sold the MBSs, CMOs to foreign investors, which would include foreign banks which might be investing on behalf of state pension funds. Sure ... it might. It's a hypothesis to test. Do you have any data to support that explanation? What percentage of investments was state pension funds? Why is that the single variable upon which you focus? How do you eliminate other causal factors? I didn't eliminate other casual factors, they are simply smaller parts of these larger institutional investment tools. Mortgage to Bank. Bank rolls mortgages into Mortgage Backed Securities, sold to institutional investors. Investors then roll these into larger bond-type. The money wasn't all domestic. The banks and investors were forced to revalue these investments every day, even though they intended to hold them for years. I completely hold the individual responsible as well, I was focusing on the broader context of your post. That's a lot more extensive explanation than "state pension funds." And it prompts questions regarding extent, incentives/disincentives to, and regulation of (or lack thereof) securitization of MBSs as a new methodology (or more pejoratively 'scheme') to hide risk for short-term profit. Is there any indication than investors really did intend to hold them for years? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Comments from the Columbia University Professor Michael Baron who taught Sen Obama’s senior thesis class (as cited by The Weekly Standard online):“My recollection is that the paper was an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States. At that time, a hot topic in foreign policy circles was finding a way in which each country could safely reduce the large arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the other … For U.S. policy makers in both political parties, the aim was not disarmament, but achieving deep reductions in the Soviet nuclear arsenal and keeping a substantial and permanent American advantage. As I remember it, the paper was about those negotiations, their tactics and chances for success. Barack got an A.” No one’s hiding it. It’s completely reasonable that Sen Obama doesn’t have a copy of it. There's no reason Columbia would keep a copy of it – it was a glorified undergrad research paper - a "senior thesis." It wasn’t a requirement for the degree therefore there’s no submission (like for a master’s degree or doctoral dissertation). There’s no conspiracy. I’m a pack-rat who has moved boxes of books more times than most people would and I don’t have a copy of the senior project I did as an undergrad … although mine was on synthesis, characterization, and reactivity of novel bis-substituted asymmetric metallo-porphyrins. [nerd]-

It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that when these institutions sold the MBSs, CMOs to foreign investors, which would include foreign banks which might be investing on behalf of state pension funds. Sure ... it might. It's a hypothesis to test. Do you have any data to support that explanation? What percentage of investments was state pension funds? Why is that the single variable upon which you focus? How do you eliminate other causal factors? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for posting that link; I hadn't seen the Op-Ed. Concur that it's very much worth reading. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I seriously doubt that a music video from youtube shows proof of any such thing. I also seriously doubt that we can point to any one group of people and say, "They caused the economic mess." It's a pretty complicated situation, and there are lots of different people who have played a part in it (probably from all different parties). But if you'd like to post a link to a credible source that explains exactly who (or who did not) cause the economic mess, then I'd be interested in reading it. My thoughts ... with what I considered more credible sources (Alan Greenspan, Joe Stiglitz) & more robust arguments, mixed in with my own thoughts (leave assessment of the credibility of the latter to the reader

… why are other countries also experiencing banking, mortgage, and credit crisis? At least two folks around here have posted links to youtube videos suggesting it was the Democrats, 4 or 5 folks (more?) have referenced a 1998 NY Times article on implementation of a domestic US housing program. If it’s all the Democrats fault (or the Republicans for that matter), how do you explain that the financial turmoil has spread through Europe' to Russia (again, does anyone want to argue that Putin created a housing program for poor people? Altho’ *he* has tried to blame the US : “it is the U.S. banks’ careless policy as well as the U.S. Congressmen unwillingness to undertake measures to rectify the situation that is to be blamed for it [Russia's financial crisis]” … ); to Iceland, which seems to be the most unstable economically; to South America, particularly Brazil; to China, less so because of its comparatively closed status. The best & most accessible causal explanations that I have found are relating to the US financial turmoil ... & that largely assert structural causes, the structure of banking, credit, and financial institutions that extend to other areas experiencing financial turmoil: (1) Joe Stiglitz (Nobel Prize Winner in Economics) Excerpts: “There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely. “President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen? “One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour. “For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme. The new ‘innovations’ simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail? “First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron. “Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy -- the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century. “The coup d’grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going. It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time. “Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They -- and even more their executives -- had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society. They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk -- they created risk. They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.” (2) Alan Greenspan on new economic schemes and regulating risk & the reality that regulation will never keep up with innovation and new methods of hiding and manipulation in financial schemes: “risk models and econometric models – as complex as they have become, are still too simple to capture the full array of governing variables that drive global economic reality.” Add globalization and interconnected/interdependent international markets into the mix and the situations becomes even more complicated. (3) Recognition of the correlation between defaulting on home mortgages and inflated housing values, e.g., as this Kansas City, MO, column discusses “Where did the mortgage mess come from?”[/url] (More detailed discussion here) Foreclosures rates in urban and rural areas of Mississippi (lowest per capita State income), *where the housing prices are reasonable,* has been on par with historical averages. Where housing prices have skyrocketed, e.g., California, which leads w/8 of the highest foreclosure communities, the foreclosures rates are the highest. If a lower-income" mortgage is $150,000, it takes 3 of those loans defaulting to equal one $450,000 mortgage default or 6 of those loans defaulting to equal one $900,000 McMansion default (altho’ parts of California, $900k is a 1500ft^2 single-family home). Historically, some very small percentage of home loans have defaulted and led to foreclosures (~1.5%, iirc), when the average default was some relatively smaller value, the impact could be adsorbed by the larger economic system; as mortgage defaults grew larger both in absolute number and average value, it’s a larger pressure on the system. What would be very interesting, imo, is to compare and contrast across countries (both those in turmoil and more stable) banking systems, regulations (both existence and enforcement), inflation of property values, saving rates, ease of extension of private credit, and connectedness on the global market. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks ... hmmm ... interesting. Very interesting. Concur w/Cowper-Coles on the fragility and possible the futility of a centralized government. Do not agree with his recommendations, however, regarding 'priming' the populace for installment of a dictactor "acceptable" to NATO, et al. That seems like as likely a recipe for state failure, nevermind lots of normative problems to atrocities. Who's going to supply the dictator with guns, etc. to stay in power? Don't like that idea at all. At the same time, find much value in his putting forth iconoclastic ideas that may force policy-makers to re-evaluate the nation-building strategy for/with Aghanistan. There's value in that. (Perhaps not as much in it being leaked to the press.) VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Really? Are you sure that McClennan GEN McKiernan's comments were not more in line with Sen Biden's? Yup. Biden said the General said a surge won't work in Afghanistan. The General never said that. What Sen Biden said: “The fact is that our commanding general in Afghanistan said today that a surge -- the surge principles used in Iraq will not -- well, let me say this again now -- our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan, not Joe Biden, our commanding general in Afghanistan. “He said we need more troops. We need government-building. We need to spend more money on the infrastructure in Afghanistan.” [Thanks to [alw] for the transcript.] --- -- --- -- --- What GEN McClennan McKiernan said: (1) Concisely, as reported in Washington Post “Commander in Afghanistan Wants More Troops” & noted by [Shotgun] & [billvon] “The new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said yesterday that more American troops are urgently required to combat a worsening insurgency, but he stated emphatically that no Iraq-style ‘surge’ of forces will end the conflict there. “‘Afghanistan is not Iraq,’ said Gen. David D. McKiernan, who led ground forces during the 2003 Iraq invasion and took over four months ago as head of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan. “‘The word I don’t use for Afghanistan is “surge,”’ McKiernan stressed, saying that what is required is a ‘sustained commitment’ to a counterinsurgency effort that could last many years and would ultimately require a political, not military, solution.” (2) More extensively, the General’s own words from the Defenselink.mil transcript of GEN McKiernan’s Pentagon briefing [it’s a primary data-addict thing

Would you expand a lil' on that argument? Who's making it? And how do the proponents suggest that removing NATO troops (ISAF) will have the effect you described? Do they suggest removing the PRTs & HTTs as well? Thanks. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

John, I asked for clarification in a non-derogative and non-patronizing way, trying to give you an opportunity to respond and to have some sort of dialogue: “Do you have any evidence to support that assertion w/r/t Afghanistan?” That’s pretty innocuous. *More importantly,* it’s also a legitimate & more-than-reasonable question. I provided specific referenced counter-examples, including the words of the former Secretary of the Navy who is praising the current Secretary of Defense. How much more bi-partisan can one get? And you respond with condescension and insults. Either you were mistaken (Iraq for Afghanistan) or you did not communicate clearly what you meant. Neither is the reader’s fault. (I would argue it *is* also the reader’s responsibility to request clarification and provide evidence, not just rhetoric, of counter examples.) Getting defensive because you made a mistake or did not communicate clearly your meaning is perhaps not the best response, eh?

The last week of September I was in Monterey (‘hardship TDY’ [/sarcasm] ). Drove down 1 south of Carmel to Garrapata State Park (fabulous 1900ft rise hike through Redwoods to chaparral overlooking coast). Gas was cheaper south of Carmel along PCH than in Atlanta. Of course, Atlanta (& Nashville … & other areas in the southeast) has had gas shortages resulting from disruption/damage to oil refineries and pipelines from Hurricane Ike. At its worst, observed only ~ 1/10 stations had gas (no data city/state/region wide). Brought forth speculations and conversations on the level of connectedness of daily function to infrastructure and how tenuous that can be. More ponderous speculation than even well-formed questions or hypotheses. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Really? Are you sure that McClennan GEN McKiernan's comments were not more in line with Sen Biden's? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Perhaps a less-biased source than a NY Post *editorial* -- do give the NY Post credit for fully acknowledging the piece as an editorial -- would be something like factcheck.org on the VP debate. Nevermind, that the NY Post editorial needs some serious fact checking ... but it's an editorial so partisan rhetoric is fine - opinion-editorials (Op-Eds) are supposed to put forth an opinion persuasively. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for bumping this thread, which was originally posted almost a year ago (29Oct07). I’m still curious about the meaning & implications for US foreign policy. If Tom Friedman is right (& the world is flat), why does the Middle East still matter geopolitically? (Excepting Iran w/nascent nuclear program.) That's why I referenced the National Security Strategy & the Under Secretary’s words, because according to the current US National Security Strategy, energy security is very important. The calculus w/r/t the rising energy demand of China & India has had implications on defense and foreign policy. Energy security is necessary but not sufficient alone w/r/t foreign policy. If the perceived impact on US economy is removed (i.e., what the experts and models predicted), how should that impact US foreign policy? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

No, I don’t have cable. I actually had never heard of him until Mike [mnealtx] mentioned him in a thread. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hypothesis: those who trusted the U.S. Government (USG) on the WMD threat posed by Iraq prior to OIF -- the March 2003 invasion -- seem to not trust the USG on the severity of financial crisis. Anecdotally observe that there seem to be a pattern emerging, would like to test/explore the question … and more interestingly the underlying ‘why’? I can speculate explanations. It may also be that my anecdotal observations are wrong. (?) Also curious if the converse holds (those who did *not* trust the USG on the WMD threat posed by Iraq prior to OIF, do they trust the USG on the severity of financial crisis?) That pattern doesn’t seem as apparent to me … but it may be there. So where do you fall and why? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

So if regulation will never keep up with innovation, what do regulatory bodies do to keep tabs? Is there anything they can do but focus on more effectively enforcing current regs? You ask a really good question. There is a fundamental challenge to creating and implementing policy to regulate something that doesn't exist. Government is conservative by nature and ours somewhat by design. (Conservative in that it does not change fast, not GOP v DEM partisanship.) Government typically can't keep up and there are strong reasons that it may not be for the best to be reactionary to each & every individual incident. How do they do it now? In a manner not unlike how the legal system tries to create law about new phenomena – via extending basic, established principles and through precedent setting cases. (Economic risk models are related and much larger subject about which books have been published, dissertations written, and cutting-edge research is ongoing.) How might it me done in the future? There are multiple policy approaches (as opposed to economic models) to the regulation of new financial market schemes, a few include: Do nothing … always an option, effectiveness varies. Apply the precautionary principle or some variant of it. The precautionary principle requires that something has to be demonstrated to not cause harm before being introduced. The responsibility for demonstrating that falls on the individual or entity proposing introduction into the commercial or financial marketplace. It’s very low-risk on a first level. Very anti-risk w/r/t new ways of doing things & therefore does not address well opportunity costs. It has some favor in Europe, particularly w/r/t things that may have potential health consequences and new technology. It’s not a policy option I endorse. Apply an economic version of the Proactionary Principle: “People’s freedom to innovate technologically is highly valuable, even critical, to humanity. This implies a range of responsibilities for those considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or restrict new technologies. Assess risks and opportunities using an objective, open, and comprehensive, yet simple decision process based on science rather than collective emotional reactions. Account for the costs of restrictions and lost opportunities as fully as direct effects. Favor measures that are proportionate to the probability and magnitude of impacts, and that have the highest payoff relative to their costs.” It’s a risk-embracing approach that provides for high pay-offs for those who innovate (in whatever market) but also places an onus of responsibility on the who may stand to gain the most. Apply what I’m calling the “melamine” model, i.e., have varying degrees of regulation but have limited oversight, sophist oversight, or limited to no enforcement. Until one gets caught, it’s very profitable. On a practical level, it doesn’t matter whether the regulations are strict or liberal. Not a model I would apply. Apply a policy of incentives (rewards) for self-regulation and 'good' corporate behavior and dis-incentives (meaningful, progressively larger $ fines) for malfeasance. The latter has to be provable in court of law. Currently the USG, through DHHS (as charged by White House Homeland Security Council) is currently drafting proposed policy (a draft rule) on regulation of synthetic nucleic acids (SNA), aka synthetic genomics. That's a real-world example of trying to do that. Frankly, it's a mess and not for lack of very smart, very hard-working, independent people trying to figure it out. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Are you sure? I strongly suspect that what the OP was referring to as a "joke" was NOT the desire of terrorists to do harm but to the effectiveness and unintended outcomes of the DHS-TSA policy. Synthesis of TATP & HMTD (use 30% H2O2, not the kind one can buy in the supermarket, & dry ice to limit polymeric products that are not thermodynamically unstable) is harder than most portrayals. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And Obama and Biden want the U.S. to pull out and let these animals rule again. Do you have any evidence to support that assertion w/r/t Afghanistan? E.g., Sen Obama has stated his policy is the opposite to that which you claim: "'If we responsibly end the war in Iraq, we can strengthen our military, step up our efforts to finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future,' Obama said at his first news conference since touring Afghanistan and Iraq [in July]. "'The situation in Afghanistan is perilous and urgent,' he said, calling the country the 'central front in the war against terrorism.' "'We must act now to reverse a deteriorating situation,' [Sen Obama] said. Sen Obama's lead defense advisor, former NavSec Richard Danzig, has praised SecDef Gates specifically citing "Gates' push to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan and to increase greatly the size of the Afghan national army. 'These are things that Sen. Obama agrees with and I agree with.'" VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I think I've reviewed some of his proposals as well. Thanks for the morning chuckle.

Excellent example! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying