Semi-interesting article on global warming:
Most interesting part was the comments section. I really like this guy's explanation:
Monday, November 28, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Bitcoin - P2P digital currency
This is interesting. Seems that it would be very susceptible to manipulation...
Saturday, November 19, 2011
CDO's for Dummies
Gordon was the proprietor of a bar in Glasgow. He realises that virtually all of his customers are unemployed alcoholics and as such can no longer afford to patronise his bar.
To solve this problem, he comes up with a new marketing plan that allows his customers to drink now, but pay later. Gordon keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Gordon's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into his bar. Soon he has the largest sales volume for any bar in Glasgow.
By providing his customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Gordon gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, he substantially increases his prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Gordon's gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Gordon's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These 'securities' are then bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb - and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Gordon's bar. He so informs Gordon.
Gordon then demands payment from his alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics - they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Gordon cannot fulfil his loan obligations he is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Gordon's 11 employees lose their jobs. Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Gordon's bar had granted him generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off his bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
His wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, his beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion pound no-strings attached cash infusion from the government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never even been in Gordon's bar.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The REAL problem is tax evasion
I couldn't find in the article where it says the problem is the Italian government spent more money than it had. I did note that tax evasion and the use of nasty old cash are the real culprits.
He will target widespread tax evasion, sub-standard education and training and Italy's creaking welfare system as well as reforming the labor market in what are expected to be painful and unpopular austerity measures to end a crisis that has put the euro zone's third largest economy at the center of its expanding debt crisis.
...
In another shot at a major problem with the Italian economy, Monti said the use of cash should be reduced to cut an underground economy that accounts for nearly 20 percent of GDP.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Lang Xianping: China's Economic Depression Has Begun - YouTube
Interesting. I wonder if anyone really knows the situation...
Monday, November 14, 2011
Europe against the people? | The Economist
This raises a sense of double standards: one kind of democracy for creditors, another for debtors. Everybody must understand the constraints on Mrs Merkel. But Mr Papandreou commits a “breach of trust” if he calls a referendum.
Greece is a mess. No doubt. But I found it particularly puzzling when European leaders gasped when the Greek PM said he would hold a referendum. Has this been bothering anyone else?
EUROPE has claimed the scalps of two leaders in almost as many days. First George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, promised to resign, and then Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi did the same. Both leaders have been in trouble for some time, but the immediate cause of their downfall is plain: the ultimatum they received from euro-zone leaders at the G20 summit in Cannes to reform their economies—or else.
Mr Papandreou was instructed to approve the last European bail-out deal or risk losing his loans and being ejected from the euro. He scrapped his call for a referendum, and agreed on November 6th to make way for a government of national unity. With Italy’s bond yields reaching danger levels, Mr Berlusconi was told he lacked credibility and was made to “invite” the IMF to supervise his reforms. On November 8th, though, Mr Berlusconi lost his majority in parliament, and agreed to step down once the reforms are passed.
Two taboos were broken in Cannes. It was the first time euro-zone leaders accepted that a member could default and leave the euro. (And once the unthinkable is possible, why stop at Greece?) It was also the first time leaders intruded so deliberately into the internal politics of other countries.
True, the European Union has long influenced national politics. Think of how Conservative divisions over Europe contributed to the resignation of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher in 1990, or how new members have transformed themselves to join the EU, or how Italy reformed its public finances to qualify for the euro in 1999. In the past year the crisis has brought down the prime ministers of Ireland and Portugal after they needed to be bailed out.
Yet something has changed. Europeans see themselves as a family; they have rows, but nobody questions a member’s right to be part of the clan. But at Cannes euro-zone leaders made plain that family members could be forsaken, even disinherited. Some see this as an assault on national democracies by the European elite, be it unelected or self-appointed (as in the case of the German-French duo of “Merkozy”, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy). Much has been written about the subjugation of Greece, the cradle of democracy, under a second German occupation.
And much of it is nonsense. Italy and Greece chose freely to join the euro, and every club has norms of behaviour. In a monetary union, irresponsibility by one member endangers the well-being of others. If Italy and Greece had not been so over-indebted and sclerotic, they would not be in such trouble today. Countries that extend financial help have a right to impose conditions to ensure that their loans are repaid. The alternative to euro-zone diktat is being abandoned to the market. And if a response is needed, it will inevitably be led by Germany and France.
Yet there is something to the critics’ charges. For many countries, such as Spain, the EU has been an anchor of democracy. But as the crisis persists, austerity drags on and the euro zone integrates to save itself, the legitimacy of the enterprise will suffer. The pain would be more acceptable if the creditors acted as if they believed they faced an existential threat. But rather than commit their full resources to the crisis, they are seeking to limit their liability. This raises a sense of double standards: one kind of democracy for creditors, another for debtors. Everybody must understand the constraints on Mrs Merkel. But Mr Papandreou commits a “breach of trust” if he calls a referendum.
The debtors, moreover, bear the cost of the creditors’ mistakes. In Greece the IMF (rightly) wanted the adjustment programme to focus more on growth-promoting structural reforms; the Europeans prioritised deficit-reduction. A deeper-than-forecast recession means Greece must chase ever-receding fiscal targets with ever more austerity. Its first bail-out gave it three-year loans at punitive interest rates, with no debt reduction. The latest rescue offers Greece cheap rates for up to 30 years, with a 50% haircut on private bondholders. At least one of these options was wrong, and neither may be enough to save Greece. Germany belatedly accepted the need for the rescue fund to be larger and more flexible. Had all this been done sooner, the crisis might have been contained more easily, and at lower cost.
First fight the fire
Right now the emphasis needs to be on firefighting. Italy is burning, and the rest of the euro area could be consumed with it. Decisions cannot be hostage to the vicissitudes of 17 national parliaments. And Germany restraining the European Central Bank is like insisting that water buckets are used instead of fire engines.
In the longer term, though, the euro zone will need a new fire code. The EU’s treaties are likely to be reopened, again. Euro members will have to abide by stricter fiscal rules and accept intrusive inspection by outsiders. The loss of sovereignty would be more acceptable to debtors if the creditors were to accept the need, eventually, to issue joint Eurobonds.
Independent institutions are needed to make the system work. Most would prefer the unelected European Commission over an intergovernmental body dominated by Merkozy. The commission, moreover, would act as a vital link between the 17 euro “ins” and the ten non-euro “outs”, preventing the sort of two-speed Europe now openly advocated by France. More Europe should not mean more Sarkozy and less single market.
Saving the euro requires more pain for some, more generosity from others and fundamental change for all. Is it worth it? Sooner or later, citizens must be asked. Without their support, no reform can last. And a real choice must include the option of leaving the euro. Now that this taboo has been breached, the euro zone should start thinking about how best to arrange the departure of those that cannot, or will not, live by Germanic rules.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Occupy Wall Street = Enactment of Orwell's Animal Farm
The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Greek referendum: Voting away your debts | The Economist
Great summary of the choices the Greeks face. I'm still betting on #4: Default outright.
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I’m making no positive assertion concerning the efficacy of a field of study as either explanatory or predictive. I don’t have to prove anything.
The “climate scientists,” on the other hand, are claiming that their “science” is sufficiently predictive that humanity should invest way-of-life-threatening resources in averting their predictions. The ability to predict future events requires understanding of both past and current events; proof of the ability to predict future events requires demonstration of an ability to predict, based on data as of a specified time in the past, consequent events that in fact coincide with the known consequent events.
Climate “science” meets none of these requirements. It cannot explain known historical events even of the recent past–like the MWP and the LIA–let alone the more profound events of the distant past such as the Younger Dryas. Even less can it can it predict in models the MWP or the LIA based on data from prior to those events.
Astrology and chicken entrails I said, and astrology and chicken entrails I meant. Until climate “science” can model known historical events, it’s useless as a predictor of future events, and it would be profoundly foolish for humanity to waste resources on chicken-entrail predictions.