We got a state bird, song, and tree, so why not a state odor?
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Oh! Canada!
Our northern neighbors are hosting the latest G-7 Finance Ministers meeting this week. In Iquluit Nunavut!
Canada's Finance Department, the organizer of the G-7 event, has been limited in the activities it could plan. There are only 300 hotel rooms in town. And because some 500 guests, including ministers, security and media are expected, some will have to sleep in dorm rooms.
With a dearth of limousines in Iqaluit, ministers will use the 15 rental cars available from the town's single car-rental agency. After those are full, school buses will ferry around attendees further down the diplomatic food chain.
Local residents are anxious to see how the dignitaries respond to Saturday's traditional Inuit feast, which has muskox, caribou and seal on the menu—some of it skinned and served raw.
But, people I come not to bury Canada but to praise her. Why? Well because Timothy Geithner is the guy who goes to these meetings right? Who knows, maybe he'll get stuck riding a bus to his dorm room. Maybe he'll get slush kicked up on him by a passing snowmobile. Maybe he'll have a run in with some amorous caribou! Maybe he'll turn out to be allergic to seal heart!
Canada's Finance Department, the organizer of the G-7 event, has been limited in the activities it could plan. There are only 300 hotel rooms in town. And because some 500 guests, including ministers, security and media are expected, some will have to sleep in dorm rooms.
With a dearth of limousines in Iqaluit, ministers will use the 15 rental cars available from the town's single car-rental agency. After those are full, school buses will ferry around attendees further down the diplomatic food chain.
Local residents are anxious to see how the dignitaries respond to Saturday's traditional Inuit feast, which has muskox, caribou and seal on the menu—some of it skinned and served raw.
But, people I come not to bury Canada but to praise her. Why? Well because Timothy Geithner is the guy who goes to these meetings right? Who knows, maybe he'll get stuck riding a bus to his dorm room. Maybe he'll get slush kicked up on him by a passing snowmobile. Maybe he'll have a run in with some amorous caribou! Maybe he'll turn out to be allergic to seal heart!
Consider all the possibilities.....
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Damn, I'm not the greatest Kevin in Oklahoma anymore
People, check out Kevin Durant's stat line for the month of January:
In 15 games, Durant averaged 32.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.1 steals. He shot 51.9 percent from the field, 53.2 percent on 3-pointers, and 89.8 percent from the foul line.
I have sent out a paper, done 3 referee reports, taught my classes, put together a dissertation committee for one of my students and almost completed a draft of a new paper.
Somehow, it's just not the same, is it?
Haiti gets the shaft again
Just when you think things couldn't be worse, word comes that an "all star cast" is re-making 1985's abomination "We are the World", this time for Haiti.
In no way do I mean to make light of the ongoing tragedy there, but haven't those poor folk suffered enough?
And talk about lazy, if you're a community of artists, why recycle an old, hackneyed, crappy, schmaltzy, song like that. No one can be bothered to write something relevant to the case at hand? Was Michael Jackson really the only modern pop star capable of such a feat?
I think we should stop stealing Haitian kids, start letting Haitians emigrate, and if we have to have another overwrought pop star ego fest, they should at least have to come up with an original song that is about Haiti.
Of course there will be a video of the event so that all can see just how wonderful this current group of artists actually are.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Great Moments in Seminars....
Went to a seminar at the Law School today. Speaker was the irrepressible, and quite irredeemable, Mat McCubbins (yes, one "t")
Seminar started at 12:15 pm. Pretty good crowd, considering the ice on the ground and sidewalks.
Well into it, by 12:45. Then at precisely 1 pm, precisely: Armageddon! The powerpoint presentation on the computer shuts down, the window shades roll up, the projector shuts off, and the lights come up. We are surrounded by sound and lights flashing. Apparently Hal the self-aware computer of the Law School had had enough of this crap.
Cheering, and abuse, rain down on McCubbins. Voted off the island, by the computer! Most excellent. Of course, he isn't sure how to start everything back up, and it takes a while to restore order. Mat was much calmer than I would have been. Hee hee!
Seminar started at 12:15 pm. Pretty good crowd, considering the ice on the ground and sidewalks.
Well into it, by 12:45. Then at precisely 1 pm, precisely: Armageddon! The powerpoint presentation on the computer shuts down, the window shades roll up, the projector shuts off, and the lights come up. We are surrounded by sound and lights flashing. Apparently Hal the self-aware computer of the Law School had had enough of this crap.
Cheering, and abuse, rain down on McCubbins. Voted off the island, by the computer! Most excellent. Of course, he isn't sure how to start everything back up, and it takes a while to restore order. Mat was much calmer than I would have been. Hee hee!
My NASA budget
People, it's exactly 0 dollars and 0 cents. If I was king, getting rid of NASA would be one of the first things I would do. Instead, President O has found room somewhere in his newly announced 3.8 trillion dollar austerity budget to bump NASA's funding up to 19 billion dollars. Now I know 19 billion doesn't amount to a hill of beans when considered in the light of a projected 1.6 trillion dollar deficit, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
My second choice for a zero budget is the Transportation Security Administration. There's another 7 billion or so we could stop smacking ourselves over the head with every year.
Who's got next?
Roaring Lion was wrong?
One of the many things I have learned from Tyler is an appreciation of calypso music from Trinidad especially the founding fathers, Roaring Lion and Attila the Hun.
Maybe now it's a little clearer why Mrs. Angus deigned to marry me.
One piece of advice the Lion gave me was:
"If you want to be happy and live a king's life, never make a pretty woman your wife
All you've got to do is just what I say, and you'll be always happy and gay
From a logical point of view, always marry a woman uglier than you."
Now in my case, following this advice was problematic, well, because, there just aren't that many women out there uglier than me! So I had to turn my back on the Lion and go in a different direction.
Now Science has spoken and it turns out I was right and the Lion was wrong:
"the relative difference between partners' levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, such that both spouses behaved more positively in relationships in which wives were more attractive than their husbands, but they behaved more negatively in relationships in which husbands were more attractive than their wives."
Maybe now it's a little clearer why Mrs. Angus deigned to marry me.
Efficient Market Hype?
Collective Hallucinations and Inefficient Markets: The British Railway Mania
of the 1840s
Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota Working Paper, January 2010
Abstract: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s was by many measures the greatest
technology mania in history, and its collapse was one of the greatest financial crashes. It has attracted surprisingly little scholarly interest. In particular, it has not been noted that it provides a convincing demonstration of market inefficiency. There were trustworthy quantitative measures to show investors (who included Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and the Bronte sisters) that there would not be enough demand for railway transport to provide the expected revenues and profits. But the power of the revolutionary new technology, assisted by artful manipulation of public perception by interested parties, induced a collective hallucination that made investors ignore such considerations. They persisted in ignoring them for several years, until the lines were placed in service and the inevitable disaster struck. In contrast to many other bubbles, the British Railway Mania had many powerful, vocal, and insightful critics. But the most influential of them suffered from another delusion, which misled them about the threat the Mania posed. As a result, their warnings were not persuasive, and were likely even counterproductive, as they may have stimulated increased investments. The delusions that led to the financial disaster of the Railway Mania arose from experience with the railway mania of the mid-1830s. Seldom even mentioned in the literature, it was about half the size of the big Railway Mania of the 1840s (and thus still far larger than the Internet bubble). The initial financially exuberant phase of it did collapse. But it appears to have been unique among large manias in that a few years later it was seen as having collapsed prematurely, as projects started during its exuberant phase became successful. That mania demonstrates the difficulty in identifying bubbles that are truly irrational. Both railway manias provide a variety of other lessons about the interaction of technology and financial markets.
(Nod to Kevin L)
of the 1840s
Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota Working Paper, January 2010
Abstract: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s was by many measures the greatest
technology mania in history, and its collapse was one of the greatest financial crashes. It has attracted surprisingly little scholarly interest. In particular, it has not been noted that it provides a convincing demonstration of market inefficiency. There were trustworthy quantitative measures to show investors (who included Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and the Bronte sisters) that there would not be enough demand for railway transport to provide the expected revenues and profits. But the power of the revolutionary new technology, assisted by artful manipulation of public perception by interested parties, induced a collective hallucination that made investors ignore such considerations. They persisted in ignoring them for several years, until the lines were placed in service and the inevitable disaster struck. In contrast to many other bubbles, the British Railway Mania had many powerful, vocal, and insightful critics. But the most influential of them suffered from another delusion, which misled them about the threat the Mania posed. As a result, their warnings were not persuasive, and were likely even counterproductive, as they may have stimulated increased investments. The delusions that led to the financial disaster of the Railway Mania arose from experience with the railway mania of the mid-1830s. Seldom even mentioned in the literature, it was about half the size of the big Railway Mania of the 1840s (and thus still far larger than the Internet bubble). The initial financially exuberant phase of it did collapse. But it appears to have been unique among large manias in that a few years later it was seen as having collapsed prematurely, as projects started during its exuberant phase became successful. That mania demonstrates the difficulty in identifying bubbles that are truly irrational. Both railway manias provide a variety of other lessons about the interaction of technology and financial markets.
(Nod to Kevin L)
Stimulating, Stimulating--"Push the Private Sector"
Near the end of his truly terrible pop song, "I do the Rock," Tim Curry starts mumbling to himself, "Stimulating....Stimulating..." (Video, if can stand it). Makes me think of the Porkulus package.
Here's a terrific example, sent in by Jason S. JS writes: "[Here] is a hyperlink to how the San Antonio transit agency is going to fund their match for more federal funding for a street car application to the Feds. Clearly this shows how stimulus money is fungible, or laundered if you want to be more crass. It also demonstrates that the transit agency is not spending any more money at all in the short run and its essence is to shift funding to lower return investments for the public, but higher returns to the transit service providers. I am sure that this is not the only example of such behavior but just a good example.... "
Excerpt from the article:
VIA President Keith Parker has said his agency would commit $20 million from its capital budget. Because of federal stimulus funding VIA has secured to buy new buses, the transit agency can divert the money from its capital budget for use on a streetcar system.
Officials also underscored the need for help from others.
“The mayor and I feel very strongly that we need to push the private sector,” Wolff said.
A public improvement district could be formed that would levy an additional tax on property owners within a certain distance from the track alignment. The private sector helped fund the streetcar line in Portland, Ore., a model for other cities seeking streetcar programs.
So, they got "Federal money" (whatever that means). They are moving "city money" from one line item to another. And all this spending of tax money is an excuse for... raising taxes! If you look at a taxpayer, how do you tell if she is a Federal taxpayer, or a state taxpayer, or a city taxpayer? The answer is, "YES!"
Bonus link: The Transportation Department is now exempt from worrying about things like costs and benefits. Instead, the goal is to improve "livability." I think that means that people with Volvos also to get to ride street cars at public expense.
Here's a terrific example, sent in by Jason S. JS writes: "[Here] is a hyperlink to how the San Antonio transit agency is going to fund their match for more federal funding for a street car application to the Feds. Clearly this shows how stimulus money is fungible, or laundered if you want to be more crass. It also demonstrates that the transit agency is not spending any more money at all in the short run and its essence is to shift funding to lower return investments for the public, but higher returns to the transit service providers. I am sure that this is not the only example of such behavior but just a good example.... "
Excerpt from the article:
VIA President Keith Parker has said his agency would commit $20 million from its capital budget. Because of federal stimulus funding VIA has secured to buy new buses, the transit agency can divert the money from its capital budget for use on a streetcar system.
Officials also underscored the need for help from others.
“The mayor and I feel very strongly that we need to push the private sector,” Wolff said.
A public improvement district could be formed that would levy an additional tax on property owners within a certain distance from the track alignment. The private sector helped fund the streetcar line in Portland, Ore., a model for other cities seeking streetcar programs.
So, they got "Federal money" (whatever that means). They are moving "city money" from one line item to another. And all this spending of tax money is an excuse for... raising taxes! If you look at a taxpayer, how do you tell if she is a Federal taxpayer, or a state taxpayer, or a city taxpayer? The answer is, "YES!"
Bonus link: The Transportation Department is now exempt from worrying about things like costs and benefits. Instead, the goal is to improve "livability." I think that means that people with Volvos also to get to ride street cars at public expense.
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