Recent comments

  • so were skin heads. That's what I am referring to.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • But it's a fine line though because too much nationalism can lead to....well, we know what it can lead to!

    Self sufficiency?  Imperialism?  I'm not sure that either is the bogeyman we pretend it to be.

    Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Nationalization in this case simply means the government grabs a private enterprise. There are many forms of nationalization but no body is talking about communism or even a mixed economy, they are saying the only entity big enough to clean up this mess is the government but to nationalize or government complete takeover of these financial institutions simply to open them up, clean up the mess, throw out the bad assets and return them to the private sector (and I'll assume a flurry of new regulations to accompany this effort).

    Nationalist, or that as a political objective is more of a fine line but it's quite clear other nations have a sense of country and putting their citizens, country first. Makes sense the world is a series of nation-states...that's it's structure. We're not "one world order...yet".

    The end game of unlimited migration is the ability to manipulate labor supply on a scale never seen before and that will erode wages, workers rights plus destroy community, cultural and social networks.

    On the agenda for some time, has been on the globalization/WTO/corporate "trading people" motif. I think it's critical to unravel the spin, the agenda and how this lowers wages, workers rights....globally.

    But it's a fine line though because too much nationalism can lead to....well, we know what it can lead to!

    So two very different concepts here....
    maybe that's why this term nationalize is getting such a bad rap.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is it time to revisit Game Theory and John Rawls yet...maybe sing coombiyaah?;-) Yes, the media confusion and obfuscation does tend to blur, but the fact is...Pat Buchanan is correct. Illegal immigration is not about racism, anymoreso than is a solid industrial policy in our own interest. Charity begins at home. We've been generous and tolerant to a fault, and according to WTO's own statistics (matched against various currency boards), a serious adjustment is now justifiably in order.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • no bridge, no building, no road, should ever be built. You want to know why? Because in all of those models, which are systems in essence, have scenarios where they would break down. Examples are a 100 foot tsunami, say Yellowstone erupts, a meteor hits the Earth, suddenly 10,000 trucks all loaded with heavy metals cross a bridge in 100 mph winds at the same time...

    list goes on and on.

    That is the point of proving a model, it must correlate to statistical evidence, which is the inputs, the data, that it is a law. One can prove that some variables will result in a different output.

    That is the point of the original commentary, it is implied and we know they did it, banks were leveraging out 40;1, 50:1, 70:1 instead of the accepted 12:1 previously...
    but the main point is these corporations created a shadow banking system with some obscure advanced mathematical models that know one understand and I implied they need to get the people who do understand, the mathematics community to look at these things and expose the mathematical fiction they probably are. i.e. bad math.

    I don't want to sit here on EP reviewing mathematical definitions, concepts, etc. and if the mathematical concepts are not understood, well, we have wikpedia and many textbooks to help out.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • That you shouldn't bet the bank on *ANY* assumption. Axioms notwithstanding, because they are universally held truths.

    If your assumptions aren't based on evidence, that makes them a little less useful than an assumption that is based on evidence. But even an assumption based on evidence can yield to the outliers in the data for which you have no experience at all.

    To my way of thinking, anything beyond the rock solid guarantee goes outside of good science and business- and into the realm of fantasy and gambling.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Isn't this a bit like decrying protectionism as racist, or nationalization as communist?

    The good of the whole has as much right to be considered as the profit of the individual. Besides, how much work that you did even 2 years ago are you still being paid for?

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • If you find out what is under the hood, especially with systemic risk, contagion, it would be a unique blog post cause I have not been able to easily find it.

    I know they have a butt load of various retirement/pension funds and annuities and all sorts of supposedly "guaranteed" retirement funds.

    I think the "domino effect" was the initial reason they got the money and that obviously isn't working with the walking dead but any details on how to handle such a large instituion with some many other dependences....I'd love to read that.

    I guess a corporate bankruptcy expert or maybe an insurance industry expert type of input would be educationally useful?

    Reply to: AIG: Give us another bailout or we'll declare bankruptcy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • and I will share my gruel with you too.

    Free Winnie the Pooh! Free Winnie the Pooh!

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • in mathematics, an axiom is a universally held truth.

    i.e. 1+1=2 (base 10), or prime numbers are only divisible by themselves and 1. Logic would be (NOT A) OR (NOT B) = NOT(A AND B) and so on.

    what is being referred to in the above is two fold, firstly are structured financial instruments and then mathematical modeling. Mathematical modeling is a system level technique, always has a series of assumptions and must be crafted to empirical evidence and analysis.

    Then these various derivatives, were based on stochastic modeling as well as often truly not simulated (it appears) and (it appears) no analysis in terms of a system model.

    I'm not sure yet on these structured finance details for I am reading up, but axioms is not applicable to the issues raised by these experts.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • AIG

    The thing is, they're already de facto insolvent. They (AIG and its many subsidiaries) are legal fictions at this point. Treasury knows this. The attempt now is to gradualize the shift and let the air out slowly. AIG was a global brand and had its hands in public pensions all over the place. Not enough reserves exist to cover the actuarial obligations. That's, in my thinking, what much of this threat to extort is all about.

    Reply to: AIG: Give us another bailout or we'll declare bankruptcy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is the question I raise.

    I can see being paid initially. I can see the company that paid you needing to recoup their investment plus a reasonable profit.

    I just can't see Walt Disney corporation still having a copyright on Steam Boat Willie. That makes NO sense to me. Eventually, fair use should win out and EVERYTHING should fall into public domain.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I did not say that the business model is antiquated and I also implied the technology itself is not addressing methods to keep a business model intact for paid content...

    but I am assuredly saying that content creators deserve to be paid for their work, which is a major function of copyright as well as patent law.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Sorry but the trade agreement means China is a preferred trading partner and China has a notorious tariff schedule designed to completely capture U.S. sectors until they reduce those tariffs.

    Sorry, I don't know what keywords like "same as everyone else" and "discrimination" are doing in a comment on a bad trade agreement.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... Chinese the same way we treat everyone else.

    That seems to me to be a red herring ... the problem is not that we should discriminate against the Chinese, the problem is that we should pursue our trade policy with all our trade partners in pursuit of the public interest rather than the interest of large multinational corporations.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • In fact, as far as I'm concerned- let's just pass a law that says the loans of any corporation in bankruptcy are forgiven outright.

    Then, let them fail, and watch this turn into a REAL ownership society.

    Reply to: AIG: Give us another bailout or we'll declare bankruptcy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • To add any more assumptions than the basic math axioms. Any model that does so should be inherently suspect of support of fraud.

    But then again, I'm one who thinks that fractional reserve banking and stock markets are a form of fraud.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think my sarcasm meter is failing.

    I can't argue that the WORKER should give their initial performance away for free. I can, seriously, argue that the business model that locks away public information for more than a week behind a for-pay firewall is largely a social evil.

    Those are two entirely different things in my mind.

    Likewise, I can see preserving copyright for the first few printings of a given revision of a book. But preserving copyright when the author is long dead doesn't make sense to me.

    For something closer to home- I can see preserving copyright on a piece of software that is actively available and being sold. But I can't see preserving copyright on outdated versions or on abandonware (for instance, I don't attempt to enforce copyright on my "Video Game Maker" for the TI-99/4A- in fact, if I heard of somebody still using it, I think I'd be flattered).

    Copyright is a reasonable public good when it preserves public access and encourages content CREATION. Beyond that, though, I have my doubts as to the usefulness of Intellectual Property in general- far too often it seems to become a barrier to true innovation.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is that we've got all of these leftovers of demonizing everything communism did.

    Reply to: What is Nationalization and why is Everyone Afraid of It?   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Obama is giving a conference on various panels discussing budget issues and he literally has pulled in a host of Senators, experts into the press conference and calling on them to speak. He started with John McCain who talked about DoD procurement. Now this is a very good place to cut costs because DoD contracts are completely out of control....they spend billions, do not get deliverables (sometimes at all) or double, triple costs....

    But it's interesting that he's just pulling in all of these people and having them speak at the administration press conference. Nice tact.

    Reply to: Sunday Morning Comics - Sing Along Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:

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