Recent comments

  • Supposedly AIG is going to report tomorrow a $60 billion dollar loss.

    Reply to: AIG: Give us another bailout or we'll declare bankruptcy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think the problem is contagion and systemic risk. Somehow the government needs to get their heads wrapped on systemic risk and throw out this crap. I think they should be hiring like mad financial experts, IRS agents, insurance regulators and any other person off the street who isn't corrupt and has a brain with a clue in it and start analyzing the "assets" of AIG, take it over and start throwing out the garbage. Maybe the way to do that is bankruptcy or plain full bore nationalization, but clearly leaving executive management in charge is absurd at this point. They are proving to be blood sucking zombies.

    Midtowng, we could use a blog post that goes into the nitty gritty, as much as one can research, on what exactly is the systemic risk and how to stop it from blowing out the dam.

    Does the United States need to guarantee certain annuities and other vehicles promised by AIG or ?

    Reply to: AIG: Give us another bailout or we'll declare bankruptcy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • every model has a set of assumptions, limits, boundary conditions. One can have the actual equation being incorrect but more often it is the assumptions that are incorrect or ignored.

    I think it's time to install LaTeX and go through the actual models and point out, in mathematical language, the problems. Maybe on the upgrade.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • ya know free TV paid for with advertising used to work just fine and dandy. Another alternative is to use public funds to these media institutions.

    But we're pretty damn worker wage focused on EP, so can we truly argue that someone taking 3 months of work should magically give the results of their labor away for free?

    I cannot.

    On the other hand, I can tell you assuredly that business models and technological solutions to this issue of content, shared media and the Internets is not solved and many attempts to solve it are stuck on stupid. Signing off now, see me as a digital media rights conference for more. ;)

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • it's the basic axioms behind the math:
    - just because everybody doesn't *normally* remove their money from the bank all on the same day at the same minute doesn't mean it can't happen.
    - just because you can insure something doesn't mean that the insurance company knows what they are doing or that your insurance policy will be any good if something happens.
    - just because you can diversify by investing in several contracts of the same type on the thought that they won't all go bad at once, will not prevent them from all going bad at once.

    In other words, your models should always assume the worst, not the best.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • We do not want the world to become "for free" reporting and journalism because "for free" does not pay the rent.

    Having said this though, if we're going to have an equitable and free society, information does in fact need to be free.  In other words, as far as I'm concerned, on any of these interviews is that the people's need to know trumps copyright.  If you can't get your money back in a for-profit industry like CNBC that has a billion bankers worldwide tuning in 24 hours a day on the first showing, then maybe you need to spin off such documentaries to a non-profit arm.

     

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Until we have separate currencies for every city- or maybe even every neighborhood- we will not see sub-national corporations get anything at all.

    I'm convinced that the real reasons for the imposition of a central bank and the dollar standard was to destroy state's rights and local power.

    Reply to: Whistle Blower to Oversee Stimulus Money   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Well, it's their documentary. If they pulled it, they pulled it.

    The problem with online media is giving revenue streams to those who actually created the content.

    I think of course they should enable embedding, sharing of content but the problem is the business model, ad revenues, and keeping those revenues going to the content/copyright holder.

    For example, I see on youtube all of the time, people ripping off other people's content and then putting their own ads, which generate revenues to that stolen content.

    That's ridiculous, the ads should be bound to the original content and revenues should go to the producer of that content.

    Yet they need to enable online snipping, sharing of content.

    Another problem is newspapers are imploding. Well, here's another problem, a professional journalist writes a great article, it's posted online and people (including us) quote it, link to it but there is no architecture to give that journalist/original online newspaper some money when their content is used.

    I'm all for giving the original content producers some money...hell it's their work...

    but the infrastructure just plain isn't there that is fair, doesn't cost the blogs and people "working for free" or gives revenues guaranteed back to the original producers of the work ...so,
    you get what CNBC just did.

    Why should they give that documentary away for free in all honesty (although I love all the ones that do!), it probably cost CNBC $300k or who knows how much to produce it...so getting the original professionals who make these things some money I think is important.

    We do not want the world to become "for free" reporting and journalism because "for free" does not pay the rent.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • trumps our right to know. The end of House of Cards is no longer available- YouTube pulled it based on a copyright complaint from NBC.

    All of these people should have never been given loans in the first place but I also think some personal responsibility is in order here. Can some of these people even balance a checkbook, add and subtract to figure out they are over extended? Seriously.

    Actually, that is a HUGE part of the problem and a complaint I've had looking back on my high school and college educations.

    I don't remember a single required class that taught me to balance a checkbook.  I certainly don't remember any classes on how to handle a credit card, what the words in the 2000 pages of documents you sign at closing on a house mean, or how to figure out a budget.

    I did have a "personal economics" class, which stressed how much better Capitalism was than Communism and Traditional economies and had us play a computer game on how to handle a stock portfolio, and it was required, but it was so mickey mouse that I doubt anybody in my generation actually knows these things without being told.

    I'd say at least 60% of the people in the United States don't have the training necessary to handle personal finances. And never will, because it's far more profitable for those who are paying for our "free and equitable" education to keep people in ignorance than to actually train them to understand.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I know of at least 4 communities that openly offer "old fashioned" prospector-tourism, to various levels (from the "free panning" on the Illinois tributary of the Rogue to "full scale gold mining" with $120/day rental on a modern carpeted riverbank dredge that you "clean yourself so that you get every last flake"). Seems to me at these prices, one *might* just pay for a very luxurious vacation with 2 days of work in the middle.

    Reply to: Gold, Safe Haven and Nationalization   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm willing to at least look at the question- does trade help or harm a post-industrial society? It's like a reverse ponzi scheme- the guys on top are the ones whom free trade benefits the least.

    Reply to: Jobs For U.S. Workers Stripped Out of Stimulus Bill Behind Closed Doors - Update It Lives!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is the issue with China- the fact that they're our biggest potential military opponent out there, but control a LARGE portion of our manufacturing.

    Only with a semi-autarky, in which we produce everything we need and trade only out of our surplus, can we fix that problem.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's massive. I guess I could write up a post as a project on the various problems with that trade deal but not off the top of my head!

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • We're always going to be running an account deficit, at least as long as the dollar is the de facto reserve currency. We can criticize China for undervaluing the yuan by pegging to the dollar, but I think they remember from the last time crisis hit that part of the world just how much currency speculation hurt the other Asian Tigers and Russia, thanks in large part to actions by the IMF. They trust our dollar (or at least distrust it least) but not our policies.

    That said, our account deficit is insane, but that's as much our fault as theirs. We didn't have to cut taxes, gut IRS enforcement for the wealthy, and increase government spending.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's not just Citi, BOA, WF ... getting cynical in my old age.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • for more money in exchange for stock.

    There was a great panel with Krugman, Roubini on ABC this morning and it's really looking like they plain need to deploy the Swedish plan.

    The stress test might be a method to nationalization as well as a method as you say. Or it might be useful for responsible banks who really are fine.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • AISI, it's just cover, it can either be used to justify more bailout

    1. Well, we checked them out, things are grim but not irretrievable, and if we give them another bailout we'll avoid a complete crash

    or nationalization

    2. Dead banks walking. Receivership time.

    Everybody already knows the answer is 2, but apparently many find this difficult to accept. Is it just process cover?

    BTW, good catch on the conference.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Hmm. Sports stadiums and Big Box Stores. With all the tax subsidies involved, sounds a bit like corporate welfare.:-)
    By the way, what does America still produce besides fast to be commoditized services?

    Reply to: Jobs For U.S. Workers Stripped Out of Stimulus Bill Behind Closed Doors - Update It Lives!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that the best way to stimulate the economy is to buy "domestically produced goods" during the first stimulus package debate about a year ago.

    In Cleveland Ohio, the political leaders are still trying to put the cart before the horse to drive an economy. They added a sales tax to fund a medical-convention center. Note they did not tax the medical industry but chose to put a tax on commerce that pays workers who then pay taxes to fund projects like this. In essence, it acts as a tariff on commerce for the sake of a public project. $500 million - a half of billions dollars is the price tag.

    It seems the public sector has forgotten what free enterprise is all about and that a horse is needed to pull the cart for an economy to prosper. The free enterpise system supports the public sector and it will never be the other way around. And in Cleveland, no one asked those who are paying the bill what would be the best way to build this medical center after they paid the extra toll on most things they purchased.

    The free enterprise system is all about adding values in local, regional or balanced geopolitical settings. It is about local value added economies that can add value from the raw products levels up through several levels to the retail or end user level. A free enterprise system needs to be able to recyle the added values up and down the line. ( And it does not happened either when all the values are spread all over the world like it is now in a global economic arena. There is no such thing as perpetual motion, but political leaders keep trying to make it happen. The cart can not push the horse that drives an economy.

    We fund sports stadiums and arenas for entertainment purposes and the money comes from the free enterprise system to fund these projects and fund the entertainment.
    The same applys to public projects like a medical-convention center. Something has to happen first and the medical industry itself is highly dependent on taxes. It is noteworthy that no one asks the medical industry for funds. This is proof positive, that everyone knows how the medical industry depends on a tax base to do their thing in the first place. They are not self-sufficient and do not produce values in any direct way. The values are a fallout with a negative balance no matter what and when and value is applied to any free enterprise system.

    Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says to shop for "domestically produced goods" as the best way to stimulate our economy. Just imagine if someone came into a city like Cleveland and asked for money to build a factory that produces the domestic goods. This would be putting the horse before the cart.

    (Tapart News and Art that Talks global and workers dignity issues at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews As a courtesy enjoy totally Free web services and much more Free at http://tapsearch.com/ )

    Reply to: Jobs For U.S. Workers Stripped Out of Stimulus Bill Behind Closed Doors - Update It Lives!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10169001-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&ta...

    Microsoft is announcing on Sunday a job training effort aimed at giving technical skills to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years.

    The most significant part of the program, in which Microsoft is offering free certification and other technical training, is being done in a phased approach, starting with Washington state. The second component of "Elevate America," available online immediately, is a Web site designed to help people with the basics such as creating a resume and send e-mail.

    Passman
    (Credit: Microsoft)

    "Millions of individuals don't have the technology skills needed in today's economy. Through Elevate America, we want to help workers get the skills they need to succeed," Pamela Passman, Microsoft's VP for corporate affairs, said in a statement.

    Microsoft's move comes as the United States has shed millions of jobs, a small number of which came from Microsoft itself as the company announced its first companywide layoffs last month.

    As part of the Elevate America program, Microsoft is working with state and local governments and hopes to offer 1 million vouchers for e-learning and certification classes.

    "At the federal, state and local level, leaders are working together to help start the engine of economic growth. The private sector provides much of the spark needed to jump-start that engine," Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement. "Washington state is pleased to be the first state to partner with Microsoft to provide Elevate America to our residents."

    ** would be better if they move all of their operation to India *****

    Reply to: Laid off and your boss wants money from you   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:

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