Recent comments

  • Well, I do have it but the system is also AJAX so the alt-text says "promote this post" and "demote this post" but the actual arrow if displayed will immediately override alt-text.

    Anyway, I tried to put in the user guide the most confusing things I see people do on blogs and then also put things in the admin forum and if all of that doesn't cut it, they can email too.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... person to get used to all this rating in the first place, let alone mystery arrows, but I'm sure the Web 2.0 people find the arrows clear enough. What's the alt-text for the arrow image, for people accessing by screen reader ... that normally shows up as hint text.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ah

    no, the preview is static, how it will finally look, so what happens is everything is loaded and I cannot easily create a separate "profile" in the database as well as if you have something overlapping the links/tags that accompany each post, if I remove that from preview, you won't realize the layout needs some help.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... shows the up and down arrows at the bottom of the intro preview. To someone unused to those arrows as rec up and rec down buttons (eg, moi-même), it looks for all the world like a tool to change the breakpoint for the preview and full post.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • that's what commodity futures traders do, but somehow on a critical commodity that doesn't seem really appropriate. ;)

    Maybe a return to regulation which was going on during the oil bubble.

    I would claim they are not creating a bubble but more trying to stop the deflationary spiral, which is a minor interim bubble de facto.

    Reply to: Banks Using TARP Funds to Speculate in Oil Markets   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • establish directly that banks are taking TARP funds ans using them in order to do this, but we do know that the only source of capital out there now is TARP funds.

    On the hoarding issues. You're right that hoarding increases oil prices in the short term.

    But the problem is that this has to be consumed at some point, and we are at the point at which now more oil can be stored. The oil storage facilities at Cushing, OK, where North American trade takes place are full.

    At some point, there's simply no place else to stick the oil.

    And at that point, this purchasing for future contracts disappears.

    Which means that the price increase crashes.

    It's a speculative bubble akin to what happened in the housing market. And when it comes crashing on down, the people holding overvalued assets, in this case the buyers of futures contracts, have to take the hit.

    Because when traders purchase oil futures, they have to sell that oil in the spot market unless they plan to use it themselves.

    Reply to: Banks Using TARP Funds to Speculate in Oil Markets   15 years 10 months ago
  • well, maybe that will fly over on freakonomics but it isn't much of a barometer on EP.

    Reply to: No, this graph is NOT reassuring!   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • hording would decrease supply and thus is an attempt to increase the price. (towards bottom of post, you've got it upside down there)

    I'm a little confused, can you spell out how banks are using TARP money specifically to speculate in commodities?

    I mean I believe you when they are busy trying to obtain gains by commodities speculation and how pathetic that is considering how much money the U.S. taxpayer has given them and also how pathetic that is they cannot act as banker to the U.S. manufacturing sector as they should....

    But is there a direct tie in to the TARP money (beyond the fact the government gave them more money than the entire Citigroup is even worth) to the commodities trading unit?

    Reply to: Banks Using TARP Funds to Speculate in Oil Markets   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • In case anyone needed a reminder about the state of the economy, Jacques Villeneuve -- Canada's only Formula One/Indianapolis 500 champion -- brought it home in spades yesterday. The native of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., appeared at the Canadian Motorsports Expo at the International Centre and spelled out just how hard it has been for him to attract enough sponsorship dollars to get his newly minted NASCAR career back on track. "It's tough going," he said. "There are still a bunch of (NASCAR) teams that are looking at getting funding for 2009 and I am spending virtually all my time trying to get (a deal) done." The frustrating thing, of course, is that Villeneuve should be able to stand before any corporation in Canada, shake hands with a few company directors and come out with a wheel barrow full of cash to back any kind of racing venture that he wanted. After all, he has one of the most recognizable names in all of sports; his late father is worshipped on two continents and he is a two-time Canadian male athlete of the year. And at 37 years old, he still is young enough to drive at least five more seasons at the top of his game in NASCAR. All this, however, amounts to a hill of beans with the auto manufacturing world in a death spiral. "I am at my core an optimist," Villeneuve said.

    Reply to: No, this graph is NOT reassuring!   15 years 10 months ago
  • but bonddad seems to endorse it. Looks like we need some posts "was the TARP worth it"?

    In terms of credit easing. But Roubini still thinks banks are plain insolvent and this just postponed the inevitable and says we need about $3 trillion now and will end up nationalizing the banks.

    (I found the above via Calculated Risk).

    I thought your question on what specifically did Bernanke and Paulson tell Congress which was so dire be disclosed was a great point. I'd like to know those specifics too.

    Reply to: Radio, Radio & Best Comments   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ...that TARP is an enormous political boondoggle under the unfettered control of the Executive, but that it together with other programs had succeeded in the objective of easing some of the credit crunch -- which iirc was the interviewer's question.

    I agree with your criticisms of TARP wholeheartedly ... there is a learned art to ignoring/deflecting interviewer questions, no?

    Reply to: Radio, Radio & Best Comments   15 years 10 months ago
  • which editor? Can you give me your entire configuration? That would be Operating system, browser, version of browser and any add ons you are using. Also precisely how are you editing your blog posts on EP? Which theme are you using on EP, the default (tapestry, various beige/yellows/orange-reds/green offsets) or the blue (Amadou, various blue-ivory with shades of white-pinkish)?

    The reason I need this is the promotion/demotion system shouldn't be showing up in any edit body anywhere so this is a bug.

    BTW: I am aware of the comment issues and I have another bug issue.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... since it shows up in the editor ... I must have been trying to push down the section break, but it didn't work so I put it in by hand.

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I just listened to this on the radio, how can you say the TARP was effective and this was a good thing?

    here is the January 9th, 2009 TARP Oversight Panel Report.

    They are asking the same thing and it's effectiveness is unclear.

    Couldn't financial stability have been achieved by the many other plans offered that didn't cost the U.S. taxpayer a whopping $700 Billion?

    Reply to: Radio, Radio & Best Comments   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • was for every single distressed property. I saw this also but it was in a financial blog. We can simply get the values of the homes about to be foreclosed on and that should be available on at least the blogs tracking the housing bubble.

    Well, I see the blogs are waking up and the pressure is starting to pour in.

    Reply to: Senate Gives Away the Rest of the TARP $350 Billion   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm sorry, but it's going to be entertaining to watch the first couple of months of the Obama presidency.

    Because, as we see with the banking situation currently what happened in the fall was merely a holding action that's not going to fix the underlying problem.

    I remember hearing Lou Dobbs give the number of $200 billion for the value of the entire subprime mortgage market, but I can't find a link confirming that.

    The bottom line though is that the problem isn't the underlying asset, the house loans themselves, it's the system of financial transactions built on top of this. The bundling of these loans so that they could be securitized, and the sale of credit default swaps (CDS) agreements that guaranteed them. We've been told repeatedly that many of these CDS cover the same underlying asset, so that the collapse of a bundle of loans valued at $20 million, may generate a ripple in the CDS market causing $200 million or $2 billion dollars worth of damages.

    We don't know what the banks did with the money that they were given, and every indication is that they have continued to pay up on the value of the these CDS agreements, which means that they have inflated the cost of the underlying crisis in housing prices by whatever factor the bankers have managed to create by insuring the same underlying asset multiple times.

    It's really simple in the end, the crisis is only going to end is when the US government nationalizes the greater part of its banking system and dissolves the remainder of these agreements.

    And Robert Rubin and the rest of the people who latched on to Barack Obama as the last, best hope of the Wall Street Democrats way back when he gave the keynote at the launch of the Hamilton Project, and gushed over the need to turn on populism in the Democratic party.

    Now payup time, and the question is whether Barack Obama is going to be able to make the decision to nationalize the financial sector, or whether he's so married to the idea of bipartisanship and neo-liberal ideology that he just can't do it.

    And if that happens, then what do we get?

    Reply to: Senate Gives Away the Rest of the TARP $350 Billion   15 years 10 months ago
  • Any American programmers or engineers reading this, HANG ON TO YOUR JOB AS LONG AS YOU CAN. Work extra hours. Give 110%. Don't rub any managers the wrong way. Do MORE than the best you can to hold onto your job! Because the way its looking, if you slack off, and get fired (and ohh boy, are they just itchin for reasons to fire these days), you just might not be able to find another job in the tech industry. Those spots are about to be reserved for H1B VISA WORKERS -- for good.

    Hope you love your new HealthCare McJobs, Skilled Techies of America!

    Reply to: Obama Chief Technology Officer Picks - Does Obama want to promote Outsourcing, H-1B & labor arbitrage of U.S. workers?   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • and we are ? 4 days away from even being sworn in?

    I never was an Obamanut during the campaign and I normally volunteer for campaigns and this year sat it all out because I just couldn't find someone who needed help who I believed in...

    plus I'm a policy/stat/economics wonk but I fear there is going to be a terrible emotional crash for most of America if things progress down these few steps of the path.

    I didn't think of that until today.

    Reply to: Senate Gives Away the Rest of the TARP $350 Billion   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ...I guess my point is that I was holding out some hope that Obama might do some good especially given the fact that it's all on him. But yes, you are absolutely correct that this plan doesn't really help those that really need it and further empowers those that caused this mess in the first place. 

     

     

    "....under Capitalism, man oppresses man. Under Communism it's just the opposite..." ---John Kenneth Galbraith

     

    Reply to: Senate Gives Away the Rest of the TARP $350 Billion   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Having wages fall is precisely what the U.S. does not need right now. We have been in wage repression since 1980, with a blip during the dot con era.

    When you say the Great Depression is worse, you have our yearly deflation numbers at 11% and the Great Depression time period at 10.7%. Is this an error or am I misreading something.

    Hey you should give the great Bonddad a link over to his blog as the consolation prize for winning the bet.

    I think also taking a look at Dr. Doom Roubini's numbers is worth something. He is predicting a total 5% GDP decline for 2009 (this is in reference to your previous post on mild, meek recovery).

    Shame it's not Halloween for scary monster graph and why it is horrifying could at least have some gallows humor. [sic]

    Reply to: The Deflationary Bust deepens   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

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