Unsolicited Advice

from paul.kedrosky.com

I have beaten this subject many times in the past, but it's irritating the crap out of me again today at Milken conference ... so, one unsolicited piece of advice on being a quarter-decent conference speaker/panelist. Here it is:

Say something new.

I feel like I shouldn't have to say it, but I guess I do. Assume that people are in the audience because they are interested in the subject and have read up, so don't come in just to say the same old stuff. Having at least one new thing to say, and ideally more like three, and say them. Say something new, something that will surprise people. And if you don't know what that means ask someone. Seriously.

They went through the laundry and got shrunk

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- The worst housing slump in 70 years erased 67 percent from the market value of homebuilders in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, turning the companies into small-cap stocks. Home developers in the S&P 500 have a total market value of $16 billion, down from $49.2 billion at their peak in January 2006.

"They went through the laundry and got shrunk," said Stephen Lieber

Wednesday quotes

Capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich.
-James Grant

There is a problem when the turnover in the United States House of Representatives is lower than it was in the Soviet Politburo.
-N. Persily

Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.
-Talleyrand

Not San Francisco

Found this photo on Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collection.

Who says our schools are doing a poor job?

Photo from recent protest about China hosting Olympics.

http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/04/17/ooh-a-tough-one/

If you're wondering about the authenticity of the photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dead-ro/2403957312/in/photostream/

Separating Politics and Science

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger provides a positive and optimistic view of of climate policy in a speech yesterday at Yale. Here is an excerpt:

So I urge you to continue to be open‑minded on our environment. Do not dismiss or do not accept an idea because it has a Republican label or a Democratic label or a conservative label or a liberal label. Think for yourself. This is especially true on
environment. So I have great faith in your ability to find new answers and to find new approaches. Don't accept what the old people say. Don't accept the old ways. Don't accept the old ways or the old politics of Democrats and Republicans. Stir things up. Be fresh and new the way you look at things.

Debt Collection Done From India

By HEATHER TIMMONS

In a glass tower on the outskirts of New Delhi, dozens of young Indians are on the telephone, calling America’s out of work, forgetful and debt-stricken and asking for cash.

“Are you sure that’s all you can afford?” one operator in a row of cubicles asks politely.

“Americans are used to receiving calls from India for insurance claims and credit card sales. But debt collection represents a growing business for outsourcing companies, especially as the American economy slows and its consumers struggle to pay for their purchases.

Armed with a sophisticated automated system that dials tens of thousands of Americans every hour, and puts confidential information like Social Security numbers, addresses and credit history at operators’ fingertips, this new breed of collectors is chasing down late car payments, overdue credit card debt and lapsed installment loans. Debt collectors in India often cost about one-quarter the price of their American counterparts, and are often better at the job, debt collection company executives say.

http://tinyurl.com/6a7ona

Dumb :)

The Inconspicuous Toupee
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The Inconspicuous Toupee
item M6192
$6.95 ea.

http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6192.html

"If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster."

PAUL B. FARRELL:

Since 1776 "too many Americans have twisted the sensible right to pursue happiness into the delusion that we are entitled to a guarantee of happiness," says Susan Jacoby in "The Age of American Unreason." "If we don't get exactly what we want, we assume someone must be violating our rights."

economic sound bites

Brain Cake

If ever you're in the mood, or in the company of neuroscientists
with something to celebrate, you may need to create an anatomically
correct brain cake.

brain cake

Punish your good customers

Here's a Jeopardy question.

A financial service charges no fee if you have less than $100,000 with them. If your account has $100,000 or more, they charge you $100 a year account maintenance fee.

The answer: What is Legacy Treasury Direct? Legacy Treasury Direct is a program in which investors buy Treasury bills, Treasury notes, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities directly from the U.S. Treasury.

Most financial services reward their larger accounts with freebies or lower fees because larger accounts are less costly to maintain and more profitable to the business. Not U.S. Department of Treasury. They punish their larger customers .

If you break up your large account into several small ones, then you avoid the fee altogether. Don't you love how our government runs its business?

Drop off the key

Excerpt from Floyd Norris NY Times:

No money down
No documentation of income
Initial below-market teaser interest rate
Negative amortization

That is not a loan, . . . . Instead, it amounted to giving the home buyer a call option to buy the house at the current market price, coupled with a put option to sell the house back at that price.

If house prices kept rising, the “buyer” could make the small interest payments to keep the option open, and eventually sell the house. That happened for a time, and led to the conclusion by rating agencies that such borrowers were good risks.

But when prices went down, the “buyer” would suffer no loss if he exercised the put and gave the house to the lender. That is just what happened.

As Paul Simon wrote in 1975, said Mr. McCulley, the strategy became:
Drop off the key, Lee,
And set yourself free.

Dorothy Parker quotes

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."

Hospitals are Sick

About 2 million Americans get hospital-acquired infections every year, says Lisa McGiffert, Austin, Texas-based manager of Consumers Union’s Stop Hospital Infections campaign. Some patients make a full recovery after a simple course of antibiotics and others battle invasive infections for years.

Almost 100,000 people die from hospital infections every year, making the bugs the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., McGiffert says. People who get seriously ill but survive often face many costs, not to mention their suffering and disability, she says. “They have doctors, medicines, wound care, physical therapy that sometimes goes for years and years.”

http://tinyurl.com/54wjhj

Remember when Real Estate was Hot?

Cavett Quotes

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either."

"There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"

In an interview, he was asked about being quoted or quoting someone out of context, and he replied, "All quotes are out of context."

Dick Cavett

Comparison

A comparison of the search volume for the terms "lottery" and "global warming."

Afghan Style Kalashnikov Burglar Alarm

The Kalashnikov has been responsible for more misery and wasted humanity than any other invention of history. Now, ingenious Afghan inventor, Hanif Molavizadeh, has built one into a burglar alarm - a highly effective, seat-of-the-pants mash up that includes a cell and speaker phone, sensors, and armed response. Trigger the alarm by waving a hand outside the window of Molavizadeh's one-room home and the alarm sounds. It also calls Molavizadeh's cell phone so he can have a conversation with the would-be burglar via a speakerphone in the alarm, and if he doesn’t like the answers he gets, he can fire the Kalashnikov remotely. He’s working on an equally punitive anti-theft system for his car.
In a lawless society such as prevails throughout much of Afghanistan, there are no alarm monitoring companies and police can be unresponsive, so the Machiavelian overtones of Molavizadeh's inventions can at least be understood.
He has also built an equally punitive car alarm that gives car thieves a painful but non-lethal electric shock. If an intruder doesn't heed an automated warning via the same type of cell-phone arrangement, Molavizadeh can remotely trigger the jolt via his cell phone.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll - No contest!

Worried about the stock market ?

"Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars."

Bernard Baruch

...............

J.P Morgan was asked what the stock market will do. He said, "It will fluctuate."

...............

"The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it."

Nassim Taleb

...............

"If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster."

Clint Eastwood or ???

...............

"When I was about 23, I was in Vegas playing blackjack for the first time. I was at the $5 table and asked the dealer if I should double down. He told me, 'No balls, no babies.' "

Mark Cuban

Public Relations Con - Nobel in Economics

From non existent prize:

by Yves Gingras

I am arguing here that this prize does not exist: and moreover, that this so-called ‘Nobel prize’ is an extraordinary case study in the successful transformation of economic capital into symbolic capital, a transformation which greatly inflates the symbolic power of the discipline of Economics in the public mind.

The confusion can be traced back to 1968 when the governor of the Central Bank of Sweden decided to mark the tercentenary of that institution by creating a new award. It could have been named after a well-known ancestral economist, such as Adam Smith, or more simply, though unimaginatively, ‘The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics’. After all, every discipline has its own ‘prestigious’ prize. Their number grows every year. However, the problem is that all these prizes, though well known within the microcosms of their discipline, have little public appeal. Only the Nobel prizes have a real public impact. But they are limited to five fields: physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature and, finally, peace.

Moreover, the enormous symbolic capital of the very name ‘Nobel prize’ has been accumulated over the years by a careful selection of prizewinners. Like every new prize, by definition unknown, the Nobel faced the problem of what we can call (invoking Pierre Bourdieu’s apt concept) the ‘primitive accumulation of symbolic capital’. This obstacle was overcome by giving the prize early on to already renowned scientists who would bring the prize real credibility. The idea was that, over the years, this symbolic capital would surely accrue to such an extent that it could in turn bring recognition to the chosen winners.

The organisers, conscious of this conundrum and wishing to endow the discipline of economics with as much public credibility as possible, decided to call the prize: ‘The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’. Curiously then, it was the memory of Nobel, not that of an economist, that was being recalled. This mystery can be explained if we unpack the process crystallised in that bizarre and awkward name.

First, despite the scepticism of some scientists towards the ‘scientificity’ of economics, the Bank managed to convince the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation to administer their prize. Secondly, identical procedures for the selection and nomination of the prize were chosen to those of the real Nobel prizes. Of course, the prize money would come from the Bank of Sweden, not the Nobel Foundation, but all the rest would be done exactly as if it was in fact a Nobel prize, up to and including the ceremony of 10 December.

Thus, the inclusion of the term ‘in Honor of Alfred Nobel’ in the title created the necessary bridge to the Nobel prize, and by exactly mimicking the process, the Bank created all the conditions enabling the association and even the identification of its prize with those established by Alfred Nobel at the turn of the century. Note that, for obvious reasons, it is much simpler to say ‘Nobel Prize in Economics’ than ‘Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Honor of Alfred Nobel’! No surprise that, since 1969, all journalists and economists have commonly referred to the Bank of Sweden Prize as ‘The Nobel Prize in Economics’. The strategy was a complete success.

Karl is Killing Groucho in Search Volume

John Kenneth Galbraith quotes

"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."

"You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too."

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."

New Toy - Google Trends

This tool follows the number of searches and news about a term over time. Comparisons are fun.

http://www.google.com/trends

Look in upper left column of this blog to try it out.

Amusing Contract from 1940s Hollywood

In her youth, film actress Teresa Wright was known for playing good hearted women. In 1941, she signed a five-year Hollywood contract, but asserted her seriousness as an actress. Her contract was unique by Hollywood standards because it contained the following clause:

The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow.

On Growth and Form

Walking along beach, I came upon many a peculiar and beautiful natural form. I thought of D'Arcy Thompson.

Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860 – 1948) was a biologist, mathematician, classics scholar. Nobel laureate Peter Medawar called On Growth and Form "the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue."

The central theme of On Growth and Form: biologists overemphasized the role of evolution, and underemphasized the roles of physical laws and mechanics, as determinants of the form and structure of living organisms. He advocated structuralism as an alternative to survival of the fittest in governing the form of species.




Thompson's illustration of the transformation of Argyropelecus olfersi into Sternoptyx diaphana by applying a 70° shear mapping

Biological clock linking tooth growth to other metabolic processes

Why do rats live faster and die younger than humans? A newly discovered biological clock provides tantalizing clues.

This clock, or biological rhythm, controls many metabolic functions and is based on the circadian rhythm, which is a roughly 24-hour cycle that is important in determining sleeping and feeding patterns, cell regeneration, and other biological processes in mammals.
The newly discovered rhythm, like the circadian rhythm, originates in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that functions as the main control center for the autonomic nervous system. But unlike the circadian rhythm, this clock varies from one organism to another, operating on shorter time intervals for small mammals, and longer ones for larger animals. For example, rats have a one-day interval, chimpanzees six, and humans eight.
NYU dental professor Dr. Timothy Bromage discovered the rhythm while observing incremental growth lines in tooth enamel, which appear much like the annual rings on a tree. He also observed a related pattern of incremental growth in skeletal bone tissue – the first time such an incremental rhythm has ever been observed in bone.

To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of "meanings."

The modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys; . . . The most celebrated and influential modern doctrines, those of Marx and Freud, actually amount to elaborate systems of hermeneutics, aggressive and impious theories of interpretation. All observable phenomena are bracketed, in Freud's phrase, as manifest content. This manifest content must be probed and pushed aside to find the true meaning -- the latent content -- beneath. For Marx, social events like revolutions and wars; for Freud, the events of individual lives (like neurotic symptoms and slips of the tongue) as well as texts (like a dream or a work of art) -- all are treated as occasions for interpretation. According to Marx and Freud, these events only seem to be intelligible. Actually, they have no meaning without interpretation.

Sontag

Evidence lacking on benefits of drinking lots of water | Science Codex

A recent look at what is known about the health effects of drinking water reveals that most supposed benefits are not backed by solid evidence. The findings indicate that most people do not need to worry about drinking their recommended 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water per day. The editorial is published in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology."