... barring unforeseen circumstances...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Mokulele and go!
Mokulele and go! have an agreement and have been working together for several years. I went straight to IslandAir and paid full price for a ticket rather than having anything to do with either of them.
Since go! flies past Hawaii out into the Pacific because the pilot and the copilot both fell asleep and the control tower could not wake them, if the choice is to fly them or don't go, I won't go.
The parent of go!, Mesa Air Group, went from about 10 dollars to as low as 13 cents. But things are looking up! They are above 25 cents now!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
How Citibank is pronounced in Japanese
Believe it or not, it is pronounced "Shittybank".
Wanna bet they announce a government bailout by Monday?
Wanna bet they announce a government bailout by Monday?
We need to fix the way we count in English, among other things
At least for pedagogical purposes, we should change the way numbers are read aloud.
I mean, what is eleven?
What is nineteen? nine plus ten?
What is twenty? two and tens?
What on Earth is that?
In, for example, Chinese and Japanese, numbers are read aloud in the following way.
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten
ten-one, ten-two, ten-three, ten-four, ten-five, ten-six, ten-seven, ten-eight, ten-nine,
two tens
two tens-one, two tens-two, two tens-three, two tens-four, two tens-five, two tens-six, two tens-seven, two tens-eight, two tens-nine,
three tens
The absurdity in the way we read numbers aloud in English was exceeded only by the way in which numbers were read aloud in French. For example, "81" was read aloud as "four twenties one". Huh? Left over from Babylonian mathematics? But then, the French don't pronounce the last half of most of their words... but you have to remember how the unpronounced parts are spelled because if the next word begins in a vowel, you have to pronounce the otherwise unpronounced preceding consonant. It would be as if the English word "an" were always pronounced "a", except if the next word begins with a vowel, in which case suddenly you have to remember what unpronounced consonant is contained in the word "a".
There aren't spelling contests in many languages because the irregularities are so few. That English spelling contests are such a big deal says something about English spelling... and it is not good.
An Englishman apparently once made a comment about Sanskrit and how it was so strange that a letter at the end of a word could affect the pronunciation of letters far preceding it. The response was, "Oh, you mean like in English?"
I mean, what is eleven?
What is nineteen? nine plus ten?
What is twenty? two and tens?
What on Earth is that?
In, for example, Chinese and Japanese, numbers are read aloud in the following way.
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten
ten-one, ten-two, ten-three, ten-four, ten-five, ten-six, ten-seven, ten-eight, ten-nine,
two tens
two tens-one, two tens-two, two tens-three, two tens-four, two tens-five, two tens-six, two tens-seven, two tens-eight, two tens-nine,
three tens
The absurdity in the way we read numbers aloud in English was exceeded only by the way in which numbers were read aloud in French. For example, "81" was read aloud as "four twenties one". Huh? Left over from Babylonian mathematics? But then, the French don't pronounce the last half of most of their words... but you have to remember how the unpronounced parts are spelled because if the next word begins in a vowel, you have to pronounce the otherwise unpronounced preceding consonant. It would be as if the English word "an" were always pronounced "a", except if the next word begins with a vowel, in which case suddenly you have to remember what unpronounced consonant is contained in the word "a".
There aren't spelling contests in many languages because the irregularities are so few. That English spelling contests are such a big deal says something about English spelling... and it is not good.
An Englishman apparently once made a comment about Sanskrit and how it was so strange that a letter at the end of a word could affect the pronunciation of letters far preceding it. The response was, "Oh, you mean like in English?"
though through and thorough
Some silly things in English spelling really need to be fixed.
The spellings of the above three words would be an excellent place to start. The amount of time people spend misreading and checking the spelling of the above three words is idiotic.
tho thru thoro
would do just fine.
The spellings of the above three words would be an excellent place to start. The amount of time people spend misreading and checking the spelling of the above three words is idiotic.
tho thru thoro
would do just fine.
American use of quotation marks is nonsensical
Americans move commas, periods, etc., inside quotation marks, whether or not the punctation mark is part of the quote. This is confusing and makes no sense. Another triumph of form over function.
The British put quotation marks around the quoted material.
How sensible.
The British put quotation marks around the quoted material.
How sensible.
Another person who should have read Oedipus more carefully
Representative John Dingell (D-Michigan).
His many years of opposing fuel efficiency improvements to "protect" the US auto industry have now helped to destroy it.
See if you can find a copy of a 1993 Frontline episode entitled "The Heartbeat of America". You will be absolutely shocked to hear how the identical problems have been going on for 20 years.
But if the Big Three go bankrupt and default, that could cause some of their suppliers to go bankrupt... and in this just-in-time world, that would be a disaster for everyone.
His many years of opposing fuel efficiency improvements to "protect" the US auto industry have now helped to destroy it.
See if you can find a copy of a 1993 Frontline episode entitled "The Heartbeat of America". You will be absolutely shocked to hear how the identical problems have been going on for 20 years.
But if the Big Three go bankrupt and default, that could cause some of their suppliers to go bankrupt... and in this just-in-time world, that would be a disaster for everyone.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wishing for a thing never made it so... except maybe in A.I.
Information has been doubling for millenia if not for millions of years.
In the past, one could dream of something, but would not live long enough to see it.
We are now in such a steep part of the curve that we can dream something as young people and live long enough to see it come true.
Think personal computers.
In the past, one could dream of something, but would not live long enough to see it.
We are now in such a steep part of the curve that we can dream something as young people and live long enough to see it come true.
Think personal computers.
Another dream of the ages
Proof that there are planets orbiting other stars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Oh, irony of ironies
The financial wizards, in their delusional attempt to kill off the last bit of Risk by creating credit default swaps for everything, have now totally succeeded in making Risk maximal for every single financial endeavor!
No one trusts anyone. No one will lend to anyone. So now everyone is at maximal risk and companies that were doing just fine may suddenly die because they cannot get short term loans. Airlines are now finding that no one will allow them to hedge for oil price fluctuations for 2009, so now they have one less tool to avoid bankruptcy.
A vast caravan of mathematical models, wandering across the landscape, in search of an idea...
Sounds like the people who wanted to make it morning in American but wound up making the evening come sooner.
Sounds like the people who wanted to make us safer but wound up destroying our security.
Sounds like the people who wanted to secure our hegemony but wound up having everything slip through our fingers.
Way to go.
I think they should all have read Oedipus more carefully.
Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Before his birth, it was prophesied that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this fate, the child was given to a herdsman who was told to kill him. The herdsman, out of pity, and yet fearing to disobey, instead gave him to another herdsman. The second herdsman took the infant Oedipus to his master, the king of Corinth, Polybus, who adopted him as his own son. Oedipus then lived as the crown prince of Corinth. Many years later, Oedipus is told that he is not the real son of Polybus and, to confirm this, he seeks help from an Oracle and is told that he is destined to kill his father and mate with his mother. In his attempt to evade the dictates of the Oracle, he decides to flee from home to Thebes, on the other side of the mountains.
As Oedipus was travelling by horse to Thebes, he came to a crossroads where he met a chariot driven by Laius. A dispute arose and Oedipus killed Laius. Continuing his journey, Oedipus encountered a Sphinx, who stopped any traveler and asked him a riddle that no one had yet been able to solve. If the traveler failed, he was eaten by the Sphinx. The riddle was: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?". The answer was: "Man; as an infant, he crawls on all fours, as an adult, he walks on two legs and, in old age, he relies on a walking stick". Oedipus solved the riddle and the Sphinx threw herself to her death. The gratitude of the Thebans led them to appoint Oedipus as their king. Oedipus was also given the recent widow Jocasta as his wife, and they had four children.
Many years after the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, a plague struck the city of Thebes. Oedipus, with his typical hubris, asserted that he could, and would, end the plague. He sent Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the Oracle at Delphi and found that the murderer of the former King Laius must be found and killed or exiled. In a search for the identity of the killer, Oedipus sends for the blind prophet, Tiresias, who warns him not to try to find the killer. In an angry exchange, Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is the killer and suggests that he is living in shame and does not know who his true parents are. Undaunted, Oedipus continues his search. When a messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that King Polybus is dead, Oedipus, still regarding Polybus as his true father, worries about the part of the prophecy that dictates he will mate with his own mother. The messenger reassures him with the news that he is adopted. Jocasta then realizes who Oedipus is and goes into the palace to kill herself. Oedipus seeks verification of the messenger's story from the very same herdsman who was to have left Oedipus to die as a baby. From that herdsman, Oedipus learns that the infant raised as the adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Thus, Oedipus finally realizes that he had killed his own father, King Laius, at the crossroads, and as consequence, had married his own mother, Jocasta.
Oedipus goes in search of Jocasta and finds she has killed herself.
No one trusts anyone. No one will lend to anyone. So now everyone is at maximal risk and companies that were doing just fine may suddenly die because they cannot get short term loans. Airlines are now finding that no one will allow them to hedge for oil price fluctuations for 2009, so now they have one less tool to avoid bankruptcy.
A vast caravan of mathematical models, wandering across the landscape, in search of an idea...
Sounds like the people who wanted to make it morning in American but wound up making the evening come sooner.
Sounds like the people who wanted to make us safer but wound up destroying our security.
Sounds like the people who wanted to secure our hegemony but wound up having everything slip through our fingers.
Way to go.
I think they should all have read Oedipus more carefully.
Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Before his birth, it was prophesied that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this fate, the child was given to a herdsman who was told to kill him. The herdsman, out of pity, and yet fearing to disobey, instead gave him to another herdsman. The second herdsman took the infant Oedipus to his master, the king of Corinth, Polybus, who adopted him as his own son. Oedipus then lived as the crown prince of Corinth. Many years later, Oedipus is told that he is not the real son of Polybus and, to confirm this, he seeks help from an Oracle and is told that he is destined to kill his father and mate with his mother. In his attempt to evade the dictates of the Oracle, he decides to flee from home to Thebes, on the other side of the mountains.
As Oedipus was travelling by horse to Thebes, he came to a crossroads where he met a chariot driven by Laius. A dispute arose and Oedipus killed Laius. Continuing his journey, Oedipus encountered a Sphinx, who stopped any traveler and asked him a riddle that no one had yet been able to solve. If the traveler failed, he was eaten by the Sphinx. The riddle was: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?". The answer was: "Man; as an infant, he crawls on all fours, as an adult, he walks on two legs and, in old age, he relies on a walking stick". Oedipus solved the riddle and the Sphinx threw herself to her death. The gratitude of the Thebans led them to appoint Oedipus as their king. Oedipus was also given the recent widow Jocasta as his wife, and they had four children.
Many years after the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, a plague struck the city of Thebes. Oedipus, with his typical hubris, asserted that he could, and would, end the plague. He sent Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the Oracle at Delphi and found that the murderer of the former King Laius must be found and killed or exiled. In a search for the identity of the killer, Oedipus sends for the blind prophet, Tiresias, who warns him not to try to find the killer. In an angry exchange, Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is the killer and suggests that he is living in shame and does not know who his true parents are. Undaunted, Oedipus continues his search. When a messenger arrives from Corinth with the news that King Polybus is dead, Oedipus, still regarding Polybus as his true father, worries about the part of the prophecy that dictates he will mate with his own mother. The messenger reassures him with the news that he is adopted. Jocasta then realizes who Oedipus is and goes into the palace to kill herself. Oedipus seeks verification of the messenger's story from the very same herdsman who was to have left Oedipus to die as a baby. From that herdsman, Oedipus learns that the infant raised as the adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Thus, Oedipus finally realizes that he had killed his own father, King Laius, at the crossroads, and as consequence, had married his own mother, Jocasta.
Oedipus goes in search of Jocasta and finds she has killed herself.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
SPOT SHORTAGES ARE COMING
The amounts of metal ores, grain, coal, etc. (that is, materials that are raw materials for goods such as steel, bread, concrete, and electricity) that are being shipped have dropped off a cliff.
Think about that. The shipping of the entire planet has been paralyzed. What has done this is not a natural catastrophe, but a man-made one: the nearly total freezing of credit worldwide.
There is now no one who will issue entirely routine letters of credit and loans necessary for ships to take goods from one part of the world to another. What this means is that any place that is importing metal ore, grain, coal, etc., has been drawing down what it has in storage for more than a month. No company wants to admit this is happening because their stock price would collapse. So what will happen is that the company will suddenly cease functioning. There will suddenly be no bread, no work, no electricity in local areas all around the world. You may suddenly see domestic pasta, but not imported pasta, for example. This will trigger panic buying of all goods, even goods that are not actually in short supply. So, as soon as you see a spot shortage like this, don't be surprised if there is one thing not there today, 10 things not there tomorrow, and 100 things not there the next day.
The freezing of credit may also cause specialty goods to suddenly be unavailable. For example, there may be plenty of toner cartridges for printers from Company X, but no toner cartridges for printers from Company Y.
What you need to do is walk around your workplace and walk around your house and look at ever single thing and ask yourself: "If I couldn't buy a replacement for that for the next 6 months, would something in my life come to a screeching halt?"
Particularly if it is something cheap.
There is a YouTube video in which a guy describes how his family went to their cabin and found that a rubber seal for the water pump had broken. So, they got in their car and drove 20 miles to buy a tiny piece of rubber. He realized how much gasoline was burned just to obtain that tiny piece of rubber, but without it, the pump would not work and there would be no water...
My cousin has an auto glass business. I called him and explained the potential for spot shortages, and I asked him if there was anything, particularly a cheap thing, that if he couldn't get, would result in complete paralysis of his business.
He said: "Adhesive! If we don't have the adhesive to glue in the windshields, we can't do any work at all!"
He is now preordering a lot of adhesive.
That is a good example of the kinds of things to think about. The shortages may start tomorrow or within a few weeks, but when they start, it will be ferocious beyond belief... something completely outside living memory.
If you couldn't buy food for a few weeks, how bad would that be?
I hope I am completely totally wrong about this and that everyone will be laughing at me in a few months... but how is it possible for global shipping to drop so suddenly without catastrophic consequences? See the following two articles.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/shipping-holed-beneath-the-waterline-995066.html
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/10/international-trade-seizing-up-due-to.html
And then there is the problem of shipping containers being piled up in the wrong place. Since people cannot get the shipping containers, they cannot ship their goods.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97001507
The shipbuilders are going bankrupt. The shipping companies are in danger of going the same way, and that is why this cannot be fixed overnight.
Think about that. The shipping of the entire planet has been paralyzed. What has done this is not a natural catastrophe, but a man-made one: the nearly total freezing of credit worldwide.
There is now no one who will issue entirely routine letters of credit and loans necessary for ships to take goods from one part of the world to another. What this means is that any place that is importing metal ore, grain, coal, etc., has been drawing down what it has in storage for more than a month. No company wants to admit this is happening because their stock price would collapse. So what will happen is that the company will suddenly cease functioning. There will suddenly be no bread, no work, no electricity in local areas all around the world. You may suddenly see domestic pasta, but not imported pasta, for example. This will trigger panic buying of all goods, even goods that are not actually in short supply. So, as soon as you see a spot shortage like this, don't be surprised if there is one thing not there today, 10 things not there tomorrow, and 100 things not there the next day.
The freezing of credit may also cause specialty goods to suddenly be unavailable. For example, there may be plenty of toner cartridges for printers from Company X, but no toner cartridges for printers from Company Y.
What you need to do is walk around your workplace and walk around your house and look at ever single thing and ask yourself: "If I couldn't buy a replacement for that for the next 6 months, would something in my life come to a screeching halt?"
Particularly if it is something cheap.
There is a YouTube video in which a guy describes how his family went to their cabin and found that a rubber seal for the water pump had broken. So, they got in their car and drove 20 miles to buy a tiny piece of rubber. He realized how much gasoline was burned just to obtain that tiny piece of rubber, but without it, the pump would not work and there would be no water...
My cousin has an auto glass business. I called him and explained the potential for spot shortages, and I asked him if there was anything, particularly a cheap thing, that if he couldn't get, would result in complete paralysis of his business.
He said: "Adhesive! If we don't have the adhesive to glue in the windshields, we can't do any work at all!"
He is now preordering a lot of adhesive.
That is a good example of the kinds of things to think about. The shortages may start tomorrow or within a few weeks, but when they start, it will be ferocious beyond belief... something completely outside living memory.
If you couldn't buy food for a few weeks, how bad would that be?
I hope I am completely totally wrong about this and that everyone will be laughing at me in a few months... but how is it possible for global shipping to drop so suddenly without catastrophic consequences? See the following two articles.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/shipping-holed-beneath-the-waterline-995066.html
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/10/international-trade-seizing-up-due-to.html
And then there is the problem of shipping containers being piled up in the wrong place. Since people cannot get the shipping containers, they cannot ship their goods.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97001507
The shipbuilders are going bankrupt. The shipping companies are in danger of going the same way, and that is why this cannot be fixed overnight.
Persian Gulf states in serious downturn
"I don't know if anyone still believes in self-healing market forces... but the market is not self-healing... it is self-mutilating and manic-depressive..."
-Eckhard Wurtz
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97027869
-Eckhard Wurtz
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97027869
Ben Stein said...
Merrill Lynch is an incredibly well-run company... buy, buy, buy!
See video below.
Sounds like he knows as much about economics as he does about evolutionary biology.
Is there no end to the suffering Yale inflicts upon the world?
See video below.
Sounds like he knows as much about economics as he does about evolutionary biology.
Is there no end to the suffering Yale inflicts upon the world?
You have got to watch this...
More evidence that the world is run by idiots... And there is nothing funnier than sneering idiots when they turn out to be completely and totally wrong.
Sixty years ago
When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won.
There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail... always.
-Mahatma Ghandi
Satyagraha
There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail... always.
-Mahatma Ghandi
Satyagraha
Friday, November 14, 2008
Did you know that carrots used to be...
Achimenes hybrids are really terrific these days
http://www.backyardgarden.info/achimenes.php
I saw some astonishing ones recently... should have bought them...
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Living in a world of dominoes
No one knows, particularly the ones who are pretending they do, whether it is possible to remove each one of the dominoes without having them start to knock each other over. And before an earthquake happens.
Only 4 million? There are maybe 1 QUADRILLION dollars in derivatives lurking out there...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-domino-effect-road-to-recession-1012202.html
Only 4 million? There are maybe 1 QUADRILLION dollars in derivatives lurking out there...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-domino-effect-road-to-recession-1012202.html
Demographics can overwhelm everything
Demographic changes can sometimes be so overwhelming that they trump almost everything else. A population in which the same number of babies is born every year (that is, one without baby booms or baby busts) is very efficient because, for example, no new schools need be built or be closed, and each generation transits through a static infrastructure.
The baby boomers were told they needed to stay invested in the stock market to grow their retirement money and to buy a house. One interpretation of the current financial crisis is that it is a hangover from massive lending by the boomers.
But this raises three important questions:
To whom will the stocks be sold when the boomers are old?
To whom will the boomers sell their houses to or reverse-mortgage their houses to?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96763713
If economic growth has, for the last century, run in tandem with oil/energy use, what will happen to growth if we walk blindly right into peak oil?
As the number of retirees swells, we can see that these problems may become the biggest considerations. And life extension and genetic engineering have not even kicked in yet. What will the demographics look like with changes like that?
The baby boomers were told they needed to stay invested in the stock market to grow their retirement money and to buy a house. One interpretation of the current financial crisis is that it is a hangover from massive lending by the boomers.
But this raises three important questions:
To whom will the stocks be sold when the boomers are old?
To whom will the boomers sell their houses to or reverse-mortgage their houses to?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96763713
If economic growth has, for the last century, run in tandem with oil/energy use, what will happen to growth if we walk blindly right into peak oil?
As the number of retirees swells, we can see that these problems may become the biggest considerations. And life extension and genetic engineering have not even kicked in yet. What will the demographics look like with changes like that?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Quotes
"...a smashing repudiation of the hideous right-wing faction that has wreaked so much damage on the country" Glenn Greenwald
"Like so many people, I had to be with family and friends tonight. Some things must be shared with the people you love. We're in a state of delirium, disbelief and joy.
So many years of pain and exile and frustration ended. So much hope released. A black man president! A progressive, smart, compassionate man!" Gary Kamiya
"John McCain ... recognized the historic importance of Obama's victory, and 'the special significance that it has for African Americans, and the special pride that must be theirs tonight'. That hit me wrong: A lot of us have a special pride tonight." Joan Walsh
"Like so many people, I had to be with family and friends tonight. Some things must be shared with the people you love. We're in a state of delirium, disbelief and joy.
So many years of pain and exile and frustration ended. So much hope released. A black man president! A progressive, smart, compassionate man!" Gary Kamiya
"John McCain ... recognized the historic importance of Obama's victory, and 'the special significance that it has for African Americans, and the special pride that must be theirs tonight'. That hit me wrong: A lot of us have a special pride tonight." Joan Walsh
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
For these things, many people gave their lives
So that white people could marry people who are not white
So that people could vote
So that children could go to school
http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/about/about.asp
So that people could vote
So that children could go to school
http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/about/about.asp
Thank you for helping us rise up and live out the true meaning of our creed
From this
to this
I guess a lot of younger people might not have recognized him. He was only on the screen for a few seconds. The tears streaming down his face. That was it... I burst into tears.
We may not be free, but that day may yet come.
Thank you for helping to bring out the good in us.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/11/05/obama
to this
I guess a lot of younger people might not have recognized him. He was only on the screen for a few seconds. The tears streaming down his face. That was it... I burst into tears.
We may not be free, but that day may yet come.
Thank you for helping to bring out the good in us.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/11/05/obama
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
An astrophotograph I took of the Sculptor Galaxy
This is just amazing! Give it a try. You can take a few photos for free.
http://www.global-rent-a-scope.com
Solar water heating is low-tech, cheap, and here now
We have had a solar water heater for 30 years now. No fuss, no muss. It cost $5,ooo in current dollars, and has saved us $30,000.
The freezing problem has been solved by using vacuum tubes. The units are so cheap, they are being mass-produced in China on a huge scale.
Solar Water Heating can reduce domestic water heating costs by as much as 65%.
Solar heated domestic water does not pollute or use valuable non-renewable resources. Even the pump to transport heat from the collectors to the storage tank is powered by the sun (depending on the model). Solar energy is a sound investment in everyone's future.
http://www.codellasolar.com/domestic.htm
Vote your...
Years ago, some OxBridge Tory said to me:
Vote your pocketbook!
I said to her:
Do you think that is what an election is about? About vote-buying? Do you think I care whether a few thousand dollars more or less wind up in my pocket?
This is about how to steer a nation, about how to get the most reasonable outcome for the most people.
Do you think this is a zero-sum game?
As I said, OxBridge and clueless...
Vote your pocketbook!
I said to her:
Do you think that is what an election is about? About vote-buying? Do you think I care whether a few thousand dollars more or less wind up in my pocket?
This is about how to steer a nation, about how to get the most reasonable outcome for the most people.
Do you think this is a zero-sum game?
As I said, OxBridge and clueless...
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Credit Default Swaps are not being demonized
By using trigger words like "demonized", many people try to deflect criticism.
Let's put it this way: Credit Default Swaps gave the illusion of no risk.
"This is nothing more than an insurance contract and we treat it as though it has human qualities. You can't have a good or an evil insurance policy," said Roy Smith, professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
"Do we sit around talking about the demon insurance companies who insure the hurricanes?" he asked. "Why not?"
Oh, but we do. We do ask about "demon" insurance companies that by insuring houses on the coast actually encourage people to build where their houses and their lives are at high risk. Because the catastrophes are rare, if the insurance company is lucky, it can go on for years or decades just taking in premiums and not paying out a single cent. What a racket! Until disaster strikes and they cannot pay, and there are a lot of dead people.
When people think there is no risk, they drive drunk, they build houses where they should not, they gamble, they make wars...
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE49U5SU20081031
Let's put it this way: Credit Default Swaps gave the illusion of no risk.
"This is nothing more than an insurance contract and we treat it as though it has human qualities. You can't have a good or an evil insurance policy," said Roy Smith, professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
"Do we sit around talking about the demon insurance companies who insure the hurricanes?" he asked. "Why not?"
Oh, but we do. We do ask about "demon" insurance companies that by insuring houses on the coast actually encourage people to build where their houses and their lives are at high risk. Because the catastrophes are rare, if the insurance company is lucky, it can go on for years or decades just taking in premiums and not paying out a single cent. What a racket! Until disaster strikes and they cannot pay, and there are a lot of dead people.
When people think there is no risk, they drive drunk, they build houses where they should not, they gamble, they make wars...
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE49U5SU20081031
Here comes the hurricane into the real economy
Volvo truck division sold 40,000 trucks in the third quarter of 2007.
In the same quarter of 2008, they sold 155 trucks.
A decrease of 99.5%.
In the same quarter of 2008, they sold 155 trucks.
A decrease of 99.5%.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Why are so many inportant things written in red and green?
I am not colorblind, but in some places about one in ten males is and about one in fifty females.
Today, I was looking at the Reuters Market numbers, and I noticed that market gains were in green and market losses were in red. Given how common colorblindness is, I think this is really inconsiderate.
In other situations, it is downright dangerous.
I have never understood why traffic control signals, the red, yellow, and green lights, are the same shape. Why not make the red light a square, the yellow light a circle, and the green light an upwardly pointing triangle or something? I have never been able to find an estimate of how often a colorblind person mistakes one signal for another, but I am sure it has happened.
Why are emergency signs in red if many people cannot see red? Almost all humans can see blue, so such signs should be in red outlined in blue or some such combination.
Today, I was looking at the Reuters Market numbers, and I noticed that market gains were in green and market losses were in red. Given how common colorblindness is, I think this is really inconsiderate.
In other situations, it is downright dangerous.
I have never understood why traffic control signals, the red, yellow, and green lights, are the same shape. Why not make the red light a square, the yellow light a circle, and the green light an upwardly pointing triangle or something? I have never been able to find an estimate of how often a colorblind person mistakes one signal for another, but I am sure it has happened.
Why are emergency signs in red if many people cannot see red? Almost all humans can see blue, so such signs should be in red outlined in blue or some such combination.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Telescoped endings
The first half of Les Miserables takes 20 years; a Greek tragedy that rolls on and on due to carelessness. The second half takes place on a single day when fate rains down on all.
Friday, October 24, 2008
If you want to know why some people think the stupidest people on the planet live in Hawaii...
The juvenile, hysterical, and confused arguments here are simply astounding.
For some reason, they think they know more than all the Japan Railways engineers who have been building steel-on-rail trains for a century now.
The consideration that trumps all others: If people in Japan drove instead of riding trains, there would have been 250,000 more dead people over the last 25 years. Every year we go without good public transportation on Oahu, the more dead people we have due to traffic accidents. If you want to argue about this, leave your number and I will call you.
Of course everything depends on execution...
http://www.stoprailnow.com/
But why do they assert that there will be more traffic congestion? I just rode home on a steel-on-rail train with 1,000 other people. I read the newspaper and listened to my iPod. We did not try to drive 1,000 cars down a highway.
Bus rapid transit toll lanes may be cheaper, but each bus requires a driver, and the cost of that is enormous. The train I rode on had two drivers, one in the front and one in the back, for 1,000 people.
Energy use with new Japan Railways regenerative braking trains is 1/20th the energy use of a car per passenger, so the assertion that trains use more energy is just plain wrong. This section also asserts that trains are noisy and ugly. What does that have to do with the assertion about the energy inefficiency of trains? This is so confused that I don't know what to say. Kobayashi asserts that trains are noisy. Yes, the Oedo Line is noisy. I hate it. None of the other lines I ride make a lot of noise, and the newest lines, such as the airport line in Beijing and the Fukutoshin Line are nearly silent... They certainly make less noise than a thousand cars going by. Do they think the freeway is silent? Have they ever stood next to the freeway? The light rail would be ugly? Did they think it would be invisible? Have they looked at the freeways, or many of the unbelievably ugly buildings in Honolulu for that matter? Do they think they are invisible? And looks matter more than people's lives?
The budget. Who knows if we can get the funding during the current economic implosion. We could have constructed this a decade ago when the economy was booming, but nooooo...
Money? How much do you think people in the state spend on cars and roads now? Six billion dollars for the train is about 6,000 dollars for each person in the State one time. AAA says it costs more than 8,000 dollars to own and operate a car every year, year after year, and that is not including the costs of the roads. Whether the funding can be arranged properly I have no idea... I bet the Stop Rail Now people have no idea either. I would be glad to spend, oh, say 50 hours discussing this with them. Please leave your number.
The cheap oil is gone. We might be saved by photovoltaics and electric cars, but that does not solve the problem of automobile injuries and fatalities.
Finally, the laundry list of all the reasons rail fails everywhere and will fail in Honolulu. Maybe it will. Execution matters. But why has rail worked in Japan, and not only in the high density parts of Japan, for the last century? What would happen when we have another oil crisis? At least the rail would run on electricity, hopefully by that time partly supplied by wind and photovoltaics. If a train line were built, feeder lines and urban planning would change. In Japan, train stations are ringed by stores, so you walk by one on the way home. To expect the train and urban planning to work the instant the train is built is just plain silly. We would be building the train for a century, not for next year.
Clearly, they did not want to get this on the ballot so that everyone could vote on it. They wanted this on the ballot so that it might be stopped. Hint: see their name.
This kind of behavior is simply not helpful in making rational decisions. The age of cheap oil, when we can do whatever we like, came to an end 30 years ago, but we have been in denial. The train would be built for a century (the one near my apartment is about to celebrate its centennial). Does everyone really think that we will not have an energy crisis at any time in the next hundred years?
If most transit is not by public transportation, there will be many more dead people on Oahu over the next century. That is a fact. Choose. If we make the wrong choice, take responsibility for that and try to improve the system in the future. The alternative is chaos the likes of which this paradise of spoiled children has never seen.
For some reason, they think they know more than all the Japan Railways engineers who have been building steel-on-rail trains for a century now.
The consideration that trumps all others: If people in Japan drove instead of riding trains, there would have been 250,000 more dead people over the last 25 years. Every year we go without good public transportation on Oahu, the more dead people we have due to traffic accidents. If you want to argue about this, leave your number and I will call you.
Of course everything depends on execution...
http://www.stoprailnow.com/
But why do they assert that there will be more traffic congestion? I just rode home on a steel-on-rail train with 1,000 other people. I read the newspaper and listened to my iPod. We did not try to drive 1,000 cars down a highway.
Bus rapid transit toll lanes may be cheaper, but each bus requires a driver, and the cost of that is enormous. The train I rode on had two drivers, one in the front and one in the back, for 1,000 people.
Energy use with new Japan Railways regenerative braking trains is 1/20th the energy use of a car per passenger, so the assertion that trains use more energy is just plain wrong. This section also asserts that trains are noisy and ugly. What does that have to do with the assertion about the energy inefficiency of trains? This is so confused that I don't know what to say. Kobayashi asserts that trains are noisy. Yes, the Oedo Line is noisy. I hate it. None of the other lines I ride make a lot of noise, and the newest lines, such as the airport line in Beijing and the Fukutoshin Line are nearly silent... They certainly make less noise than a thousand cars going by. Do they think the freeway is silent? Have they ever stood next to the freeway? The light rail would be ugly? Did they think it would be invisible? Have they looked at the freeways, or many of the unbelievably ugly buildings in Honolulu for that matter? Do they think they are invisible? And looks matter more than people's lives?
The budget. Who knows if we can get the funding during the current economic implosion. We could have constructed this a decade ago when the economy was booming, but nooooo...
Money? How much do you think people in the state spend on cars and roads now? Six billion dollars for the train is about 6,000 dollars for each person in the State one time. AAA says it costs more than 8,000 dollars to own and operate a car every year, year after year, and that is not including the costs of the roads. Whether the funding can be arranged properly I have no idea... I bet the Stop Rail Now people have no idea either. I would be glad to spend, oh, say 50 hours discussing this with them. Please leave your number.
The cheap oil is gone. We might be saved by photovoltaics and electric cars, but that does not solve the problem of automobile injuries and fatalities.
Finally, the laundry list of all the reasons rail fails everywhere and will fail in Honolulu. Maybe it will. Execution matters. But why has rail worked in Japan, and not only in the high density parts of Japan, for the last century? What would happen when we have another oil crisis? At least the rail would run on electricity, hopefully by that time partly supplied by wind and photovoltaics. If a train line were built, feeder lines and urban planning would change. In Japan, train stations are ringed by stores, so you walk by one on the way home. To expect the train and urban planning to work the instant the train is built is just plain silly. We would be building the train for a century, not for next year.
Clearly, they did not want to get this on the ballot so that everyone could vote on it. They wanted this on the ballot so that it might be stopped. Hint: see their name.
This kind of behavior is simply not helpful in making rational decisions. The age of cheap oil, when we can do whatever we like, came to an end 30 years ago, but we have been in denial. The train would be built for a century (the one near my apartment is about to celebrate its centennial). Does everyone really think that we will not have an energy crisis at any time in the next hundred years?
If most transit is not by public transportation, there will be many more dead people on Oahu over the next century. That is a fact. Choose. If we make the wrong choice, take responsibility for that and try to improve the system in the future. The alternative is chaos the likes of which this paradise of spoiled children has never seen.
What happens when you base economic policy on an Ayn Rand novel
Greenspan "shocked" at credit system breakdown
Thu Oct 23, 2008
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress on Thursday he is "shocked" at the breakdown in U.S. credit markets and that he expects the unemployment rate to jump.
"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief," he said.
Shocked.... just shocked... to find that there was gambling going on at Mr. Rick's...
Roubini is warning that so many hedge funds might implode that markets may be closed for weeks...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayHUWEWFBGoM
Thu Oct 23, 2008
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress on Thursday he is "shocked" at the breakdown in U.S. credit markets and that he expects the unemployment rate to jump.
"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief," he said.
Shocked.... just shocked... to find that there was gambling going on at Mr. Rick's...
Roubini is warning that so many hedge funds might implode that markets may be closed for weeks...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayHUWEWFBGoM
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Hiawatha and The True Ship of Dreams
Our teacher, Mr. Share, said to us a long time ago that if we did not read, we would never stand beside Hiawatha on the shores of Gitche Gumee and see the shining Big-Sea-Water...
And so it is with The True Ship of Dreams...
And so it is with The True Ship of Dreams...
I think a certain brokerage I used padded my client information
Imagine my surprise recently when I got a client information update sheet from one of the now dead brokerage houses (what a bunch of Bull)... my annual income was 10 times greater than I was aware of! I wonder who is siphoning all the money out of my bank account... or maybe that is me in a parallel universe... I wonder if the suckers... I mean partners who bought them realize that their client info might have been padded just prior to the sale...
Here is something really shocking
Calculate your wealth compared to everyone else in the world. It is really shocking. We are richer by far than almost everyone on Earth now and almost everyone who has ever lived.
http://www.globalrichlist.com/
http://www.globalrichlist.com/
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
It is almost certain life is everywhere in this Universe
Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, seems to be very happy deep underground, really hot, with no light and no oxygen... and alone... it gets the energy it needs to live from radioactive decay of uranium!
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14906-goldmine-bug-dna-may-be-key-to-alien-life.html
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14906-goldmine-bug-dna-may-be-key-to-alien-life.html
In the face of a Depression, why the greatest song of the 20th century has something to say in the 21st
Arguably the greatest song of the 20th century... the first time many people had seen a movie in color... an allegory about the economy...
You will never hear it in the same way after you hear this explanation of what exactly it was you were hearing all these years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94281015
Music makes you feel a feeling... words make you think thoughts... but a song makes you feel a thought...
The moment when Dorothy passes out in monochrome Kansas and awakes in Technicolor Oz may have been more significant than you'd ever imagined. A new study reveals that children exposed to black-and-white film and TV are more likely to dream in greyscale throughout their life.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14959-its-black-and-white-tv-influences-your-dreams.html
You will never hear it in the same way after you hear this explanation of what exactly it was you were hearing all these years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94281015
Music makes you feel a feeling... words make you think thoughts... but a song makes you feel a thought...
The moment when Dorothy passes out in monochrome Kansas and awakes in Technicolor Oz may have been more significant than you'd ever imagined. A new study reveals that children exposed to black-and-white film and TV are more likely to dream in greyscale throughout their life.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14959-its-black-and-white-tv-influences-your-dreams.html
Sunday, October 19, 2008
This Halloween...
Forget all the Monsters you have ever seen or imagined...
Nothing compares to LAPD Captain J. J. Jones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(2008_film)
Nothing compares to LAPD Captain J. J. Jones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(2008_film)
I have been missing out for years!
Why didn't anyone tell me this financial stuff was so funny! Asthma-attack-inducing.
A vast caravan of mathematical models, wandering across the landscape, in search of an idea...
A vast caravan of mathematical models, wandering across the landscape, in search of an idea...
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Why the banks won't lend
Liars think everyone lies; thieves think everyone steals; those who are the worst believe the worst in others.
This is why the banks won't lend to each other.
Honest people have difficulty thinking like that and are perceived as naive...
This is why the banks won't lend to each other.
Honest people have difficulty thinking like that and are perceived as naive...
Ian Blair sacked...
but doesn't have the decency to you know what...
Ah ha ha ha ... they are going to give him a Peerage! And 300,000 dollars a year! Just like they gave the de Menezes family... not...
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/64577/-600k-and-a-peerage-for-ousted-Met-chief
The cops who shot Jean Charles de Menezes were literally covered with blood. Neither have they had the decency to you know what. They just wanted to kill one of them... but they were so stupid that all brown people looked alike... so they shot a Brazilian in the head... seven times... because he looked like one of Osama's friends.... Then they went to Brazil and tried to get the family to sign papers saying they would not sue... You get the idea of what kind of people these are... the kind that make you feel ashamed to be a human...
Even after being the biggest drug dealers in the history of the world, and the worst slave traders, the UK fake economy is crashing. The Olympics will be totally great during a depression.
Why would anyone want to go there, especially if you look like Mr. de Menezes... or anyone else.
I visited for 3 days, 30 years ago... everywhere I went, people asked me why we fucking foreigners didn't leave... the cab driver complained for the whole ride about the fucking Arabs... charming... Another on the list of psycho places to avoid.
Ah ha ha ha ... they are going to give him a Peerage! And 300,000 dollars a year! Just like they gave the de Menezes family... not...
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/64577/-600k-and-a-peerage-for-ousted-Met-chief
The cops who shot Jean Charles de Menezes were literally covered with blood. Neither have they had the decency to you know what. They just wanted to kill one of them... but they were so stupid that all brown people looked alike... so they shot a Brazilian in the head... seven times... because he looked like one of Osama's friends.... Then they went to Brazil and tried to get the family to sign papers saying they would not sue... You get the idea of what kind of people these are... the kind that make you feel ashamed to be a human...
Even after being the biggest drug dealers in the history of the world, and the worst slave traders, the UK fake economy is crashing. The Olympics will be totally great during a depression.
Why would anyone want to go there, especially if you look like Mr. de Menezes... or anyone else.
I visited for 3 days, 30 years ago... everywhere I went, people asked me why we fucking foreigners didn't leave... the cab driver complained for the whole ride about the fucking Arabs... charming... Another on the list of psycho places to avoid.
Why Citi wanted Wachovia
They wanted to be too big to fail.
Ha ha ha...
They should also note this picture of a python that tried to swallow an alligator... and exploded...
These crises have exposed the inherent weakness in mainstream media
Five years ago, many people said that what was on the Web was just "Internet blather".
Now writers on such sites are starting to win Nobels.
After the crises in energy, finance, etc., it is clear that the major newspapers, magazines, and news sites are basically collections of World Book Encyclopedia articles for high school students.
Oh, sure, their articles are "curated", the information is checked, and the English is mostly correct, but in addition to the out and out distortions, they are simply too limited by space and time. (And the curators of such perfect information accurately foretold what is happening, now, didn't they?)
Specialized websites can take readers through literally thousands of pages and can make arguments about a topic over the course of years. A lot of the reader comments are silly, but about one in twenty says something interesting.
You will have to distinguish what is probably right from what is probably wrong for yourself, but it is the difference between reading an article in a newspaper and then reading the research paper itself.
A particularly clueless proponent of the delusion that "curators" and "experts" somehow ensure that information is correct can be heard at http://radio.seti.org/past-shows.php
in the story "TXT MSG: Behavior", third guest.
Keen's (oh, the irony) ideas seem to be:
1. People are stupid.
2. People gossip and spread stupid, incorrect information.
3. Experts alone get it right.
Wow! 1 and 2 are revelations! That never dawned on me!
3 is just plain wrong... he obviously has never met stupid doctors, professors, economists... I can introduce him to many.
I invite Keen to not waste any more of everyone's time and to go to a library and spend the rest of his life reading curated articles written by experts in the World Book Encyclopedia. It seems high school is about his level. I wonder how fragile must be the self image to be so terrified of error as to confine oneself to mastering the game of tic-tac-toe so that no mistakes are ever made... and to spend existence like that.
The rest of us will stumble forward in the 21st century, toward financial booms and busts, war, First Contact, life extension, genetic engineering, The Singularity, and all the rest of the wonderful mess of life, fully aware that information is provisional, that research papers are full of errors, and that the world is run by idiots who have proven that they don't know what the hell they are doing.
We will use the major news sources in the way we would use any brief summary written for ninth graders: as the starting point for real reading.
No one says it better than Henry Rollins.
Now writers on such sites are starting to win Nobels.
After the crises in energy, finance, etc., it is clear that the major newspapers, magazines, and news sites are basically collections of World Book Encyclopedia articles for high school students.
Oh, sure, their articles are "curated", the information is checked, and the English is mostly correct, but in addition to the out and out distortions, they are simply too limited by space and time. (And the curators of such perfect information accurately foretold what is happening, now, didn't they?)
Specialized websites can take readers through literally thousands of pages and can make arguments about a topic over the course of years. A lot of the reader comments are silly, but about one in twenty says something interesting.
You will have to distinguish what is probably right from what is probably wrong for yourself, but it is the difference between reading an article in a newspaper and then reading the research paper itself.
A particularly clueless proponent of the delusion that "curators" and "experts" somehow ensure that information is correct can be heard at http://radio.seti.org/past-shows.php
in the story "TXT MSG: Behavior", third guest.
Keen's (oh, the irony) ideas seem to be:
1. People are stupid.
2. People gossip and spread stupid, incorrect information.
3. Experts alone get it right.
Wow! 1 and 2 are revelations! That never dawned on me!
3 is just plain wrong... he obviously has never met stupid doctors, professors, economists... I can introduce him to many.
I invite Keen to not waste any more of everyone's time and to go to a library and spend the rest of his life reading curated articles written by experts in the World Book Encyclopedia. It seems high school is about his level. I wonder how fragile must be the self image to be so terrified of error as to confine oneself to mastering the game of tic-tac-toe so that no mistakes are ever made... and to spend existence like that.
The rest of us will stumble forward in the 21st century, toward financial booms and busts, war, First Contact, life extension, genetic engineering, The Singularity, and all the rest of the wonderful mess of life, fully aware that information is provisional, that research papers are full of errors, and that the world is run by idiots who have proven that they don't know what the hell they are doing.
We will use the major news sources in the way we would use any brief summary written for ninth graders: as the starting point for real reading.
No one says it better than Henry Rollins.
Pump half a TRILLION dollars PER DAY into the banks... that will fix the problems
Nearly half a trillion dollars pumped into banks per day... even into the ones without problems (so as not to stigmatize the ones who really need the money)... That is what the Japanese did after their bubble burst... Then, the US financial geniuses went to Japan telling them to let banks fail... Now, the US is inviting Japanese bank managers to come to the US and tell them how they handled their problems... and the US is doing exactly the same thing... Hilarious...
Why would anyone want to buy a house there or even go there?
Another place run by nutjobs.
How much money have they spent on this?
City building and safety director Tom Hartung said that an illegally converted garage poses health and safety risks...
What are they? Surely if they had been that bad for 30 years everyone would be dead by now?
Her troubles began when a code enforcement officer spotted a light shining from her garage into the street, a code violation. He noticed her trash cans in front of the house (another violation) and weeds poking through the concrete (yet another one).
OMG! Light shining! Trash cans! Weeds in the cracks in the concrete!
Jarrod Head, Camargo's 29-year-old grandson, who lives with her, was sleeping in the disputed bedroom when they arrived.
"They pushed right in," he said. "I said, 'What's this about?' but they were busy taking pictures. When I asked why they were taking pictures, the police asked me for my ID. I asked why they needed my ID, and they put me in handcuffs."
The judge ordered her to pay a $3,000 fine, which she said she couldn't afford. She asked for the other option -- 30 days in jail.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-garage18-2008oct18,0,5133746,full.story
There are lots of places to steer clear of.
Just wait until this gets on their Wiki page. It will be on the Net for eternity.
There are nearly 600 foreclosures there currently...
http://realestate.yahoo.com/California/La_Quinta/Homes_for_sale/result.html?p=La%20Quinta%2C%20CA&type=foreclosure
How much money have they spent on this?
City building and safety director Tom Hartung said that an illegally converted garage poses health and safety risks...
What are they? Surely if they had been that bad for 30 years everyone would be dead by now?
Her troubles began when a code enforcement officer spotted a light shining from her garage into the street, a code violation. He noticed her trash cans in front of the house (another violation) and weeds poking through the concrete (yet another one).
OMG! Light shining! Trash cans! Weeds in the cracks in the concrete!
Jarrod Head, Camargo's 29-year-old grandson, who lives with her, was sleeping in the disputed bedroom when they arrived.
"They pushed right in," he said. "I said, 'What's this about?' but they were busy taking pictures. When I asked why they were taking pictures, the police asked me for my ID. I asked why they needed my ID, and they put me in handcuffs."
The judge ordered her to pay a $3,000 fine, which she said she couldn't afford. She asked for the other option -- 30 days in jail.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-garage18-2008oct18,0,5133746,full.story
There are lots of places to steer clear of.
Just wait until this gets on their Wiki page. It will be on the Net for eternity.
There are nearly 600 foreclosures there currently...
http://realestate.yahoo.com/California/La_Quinta/Homes_for_sale/result.html?p=La%20Quinta%2C%20CA&type=foreclosure
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Mexico fiscal crisis sooner rather than later
Mexico's oil output continues to decline rapidly, but this was offset by the high price of oil. Now that we may have a worldwide economic crisis, the price of oil is plunging. Less oil at a lower price means problems will come sooner.
A nation of high school students
If you need more evidence that we live in Infantile Nation, the top story at Reuters today is...
Monday, September 29, 2008
Newsflash: Osama is dead!
Sources said he was watching C-SPAN and the news from Wall Street, and he laughed himself to death.
Other sources said he died crying when he realized that the attacks were a waste of time because the Empire would have imploded all by itself had he just left it alone.
Other sources said he died crying when he realized that the attacks were a waste of time because the Empire would have imploded all by itself had he just left it alone.
In their nature
"My mommy always said there were no monsters... no real ones... but there are..."
Grub, Aliens
Yes, Grub, there really are monsters. But they don't have acid for blood, lay eggs, and literally parasitize humans.
Grub, Aliens
Yes, Grub, there really are monsters. But they don't have acid for blood, lay eggs, and literally parasitize humans.
Why are they in such a panic?
1. They could be lying to stampede everyone into bailing them and their friends out.
2. They could have no idea what they are doing.
3. They could be afraid of a global run on banks.
Suddenly, 1 and 2 don't seem so bad.
On June 29, Fortis said collapse of US financial markets was imminent. Fortis expected bankruptcy of 6,000 US banks and Citigroup and General Motors. Everyone laughed at Fortis. Fortis itself has now been bailed out. "Dutch-Belgian bank and insurance giant Fortis NV was given a 11.2 billion euro ($16.4 billion) to avert insolvency".
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gq42vLUmcA9LTFzCEF-EN1vnhV8wD93G2A0G0
2. They could have no idea what they are doing.
3. They could be afraid of a global run on banks.
Suddenly, 1 and 2 don't seem so bad.
On June 29, Fortis said collapse of US financial markets was imminent. Fortis expected bankruptcy of 6,000 US banks and Citigroup and General Motors. Everyone laughed at Fortis. Fortis itself has now been bailed out. "Dutch-Belgian bank and insurance giant Fortis NV was given a 11.2 billion euro ($16.4 billion) to avert insolvency".
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gq42vLUmcA9LTFzCEF-EN1vnhV8wD93G2A0G0
Cheap pill could cut heart attacks and strokes in half for 10 cents a day
A pill that combines four different medicines and could halve deaths from heart attack and stroke around the globe will enter human trials.
Basically, [big pharmaceutical companies'] whole business model is people paying [hundreds of dollars] a year for the latest blockbuster drug. A pill with established medicines that halved cardiovascular risk and could be available for [$40] a year could be seen as a threat."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/sep/29/health.medicalresearch
Basically, [big pharmaceutical companies'] whole business model is people paying [hundreds of dollars] a year for the latest blockbuster drug. A pill with established medicines that halved cardiovascular risk and could be available for [$40] a year could be seen as a threat."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/sep/29/health.medicalresearch
Paulson doesn't know what he is doing?
This is hilarious.
"Mr Paulson's appearances on Capitol Hill, marked by the characteristic Bush-era combination of arrogance and incompetence, are turning my once-outlandish view into conventional wisdom: Henry Paulson is to finance what Donald Rumsfeld was to military strategy, Dick Cheney to geopolitics and Michael Chertoff to flood defence."
Republicans: “Stunning and unprecedented in its lack of detail”... “a $700 billion blank cheque to Wall Street”... “neither workable nor comprehensive”... “foolish waste of massive taxpayer funds”... “eerily similar to the rush to war in Iraq”. Best of all was John McCain's comment: “When we're talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, ‘trust me' just isn't good enough.”
"His inability to think seriously about solutions to the present financial crisis probably has deep ideological roots. Just as Mr Rumsfeld could simply not believe that US foreign policy might be misguided, Mr Paulson simply cannot believe that markets can be fundamentally wrong."
P.J.O'Rourke, the conservative writer, once remarked: “The Republicans are a party that says government doesn't work - and then get elected and prove it.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article4820549.ece
"Mr Paulson's appearances on Capitol Hill, marked by the characteristic Bush-era combination of arrogance and incompetence, are turning my once-outlandish view into conventional wisdom: Henry Paulson is to finance what Donald Rumsfeld was to military strategy, Dick Cheney to geopolitics and Michael Chertoff to flood defence."
Republicans: “Stunning and unprecedented in its lack of detail”... “a $700 billion blank cheque to Wall Street”... “neither workable nor comprehensive”... “foolish waste of massive taxpayer funds”... “eerily similar to the rush to war in Iraq”. Best of all was John McCain's comment: “When we're talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, ‘trust me' just isn't good enough.”
"His inability to think seriously about solutions to the present financial crisis probably has deep ideological roots. Just as Mr Rumsfeld could simply not believe that US foreign policy might be misguided, Mr Paulson simply cannot believe that markets can be fundamentally wrong."
P.J.O'Rourke, the conservative writer, once remarked: “The Republicans are a party that says government doesn't work - and then get elected and prove it.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article4820549.ece
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Washington Mutual bites the dust
Washington Mutual, WaMu, had a run on its deposits and has been taken over by JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan seems to be very interested in the customer deposits. Why would you want to leave your money in an institution like that?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The two best ways to be consistently wrong
1. I don't like it, therefore it is wrong; I like it, therefore it is true.
2. Be so stupid you don't know how stupid you are.
As we are now seeing, stupidity has real-world effects. Unfortunately, this behavior is strongly controlled by genes and will not go away soon. Also strongly controlled by genes: panic behavior. Good luck.
2. Be so stupid you don't know how stupid you are.
As we are now seeing, stupidity has real-world effects. Unfortunately, this behavior is strongly controlled by genes and will not go away soon. Also strongly controlled by genes: panic behavior. Good luck.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Bene Gesserit chant
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me...
Over the last decade, most people have reacted in terror to peak oil and to the looming financial crisis, thereby allowing foreseeable events to jerk them around.
I am very interested in things that are potentially really good, and in things that are potentially really bad. I am interested in the timing of The Singularity and the fact that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
Inappropriate levels of fear lead to inappropriate behavior.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14761-voting-republican-may-be-a-survival-response.html
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me...
Over the last decade, most people have reacted in terror to peak oil and to the looming financial crisis, thereby allowing foreseeable events to jerk them around.
I am very interested in things that are potentially really good, and in things that are potentially really bad. I am interested in the timing of The Singularity and the fact that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
Inappropriate levels of fear lead to inappropriate behavior.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14761-voting-republican-may-be-a-survival-response.html
How to consistently come to the wrong conclusion
Three blind economists are feeling an elephant in an observatory. One takes the trunk and pronounces it to be like a snake, one takes a leg and pronounces it to be like a tree, and one takes the tail and pronounces it to be like a rope.
Meanwhile, the astronomer is looking through the telescope at the asteroid that is about to strike the Earth...
While the bean counters were busy refining their equations, winning Nobels along the way, making their equations more perfect so that they better modeled their transactions, they forgot what everyone who has studied ecology knows: Equations work well for systems near equilibrium; the real world is almost always in disequilibrium... and there are asteroids out there...
Some call these sudden events that upset their equations "black swans". What they are really saying is that they wander around the world looking through a microscope, so they sometimes get hit by cars while crossing the street.
Meanwhile, the astronomer is looking through the telescope at the asteroid that is about to strike the Earth...
While the bean counters were busy refining their equations, winning Nobels along the way, making their equations more perfect so that they better modeled their transactions, they forgot what everyone who has studied ecology knows: Equations work well for systems near equilibrium; the real world is almost always in disequilibrium... and there are asteroids out there...
Some call these sudden events that upset their equations "black swans". What they are really saying is that they wander around the world looking through a microscope, so they sometimes get hit by cars while crossing the street.
From finance to the real economy
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Gone with the Wind?
I used to think it was gonna be gone with the oil...
But now I think it is first going to be gone with the bank...
Then, of course, there is Went with the Wind...
But now I think it is first going to be gone with the bank...
Then, of course, there is Went with the Wind...
What is it?
Elections were lost because of it.
Forest Gump's evil twin from the mirror universe is in charge because of it.
Attacks were mishandled and wars were started because of it.
Instead of slowly fading in the west, the American Empire, flower of The Enlightenment, came to a crashing end because of it.
Answer: The most expensive blow job in the history of the world. Bill should have gotten Larry. At least Larry wouldn't have told his mother, who therefore wouldn't have told the girls at the salon that her offspring was giving head in the office.
I sure hope it was one hell of a good job.
Forest Gump's evil twin from the mirror universe is in charge because of it.
Attacks were mishandled and wars were started because of it.
Instead of slowly fading in the west, the American Empire, flower of The Enlightenment, came to a crashing end because of it.
Answer: The most expensive blow job in the history of the world. Bill should have gotten Larry. At least Larry wouldn't have told his mother, who therefore wouldn't have told the girls at the salon that her offspring was giving head in the office.
I sure hope it was one hell of a good job.
Recent quotes“That sound you hear is the FDIC upping its troubled institutions list,” said one senior banking executive
“That sound you hear is the FDIC upping its troubled institutions list,” said one senior banking executive.
Citing “deep concerns” about the Treasury’s program to guarantee money market mutual funds, American Bankers Association president Edward Yingling said that the bailout of money markets “will undermine the role of banks during this current crisis and has the potential to have an extremely negative impact in the future.”
Don't take your eye off the UK... they are in as big, or bigger, trouble as the US:
Lloyds TSB has agreed a £12bn emergency takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland in a deal that could lead to 40,000 job cuts.
So how to mark the end of an epoch? In 1976, Jim Callaghan was the undertaker for the post-war social democratic order when he said: "We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists." On Tuesday, the prime minister should stand up and say: "We used to think you could borrow your way out of a recession and increase employment by increasing debt and setting the City free. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists".
Former Senator Phil Gramm, who now advises Senator John McCain and is the person who says that folks who fret about current economic conditions are “whiners”; Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, one of whose protégés advises Senator Barack Obama; and Alan Greenspan, former chief of the Federal Reserve.
Gramm, Rubin, and Greenspan made this debacle possible.
Against this backdrop, if the government had rescued Lehman, it would have repudiated the claim that the Bear rescue was extraordinary; it would have also conceded that in the six months since Bear failed, neither the new facility that it set up nor the other steps to make markets more robust were reliable. Essentially, the Fed and the Treasury would have been admitting that they had lied or were incompetent in stabilizing the financial system — or both.
The last 10 days have been the most remarkable period of government intervention into the financial system since the Great Depression.
Excellent summary of what just happened.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-the-recent-financial-upheavals/?em
The blue ribbon for "Unexpected Superb Analysis Of The Month" goes to Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids who correctly surmises: "It sounds like there's going to be a giant dumpster for illiquid assets."
Citing “deep concerns” about the Treasury’s program to guarantee money market mutual funds, American Bankers Association president Edward Yingling said that the bailout of money markets “will undermine the role of banks during this current crisis and has the potential to have an extremely negative impact in the future.”
Don't take your eye off the UK... they are in as big, or bigger, trouble as the US:
Lloyds TSB has agreed a £12bn emergency takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland in a deal that could lead to 40,000 job cuts.
So how to mark the end of an epoch? In 1976, Jim Callaghan was the undertaker for the post-war social democratic order when he said: "We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists." On Tuesday, the prime minister should stand up and say: "We used to think you could borrow your way out of a recession and increase employment by increasing debt and setting the City free. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists".
Former Senator Phil Gramm, who now advises Senator John McCain and is the person who says that folks who fret about current economic conditions are “whiners”; Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, one of whose protégés advises Senator Barack Obama; and Alan Greenspan, former chief of the Federal Reserve.
Gramm, Rubin, and Greenspan made this debacle possible.
Against this backdrop, if the government had rescued Lehman, it would have repudiated the claim that the Bear rescue was extraordinary; it would have also conceded that in the six months since Bear failed, neither the new facility that it set up nor the other steps to make markets more robust were reliable. Essentially, the Fed and the Treasury would have been admitting that they had lied or were incompetent in stabilizing the financial system — or both.
The last 10 days have been the most remarkable period of government intervention into the financial system since the Great Depression.
Excellent summary of what just happened.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-the-recent-financial-upheavals/?em
The blue ribbon for "Unexpected Superb Analysis Of The Month" goes to Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids who correctly surmises: "It sounds like there's going to be a giant dumpster for illiquid assets."
Beware when buying gold
There is a lot of fake gold around. It is plated, so be careful if buying something like that. I just wouldn't.
Pure gold coins like the Canadian Maple Leaf are VERY soft and can be scratched if touched, and usually this will reduce its value. However, in current circumstances, if it is pure gold, people may not care.
Instead of confiscating gold the way the US government did in the '30s, they simply are blocking the sale of gold and silver. You will note that you can order anything you want... it will be placed on back order, and you will get it when they feel like giving it to you... They are desperately trying to block the collapse of the dollar, which is coming sooner or later, after decades of the petrodollar-printing-to-buy-oil ponzi scheme, and decades of "we don't need regulation", the whole house of cards is imploding, and they are in the biggest panic of their lives trying to slow it down until at least after the election.
The booms and busts have increased in amplitude over the last few decades, and now they have reached or exceeded boundary conditions.
Pure gold coins like the Canadian Maple Leaf are VERY soft and can be scratched if touched, and usually this will reduce its value. However, in current circumstances, if it is pure gold, people may not care.
Instead of confiscating gold the way the US government did in the '30s, they simply are blocking the sale of gold and silver. You will note that you can order anything you want... it will be placed on back order, and you will get it when they feel like giving it to you... They are desperately trying to block the collapse of the dollar, which is coming sooner or later, after decades of the petrodollar-printing-to-buy-oil ponzi scheme, and decades of "we don't need regulation", the whole house of cards is imploding, and they are in the biggest panic of their lives trying to slow it down until at least after the election.
The booms and busts have increased in amplitude over the last few decades, and now they have reached or exceeded boundary conditions.
The most despicable of all human behaviors
Now that we have run into The Brick Wall, all those primarily responsible are running around screaming "It's your fault too!!!" "It's not all my fault!!!"
Yes, that's true, but it is 95% their fault. Selfish as pigs, and without any of Scarlett's charms.
Anyone who does that should be shunned until he/she/it dies.
So stupid, they don't know how stupid they are.
Yes, that's true, but it is 95% their fault. Selfish as pigs, and without any of Scarlett's charms.
Anyone who does that should be shunned until he/she/it dies.
So stupid, they don't know how stupid they are.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Coming Soon: Deflation then Inflation
Since the financial crisis seems to have overtaken the peak oil crisis for the time being, we can expect deflation first. Gas and food will moderate, but houses will continue to go down for quite some time, perhaps years. Of course, the whole thing is getting out of the control of the geniuses running the show, so the collapse could be sudden, severe, and really astonishing.
Then, they will start printing money like mad and we will have horrendous inflation.
So, you have a couple of years to fix your house, add insulation, get a solar water heater, apply an elastomeric roof (see below), do the painting, etc., before the inflation comes. There is no sense sitting on cash when that happens. Spend cash first and foremost on getting future expenses down.
Then, they will start printing money like mad and we will have horrendous inflation.
So, you have a couple of years to fix your house, add insulation, get a solar water heater, apply an elastomeric roof (see below), do the painting, etc., before the inflation comes. There is no sense sitting on cash when that happens. Spend cash first and foremost on getting future expenses down.
The Sun is a variable star
When it has few sunspots, its output drops about half a percent.
The Sun has had almost no sunspots for years now, which is unusual, and could mean we get a respite from global warming... but of course the warming will resume when the sunspots do...
http://www.spaceweather.com
The Sun has had almost no sunspots for years now, which is unusual, and could mean we get a respite from global warming... but of course the warming will resume when the sunspots do...
http://www.spaceweather.com
Global warming
A heat-reflective elastomeric titanium oxide ceramic roof...
Costs less than half what a new roof would (we saved $12,000)
Reflects so much heat that the house is cool, saving a fortune on air conditioning
Prevents shingles from flying off
And now... REDUCES GLOBAL WARMING!
I tried to do a ballpark calculation, but now researchers have also done that. Our house reflects so much heat back out into space that it cancels the greenhouse gases we are responsible for.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-roofs10-2008sep10,0,1149905.story
And although some people call them "white roofs", they do not have to be white. They can be tinted without compromising the heat reflectivity very much.
http://www.hawaiiansunguard.com/colors.html
Costs less than half what a new roof would (we saved $12,000)
Reflects so much heat that the house is cool, saving a fortune on air conditioning
Prevents shingles from flying off
And now... REDUCES GLOBAL WARMING!
I tried to do a ballpark calculation, but now researchers have also done that. Our house reflects so much heat back out into space that it cancels the greenhouse gases we are responsible for.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-roofs10-2008sep10,0,1149905.story
And although some people call them "white roofs", they do not have to be white. They can be tinted without compromising the heat reflectivity very much.
http://www.hawaiiansunguard.com/colors.html
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Two of the most amusing sites around
These sites have provided hours and hours of amusement over the last few months. Or I suppose they are terrifying...
We are not in a normal downturn. The amplitudes of the crashes and the booms have been increasing, and either in this cycle or the next, the amplitude will be so large that it will be empire-ending...
http://bankimplode.com
Look at the list of writedowns/losses... The investment banks who said, "We dont need any regulation or supervision, thank you", now say "Save us! Take tax money! Print money! Save us!" Hahahaha... they have lost all the profits they have ever made because they were smarter than everyone else and went to the finest business schools... Have you ever met some of these people? Some are sharp, but most are myopic bean counters. Basically, they are good at math, and that is about it. They want to tell US how to manage OUR money? That is really too rich... And of course, they will get nasty now because they are humiliated.
http://ml-implode.com
We are not in a normal downturn. The amplitudes of the crashes and the booms have been increasing, and either in this cycle or the next, the amplitude will be so large that it will be empire-ending...
http://bankimplode.com
Look at the list of writedowns/losses... The investment banks who said, "We dont need any regulation or supervision, thank you", now say "Save us! Take tax money! Print money! Save us!" Hahahaha... they have lost all the profits they have ever made because they were smarter than everyone else and went to the finest business schools... Have you ever met some of these people? Some are sharp, but most are myopic bean counters. Basically, they are good at math, and that is about it. They want to tell US how to manage OUR money? That is really too rich... And of course, they will get nasty now because they are humiliated.
http://ml-implode.com
Many people seem to think the oil problem is over simply because the price of oil is going down
I do not think the oil problems are over at all. In fact, I think we ain't seen nuttin' yet.
Total world oil output has been flat since 2005, even though the price skyrocketed. Output did not go up because producers are basically pumping as fast as they dare, lest they ruin the wells.
If you look at mega projects coming on line, there basically isn't much after 2012.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/93602-megaprojects-predict-decline-of-oil-production
The supergiant Canterell field in Mexico is falling off a cliff at minus 36% per year now. That is extraordinary. Mexico is basically not going to have much oil to export in just two years. The thing that has saved them so far is that the price of oil has been much higher than they anticipated, but now, if the price falls, since oil exports provide half of the money of the Mexican government, well, their fiscal crisis will come sooner rather than later. Mexico supplies the US with 10% of our imported oil, so this is a huge problem for the US and any country that imports oil.
Ghawar, the biggest field ever discovered, has been yielding black gold for more than 50 years now... the sign that it is failing? From satellite photos, suddenly, Aramco is drilling thousands of new wells. Why? Because the old wells are drying up. That is what happens when a field goes into final decline. They have been pumping millions of gallons of seawater into the edges of the field for decades, trying to maintain pressure. If you do that, the field does not stop yielding oil gradually; suddenly, almost all of what is coming out is water. Cantarell was pumped with huge amounts of nitrogen to maintain field pressure, and look what is happening: -36% per year.
Forget the price of oil.
Look at the output for the last 4 years: flat.
Look at the mega projects coming on line: barely able to keep up with the declines of the big fields, and after 2012, almost nothing... while the major fields continue to decline.
The price is currently being driven down by massive currency intervention to prop up the dollar.
If there is a military strike on Iran, the price will go through the roof.
All of this depends on timing.
Other things affecting the price of oil in the medium term, say 10 years:
The Sun is a variable star. Its output has been unusually low recently. If its activity stays low, we could be in for a period of global cooling, which would make heating take up even more oil and gas. (And no, just because the Sun goes through a quiet period and the global temperature goes down does not mean it is a good idea to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.)
Volcanic eruptions could inject a lot of dust and sulfur into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and causing temperatures to drop.
War.
Natural disaster or attack affecting major oil facilities.
Financial crisis leading huge drop in economic activity.
Buying and selling of futures.
Dollar going up or down.
This is why it is impossible to forecast the price of oil very well. As in comedy, it is all in the timing...
While I have been watching oil for the last decade, I was not paying much attention to the economy, and so the housing bubble was a little surprising to me (But in October 2006, I did say to a realtor, "When is the housing bubble going to pop?" He replied, "It's not". Another realtor in the UK told one of my friends that house prices never go down. I told him, "That's because she was lying". I was sure enough by 2005 to tell five people to sell and to sell then and there.) So this is having a huge effect on the oil price... And THEN the whole nonsense securitized debt... and the scale of it... 20 times world GDP of worthless paper. Merrill Lynch just sold 30 billion dollars of these fine instruments for 5 cents on the dollar... and even that is a risk for the buyer.
Why is all of this happening simultaneously? Because they are all related.
Total world oil output has been flat since 2005, even though the price skyrocketed. Output did not go up because producers are basically pumping as fast as they dare, lest they ruin the wells.
If you look at mega projects coming on line, there basically isn't much after 2012.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/93602-megaprojects-predict-decline-of-oil-production
The supergiant Canterell field in Mexico is falling off a cliff at minus 36% per year now. That is extraordinary. Mexico is basically not going to have much oil to export in just two years. The thing that has saved them so far is that the price of oil has been much higher than they anticipated, but now, if the price falls, since oil exports provide half of the money of the Mexican government, well, their fiscal crisis will come sooner rather than later. Mexico supplies the US with 10% of our imported oil, so this is a huge problem for the US and any country that imports oil.
Ghawar, the biggest field ever discovered, has been yielding black gold for more than 50 years now... the sign that it is failing? From satellite photos, suddenly, Aramco is drilling thousands of new wells. Why? Because the old wells are drying up. That is what happens when a field goes into final decline. They have been pumping millions of gallons of seawater into the edges of the field for decades, trying to maintain pressure. If you do that, the field does not stop yielding oil gradually; suddenly, almost all of what is coming out is water. Cantarell was pumped with huge amounts of nitrogen to maintain field pressure, and look what is happening: -36% per year.
Forget the price of oil.
Look at the output for the last 4 years: flat.
Look at the mega projects coming on line: barely able to keep up with the declines of the big fields, and after 2012, almost nothing... while the major fields continue to decline.
The price is currently being driven down by massive currency intervention to prop up the dollar.
If there is a military strike on Iran, the price will go through the roof.
All of this depends on timing.
Other things affecting the price of oil in the medium term, say 10 years:
The Sun is a variable star. Its output has been unusually low recently. If its activity stays low, we could be in for a period of global cooling, which would make heating take up even more oil and gas. (And no, just because the Sun goes through a quiet period and the global temperature goes down does not mean it is a good idea to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.)
Volcanic eruptions could inject a lot of dust and sulfur into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and causing temperatures to drop.
War.
Natural disaster or attack affecting major oil facilities.
Financial crisis leading huge drop in economic activity.
Buying and selling of futures.
Dollar going up or down.
This is why it is impossible to forecast the price of oil very well. As in comedy, it is all in the timing...
While I have been watching oil for the last decade, I was not paying much attention to the economy, and so the housing bubble was a little surprising to me (But in October 2006, I did say to a realtor, "When is the housing bubble going to pop?" He replied, "It's not". Another realtor in the UK told one of my friends that house prices never go down. I told him, "That's because she was lying". I was sure enough by 2005 to tell five people to sell and to sell then and there.) So this is having a huge effect on the oil price... And THEN the whole nonsense securitized debt... and the scale of it... 20 times world GDP of worthless paper. Merrill Lynch just sold 30 billion dollars of these fine instruments for 5 cents on the dollar... and even that is a risk for the buyer.
Why is all of this happening simultaneously? Because they are all related.
Sorry to have been away
I have been spending all my time the last few months trying to figure out what on Earth is happening and why it is happening... it has been so entertaining, I haven't even had all that much time to read about science... and that has never happened in decades...
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Skype World
Skype has just come out with a spectacular package. Three SkypeIn numbers, a flat 100 dollars to call any landline phone in Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries... for ONE YEAR flat!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The misunderstanding that got us into this mess
"The idea was that regulators always make mistakes... Regulators are human and are bound to make mistakes, but markets are also human and they are also bound to make mistakes."
George Soros
George Soros
Clueless for the last 40 years, why should that change now
They think their competition is what is on the new car market... Car dealerships won't even take SUVs now. Huge numbers of vehicles are being dumped on the market at firesale prices. Why would anyone buy a new car? Buy a used one instead. You will never make up the cost of the new car by some measly improvement in mpg.
And by the way, they said hybrids were stupid and they were going to come out with hydrogen cars. Well, for the foreseeable future, the hydrogen will come from oil. They cannot even get gasoline-powered cars to work right. They cannot get LPG powered cars to work at scale. There are 1,000,000 cars in Italy, 100,000 taxis in Tokyo, etc., running on LPG, and that has been for the last 30 years... How are they going to get hydrogen cars to work if they cannot even get gasoline powered cars to work properly?
Guess who is going to get the trillion dollar bill for their unfunded pension liabilities? Take a look in the mirror.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/AUTO01/805140386
And by the way, they said hybrids were stupid and they were going to come out with hydrogen cars. Well, for the foreseeable future, the hydrogen will come from oil. They cannot even get gasoline-powered cars to work right. They cannot get LPG powered cars to work at scale. There are 1,000,000 cars in Italy, 100,000 taxis in Tokyo, etc., running on LPG, and that has been for the last 30 years... How are they going to get hydrogen cars to work if they cannot even get gasoline powered cars to work properly?
Guess who is going to get the trillion dollar bill for their unfunded pension liabilities? Take a look in the mirror.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/AUTO01/805140386
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
NPR was planning a series from China, and by coincidence they arrived just a few days ago
They were actually conducting an interview when the earthquake started.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90380404
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90411524
http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90380404
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90411524
http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu
Things about which I have been wrong
I thought SARS would really cause serious problems since it was at times explosively contagious. A single person infected an entire building. Entire hospitals were infected. People were infected during a single elevator ride.
What avoided an epidemic was that a mechanical means of making the virus airborne, such as a ventilation fan or nebulizers, was required, or someone coughing directly on another person, and just a lot of effort and a lot of dumb luck says the NIH.
What avoided an epidemic was that a mechanical means of making the virus airborne, such as a ventilation fan or nebulizers, was required, or someone coughing directly on another person, and just a lot of effort and a lot of dumb luck says the NIH.
Things about which I have been wrong
I was just amazed that nothing substantial happened with Y2K when the computer clock year went from 99 to 00. I mean, Windows doesn't work normally to begin with... wonder what would have happened had it been Vista...
If the soul can exist without the body
If the soul can exist without the body, then
Why when you have a stroke do you lose some of your abilities?
Why do people who hit their heads in car accidents undergo personality changes?
Why is a lobotomy possible?
Why can we get drunk?
Why is anesthesia possible?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?em&ex=1210824000&en=787e405a3a54e904&ei=5087%0A
Why when you have a stroke do you lose some of your abilities?
Why do people who hit their heads in car accidents undergo personality changes?
Why is a lobotomy possible?
Why can we get drunk?
Why is anesthesia possible?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?em&ex=1210824000&en=787e405a3a54e904&ei=5087%0A
Phoenix Mars Lander may give us the answer to the question of the ages
We may be on the verge of the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Although there is no sound, watch this simulation. You will see just how difficult it is to deliver a probe to the surface of Mars.
Go to YouTube and watch it in fullscreen. It is in High Def and is spectacular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAsRjcLP4o&feature=related
Although there is no sound, watch this simulation. You will see just how difficult it is to deliver a probe to the surface of Mars.
Go to YouTube and watch it in fullscreen. It is in High Def and is spectacular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAsRjcLP4o&feature=related
The Vatican knows the discovery of life on Mars or First Contact is coming
They are trying to spin it by saying now that of course it is possible.
Hmm, they didn't mention this in the last 2,000 years.
They also did not mention DNA, gravity, neuroscience, public health, radiation, or the Earth going around the Sun... until they were forced to.
Amazing how "infallible" they are.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL146364620080514
Hmm, they didn't mention this in the last 2,000 years.
They also did not mention DNA, gravity, neuroscience, public health, radiation, or the Earth going around the Sun... until they were forced to.
Amazing how "infallible" they are.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL146364620080514
Rush said there is 700 years' worth of oil left
Great!
Where is it?
Either he is wrong, or else he is withholding it.
It cannot be the former.
"... there are also trillions of dollars of gold in the oceans. Just because a resource exists doesn't mean you can devise a cost-effective way to utilize it."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3969
Actually, I will go him one better: Why doesn't he collect all the sunlight that strikes the Earth for one year? That would run the entire planet for 7,500 years. Please do that. Thank you.
Where is it?
Either he is wrong, or else he is withholding it.
It cannot be the former.
"... there are also trillions of dollars of gold in the oceans. Just because a resource exists doesn't mean you can devise a cost-effective way to utilize it."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3969
Actually, I will go him one better: Why doesn't he collect all the sunlight that strikes the Earth for one year? That would run the entire planet for 7,500 years. Please do that. Thank you.
If you have an SUV
If you have a gas guzzler, it probably does not make economic sense to sell it now.
Gasoline, even at $4 a gallon, is probably a small fraction of your expense of owning and operating a car, which the AAA says costs about $8,000 a year for a small sedan and about $10,000 a year for the larger model (about $30 per day), assuming you drive 15,000 miles per year (which is 300 miles per week, which is 40 miles per day). Gas at $4 at even 20 mpg, is costing you on average about $8 per day. So of that $30 per day it costs you to own an operate a car, only about 1/3 is the cost of gasoline. Even at $7 dollars a gallon, the gasoline would still cost you less than $15 per day. Add to that cost your lifetime risk of being killed in a car accident of about 1 in 70 and your much higher lifetime risk of being injured in a car accident, and the cost of the roads that you pay for in taxes, and that would easily add another $3,000 dollars to your annual cost.
It would, however, make sense to get rid of every car you do not need.
When I was little, every family had one car. We lived.
If you need a car, there are so many used cars flooding the market now that you could probably pick one up for a song.
The goal: Get through the next 4 years without buying a new car.
In 2010, many automakers will begin selling electric cars. Give them a couple of years to work out the bugs before you buy. Batteries are probably going to improve dramatically. An electric car uses half the energy of a car to move you the same distance. Electricity is cheaper than gas. The electric car should cost you the equivalent of about $1 per gallon. But remember that the cost of the gasoline is a small part of cost of owning and operating a car.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=840241
http://www.oasisdesign.net/transport/cars/cost.htm
Gasoline, even at $4 a gallon, is probably a small fraction of your expense of owning and operating a car, which the AAA says costs about $8,000 a year for a small sedan and about $10,000 a year for the larger model (about $30 per day), assuming you drive 15,000 miles per year (which is 300 miles per week, which is 40 miles per day). Gas at $4 at even 20 mpg, is costing you on average about $8 per day. So of that $30 per day it costs you to own an operate a car, only about 1/3 is the cost of gasoline. Even at $7 dollars a gallon, the gasoline would still cost you less than $15 per day. Add to that cost your lifetime risk of being killed in a car accident of about 1 in 70 and your much higher lifetime risk of being injured in a car accident, and the cost of the roads that you pay for in taxes, and that would easily add another $3,000 dollars to your annual cost.
It would, however, make sense to get rid of every car you do not need.
When I was little, every family had one car. We lived.
If you need a car, there are so many used cars flooding the market now that you could probably pick one up for a song.
The goal: Get through the next 4 years without buying a new car.
In 2010, many automakers will begin selling electric cars. Give them a couple of years to work out the bugs before you buy. Batteries are probably going to improve dramatically. An electric car uses half the energy of a car to move you the same distance. Electricity is cheaper than gas. The electric car should cost you the equivalent of about $1 per gallon. But remember that the cost of the gasoline is a small part of cost of owning and operating a car.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=840241
http://www.oasisdesign.net/transport/cars/cost.htm
The spectre of 'stagflation"
The top story at The Independent today.
Inflation expected to reach 10% per annum in a few months.
UK home energy bills could jump 40% in one year.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-spectre-of-stagflation-827745.html
Inflation expected to reach 10% per annum in a few months.
UK home energy bills could jump 40% in one year.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-spectre-of-stagflation-827745.html
How to cut Social Security
The US government increases Social Security, government pensions, etc., according to the official inflation rate. It also pays out interest on US treasury bonds based on the official inflation rate.
Guess who calculates the official inflation rate?
For the last 25 years, they have been manipulating the official inflation rate by, for example, excluding food and gasoline, so that the government pays out less and less. As someone observed: The inflation rate makes perfect sense if you don't eat and you don't drive.
The official rate now is 3% per year. If they calculated using the methods they used 30 years ago, the inflation rate would be 10%. So, this year, they will pay out 3% more in Social Security benefits, and that money will buy 7% less. They will pay interest on bonds of about 4%, and that will buy 6% less. This is how you cut without actually cutting where everyone can see. Inflation is about to get a lot worse. At this rate, you could see the purchasing power of these payments drop by half in 5 to 10 years.
Guess who calculates the official inflation rate?
For the last 25 years, they have been manipulating the official inflation rate by, for example, excluding food and gasoline, so that the government pays out less and less. As someone observed: The inflation rate makes perfect sense if you don't eat and you don't drive.
The official rate now is 3% per year. If they calculated using the methods they used 30 years ago, the inflation rate would be 10%. So, this year, they will pay out 3% more in Social Security benefits, and that money will buy 7% less. They will pay interest on bonds of about 4%, and that will buy 6% less. This is how you cut without actually cutting where everyone can see. Inflation is about to get a lot worse. At this rate, you could see the purchasing power of these payments drop by half in 5 to 10 years.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The shunning of the dollar and the braking for peak oil
Two of the biggest under-the-radar stories of all time, especially if you live in the reality-free zone that is the US: the dollar collapse and peak oil.
For years, the US has been printing dollars, buying oil, and selling treasury bonds for those dollars, in effect buying oil with promissory notes. We also ran up huge fiscal and trade deficits.
For nearly 30 years, due to overproduction of oil, there was little conservation, little investment in alternative energy, and the construction of an urban landscape that cannot function without cheap oil. The problem is not that oil has become too expensive; the problem is that for far too long, oil was too cheap. All that did was cause the oil industry to go bust and hollow out, greatly reduce the number of drilling rigs and people who knew how to operate them, discourage generations of engineering students from entering the field, and teach everyone to treat energy and food with utter contempt.
These two basic problems are about to grab each other by the tail in a vicious circle.
In the short term, the price of oil will go up, and it will go down. The dollar will go up, and it will go down. Do not avert your gaze from the brick wall we are approaching.
The price of oil and the supply of oil follow supply and demand... sort of. The problem is the supply and demand of oil are always in disequilibrium, because it can take significant amounts of time for price to catch up with supply and for supply to catch up with price. Texas used to be the "swing producer" (the one that could ramp up supply or ramp down supply quickly in response to price swings). For the last 30 years, Saudi Arabia has been the swing producer. Now, there is no swing producer. So what is different this time is that no one has excess oil production capacity, and since all the easy-to-pump oil is gone, new drilling projects now take 10 years or more to implement. Over the last three years, although the price of oil has substantially increased in all major currencies, the amount of oil pumped has remained at about 85 million barrels per day. So supply is clearly not responding to demand.
On the other hand, because the rest of the world is developing so rapidly, demand is not, and will not, respond to the limited supply until there is a global recession... and that would be only a temporary respite.
We are about to get a front seat view of what happens when supply and demand cannot respond rapidly.
The Cantarell oil field off the coast of Mexico is the second largest oil field ever discovered. It provides the US with about 7% of the oil the US uses. Even if Mexico started drilling in deep water today, because of the complexity of the drilling, the new oil would not flow for 10 years. In order to continue to export oil to the US the way Mexico has been, the Cantarell field therefore has to produce oil at the rate it has been for the next 10 years in order to continue to export oil to the US the way it has been. There is only 1 year of oil left in the Cantarell field. So, Mexico has two choices: continue pumping at the present rate and then have nothing to export for 9 years, or drop pumping immediately by 90% and export at the rate of 10% for 10 years. Either way, Mexico is about to rapidly decrease the amount of oil it exports to the US. I suppose in the next few months to a year, Mexico will have an enormous fiscal crisis because their oil exports provide the Mexican government with half of its revenue. (This is an extreme oversimplification for brevity.)
It is not like there were no warnings.
Prince Abdullah, now King of Saudi Arabia, said to the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1998:
"The oil boom is over and will not return. All of us must get used to a different lifestyle."
The King said in April 2008 that he had "ordered some new oil discoveries left untapped to preserve oil wealth ... for future generations".
In April 2008, the vice president of one of Russia's biggest oil companies said that Russian oil output is in longterm decline.
So whether they can't pump or they won't pump makes no difference. They aren't.
The dollar has dropped by nearly half against the euro, and could drop further against the euro and other major currencies. This is part of the reason that the price of oil has risen to about 5 times in price in dollars; it has risen to about 4 times in yen, and about 3 times in euros.
There is wholesale buying of oil futures using all the dollars lying around because who knows how much a dollar will be worth in 5 years, but a barrel of oil will still be a barrel of oil in 2013.
Iran no longer accepts dollars for oil and only accepts euros and yen. Even some Japanese are starting to sell US treasury bonds because they lost 7% in value in two months, and they think the dollar will fall even further against the yen.
Ultimately, the oil exporters are doing us a favor. It is better to hit the brakes before we hit the brick wall rather than run into it at full speed.
Everything President Carter said is coming true.
For years, the US has been printing dollars, buying oil, and selling treasury bonds for those dollars, in effect buying oil with promissory notes. We also ran up huge fiscal and trade deficits.
For nearly 30 years, due to overproduction of oil, there was little conservation, little investment in alternative energy, and the construction of an urban landscape that cannot function without cheap oil. The problem is not that oil has become too expensive; the problem is that for far too long, oil was too cheap. All that did was cause the oil industry to go bust and hollow out, greatly reduce the number of drilling rigs and people who knew how to operate them, discourage generations of engineering students from entering the field, and teach everyone to treat energy and food with utter contempt.
These two basic problems are about to grab each other by the tail in a vicious circle.
In the short term, the price of oil will go up, and it will go down. The dollar will go up, and it will go down. Do not avert your gaze from the brick wall we are approaching.
The price of oil and the supply of oil follow supply and demand... sort of. The problem is the supply and demand of oil are always in disequilibrium, because it can take significant amounts of time for price to catch up with supply and for supply to catch up with price. Texas used to be the "swing producer" (the one that could ramp up supply or ramp down supply quickly in response to price swings). For the last 30 years, Saudi Arabia has been the swing producer. Now, there is no swing producer. So what is different this time is that no one has excess oil production capacity, and since all the easy-to-pump oil is gone, new drilling projects now take 10 years or more to implement. Over the last three years, although the price of oil has substantially increased in all major currencies, the amount of oil pumped has remained at about 85 million barrels per day. So supply is clearly not responding to demand.
On the other hand, because the rest of the world is developing so rapidly, demand is not, and will not, respond to the limited supply until there is a global recession... and that would be only a temporary respite.
We are about to get a front seat view of what happens when supply and demand cannot respond rapidly.
The Cantarell oil field off the coast of Mexico is the second largest oil field ever discovered. It provides the US with about 7% of the oil the US uses. Even if Mexico started drilling in deep water today, because of the complexity of the drilling, the new oil would not flow for 10 years. In order to continue to export oil to the US the way Mexico has been, the Cantarell field therefore has to produce oil at the rate it has been for the next 10 years in order to continue to export oil to the US the way it has been. There is only 1 year of oil left in the Cantarell field. So, Mexico has two choices: continue pumping at the present rate and then have nothing to export for 9 years, or drop pumping immediately by 90% and export at the rate of 10% for 10 years. Either way, Mexico is about to rapidly decrease the amount of oil it exports to the US. I suppose in the next few months to a year, Mexico will have an enormous fiscal crisis because their oil exports provide the Mexican government with half of its revenue. (This is an extreme oversimplification for brevity.)
It is not like there were no warnings.
Prince Abdullah, now King of Saudi Arabia, said to the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1998:
"The oil boom is over and will not return. All of us must get used to a different lifestyle."
The King said in April 2008 that he had "ordered some new oil discoveries left untapped to preserve oil wealth ... for future generations".
In April 2008, the vice president of one of Russia's biggest oil companies said that Russian oil output is in longterm decline.
So whether they can't pump or they won't pump makes no difference. They aren't.
The dollar has dropped by nearly half against the euro, and could drop further against the euro and other major currencies. This is part of the reason that the price of oil has risen to about 5 times in price in dollars; it has risen to about 4 times in yen, and about 3 times in euros.
There is wholesale buying of oil futures using all the dollars lying around because who knows how much a dollar will be worth in 5 years, but a barrel of oil will still be a barrel of oil in 2013.
Iran no longer accepts dollars for oil and only accepts euros and yen. Even some Japanese are starting to sell US treasury bonds because they lost 7% in value in two months, and they think the dollar will fall even further against the yen.
Ultimately, the oil exporters are doing us a favor. It is better to hit the brakes before we hit the brick wall rather than run into it at full speed.
Everything President Carter said is coming true.
Drill more! Our problems will be solved!
This is just amazing.
Samuelson says drill more. It is all Congress' fault because they won't allow drilling in Alaska and offshore. Doing so would produce 30 billion barrels...
Wait a minute, the world uses 0.1 billion barrels per day, so that would run the world for... about 1 year! How would that do anything other than postpone the inevitable for just a short time? And if we do that, all the oil reserves in the US really will be gone.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134850
I can't believe Samuelson is that ignorant, so the only other possibility I can think of is that he is deliberately trying to direct blame at something that really isn't the cause of the problem. If you can think of another explanation for his baffling assertion, please let me know.
Samuelson says drill more. It is all Congress' fault because they won't allow drilling in Alaska and offshore. Doing so would produce 30 billion barrels...
Wait a minute, the world uses 0.1 billion barrels per day, so that would run the world for... about 1 year! How would that do anything other than postpone the inevitable for just a short time? And if we do that, all the oil reserves in the US really will be gone.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134850
I can't believe Samuelson is that ignorant, so the only other possibility I can think of is that he is deliberately trying to direct blame at something that really isn't the cause of the problem. If you can think of another explanation for his baffling assertion, please let me know.
Limbaugh and OxyContin
I said to one of my friends that I thought the only reason Rush could stand the pain of listening to himself was because he was taking so much OxyContin.
She replied, "Oh, I thought it was because OxyContin makes you deaf".
http://prescriptiondesk.com/dangerous-prescription-drugs/oxycontin.htm
She replied, "Oh, I thought it was because OxyContin makes you deaf".
http://prescriptiondesk.com/dangerous-prescription-drugs/oxycontin.htm
Today is Children's Day in Japan
This was one of my favorites. Right up there with Christmas and Halloween and New Year.
My grandfather used to hoist a big paper carp, called koinobori, in front of the house on a bamboo pole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinobori
Although the newer cloth and nylon ones are much more durable, there is nothing like the way the paper ones move in the wind.
Eventually, of course, the paper one tore and went flying in pieces down the street... and I ran after the pieces and brought them back and taped it back together...
And how about one over 300 feet long!
My grandfather used to hoist a big paper carp, called koinobori, in front of the house on a bamboo pole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinobori
Although the newer cloth and nylon ones are much more durable, there is nothing like the way the paper ones move in the wind.
Eventually, of course, the paper one tore and went flying in pieces down the street... and I ran after the pieces and brought them back and taped it back together...
And how about one over 300 feet long!
If you have a lot of frequent flyer miles salted up
I would use them up as soon as possible.
Give them away. Send your parents to a nice hotel for the weekend and use your miles.
Aloha just went bankrupt, and all the Aloha miles are worthless.
More mergers are on the horizon.
If everyone tries to use their miles at the same time, all the available tickets will be used up, and in effect, if there is nothing to buy, your miles will become worthless.
Give them away. Send your parents to a nice hotel for the weekend and use your miles.
Aloha just went bankrupt, and all the Aloha miles are worthless.
More mergers are on the horizon.
If everyone tries to use their miles at the same time, all the available tickets will be used up, and in effect, if there is nothing to buy, your miles will become worthless.
Some used car dealers are no longer accepting SUVs
There is about to be a glut of used cars on the market. People are trying to sell cars they don't really need.
This means that if you need to sell a car, do it as soon as possible.
If you need to buy a car, look at a used one... but be careful of the Katrina fixed up ones...
If you have a gas guzzler, no matter how high gas goes... and it could go to 10 dollars a gallon in the next few years... that is what it already is in Europe... it may not make sense to sell your car at a huge loss and buy a hybrid now... you may never make up the increased gas cost.
Try to make it to 2012 with what you have. Toyota and Honda are coming out with plug-in hybrids around 2010, and the bugs should be out of them by 2012... the electricity cost should be the equivalent of about a dollar a gallon. If the photovoltaic prices fall by 75% as forecast, you could charge your car for free. The batteries should be much better by then too.
This means that if you need to sell a car, do it as soon as possible.
If you need to buy a car, look at a used one... but be careful of the Katrina fixed up ones...
If you have a gas guzzler, no matter how high gas goes... and it could go to 10 dollars a gallon in the next few years... that is what it already is in Europe... it may not make sense to sell your car at a huge loss and buy a hybrid now... you may never make up the increased gas cost.
Try to make it to 2012 with what you have. Toyota and Honda are coming out with plug-in hybrids around 2010, and the bugs should be out of them by 2012... the electricity cost should be the equivalent of about a dollar a gallon. If the photovoltaic prices fall by 75% as forecast, you could charge your car for free. The batteries should be much better by then too.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
What is the most dangerous animal in the world?
It is not a lion or a shark.
The most dangerous animal is the mosquito.
It causes one-half billion cases of malaria every year and more than a million deaths.
One of my cousins recently had encephalitis. Pigs and birds are reservoirs of the virus. It is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. She was in a coma for nearly a year and had to have extensive rehabilitation, but she is fine now.
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