MODELS; FINANCIAL, CLIMATE, LINGERIE

I have been reading alot about climategate and it got me thinking about models, computer models that attempt to mimic reality and predict the future. if you look at the history of this activity, it is less than perfect, sometimes abysmally wrong.

many of the models used on wall street to manage risk, a seeming oxymoron, rate mortgage backed securiteis, etc. blew up, and contributed mightily to our recent financial melt down. i assure you however that all these firms are chastened and have gone back to the lab to build better models, which will likely be better but way not perfect.

now we have climate models. these arrogant, ideological pricks in east anglia believe their models are correct, or if not believe in the cause so much that they will cover up their flaws. now i happen to think modeling is good, but it is at best an approximation that needs to be tested and improved continuously. my gut is todays models are potentially as flawed and primitive as the ones used to give AAA bond ratings.

which leaves me with the only models beyond criticism. Victoria's Secret lingerie models!

COPENHAGEN

so its over and we agreed to agree to something that is unenforceable and unverifiable. sounds like success to me. my concerns are if man made emissions are a problem, i dont know, they might be, though the east anglia suppression of contra info and manipulation of data is not reassuring; its more than Co2, there is methane from farting cows, pigs, sheep and harry reid.
and
the developed world is irrelevant. if you look at the curves, the developed world is flat. the growth is china. if the us reduced emissions by 10% which would be huge, this would be wiped out by one years growth in chinese emissions.

and the Chinese have the balls, they in fact do, we dont, to ask us to pay for them to me more energy efficient; so we can raise taxes to give to the Chinese to further roll over us. remarkable.

bitch, bitch, bitch,

what should we do, act from self interest, this includes energy efficiency, negawatts, next gen solar, so called clean coal, coal is huge in us and china and will be used so make it as clean as possible, wind? it sure is ugly. nuclear, yes, electric cars; check out the audi e-tron

be tough minded with china. we are not friends, we have a relationship but we are frenemies, they want to be dominant and if you follow their actions around the globe they are clearly pursuing such a strategy.

WHY ARE WE CLOSING QUANTANOMO?

as we move detainees to yemen, great place for civil rights, and illinois, i wonder why we are doing this, again. seems lite gitmo is a pretty cool place for detainees. what makes yemen and illinois better?

just asking

HEALTHCARE; THE BRIBES CONTINUE; A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

so the senate figured out that there was opposition to the "public option". so lets just change its name. they got rid of the public option and replaced it with medicare for everyone aged 55 and above. now medicare was basically broke already so what is adding 10 more years of lives to a broke system, a good hunk of the baby boom generation, myself included, into medicare. its the public option by another name.

jeez!

FEDERAL RESERVE INDEPENDENCE

this country did not get onto a sound financial footing until it had a stong central bank. i am not in love with either alan greenspan or ben bernake but congressional attacks on the feds power and independence is hugely dangerous; too dangerous.

mistakes were made. but many correct decisions were made also. having a strong independent fed is a requirement for our country. during the meltdown, did you look into the eyes of harry reid and nancy pelosi? deer in the headlights, they didnt have a clue.

this is serious. keep congress away from the fed!

CBO; CORRUPTED OR MISSPUN?

one of the few reliable sources of analysis is the CBO, also the GAO. so the cbo just came out with a report on the senate health bill. in the nytimes, the headline says "no big cost rise in u.s. premiums is seen in study."

when you read the details however this conclusion is AFTER government subsidies. in fact premiums will go up but the government with somebodies money is going to give certain people subsidies against the increases, so after the subsidies there will be no big increase. what sophistry!!!!!!!!!!

on page 20 it says that, "the proposal would tend to increase premiums for people who are young and relatively healthy and decrease premiums for those who are older and relatively unhealthy."..the average premium per person in the individual insurance market would be 10percent to 13 percent higher than under current law.... 18 million of the 32 million people buying insurance on their own would qualify for the federal subsidies, which would reduce their costs well below what they would have to pay under current law.

this is a great incentive. lets punish the healthy and reward the unhealthy! its been estimated that 70% of health problems and costs come from lifestyle. we should incent healthy lifestyle maybe? this is just tax the rich and redistribute to the people who vote and contribute to the democrats.

one of our great institutions, the cbo is being used and tarnished.

as they say, "if the queen had balls, she'd be king!"

HEALTHCARE WHEELS COMING OFF?

will the democrats snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory? on the front page of the la times today (i know, not a great source) were two bookend, top of the crease articles. one about some democrats attacking the deal obama cut with the pharma industry. the other about a govenment reccomendation against mammogram frequency.

obama shrewdly cut a deal with one of the most powerful lobbys in healthcare. it took them out of the dialogue. blow up the deal and they will wade in. really stupid

mammograms? well in theory this was an objective finding but counter intuitive and an incredibly personal and emotional issue. i think many people, men and woman will not like this and cause them to be more anti government, thus more anti healthcare bill

DEMOCRATIC HEALTHCARE PERFIDY

i have tended to vote republican more than not; voting my pocket book, not liking all the nutty, intolerance and worse with their social agenda. i made my peace with obama and the dems in power thinking that at least womens rights, to choice, privacy etc. would be strenthened during this period.

now the ultimate betrayal. the dems, inorder to pass their 2000 page healthcare disaster of a bill did a deal with anti abortion democrats to withhold federal funding for abortions in this new unhealthy bill.

the betrayal. women betrayed by democrats, by a woman, nancy pelosi.

where is the outrage?

NOBEL DUMBED DOWN

the guys who invented fibre optic cable just got the nobel prize, about thirty years later. i think fibre optics are pretty important and cool

barrack obama just got a nobel peace prize after being in office about 30 weeks; for what? where is there peace? in iraq, in afghanistan, in the middle east, in korea, in pakistan, in kashmir? what peace has he created, he has tried to make nice to the russians, played a key card given to him by the bush adminsitration re the new iranian reactor and not done much with the play.

what has he done?????????????

why dont they give me a nobel for making up with my girlfriend?

BUT SO IS POLANSKI

in my prior blog i called steve cooley and asshole. i stand by that. however upon reflection and with more information, i must conclude that so is polanski.

13 is still 13. unacceptable

whats good for the goose is good for the gander. i objected to polanskis plea deal being violated. subsequently he reached a civil settlement with the victim for $500k. he did not pay on time and may not have paid at all. unacceptable

a sordid tale all around. at this point polanski should be both allowed to and required to enter a criminal and civil agreement, pleading guilty, restitution and probable lifetime ban from US.

next

STEVE COOLEY IS AN ASSHOLE

steve cooley is the LA county DA. he just had the swiss act on a 32 year old fugitive warrant and arrest roman polanski in switzerland on his way to the swiss film festival. this goes back to an event that took place at jack nicholsons house where a 13 year old girl was pimped out by her mother. now there is little commendable about what happened. however

the mother and daughter requested there be no prosecution

after evaluation by the california penal system, polanski was judged not to be a threat and not appropriate to be incarcerated

based on this the then da and polanski reached a formal agreement for probation.

an asst. da not on the case entered into illegal exparte communication with the judge telling how to violate the agreement because it would look bad in the press

the judge then violated the agreement

polanski then fled to france.

the girl, no longer a girl still is calling for him to be left alone

steve cooley, a typical showboating politician is now wasting scarce public dollars of a broke state for this?

i am voting for the other guy!

MATCHING UN DEMAND WITH LAS VEGAS SUPPLY

i was in new york last week during the united nations stuff. it was a nightmare, traffic, cops, politicians; impossible. new york would be so much more pleasant without the un. no more unpaid parking tickets, less traffic.

now i wasnt in las vegas last week, but i understand that City Center, the 10 billion or so disaster that if you walk by it, you must shake your head and ask, what were they thinking?

so i connected these two dots. lets move the UN to City Center. the city gets relief, las vegas fills up empty real estate; and best of all:

qaddafi could pitch his tent in a desert!

HE DID LIE

joe wilson said, You Lie. in reaction to barack obamas speech on healthcare. in that speech the president said;

what this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you

i will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit-either now or in the future

neither of these statements are true, therefore they must be lies. the latter flabbergastingly false.

however, these are lower case lies believe it or not. his real lie is that he misrepresented himself when running for office. he presented himself as a moderate and moderate republicans and democrats voted for him because of this postioning. the facts are that his admistration is very left and compromised by lawyers, unions and activists like acorn. if that is what america wants i guess that is ok but we bought what he sold and what he sold is not what he is

WHAT IS HE THINKING?: ANTI ANTI MISSLE DEFENSE

the white house, who lives there?, has decided not to proceed with anti missle systems in poland and czech. Becuase? the iranian long range ballistic program is behind schedule! huh?

probably they are not behind schedule; and even if they are, so what? they will continue to push forward and still be a threat. what does he think? that an anti missle system can be turned on and off like a light switch?

this will put pressure on israel. what is the quid pro quo with russia? do we get anything in return?

BEER PONG: AMERICAS GENIUS

just when i get totally depressed over the prospects for americas future, something comes along that rekindles my believe in the native genius of america and americans.

i went shopping last night with my daughter at Ralphs, our local supermarket, for a small party she was having in the back yard. she said she needed ice and ping pong balls. the ice i understood; the ping pong balls less so as we do not have a ping pong table. the answer of course was beer pong. i asked her was she sure they would have such at a supermarket. she assured me they did. as we roamed the aisles of miscellaneous party items with no luck, we approached an employee for help. just as he was about to answer i had a eureka moment; the beer section! and sure enough right next to the cold heinekins were packages of ping pong balls.

american marketing genius at work.

i feel much better about the country and its prospects now

PULL THE PLUG ON GRANNY; YES

As obama is about the get crushed between left leaning democrats on one side and everyone else on the other; there has been some interesting tactics and rhetoric on healthcare. there has been language like death panels and pulling the plug on granny. as a swiftian suggestion i think we should pull the plug on granny. its a bad use of scarce resources.

what is this guy saying????????

i merely raise the issue of the healthcare costs most people incur at the very ends of their lives; in general the last 5% of our lives consume over 50% of our lifetime healthcare costs; and what is the quality of this life? this is a tough issue; what is the answer; death panels? euthanasia? a change in attitude towards death with an acceptance of its inevitability; embrace a hospice aproach?

there are intergenerational issues. should we spend lots of dollars keeping granny alive vs. making sure kids grow up healthy.

the current debate is degenerating and its unclear what will come out of it. probably nothing good; and the status quo aint great.

however its easy to pontificate on policy, but what would you say if it was you, you were at the end of your life, insurance wont cover it and you cant afford it. youre going to die. will that be ok?

LOG IN PASSWORDS

when registering for some web service, account, etc,; never use the name of your girlfriend, wife, boyfriend, husband etc. IT WILL CHANGE!

children are probably ok, youre stuck with them.

LIGHTER FARE; 2 GREAT MOVIES

IT MIGHT GET LOUD. a documentary featuring jack white of the white stripes, the Edge of u2 and jimmy page; if you dont know who jimmy page is, go back to school.

3 generations of brilliant guitarist, grounded in the blues, talk, reminisce, collaborate, play alone, play together. they come across are true artists and pretty cool dudes.

there definetely needs to be a led zepplin reunion with jack white and the edge sitting in!!!!!!!!!

DISTRICT 9. brought to us by peter jackson; directed and acted by south africans in south africa; a brilliant sci-fi movie that like all great sci-fi isnt about much more than the special effects but larger issues. the irony of it taking place in south africa, the satirical jabs, the issues of racism and beinghood. terrific!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SEN. WEBB FREES WRONG PERSON

senator webb just visited the junta and in burma. ok so far. he got their agreement to free an imprisoned american. sounds great huh? Not. this american is either insane, a dupe or an evil asshole. his swim to the home where aung san suu kyi fucked her impending completion of her house arrest. i say let the bastard rot in jail. bring back the right person! actually not bring her back but have her released, the only freely elected leader of modern burma who has been detained for 20 years

ISRAELI SETTLER BULLSHIT

the israeli govt recently evicted 2 palestinian families, 50 people,those are some big families, who had apparantly occupied the residences in east jerusalem for about 50 years and let so called settlers take them over. this is bullshit. the settler movement, to the extent that it has or had legitimacy was to settle the wilderness; jerusalem aint no wilderness or kibutz.

i think jimmy carter is an asshole but this smacks of non violent ethnic cleansing. the settler movement will be the death of israel, it is corrosive and hypocritical. it will alienate its allies and make it harder for america to support israel. these settlements will not make israel stronger, it will make it weaker.

i dont believe that peace in the middle east is necessarily possible or inevitable or even required; but while israel needs to be strong, always; it also doesnt need to give grounds to its friends and enemies. its actions need to match its words. it needs to draw its own unilateral lines and then conform to those lines. it may be afraid of its own fundementalists but they are as crazy as the arab fundementalists and letting ones destiny be determined by fanatics is rarely a good thing.

i shouldnt have to say this but i am jewish and a strong supporter of israel

PLUG INCOMPATIBLE

i recently got a new kindle dx for travel; so i can brink multiple books without the bulk and weight. it is a great device but the battery sucks; it doesnt hold a charge. so when i took it out to read on vacation last night it needed to be charged. no problem; i brought my little back of chargers with me; took out the white charging wire only to discover that one of the parts was missing; why companies make chargers with multiple parts that plug into each other is a bit of a mystery. so here i am in the middle of the french countryside with an unusable kindle.

it got me thinking; here we are in a world facing so many hard to solve issues, the economy, climate change healthcare, peace in the middle east; and here we have a ridiculous but easily solved problem that we chose not to solve

i have alot of devices. a blackberry, casio cell phone, a sony lap top, a nikon camera, the aforementioned kindle and more i am sure and none of the damn things can use the same chargers. i just went to verizon and got the new generation of the same casio phone and my old charger doesnt fit!!!!!!!!! this is truly a crime against humanity.

think of the time, money, waster etc that could be saved my merely having standardized plugs?

from the industry that brought us the term plug compatible it is truly time for the words to mean what the words are supposed to mean

HEALTHCARE HORSESHIT

Obama is saying the recovery of the us economy is dependent on nationalizing the us healthcare system. what demogoguery! give me a break. we should not be panicked into rushed legislation on 17% of the economy.

HEALTHCARE; THE MATH

there are probably only 12million people who want healthcare and cant afford it. the rest of the 40million or so either can afford it or have chosen not to have it in the case of young people. those 12 million are a real issue but are 4% of the populaiton. should we nationalize 17% of our gnp/gdp for 4% of our population. there must be a better, cheaper, less risky way

PELOSI PERFIDY RE CIA

nancy pelosi either was or was not briefed on interagation techniques. i think she was and she has lied. flinging mud at the cia for a clandestine plan to kill senior terrorists and not briefing congress on an effort that was never operational is deplorable. it misses the point. it is an act of misdirection.

as regards the cia's plans to knock off senior terrorists; what took them so long?

CIT: NOT TOO BIG TO FAIL BUT TOO IMPORTANT

just how dumb is our government? dont answer that question. the geniuses at the fed, fdic etc. have decided that cit doesnt represent systemic risk; it is not too big to fail. this both misses the point and may be wrong.

CIT is one of the most important financiers of small to medium size companies in america. if it fails the gap will NOT be filled adequately and or fast enough. who is going to do it? so by letting cit fail, they are putting 1 million american businesses at risk. these are the companies that create jobs and the owners of which the democrats want to tax to pay for universal health care

DUMB

OMG: BIDEN SAYS SOMETHING INTELLIGENT

integrity requires acknowledging when someone who usually acts like a dufus says something intelligent.

vice-president joe biden, commenting on north koreas frequent premature missile ejaculations, described the behavior as "predicitable, attention seeking behavior by the reclusive state.

i think he is right in his analysis; however unlike a screwed up kid, these guys are playing with missles

WALK IN THE WOODS II AND III

oh well, first the woods moved to argentina, then the trees turned into a bush. what the hell. true love is ok too. just a little messy and embarrassing

HEALTH CARE REFORM WITHOUT TORT REFORM?

reform must be one of the most abused words in the world. we clearly need healthcare reform of some sort. president obama made a speech recently where he said the while malpractice expense is a problem he was against caps on malpractice judgements.

without fixing malpractice, we are left with the excess procedures of defensive medicine and excessive insurance rates.

A WALK IN THE WOODS

governor mark sanford went for a walk in the woods. he probably should have told someone; including his unfriend the lieutenent governor. maybe something will come out that will indicate he is a whack job. i have been a fan of his. personally, i think if more politicians walked the appalacian trail and more were fit enough to do so, we would be better off

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

justice ginsberg clearly looks like a mouse. she however has acted like a lion. in the face of the obama administration doing violence to creditors rights, the bedrock of capital markets, she said NO.

WOW.

who knows what will ultimately happen but at least someone was brave enough to say that political expediency is not everything

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

is it just me or does stan van gundy, the coach of the orlando magic and ron jeremy, famously fat porn star look like twins separated at birth?

GITMO IS JUST REAL ESTATE

there has been a big uproar around the world and amongt americans, more on the democratic side, to close the prison at gitmo because of our bad treatment of prisoners. we are putting the prisoners into categories; some are being released, some tried in the US and some to be detained indifinetly in the US. now some americans, with some clever stimulation by republicans are asking; do we really want the worst of the worst in our community? now you may say they are not going to be in the community, they are going to be in prison. but the prison will be in our communities. might they become targets. i dont know but i sure would not want them in my neighborhood; NIMBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so what is wrong with gitmo? its just a piece of real estate. LOCATION IS NOT POLICY. you want to be nicer to the prisoners? fine. you can be nicer there. why be nicer here? its unlikely that al queda will invade gitmo; but if they do we have the right people ready with no civilians.

it seems like all symbolic bullshit to me.

NANCY AND ROGER

I think roger clemens is one of the great pitchers. i dont dont if he used steroids or not; i think he did. roger, under earth swore he has not. i think that was a mistake.

i do not think nancy pelosi is one the great speakers of the house. did she lie about the cia briefing? i dont know but like roger, i think she painted herself into a dangerous corner.

ME AND PAUL (KRUGMAN)

who thought i would agree with paul krugman about anything; even the time of day? but on may 15, he wrote in the nytimes op-ed, an article called, "empire of carbon", in which he admits that unless china deals with carbon issues we are all pissing in the wind. thats why the US was right about kyoto. kyoto without china was a joke. its like the time when i flew lufthansa to europe and i got a business class, non-smoking seat. unfortunately, the other side of the aisle was smoking. the smoke didnt know it wasnt supposed to not cross the aisle to my side.

CHRYSLER AND THE RULE OF LAW

it is pretty well accepted that there is a positive correlation between the rule of law and strong economies. so why is the obama administration trying to turn us into russia. we have probably the best bankruptcy laws in the world. companies that become insolvent can file, re-organize, and come out faster than any other country in the world.

so whats the deal with chrysler. the uaw labor contracts are executory contracts that can be voided in bankruptcy and yet for making some concessions they are getting around 55% of the reorganized company. Fiat gets to earn, i think up to 35% of the company for hitting milestones, few or none involve investing any money. and the senior secured bondholders are getting fucked and portrayed as bad people.

senior secured bonds and mortgages are supposed to be senior to everybody, excep dip loans. they are being treated like preferred stock. seems like a pure political pay off to organized labor. who owns the senior secured bonds? i dont know but assume some combo of money managers, hedge funds, individuals. hedge funds are the new black. hedge funds are money mangers; the underlying investors are wealthy individuals, pension funds, endowments, etc. by screwing these bondholders they are screwing these investors. why should these investors lose their rights? what was their crime?

this takes place while the govt. is trying to restart the credit markets. their actions in chrysler are diametically opposed to this effort. in one instance they are asking people to buy bonds with govt. supplied leverage; which implies that the investor can rely on the bond indenture and the rights of that bond under law; and in the other it is saying the indenture means nothing and the law means nothing

is this any way to run a railroad?

PUTS AND CALLS

the government announced that about 10 large banks need to raise more capital after being analyzed via stress tests. the answer? puts and calls.

in 1989, mellon bank was recapitalized with some good, creative work by bank managment, private equity firm Warburg Pincus and investment bank Drexel Burnham.

Mellon had too many non-performing assets on its books. the solution involved creating a so called bad bank where over a billion dollars of non-performing assets where transferred. that was when a billion dollars was real money. this improved the quality of the balance sheet on the asset side but its captial ratios where still too low.

the banks business franchise was sound, its stock price was low and the dilution of raising more capital weighed on the stock. the solution was an investor group was assembled;led by warburg and drexel and accepted puts from mellon that gave mellon the right to put X number of shares and Y price in 13 mos. mellon paid the investors by giving them calls. i dont remember the numbers but the deal is of public record and can be researched. in round numbers the investors got around 1 call for every 3-4 puts.

what this did was tell the market and the regulators that the bank had locked in contractually enough capital to get into capital ratio compliance at a price certain; but had the option of raising higher priced/lower cost capital over the next 13 months if possible. what happened was that with the certainty of the puts, the company raised more than enough capital thru a series of debt for equity exchange offers, and new offerings at much higher prices than the put prices; the puts expired unexercised; the shareholders experienced less dilution and the common stock appreciated alot and the put investors made good money from their calls.

how about the treasury or the fed issue 2 year puts to these 10 banks for common at todays market price and also preferred at an appropriate rate; get paid in calls and let the market sort itself out. i think the likelihood of a Mellon win win is highly likely

NAZI GERMANY; CHAVEZ; OBAMA

few people in germany including the jews thought that things would go so far so fast

few of the middle class and up who voted chavez in thought things would go so far so fast

few americans think that obama and the democratic congress could be remaking america and the world as we knew it in as dramatic way; but what if he does?

CIA AND SEX

THANK GOD LEON PANNETA will take sex away as a tool for our spies to recruit people. we should merely bribe them with money. they can then use the money for sex and our hands are clean.

TREASURY BUYING BONDS

what are these guys thinking. they are in deficit and will have to finance with bond issuance but are buying bonds to manipulate the prices up and yields down? how stupid do they think the market is? buying new issue securitizations of new packages of mortgages, car loans, etc until the market functions on its own is ok. if you want to manipulate interest rate you need to be a little more subtle

YOGA

yoga is good. so is pilates. everyone should do yoga and pilates. all ages. greater strength, flexibility, and balance. leads to better sex, sleep and older people will fall down less and break hips etc. will reduce medical expneditures.

om!

THE MOB

I AM REMINDED OF THE MOVIE FRANKENSTEIN WHERE THE VILLAGERS ARE CHASING THE MONSTER WITH PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES. CONGRESS AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ARE PROMOTING AND INFLAMING THE MOB. TREASURY AND THE ADMINSITRATION KNEW ABOUT THE BONUSES. THEY ARE 1/10TH OF 1% OF THE MONEY PUT INTO AIG VS. THE 120BILLION FUNNELLED THRU TO COUNTERPARTIES. FOR WHATEVER REASON TREASURY ET AL DECIDED TO DO THIS BECAUSE IT WAS EASIER THAN ASKING CONGRESS; AND THEY WERE RIGHT TACTICALLY. WHETHER GIVING THEM THE 120 MADE SENSE I HAVE NO IDEA.

NOTHING GOOD CAN COME FROM THE MOB. PLAY WITH FIRE AND YOU WILL BE BURNED