Wednesday, May 31, 2006

0\/\/n3d

Daniel Gross of Slate on who will be the new Secretary of the Treasury:

John Snow will have a replacement, and he may very well come from the corporate world. But if it's an A-list Wall Street CEO, I'll buy a copy of Dow 36,000 and eat the first chapter.

Hank Paulson, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, has accepted the position.

I learned of this quote from Greg Mankiw's Blog

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Four Boston Bands I Dig

The Max Funk Institüt
Maximum Funk. Frankly, I'm not sure if these guys still play. When they do play, they're solid however.

The Franklin Kite
Electronic rock. I would put them somewhere between Coldplay and The Postal Service, although I suspect such a description might anger some (if not all) in the band.

Scotch Rocks
Kinda like early Wilco if they had a guy and a girl vocalist and were a bit more college rock than alt-country.

The Brakemen

Not to be confused with many other bands named the Brakemen. I'm having trouble googling their website, which I'm sure I went to once.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

All-Time Great Poster

You might ask, what qualifies this as an all-time great poster?

  1. First, this is obviously extremely persuasive in deterring those who might commit espionage from committing espionage (see Jerry Whitworth (row 3, column 1), owner of a 365 year sentence)
  2. The slogan doesn't really make sense, but its message is clear
  3. It's got a certain '80s cheesiness punctuated by the "Don't Be Next" entry. Sort of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Poster
  4. Row 1, Column 4: Earl E. Pitts has a name straight out of an Encyclopedia Brown story
  5. At least 4 or 5 of these guys have the classic pedophile look that we like to see on people we know are already in prison.
  6. Row 2, Column 3: The Dumbest Spy EVER!!!
    He's wearing a shirt that reads "KGB is for Me" (while drinking a beer and sporting a Family Ties-era (not that there was ever really any other era) Michael Gross beard and haircut, and a hideous hankerchief tied around his neck like he's a gay cowboy...but let's get back to the shirt). Did he make the shirt himself? If so, how displeased must his Soviet Superiors have been to discover this nimcumpoop? OR, did the KGB give him the shirt. How amused are we at the prospect of the KGB being a bunch of nimcumpoops?

The verdict is in: ALL-TIME GREAT

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Mindblowing

You might wanna visit this site with Pink Floyd on in the background.

Monday, May 22, 2006

I Love Napalm Death

Just another reason why

Damn, Shane Embury is nearly sporting a full-out "skullet" and he still rules.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

More books read

House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time
This is very much like Monkey Business, but it's about consulting rather than banking. The author dwells more on how ridiculous his job is as opposed to how much it sucks (as Rolfe and Troob were inclined)

The Money Culture
A collection of short stories by Michael Lewis about banking in the 80s. Good stuff, but I felt a bit Michael Lewised out by the end of reading it.

The Great Crash 1929
Wow. I had heard good things, but this book certainly exceeded my expectations. I had a late 80s version that I picked up in a used bookstaore in Central (the one on Mass Ave that sells bookshelves...the place is really good). Anyhow, the introduction included an interesting examination of the differences between 1929 and 1987. Towards the end of the book, Galbraith outlines 5 main reasons why the Crash and ensuing depression occured:
  1. A lopsided distribution of income. Basically, the rich earned so much of the income in the 20s that large fluctuations in the stock market (which is mostly comprised of investments by the rich) would have great effect on the economy as a whole. The rich were fueling investment and spending heavily on luxury goods. As Galbraith eloquently puts it: The rich cannot buy great quantities of bread. Good thing we're not seeing a return of lopsided incomes in today's economy. Ruh-roh, Shaggy.
  2. Bad corporate structure. Essentially, the crash of 1929 exposed EXTREME buying on margin. Margin is when you buy stocks with borrowed money and then put the stock itself up as collateral. When the stock price dips beneath the minimum requisite for collateral, the investor meets a margin call. This is what did in Randolph and Mortimer Duke in Trading Places. The effect of buying on margin gets even worse when companies already having a lot of debt on their balance sheets start doing this. The investment trusts of the 20s involved something akin to companies that used borrowed cash to buy stock in other companies that were both formed with borrowed cash and investing in companies that were much the same, and so on, and so on. Galbraith compares the effect of chains of leveraged companies to that of a whip: the more leveraged the company, the greater or worse small effects in the market have on the bottom line. Since 1934, the government has had the power to mandate margin requirements, although with heavily leveraged firms, naked short selling, and options, there still exist elements of the problem in today's market.
  3. Bad banking structure. In times of stress on banks, times have changed. Today the FDIC insures $100k to an investor on their funds at any given bank. In the 1920s you got excited to hear that Potter was offering 50 cents on the dollar.
  4. The trade surplus. The US was a net creditor in 1929. Through erroneously keeping the dollar strong and tariffs high, countries that couldn't pay their debts to us or decrease their trade deficits were forced to default. We don't have this problem today...at all.
  5. Economists weren't as sophisticated as they now are. While Galbraith takes caution in making such a statement, saying something to the effect of "modern-day economists making such proclamations might find it come back to haunt them." I largely agree with him. Economics always toes the line between science and philosophy, and frankly, before Keynes it was moreso philosophy. Whenever people treat Adam Smith as the be-all, end-all of economics I always get annoyed.

np: Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All

Friday, May 19, 2006

WWNJD?


I recently freaked out a coworker by declaring Nick Johnson the second best first baseman in baseball (although in all honesty, Albert Pujols probably takes up the first ten spots on his own...imagine what'll happen when Pujols enters his "peak power years" next year?). My friend is a Mets fan, and he was angry that I would rank Nick Johnson ahead of Carlos Delgado. Given age, fielding ability, and OPS, I'm standing by my Nick Johnson love.

At a crucial moment at work the other day. I informed my colleague that at times like this we must ask "What would Nick Johnson do?" Angrily, he asked "Well what would he do?" and I gave this most appropriate of answers:

Hit a double to the gap.

Let's make the 700 Club the Club of 699

Hamell On Trial!

I saw this guy last night for the second time, and once again he absolutely blew me away. There's no one quite like this guy, whose music is summed up with the following lines from his song The Meeting
It's one guy
And one guitar
So it's gotta be folk
OH MAN HOW WRONG THEY ARE!

Anyhow, amongst his sordid stories and songs about snorting the dead, meeting John Lennon, being hired by a club owner in a conservative town solely to piss off the clientele, and declaring Crime and Punishment a love story, he sang a song about Pat Robertson. More specifically, he said that someone should assasinate Pat Robertson. As he led the crowd in chanting "His brains on the cross behind him" he sang the line that is the subject line of this post. Brilliant!

Another personal favorite lyric of his:
Need a partner
To start here
Like the James Boys, Frank and Jesse
Like the Untouchables with Elliot Nessie
Like Bonnie and Clyde when they get aggressie
Like Romeo and Juliet, they start the carressie
Like Bartles and James, a pause to refreshie
Like Salt N Pepa, like to see them undressie
Like Sid and Nancy, dead and gone God blessie
Like the Everly Brothers how their voices they meshie
Like Jake LaMotta and his brother Joe Pesci!

So if you get a chance, check out Hamell on Trial when he comes to your town. He really isn't captured very well on his CDs, although his live CD is excellent (his newest was produced by Ani DiFranco, whom he frequently opens for).

Like Carl from Aqua Teen, he don't need no instructions to know how to rock!

Guess She Won't Need Him, Guess She Won't Feed Him When He's 64

Sir Paul, you'd be better off listening to Kanye West: If you ain't no punk holler "We want prenup! We want prenup!"

Also on the topic of lack of love, I have been shown about the minimal amount of love possible from the University of Chicago without their downright rejecting me. After Round 3 decisions came out, they've informed me that I am still on their waitlist, which is now accepting people on a rolling basis (although those accepted in Round 3 have until June 8th to submit their deposits to secure a seat). There's at least 30 of us still on the waitlist (my guess is somewhere between 40-70). Here's an unranked list of the people who admitted being on the waitlist on the Chicago GSB's message board:
  1. MD13 - international
  2. GST3
  3. round2
  4. Harsha - international
  5. ord2
  6. mba08
  7. NehaGargi - international
  8. barijee
  9. mpy
  10. ObiKenobi
  11. xipo - international
  12. MBA33
  13. mba_2008
  14. puma- international
  15. blackbird_kj - international
  16. Basketball - international
  17. JCS - international
  18. hopefulgsb
  19. Keka
  20. HydPrkRanger
  21. Enigma
  22. PJHoo
  23. aquaguy.
  24. orangeMBA
  25. YANCC
  26. TNK
  27. aks_gupta
  28. Akash
  29. bub
All in all, I think my chances are pretty slim at this point. Being that only 550 or so kids are in each incoming class at Chicago, it would seem that only people of similar background as myself opting out of their Chicago acceptance would lead to my getting in. So if you're a white male engineer that got accepted at Chicago, consider deferring for a year, or going someplace else. It does get cold in Chicago :)

As far as silver linings go, the night before I found out I was still on the waitlist (after a day of not receiving a call from the admissions office while I knew such calls were going out) was some of the best sleep I've gotten in a long, long time. Not getting into school would also allow me to be much better off financially if and when I ever decide to go (and get in).

Monday, May 15, 2006

In Case Anyone Is Still Stupid (yes stupid) Enough to Believe in Supply-Side Economics

VOODOO!

The Return Of Voodoo Economics
Republicans Ignore Their Experts on The Cost of Tax Cuts

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, May 15, 2006; Page A17

Nobody serious believes that tax cuts pay for themselves, as I noted last week. But most senior Republicans flunk this test of seriousness.

In January, George W. Bush declared that, "by cutting the taxes on the American people, this economy is strong, and the overall tax revenues have hit at record levels." Regrettably, this endorsement of what his dad called voodoo economics was not a one-time oversight. The next month, Bush told a New Hampshire audience, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase."

Bush is not alone in this. Dick Cheney, allegedly a serious person, asserted in February that the "tax cuts have translated into higher federal revenues."

Bill Frist is sometimes taken seriously, not least by himself. And yet the Republican Senate leader is capable of saying: "Many people in Washington have long known a dirty little secret about tax-cut measures: When done right, they actually result in more money for the government."

Chuck Grassley chairs the Senate Finance Committee and ought to know about this stuff. But he mouths the following nonsense: "There is a mindset in both branches of government that if you reduce taxes you have a net loss, if you increase taxes you have a net gain, and history does not show that relationship."

And just last week Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) celebrated the extension of the Bush tax cuts by saying, "We've put these tax provisions in place and they've raised money."

Okay, so let's review this issue with the help of some experts. I'd like to cite Richard Kogan of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, because his work inspired this column. But to win over reasonable conservatives, I'm going to choose N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard, a proponent of tax cuts who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush White House. Mankiw is a top-notch economist hired by Bush and Cheney to advise them. And last year he published a paper on how far tax cuts pay for themselves, reporting enthusiastically that this self-financing effect is "surprisingly large."

How large, exactly? Mankiw reckons that over the long run (the long run being generous to his argument), cuts on capital taxes generate enough extra growth to pay for half of the lost revenue. Hello, Mr. President, that means that the other half of the lost revenue translates into bigger deficits. Mankiw also calculates that the comparable figure for cuts in taxes on wages is 17 percent. Yes, Mr. President, that means every $1 trillion in tax cuts is going to add $830 billion to the national debt.

Let's engage in what Bush might call the soft bigotry of low expectations and cut Republicans some slack. Hey, maybe they just overlooked that Mankiw paper? Or maybe, despite hiring Mankiw to head the Council of Economic Advisers, they later acquired reasons to doubt his judgment? In that case they should at least have listened to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, another conservative economist who worked in the Bush White House and who went on to run the Congressional Budget Office.

In a study published under Holtz-Eakin's direction last December, the CBO estimated the extent to which a 10 percent reduction in personal taxes might pay for itself. The conclusions confirm that the free-lunch mantra is just plain wrong. On the most optimistic assumptions it could muster, the CBO found that tax cuts would stimulate enough economic growth to replace 22 percent of lost revenue in the first five years and 32 percent in the second five. On pessimistic assumptions, the growth effects of tax cuts did nothing to offset revenue loss.

So Mankiw isn't with them. Holtz-Eakin isn't with them. Which raises a question: When top Republicans go around claiming that tax cuts pay for themselves, which economic authorities are they relying on? None, is the answer. These people's approach to government is to make economics up.

The Republicans' only argument is that tax receipts have boomed in the years since the 2003 tax cut. But the question is whether tax receipts increased because the tax cuts worked some kind of magic or because the economy was headed up anyway after the recession, thanks maybe to low interest rates resulting from the Asian savings glut. Friends, the reason we have economists is so that they can solve these puzzles for us. Ignoring their solutions is like ignoring the judgment of medical science in favor of faith healers and quacks.

Politicians are always speechifying about how the United States must lead the world in research to maintain its edge. But having the world's best economics research isn't particularly helpful if those same politicians are silly enough to tune it out. The truth is that American business excels at turning university research into world-beating products; the paranoia on this score is overdone. But American government is often lousy at turning research into policies. That's what we should fret about.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Pants-Off Dance-Off

While home last weekend, I got the rare opportunity of being in control of the remote (usually in my family, this requires a great amount of hardship) for a short while. What did I put on? VH-1 Classic, of course! However, even though VH-1 Classic is saluting metal all month, they were showing a live performance by Heart. I love Barracuda as much as the next guy (maybe even more), but I wasn't about to watch the entire live set.

I wondered what else was on. Flipping the channel up to Fuse I found the ridiculousness that is Pants-Off Dance-Off. I'd like to tell you that occasionally there are hot wimmens dancing and de-pantsing, but no. It is strictly for nasty women and overly gay men. It certainly made me laugh for quite some time, not for what it was, but rather that it was. The people at fuse are strange indeed. I think it is the duty of every twentysomething out there to gauge the reaction of their parents to pants-off dance-off. This is not the programming they've grown accustomed to.

Other notable things about my Florida trip:
  • I missed my flight out there on Friday morning, only to fly standby later and be given exit row seating. AirTran has no clue about customer service: I felt pretty guilty...until they sat the 6'4", 320 guy next to me for the first leg to Philly. This guy must love some wiz wit.
  • Missing said flight shortened my stay in Florida to about 60 hours total.
  • It certainly broke 90 degrees in Florida. After all, it's May.
  • If a man is going to drink on Friday night, and then play basketball Saturday morning, he should drink some water first! Especially if he is sadly out of shape or has not studied his Agrippa...which I haven't.
  • My sister done gragiated law school. I'm very proud, but know too many lawyers. This also means that I watched Sam Miller graduate law school.
  • Few things are as satisfying as sucking out quad aces to beat Weisberg's full house and then spending the rest of the tournament (which I won) reminding him that he's a good full-time dealer and that "I can't catch any cards tonight!"
  • Weisberg and Bup go to Goob's enough that the bartender there knows to pour a pitcher of Bud Light upon their arrival.
  • I was called a "petite sophisticate" in what I can only imagine was a complete abuse of both terms. I still can't figure this one out.
  • I tried venison for the first time. Tasty.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Early Frontrunner Halloween Costume

Intercontinental

It's been over a week since I've blogged. I was in South Florida (more on that later) taking in the sun and seeing my sister gragiate lawr skool. Since then, illimitable dominion has gone intercontinental (see map)! Who are you, reader off the coast of Morroco?

Nonetheless, to honor this occasion, I will post a picture of the most recognizable Intercontinental Champion from my youth as defined by the WWE (then WWF).



Ahhh...steroids and cocaine, together at last.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Every Breath Bernanke Takes

too funny. Some Columbia Business School (CBS) students made a video about how their dean, Glenn Hubbard, has responded to losing out on the Fed Chairman job to Ben Bernanke.

link