Jan 18, 2010
Jan 17, 2010
Who Do You Trust?
My oldest is on some kind of list, and it makes things just that much more difficult for the whole family every time we fly. We've been told he's on this list, but nobody will tell us what it is or what we can do about it.
On the one hand, it seems nice for an onerous government agency to offer a way to fix problems. But what if they're just gathering more info on people to use it against us?
Where are the Reaganites? Why are the Teabaggers and Libertarians not attacking TSA as an example of "Government's Not The Solution, It's The Problem"?
Just tho't I'd throw ya a little extra paranoia today - enjoy.
TSA - Travelers Redress Inquiry Program
On the one hand, it seems nice for an onerous government agency to offer a way to fix problems. But what if they're just gathering more info on people to use it against us?
Where are the Reaganites? Why are the Teabaggers and Libertarians not attacking TSA as an example of "Government's Not The Solution, It's The Problem"?
Just tho't I'd throw ya a little extra paranoia today - enjoy.
TSA - Travelers Redress Inquiry Program
Jan 15, 2010
Ten Years Of Hell
More from Calculated Risk.
Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in December. The gain primarily resulted from an increase of 5.9 percent in electric and gas utilities due to unseasonably cold weather. Manufacturing production edged down 0.1 percent, while the output of mines rose 0.2 percent. The change in the overall index was revised up in October, but it was revised down in November; for the fourth quarter as a whole, total industrial production increased at an annual rate of 7.0 percent. At 100.3 percent of its 2002 average, output in December was 2.0 percent below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for total industry edged up to 72.0 percent in December, a rate 8.9 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 to 2008.
Industrial production increased 0.6 percent in December. The gain primarily resulted from an increase of 5.9 percent in electric and gas utilities due to unseasonably cold weather. Manufacturing production edged down 0.1 percent, while the output of mines rose 0.2 percent. The change in the overall index was revised up in October, but it was revised down in November; for the fourth quarter as a whole, total industrial production increased at an annual rate of 7.0 percent. At 100.3 percent of its 2002 average, output in December was 2.0 percent below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for total industry edged up to 72.0 percent in December, a rate 8.9 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 to 2008.
It continues to be a hard place to find - the space between having to sell confidence in the system, and the need to tell the truth about how things really are.
Ten Years Of Hell
I don't know what exactly we need to do to fix the economy, but here's another indication that there are some real problems (in this case, it's mortgages and loan modification at JP Morgan). This particular difficulty seems to stem from the tendency of large organizations to become disconnected from the people they are supposed to be all about.
From Calculated Risk, here's Jamie Dimon on why it's hard to get through all of the adjustments to their borrowers' mortgages:
"We have not thought of a better way to do it than loan by loan, which is does the person want to live there, can they afford to live there, and we really think that the payment, how much you're paying is more important than principal. Even if you are going to do something on principal, to do it right you have to do it loan by loan and it effectively comes a similar kind of thing. The difficulty is the loan by loan part and we've asked the government and I think they tried to streamline a little bit to have programs because there's too much paperwork involved in it so a lot of the reasons we're not getting to final modifications half the time we don't finish the paperwork, so they need the lower payments but they weren't finishing the paperwork so we're trying to get better at it, honestly, we rack our brains to figure out if there's a better way to do it and you can do it more macro than loan by loan but once you start talking about macro, you're going to get involved in a lot of issues about whether the people live there, whether they have the ability to pay, whether they were honest when they first told people how much their incomes were, so we're working through it."
Administering such a huge number of loans one by one (micro) is not manageable, so you have to take them in batches (macro). But you can't really bundle them together because then you can't pick out the 'good ones' from the 'bad ones'.
Inadvertently or otherwise, these guys keep making the argument in favor of breaking up the big houses, and we keep ignoring the necessity of doing just that.
From Calculated Risk, here's Jamie Dimon on why it's hard to get through all of the adjustments to their borrowers' mortgages:
"We have not thought of a better way to do it than loan by loan, which is does the person want to live there, can they afford to live there, and we really think that the payment, how much you're paying is more important than principal. Even if you are going to do something on principal, to do it right you have to do it loan by loan and it effectively comes a similar kind of thing. The difficulty is the loan by loan part and we've asked the government and I think they tried to streamline a little bit to have programs because there's too much paperwork involved in it so a lot of the reasons we're not getting to final modifications half the time we don't finish the paperwork, so they need the lower payments but they weren't finishing the paperwork so we're trying to get better at it, honestly, we rack our brains to figure out if there's a better way to do it and you can do it more macro than loan by loan but once you start talking about macro, you're going to get involved in a lot of issues about whether the people live there, whether they have the ability to pay, whether they were honest when they first told people how much their incomes were, so we're working through it."
Administering such a huge number of loans one by one (micro) is not manageable, so you have to take them in batches (macro). But you can't really bundle them together because then you can't pick out the 'good ones' from the 'bad ones'.
Inadvertently or otherwise, these guys keep making the argument in favor of breaking up the big houses, and we keep ignoring the necessity of doing just that.
Chalk Up Another One For Obama
The President just keeps moving (stumbling?) forward. The Nobel Committee threw the Peace Prize at him because they think he's at least trying to undo some of the damage of George & Dick's Odious Adventure, and now The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved their Doomsday Clock back one minute, acknowledging Obama's approach to - and initial successes with - the problems of proliferation.
“A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government’s orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Let the wild rumpus start!
He'd better have lots of people keeping track of everything he's doing to warrant the accolades, and those people had better be really good at packaging the pluses into good campaign ads.
“A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government’s orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Let the wild rumpus start!
He'd better have lots of people keeping track of everything he's doing to warrant the accolades, and those people had better be really good at packaging the pluses into good campaign ads.
Jan 14, 2010
A Poem
Stay with it; the payoff is pretty interesting.
Of Says His
Three words. He can’t get them out of his head:
“of says his.” Those are the words, but those aren’t
the words. Something is not right—the order.
“His says of.” No, the other order was
better, closer somehow. “Of says his.” This
order is right, but it doesn’t make sense.
He decides to take a break, think new words:
“At ten, I shall shun the edifice.” Yes,
but what does it mean? The edifice is
clearly a symbol, representative
of some other word, some other concept.
Edifice (of says his) is a building.
Building what? This is a construction, but
what are the materials, the foundation?
How large is this, and how solid? But these
thoughts are somehow also wrong, straying from
what he is trying to grasp, which is what?
“Of says his.” This is the key. This order.
And “at ten I shall shun the edifice”
is also this order. He can’t let go
of these thoughts. It is like a compulsion.
Yes! That’s it! “Compulsion.” It still doesn’t
make sense, but it seems to fit together:
“Of says his.” “Compulsion.” “At ten I shun
the edifice.” This order. This order.
“Of says his compulsion. At ten shun the
edifice.” This order. Yes. “Of says his
compulsion. A tension, the visit.” This
order. “Of says his compulsive. Tension
deaf visit.” This order. Yes. “Of-says-his
compulsive a-tension deaf-visit this-
order.” He is very close to it now.
“of says his.” Those are the words, but those aren’t
the words. Something is not right—the order.
“His says of.” No, the other order was
better, closer somehow. “Of says his.” This
order is right, but it doesn’t make sense.
He decides to take a break, think new words:
“At ten, I shall shun the edifice.” Yes,
but what does it mean? The edifice is
clearly a symbol, representative
of some other word, some other concept.
Edifice (of says his) is a building.
Building what? This is a construction, but
what are the materials, the foundation?
How large is this, and how solid? But these
thoughts are somehow also wrong, straying from
what he is trying to grasp, which is what?
“Of says his.” This is the key. This order.
And “at ten I shall shun the edifice”
is also this order. He can’t let go
of these thoughts. It is like a compulsion.
Yes! That’s it! “Compulsion.” It still doesn’t
make sense, but it seems to fit together:
“Of says his.” “Compulsion.” “At ten I shun
the edifice.” This order. This order.
“Of says his compulsion. At ten shun the
edifice.” This order. Yes. “Of says his
compulsion. A tension, the visit.” This
order. “Of says his compulsive. Tension
deaf visit.” This order. Yes. “Of-says-his
compulsive a-tension deaf-visit this-
order.” He is very close to it now.
- Kelly Talbot, Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 56 No. 4, Summer 2006
Jan 13, 2010
Cuz Freedom Ain't Free, Bitch!
Maybe we're starting to see some movement away from the usual panic - even tho' the Cheneys have been trying valiantly to get us to lose our shit every time something scary happens.
David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy has a great take on it.
Obama's reaction to the junkbomber incident was precisely right and just what you want from a leader: Dispassionate, thoughtful, and calculated. He gave his team the time to assess the threat, the breaches and the right next steps to take. At least one person in the United States, Barack Obama, seemed to recognize that the objective of terrorism is to promote terror and sought to defuse that effort by handling the threat with the proportionality and common sense that has long been missing from U.S. counterterrorism strategy.
-and-
(The Republican Party has the collective cool on these matters of Prissy helping to birth Melanie's baby in Gone With the Wind. As for the media, given that the "news" networks probably devoted more live news coverage to the balloon boy hoax than were devoted to say, the invasion of Normandy, you recognize that they are actually in the business of emotional over-reaction. In fact, their constant refrain that every event is an earth-shattering pinnacle of human experience that could well be the biggest thing they have ever seen suggests they have more in common with folks in say, Ashley Dupre's line of work than that of, say, a journalist.)
David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy has a great take on it.
Obama's reaction to the junkbomber incident was precisely right and just what you want from a leader: Dispassionate, thoughtful, and calculated. He gave his team the time to assess the threat, the breaches and the right next steps to take. At least one person in the United States, Barack Obama, seemed to recognize that the objective of terrorism is to promote terror and sought to defuse that effort by handling the threat with the proportionality and common sense that has long been missing from U.S. counterterrorism strategy.
-and-
(The Republican Party has the collective cool on these matters of Prissy helping to birth Melanie's baby in Gone With the Wind. As for the media, given that the "news" networks probably devoted more live news coverage to the balloon boy hoax than were devoted to say, the invasion of Normandy, you recognize that they are actually in the business of emotional over-reaction. In fact, their constant refrain that every event is an earth-shattering pinnacle of human experience that could well be the biggest thing they have ever seen suggests they have more in common with folks in say, Ashley Dupre's line of work than that of, say, a journalist.)
ej-i-kay-shun
A lovely story in NYT.
The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors what has happened in many of the 26 states that have adopted high school exit exams. As deadlines approached for schools to start making passage of the exams a requirement for graduation, and practice tests indicated that large numbers of students would fail, many states softened standards, delayed the requirement or added alternative paths to a diploma.
People who have studied the exams, which affect two-thirds of the nation’s public school students, say they often fall short of officials’ ambitious goals.
“The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
“The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate,” Professor Warren added, “but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school.”
A school oughta be a palace, and a really good teacher oughta be able to make as much as a really good car salesman. But we've come under some kind of spell. It's like we believe we're entitled to a bargain; that we can get Honda quality paying Yugo prices; that everything can be shoe-horned into the Wal-Mart model. We jump up and down and scream about "bad schools", but we refuse even to consider the probability that our policy decisions of the last 25 years are killing the schools that we claim we're trying to help.
This shit's expensive, guys. And for those who insist that we used to do just fine without spending so much money; people who point out that we spend x% more now per-student (adjusted for inflation) and we're still not getting the performance we need, blah blah blah? BULLSHIT. Take a look at some of things schools have to buy now that they didn't have to buy 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. Computers, Network Servers and Infrastructure, Internet Access, CCTV, Metal Detectors, Private Security, Messaging Systems, and and and. Now add in the costs of Subscriptions and Software and Maintenance; plus the fact that most of the hardware has to be replaced every 4 or 5 years, plus the software has to be updated/upgraded every year or 2.
Ya want a better, stronger economy? Ya want better national security? Then you make the kind of investment in education that you make in any other business. But you have to start by gettin' your head outa your ass.
The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors what has happened in many of the 26 states that have adopted high school exit exams. As deadlines approached for schools to start making passage of the exams a requirement for graduation, and practice tests indicated that large numbers of students would fail, many states softened standards, delayed the requirement or added alternative paths to a diploma.
People who have studied the exams, which affect two-thirds of the nation’s public school students, say they often fall short of officials’ ambitious goals.
“The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
“The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate,” Professor Warren added, “but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school.”
A school oughta be a palace, and a really good teacher oughta be able to make as much as a really good car salesman. But we've come under some kind of spell. It's like we believe we're entitled to a bargain; that we can get Honda quality paying Yugo prices; that everything can be shoe-horned into the Wal-Mart model. We jump up and down and scream about "bad schools", but we refuse even to consider the probability that our policy decisions of the last 25 years are killing the schools that we claim we're trying to help.
This shit's expensive, guys. And for those who insist that we used to do just fine without spending so much money; people who point out that we spend x% more now per-student (adjusted for inflation) and we're still not getting the performance we need, blah blah blah? BULLSHIT. Take a look at some of things schools have to buy now that they didn't have to buy 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. Computers, Network Servers and Infrastructure, Internet Access, CCTV, Metal Detectors, Private Security, Messaging Systems, and and and. Now add in the costs of Subscriptions and Software and Maintenance; plus the fact that most of the hardware has to be replaced every 4 or 5 years, plus the software has to be updated/upgraded every year or 2.
Ya want a better, stronger economy? Ya want better national security? Then you make the kind of investment in education that you make in any other business. But you have to start by gettin' your head outa your ass.
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