Reads to Start Your Week
By Barry Ritholtz - February 7th, 2011, 4:00PM
• Bond Market Flashes Inflation Warning (WSJ)
• Apple’s modern success story began with four investments made 10 years ago (Betanews)
• The trouble with tax reform (Economist)
• Commercial Real Estate Coming Back, but Unevenly (WSJ)
• The boy is mad,mad I tell you! Why I Write Books Even Though I’ve Lost Money on Every Book I’ve Written (Altucher)
• A Few Graphs Describing the Reagan Presidency (Presimetrics)
• The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology (New Yorker)
• How Twitter engineers outwitted Mubarak in one weekend (Guardian)
• National Treasure: Can anything explain the lunatic career of Nicolas Cage? (GQ)
• Negotiating and the FBI (The Browser)
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February 7th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
in line with my inner jerk needing to point out what i disagree with
the first is pretty lame
bonds flashing inflation warning?
while giving a bow to deficits they do not even look at the two yields pieces
inflation expectations vs real yields as split out by TIPS
much of the recent runup is real yields not inflation expectations
i should know im short TIPS and watching them go down
February 7th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
The Reagan charts are priceless! The takeaway? If you want a strong economy and a lower national debt, vote Democratic. If you hate jobs and love debt, vote Republican. And Reagan? Better than Carter by a statistically insignificant amount. Wonder what Rush thinks about that, when he’s not hopped up on Oxycontin?
February 7th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Re the negative Reagan piece…lies, damn lies and statistics…and Obama still wants to run on his coat tails and be more like him! …imitation is the best form of flattery!
~~~
BR: The data is what it is, and the fact that O wants to imitate RR is certainly not proof that Presimetrics data is inaccurate
February 7th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
What AHodge said: Folks betting that rising nominal yields necessarily mean bad news and/or are harbingers of inflation are more likely to lose money than otherwise.
Also agree with the sense of the Economist corporate tax reform article: Corporate tax rates are good for political flogging and grandstanding but reform is unlikely when so many corporations game the system and actually pay a lot less.
February 7th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Super Bowl XLV: 400 fans given boot from Super Bowl seats
http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=6096112&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines
Texas Engineering.
February 7th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
The Reagan charts disagree with the zeitgeist of the current “Republican” party. So . . . the charts must be wrong.
February 7th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
This is what I’m talking about, the continuing negative effects of Climate Change: Amazon Drought!
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/07/133462608/alarming-amazon-droughts-may-have-global-fallout
This is my feeling on climate change as well.
We’ve been very lucky it was Russia and not the Mid-West that first took a $17,000,000,000 hit, in their Wheat Market / Heat Wave disaster. This should have been a clear signal to the Republican party to kill the ability of oil and coal to have monopoly control over energy policy.
Then there was the Pakistani flood, Chinese mudslides, and now the Australian flood, the largest magnitude flood that continent has ever experienced.
This is the beginning of a new energy age, with Wind Power now as cheap as natural gas in many states, with none of the negative externalities of fracking, lost fresh water and cancer. We can cut back on coal and Mercury pollution, which is making birds gay, what’s it doing to us?
I’d think shareholders and management would see this as a time to act, but it’s all still politics.
February 7th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
ESPN On The Microsoft Xbox 360: Cutting The Cord Garners Even More Credibility
Posted by Brian Dipert on February 7, 2011
As regular readers may remember, I’m by no means a promoter of pay television providers. Although I remain baffled as to why the Super Bowl broadcast kept dropping out yesterday, given that the local Fox affiliate is the strongest signal at my locale, I’m still a fan of free-to-air ATSC. And online aggregators such as Hulu, assisted (willingly or not) by computer-based transcoders such as PlayOn, get additional content to my television that normally would require a cable, IPTV or satellite subscription.
As of two weekends back, you can add ESPN to my list. My girlfriend’s Pilates instructor is the spouse of Daron Rahlves, an accomplished downhill skier who, among other things, represented the United States in three Winter Olympics. Daron competed in the 2011 Winter X Games in Aspen, CO, sponsored by (and therefore broadcast by) ESPN. And while we might not normally have been able to catch Daron in action, due to my reluctance to write DirecTV, Dish Networks or Suddenlink a check for the privilege, I remembered (subsequent to Friday’s Skier X prelims but in time for Saturday’s finals…plus we also caught Shaun White’s gold medal Snowboard SuperPipe performance on Sunday) that I could alternatively ‘tune in’ to ESPN3 on my Xbox 360 via my Live Gold membership tier.
The video quality over my ~2 Mbps downstream DSL connection was passable, albeit not stellar. I suspect that ESPN’s mirroring the live and archive video feeds that it provides on its ESPN3 website, so the upscaled source resolution created plenty of artifacts on my 37″ LCD TV screen. Nonetheless, the presentations were certainly watchable, particularly considering the no-price status. And both the video and accompanying audio were glitch-free during the entire multi-hour timespan that I auditioned them.
Speaking of price, nit-pickers might point out that I didn’t truly get ESPN3 for free, since I had to drop some cash on an Xbox Live Gold membership. That’s true, strictly speaking, although ESPN3 isn’t the only Gold-versus-Silver perk. Even though Microsoft raised the yearly Gold pricetag to $59.99 just before the holidays, a 12-month subscription is still regularly available on sale for $40 or less. And strictly speaking, a Gold membership (or an Xbox 360, for that matter) isn’t even necessary, since PlayOn also provides access to ESPN3-served content albeit with a transcode-induced further decrease in quality.
p.s…You’re right, nit-pickers, PlayOn isn’t free, either…
http://mobile.edn.com/blog/Brian_s_Brain/40473-ESPN_On_The_Microsoft_Xbox_360_Cutting_The_Cord_Garners_Even_More_Credibility.php
maybe, BRIPTV via Xbox?
more seriously, EDN is a good source for understanding, more of, the “nuts & bolts” of things-Cyber..
February 7th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Arizona legislators consider birthright citizenship bill
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/02/07/arizona.citizenship/
End auto-citizenship for EVERYONE! You need to EARN your citizenship……by working HARD for sixty years – or more – then – AND ONLY THEN – will a board of white people gleaned from the Junior League and the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce decide if you’re eligible.
That’ll fix your so-called Medicare problem right there. Mr. We-Need-To-Raise-Taxes. And if you don’t agree with PDS you’re no American in my book: Anyone who uses mere statistics to denigrate the Great One is just plain wrong …You must remember he had to deal with a Democrat-controlled House …as well as a retrograde planetary situation, half the time.
~~~
BR: Doesn’t the constitution set the birthright citizenship?
Gee, these guys are pro-constitution only when it suits them.
February 7th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
no need for any description
http://baselinescenario.com/2011/02/07/to-blame-wall-street-for-the-financial-meltdown-is-absurd/
February 7th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-joe-saluzzi-high-frequency-trading-equity-market-now-controlled-machines
I’ve read a couple of articles that say High Frequency Trading is an accident ready to happen. It could make the Flash Crash seem like a very small pimple.
So would love to hear BR weigh in.. Maybe you could choose one of these thoughts on HFT or come up with your own.
1. HFT is a necessary thing that provides liquidity and any one that thinks negatively about HFT is a ludite.
2. HFT as anregulated game played by the big boys with an appropriate vig. No big deal it helps reduce the bid/ask spread and besides it only costs a few cents/trade.
3. HFT will blow up the US stock markets and will forever change stock markets and not for the good (especially for us small people, you know the 99% that are getting used to being screwed anyway).
February 7th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
WRT Arizona: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/05/joe_arpaio_takes_pic_with_neo-.php
If people don’t get the FACT that this is been driven by full on racist, then WTF…it seems as if Eisenhower was completely delusional. He came back from Europe believing that the Allies had defeated the Nazis. Not so much. Do the googly moogly (h/t to Cheap Trick lover Budak0n*) on Russell Pearce. Or look up the loonies who killed Brisenia Flores: http://www.alternet.org/immigration/140745/armed_radical_%27minutemen%27_kill_father_and_9-year-old_daughter_in_anti-immigrant_hate/
*His Gaelic curse from the other day stated something like: may the cat eat you and may the Craythur eat the cat.
February 7th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
I also recommend a look into: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength-division_multiplexing
And things having to do with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_photonics
Some interesting stuff out there that merits attention imho.
February 7th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Wisner- more of the same- we suspect that Mubarak is a monster- he’s our monster and we pay him to devour the defenseless and weak- oye Wisner- quien lo hereda no lo hurta, verdad? O sea del mojón, su hedor- like father like son-
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad02022011.html
“Wisner has a long lineage in the CIA family. His father, Frank Sr., helped overthrow Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran (1953), before he was undone in mysterious circumstances in 1965. Frank Jr. is well known around Langley, with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt’s support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt’s human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George H. W. Bush regime “refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt.” Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush’s son, George W. after 911, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy.”
February 7th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Here’s something to think about, how will Climate Change affect the US Breadbasket – the South and Mid-West?
We’ve had at least three (3) years of a Global Drought, you don’t hear about on the Rush Limbaugh show.
Here’s what’s happening in the Amazon.
http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3428
Is the US Next?
Why is Monsanto doing Nothing?
What happens if Farming in the US get’s Wiped out Next?
February 7th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
This map shows Water Shortages: Hydrological – H, and Agricultural Loses – A:
http://www.drought.unl.edu/DM/MONITOR.HTML
February 7th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Speaking of crime, how about the Wired Article on the person who figured out how to game the scratch lottery tickets – and told the gaming authority?
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1
February 7th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
How they’re dealing with Drought in Africa:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=farmers-in-sahel-beat-back-drought-and-climate-change-with-trees
See, drought in Africa, Not on the Evening News. Wonder why?
Anyway, a while back I heard a woman call into the Limbaugh show from Texas saying there was absolutely no drought. Yet, the map above shows much of Texas in a Severe Drought or Worse.
February 8th, 2011 at 7:10 am
You know, that article in the Guardian reminded me of something I’d forgotten: there is a point to landlines. Quite aside from being counted by polling companies, of course. . . .moron polling companies.
February 8th, 2011 at 7:14 am
Jim, it’s a very big state. You can be in a drought in the Western half of the state, and not in the Eastern half. Also, we tend to have 7 year and 20 year cycles, which are termed “drought” overall even though some of the years within the cycle are close to normal rainfall – it’s not enough to make up for the surrounding years with substantially below normal rainfall.
A very large portion of the population anywhere has absolutely NO education on climate and their surrounding environment. Most people can’t accurately name their surrounding habitat (I come from a semi-arid, subtropical pluvial plain — which I know because I was raised by a naturalist). And she was calling in to Limbaugh. . .but I won’t go there. Suffice it to say that there are a whole, whole lot of Americans who think that if it rains now and then it isn’t a drought. Your (and my) education dollars at work.
February 8th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
From Slate’s Timothy Noah re: how businesses control the process of regulatory rulemaking:
http://www.slate.com/id/2284228/