TED: Hans Rosling, Awesomest Lecture Ever!

Well, one of them.

I stumbled upon this TED talk as a related presentation from a presentation linked to in the comments on a previous post on statistics and homelessness.  And I’m very glad I did.

I am always blown away by how many professors and teachers that I’ve had over the years thought that either (a) the material being presented was intrinsically interesting enough that no dressing up was required; or (b) the kids are here with the option to learn, and they are free to choose not to.  I am here to teach those who choose to learn.  If they don’t make an effort, then they deserve what they get.

I was one of the kids who did NOT choose to learn for many of my courses (though this may sounds like a joke to Americans, I paid about $4,500CDN a year in tuition, and I felt that warranted some enthusiasm from Professors.  I felt ripped off and in my immaturity let an opportunity to get something out of my $4,500/year pass me by).

There were about four or five lecturers (out of maybe thirty?) who did consistently engage my classes and made the daily grind of university academics an absolute pleasure.  Some even had fan bases and referrals:  kids would bring friends in to sit in on lectures just for entertainment and enlightenment.  It made me want to become a Professor for a while (until I realized that my course of study, Psychology, was not for me… and neither was starting over in a discipline I might like more).

Well, Hans Rosling is in one of those rare equal splits between lecturer-entertainer-researcher.  And recognizes that the threshold to the obtaining, applying, and engaging of learning is a major impediment to broader learning and understanding.  And although it is a student’s job to learn, and a Professor’s job to teach, he makes sure he does all he can on his side (I wish I did the same on mine).

He engages his subject (misunderstanding of the relationship between health and wealth, at least in terms of the wealth of nations) with the enthusiasm of a horse race announcer during the last leg.  All the more impressive, coming from a 60 year old Swede, in English.  He accompanies his enthusiasm with an inquisitiveness perfectly matched, unbelievably, by his presentation material.

This is the first time in my life I have been impressed by a slideshow.  But that’s probably because I haven’t watched his second TED presentation yet.

Anyways, a fantastic presentation that I would recommend for anyone who cares about education.  And those who were in University, or teach, imagine if every lecture were like this one.  There’s no reason why every lecture can’t end with applause.  I had one professor achieve that distinction and there isn’t a single student of his who will forget his contribution and zeal.

… and the cow goes moo

The Ten Trillion Dollar Man!

I’m sure a million other people have used that title.  But I couldn’t think of a better one tonight.  Huge numbers make my head hurt.

Anyways, Calculated Risk has been predicting that George W. Bush would leave us with a $10,000,000,000,000.00 debt (doesn’t that make you head hurt a little?).  CR has two posts in the past 24 hours that give a bit of a progress update without going into a ton of detail (latest here.  Next to latest here).

I had made an estimate in a previous post that George, ever the procrastinator, would only reach $10 tril in his last days in office based on a projection using the value of $2.17 billion per day being added to the national debt in the past year.  Well Our President does not miss an opportunity to be misunderestimated.  At the very same site that showed a $2.17B per day growth average over the past year just six days ago, they now have $2.56B being added on in the past year!  The national debt has grown, according to their clock, by about $155 billion in the past six days (~$26 billion/day)!  WOW.  That is an unbelievable climb (though, as CR’s most recent post shows, some of it may be temporary).

The difference between $2.17B per day and $2.56B per day is $142.5B over 365.25 days.  That appears to be the difference in debt growth between the periods spanning September 20, 2007 –> September 25, 2007 and September 25, 2008 –> September 30, 2008.

Sorry for all this pointless math, but my brain is seriously damaged from seeing this.  I don’t even know what it means or if it means anything.  I just know that there are about 39 people spinning in their graves right now.

… and the cow goes moo

WSJ: $25 Loan to Detroit Automakers Practically a Done Deal

Article at the Wall Street Journal (found at Some Assembly Required).

Once again, I am embarassed to admit that I projected the automaker bailout for 2009.  But technically, I’m still right since we’ll probably have another $175 billion to $275 billion being sent to Detroit in 2009.  The Volt probably isn’t coming out until 2010 (if battery development isn’t too far behind schedule), and no one is buying any American cars between now and then.

Good timing on this one though.  The average taxpayer wouldn’t even spit at $25 billion at this point.  ‘Tis the season to be bailly.

… and the cow goes moo

Statistical Manipulation at it’s Finest: Care of HUD

Polizeros links to a Time article and provides a brief summary of its contents (visit Polizeros for the summary).  The change made to the counting process is much more defensible in the article, but suspicions certainly are still warranted.

Anyone else painfully tired of this shit?  We spend so much energy polishing shit that you have to wonder if we couldn’t have just solved the underlying problem instead.  Throughout work and recreation, I find myself constantly faced with the confused goals that have arisen when we became too comfortable with out method of measure.

I really do believe that this is the crisis of our times: The reliance on statistical aggregates and the confusion with progress on an indirect measuring tool with progress towards a goal.  And I say this fully aware that the world financial system is at risk of collapse.  I’m more worried about the continuing prevalance of statistical abuse and misuse.

… and the cow goes moo

NYT: Floyd Norris says oversight in revised TARP would mostly be Paulson overseeing himself

This is a must read.  I linked to it two posts down, but this article deserves better.

It’s is absolutely frightening how close the House came to deifying Paulson.  They literally added no oversight or control over the program, just enforced in writing that Paulson would have to let them watch as he exercised absolute power over the nation’s economy.  Congress doesn’t want oversight.  They don’t want to be responsible for the supervision of a program that is unlikely to help much.  They appear to have either been absolutely hypnotized by Paulson or going out of their way to make sure they can’t be held accountable for the bill’s guaranteed failure.  But they made sure to put some oversight-ish sounding language in the bill.

I hope everyone enjoys their sigh of relief after reading that, knowing that the bill failed to pass the House.  Though, of course, a similar incarnation will find its way back to being voted on, I’m sure.

… and the cow goes moo

UPDATE 2: No Good! Start Over! TARP Rejected in the Hizzouse!

Let’s hope they start from scratch anyways.  (Some of my thoughts on why they need a new bill from scratch here)

Globe and Mail (“Canada’s National Newspaper“!) story here.

There’s no doubt that one will be passed eventually, and the credit and stock markets will be frozen until they either announce the TARP, or until they announce there won’t be one…

Sounds like Republicans were the ones that kept this bill from passing (thank you, Republicans!).  I’ve noticed many commentators, more on the politics than the econ side, who speak about how many are unwilling to vote for this bill because they are concerned about damaging their re-election chances in November as if that’s a bad thing.  I’d say that’s the BEST thing about this bill:  It is forcing our leaders to operate with our opinion in mind.  They’re actually listening to their constituents rather than the corporate donors that would invariably benefit from any manifestation of the TARP!  This is a VICTORY for Democracy and I’m surprised so many see it as some sort of awful manifestation of political calculation.

That people, by and large, HATE this bill is not because they don’t believe the financial circumstances are perilous.  It’s because they see this bill as just another opportunity to take advantage of a stunned electorate to rob the nation to reward the rich, while eradicating none of the systemic problems that caused this crisis to arise, or reducing the odds that another crisis won’t arise shortly after. (UPDATE: Krugman’s latest article suggests that he expected that even had the TARP passed, we would still be looking down the barrel of future crises)

Congratulations to all those who fought this bill (I’m looking at you, Mish) and congratulations to the Members of the House from both parties that voted against this bill (regardless of the political calculations that were involved).  YOU DID YOUR JOB AND LISTENED TO YOUR CONSTITUENTS! I just wish you did it more often.

(Full disclosure:  I say this as an owner in shares of JPM.  I would have, without a doubt, made some cash if the TARP did pass.  But I’m much happier that it didn’t)

UPDATE 2:

Mish lists to an article in SFGate entitled “Many vulnerable lawmakers said ‘no’ to bailout” which goes into a bit more depth about which members of the House voted against the will of their constituents in support of the bill.

… and the cow goes moo (suck it, Paulson!)

UPDATE 2: It’s raining! Roll out the TARP!

… and I don’t even follow baseball anymore.

(WSJ article can be found here and I comment on it later in this post.  It sounds like the outline provided by Chris Dodd, more or less, days ago, based on the original Paulson proposal with some balances to protect taxpayer where the original only had the intention of protecting Paulson from any and all oversight.  The bill will be voted on by the House on Monday and the Senate later on in the week — I’ve heard Wednesday — but an agreement has been apparently reached over its contents)

I have been toying with writing a post about what I thought the purpose of the horrendous original Paulson proposal was, but all along I assumed some iteration of his proposal would be adopted at any moment so further criticism would be moot (skip the coming section if you feel it is moot at this point).

Now that I know there are a few hours until this becomes law, I guess this is my last chance to say anything.

The Paulson Plan!

I honestly believe it is far more likely that Paulson advanced a horrible proposal knowing it would be defeated more than expecting that Congress would be so shell-shocked and fearful that they would pass anything he advanced to them.  I believe it was expected to be rejected, but to set an extremely favourable starting point for negotations.

The wink-wink admission that losses would be accepted and expected over the few days since the proposal was advanced (up to the Bernanke “mark to maturity” pricing bit of marketing and rebranding) was probably known to be politically untenable.  Paulson should know that a better disguise would have to be put on a giveaway for elected representatives to be able to vote for it.

The conceit that Treasury should receive formal acknowledgement that it can not have ANY oversight was a clear impossibility, and Paulson attempted to retract it by saying he intended for the plan to have some oversight, it’s just that every single person in the world somehow mis-read his “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency” (also known as the “God calls me God” clause).

I believe he expected those tenets of the plan to be defeated, but that the languid body of Congress in limited time (especially limited by his, Bernanke’s, and Bush’s continual admonitions that the financial world is liable to collapse within hours if Henry Paulson’s hands remain tied) and with limited acumen to deal with the crisis (this has been officially a catastrophe for over a month, or far longer, depending on where you wish to set the criterion, and there apparently was no action by Congress except to say yes to anything the Fed or Treasury asked for, or just turn a blind eye when the Fed took actions that would appear to exceed their authority), that Congress would proceed from Paulson’s plan towards a somewhat less regal, but still clearly the progeny of, his brazen grab for control over the nation’s finances to benefit those he chooses.

Paulson reminds me of a car salesman who tells the potential buyer that the car’s sticker price is $700 billion.  And Congress responds “well, I’ll only pay $6.5!”

Of course, we can be relieved in the fact that this new bill does contain some measure of Congressional oversight.  Of course, Congress has had the authority to conduct oversight since day one (minus the flirtation with the original Paulson plan) and either opted not to use it, or was just incompetent in its exercise.  But Congress appears to know that, so:

“The bill leaves many mechanics of the operation up to the Treasury.”

UPDATE: Floyd Norris in the NYT has an article entitled “Treasury Would Emerge With Vast New Power”.  The ‘improved’ TARP only paid lip service to oversight.  It was up to Henry Paulson how much oversight he would like them to exercise.

And how about the dollar amount?  He doesn’t get $700 billion.  Right away.  But is pretty much gauranteed to receive as much as he wants (which has famously been stated as just a big number with no math behind it) for a number of reasons.  So the splitting of the funds is entirely for show.  You can bet that even if Goldman Sachs is trading at $280 and JP Morgan is trading at $60 at the start of 2009, another $350 billion will be ‘absolutely necessary’ to stop the ‘reversal of gains we’ve made in the past few months’.  Remember how the surge wasn’t really a surge but a permanent troop escalation?  Ya…  It takes a lot more balls to mess with something that appears to be working than Congress ever had.  Better yet:

“The Treasury wouldn’t get the entire $700 billion for purchasing such assets upfront. Just $350 billion would be immediately available. But the other $350 billion would be available unless Congress specifically holds it back.”

Sounds like they are writing it with the specific intent of not holding back the second $350 billion.  Why even bother pretending?  So Paulson got his $700 billion.  I guess we should be glad Congress didn’t throw another $7 billion of earmarks in there (yet).

Now: The ACTUAL plan! Diet Paulson!

Having said that I think Paulson just successfully manipulated Congress into providing him with powers and funds beyond what he would have had access to even back when he was heading Goldman Sachs, and allowed him fairly free reign over how to spend it and upon whom to show favour, here are a few responses about the contents of the WSJ article:

“One likely method of purchasing and pricing assets is a reverse auction. In this, firms would offer to sell securities at given prices, and the Treasury could buy the least expensive on offer. Institutions would presumably offer to sell at prices high enough to alleviate their woes but not so high they’d be passed over in favor of lower-priced offers.”

Since we’re trying to use Treasury razzmatazz to add luster to the securities and increase their value beyond what the market has discerned their value to be at the moment, doesn’t that encourage all institutions to introduce very high starting prices?  There doesn’t need to be a conspiracy if it serves all their best interests to sell at prices a bit higher than they’d really be willing to.  Otherwise the whole auction could perform a negative function to its stated purpose if the auction revealed exactly how desperate the institutions are and how lowly they value their assets.  The plan doesn’t function unless the Treasury overpays, and any oversight is cosmetic as “hold to maturity” pricing will guarantee the true value of the assets (and the amount of the handout) isn’t revealed until years later, after Paulson has returned to Goldman Sachs.  Seems like both seller and buyer have an interest in maintaining high auction prices.  The best way to increase investor confidence in assets would be pretend that market forces were at work to ascertain a price for them.  So the Treasury and the financial institutions will have to pretend they both don’t want the exact same thing as they both try to encourage high prices on the assets.

“I’m doing this for you as much as for me,” Mr. Paulson shot back [to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)]. “If we don’t do this, it’s coming down on all our heads.”

Oh, this plan isn’t just for Paulson, it’s for Schumer as well?  Then this all makes a lot of sense.  I imagine a number of grateful New York-based financial institutions and their employees will want to ensure Schumer is re-elected (or provided a high-paying post-Senate lobbying position).

“Passage is seen as likely, despite the measure’s unpopularity.”

Popularity isn’t really the best indicator of what is best for the country, but I’d say there are very legitimate reasons to hate this bill, beyond even the longterm market imbalance and moral hazard questions that arise with it.  Hopefully we’ll do better in the next “Bailout to End All Bailouts” (yes, I do expect more).

“I’m pleased that we’ve come to a result,” the Connecticut Democrat [Chris Dodd] said. “I think it’s dreadful that we had to come to this result.”

I think we can all sympathize.  Glad to hear that one of the most important figures in this plan thinks the bill he will vote in favour for this week is ‘dreadful’.

“The Treasury secretary, growing agitated at times, continually told members they needed to design a program that would work and that it made no sense to create a program if financial firms didn’t want to participate in it. “The situation is fragile,” he said repeatedly.”

He sure seems to be in a rush.  Then why is it every administration official (I’ll include Ben Bernanke in there) seemed to be so eager to downplay the threat until about two weeks ago?  I don’t know if I’d attribute this to Paulson’s intent, but it certainly seems like neglect at least.

“Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, became frustrated that Mr. Paulson appeared to be arguing for softer language on the executive-pay rules, arguing loudly that executives at these companies shouldn’t be handsomely paid.”

He certainly cares a lot about this executive compensation bit…  Doesn’t that show what’s wrong with the current arrangement?  That apparently executives would rather see their companies fail then give up their golden parachutes?  And we’re trying to … PROTECT… this policy?

“They agreed to a compromise under which any firm that sells more than $300 million of assets to Treasury wouldn’t be able to create new golden-parachute provisions for executives for the duration of the program.”

… How long is this program supposed to last???  Is anyone expected to be provided a golden-parachute provision and then leave the job all while this program is in effect?  Is this more cosmetics to act as if Congress actually has any problem with overpaid Wall Street executives (as opposed to just acknowledging the electorate has understandable distaste for it) [UPDATE 2: Looks like Naked Capitalism has a post agreeing with me that the changes are 'cosmetic']?  Not that I have a perfect understanding, or even close to that, but it sure sounds like there will be a lot of re-negotiating of contracts the day after the program is tapped out of money and closed if the program is only in effect for a short to medium term.  Which would mean the plan would have no impact on outrageous Alan-Fishman-like compensation.  Or the plan will be in effect for years and years, in which case the Treasury’s willingness to absorb the costs of holding illiquid assets and pay for them based on hypothetical future value will become a permanent fixture in banking profits.  Delightful.

“Mr. Paulson objected to language that would give a new oversight board power to control how the new program would be run. “All we’re talking about is having Groucho, Harpo, and Chico watching over Zeppo,” said Rep. Frank, before Democrats backed off.”

Well put, Mr. Frank. Some honesty remains in Congress.

… and the cow goes moo (if it please God-King Paulson)

NYT Op-Ed: Children of the (Vice) Presidential candidates in the military

I’ve heard thankfully little about whose child is in the military and who is the more patriotic or understanding of foreign affairs as a result of their child’s military service this campaign season (small mercies).  The New York Times skips past all the usual posturing that would precede the simple and obvious statements that need to be made by printing an Op-Ed John S.D. Eisenhower, “the only living presidential son to serve in combat while his father was in office”.

It is a surprisingly touching (or shocking), introspective, and insightful essay on the direct effects of a child of a member of the Executive serving in the front lines of a conventional war, or even the rear lines of our new unconventional wars.  I normally would offer a bit of a summary, but it is a short article and I would highly recommend those with any interest in the subject to read Mr. Eisenhower’s words directly.

Though I do have to wonder if ever were the worst to occur with John S.D. Eisenhower in Korea, and he was taken prisoner and used as a hostage in negotiations, would President Dwight Eisenhower’s resignation really change the arithmetic?  Would his Vice President (assuming he would ascend to office in this scenario), Richard Nixon, manage to divorce his decision making from the interests of the Eisenhower family?  Would the nation as a whole, should they become aware of the circumstances of the President’s resignation, allow Nixon to act with disregard for the life of the President’s son?

My questions about the scenario certainly do not conflict with John’s recommendation, summed up in the article’s title:  “Presidential Children Don’t Belong in Battle”

… and the cow goes moo

JP Morgan sells $10 billion in shares and will have a 3Qtr loss

Forbes article here.  It seems to say the stock sale has already occurred, but the way I read the official investor relations release, it will be closing September 30th?  Perhaps I am misinterpreting the official statement as I’m unfamiliar with reading these things.

I have my own theories about the JPM purchase of Washington Mutual (not that it was surprising per se, but the timing was odd.  I was wholly expecting — and warning bottom-fishing friends — that WM would fail a day later) but I’m not sure how this loss fits in, if it does at all.

The 11% bump JPM received on Friday after acquiring WM certainly should have helped the stock sale… Did they need the $10 billion in capital right away to afford the $30-$55B (or so) writedown from WM’s assets?  Or is Jamie Dimon just wise enough to sell stock at the likely peak, right after an enthusiastic acquisition?  But not to wait for the TARP to be put into effect instead?  This is all a little bizarre to me.  Especially with JPM already near their 52 week high.  It didn’t seem likely that they would have much trouble raising funds even if they waited for the TARP to be finalized (which seems definitely to be announced sometime this coming week).

Anyways, if anyone has any insight on this subject before I sink a portion of my savings into JPM, I’d appreciate it.

QUICK RIDICULOUS NOTE:

Quote from the end of the article:

“WaMu Chief Executive Alan Fishman joined the bank less than three weeks ago and received a $7.5 million signing bonus. His future with the company remained uncertain.”

I can’t predict his future with the company, but I do see that his hand will be really sore on Monday from all the high-fiving he’ll be doing this weekend.  $2.5m per week to watch a bank fail is worth chestbumping every stranger on the street for.  It’s probably the second best thing that could ever happen to a person.  The very best, of course, would be to get over $4m per week for watching a bank fail (Fishman could actually be in line to receive $6 million in cash severance on top of the $7.5 million signing bonus. He deserves it though.  It’s quite an adjustment for someone to make, having to leave after putting so much of your blood, sweat, and tears into a company for three weeks.  Even if the company fails and the stock falls 96+% in that time period, and experiences a deposit outflow of $16.7 billion in the past two weeks).

… and the cow goes moo

TDS: Jon Stewart Laughs at Biden’s idiocy!

Ha ha ha, great.  I love laughing at politicians, and I hate Joe Biden.  But on September 24, 2008 (Canadian clip can be found here, American episodes can be found here), in the first segment of his show, Jon goes over a couple of slip-ups that Joe Biden made on the campaign trail lately.  I found myself less than jubilant.

Jon shows a clip of Joe Biden saying on CBS News:

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened…”

Which is a silly statement to make, since televisions weren’t invented back then.  Oh wait, actually they were commercially available since the late 1930s and FDR was President until his death in 1945… Okay, so maybe that part isn’t so silly.  And FDR wasn’t president during the stock market crash of 1929, as he came into office in 1933 in the wake of the Great Depression.  So television wasn’t commercially available (though it had been invented) at the time of the stock market crash.  And FDR wasn’t President DURING the crash, but did help bring the nation out of the crisis that followed.  That’s funny, but not ‘ha ha’ funny.

Thank God, Jon had another Biden whopper for me.  Joe Biden is shown speaking about claims that Barack Obama will enact stricter gun laws, and referring to his own shotguns:

“I’ve got two and if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem”

The ever-astute gun aficionado Jon Stewart points out that the Beretta is a HANDGUN!  Silly East Coast Democrat Joe Biden trying to pander to the mid-western gun-loving vote by pretending to own shotguns!  Ha ha!  Oh wait, Beretta does make shotguns, among other types of guns in their fine and comprehensive line of firearms?  Apparently “Beretta is also well-known in hunting circles for their shotguns”.  Ooooh.  I guess Jon Stewart is probably more of a trick shooter than a member of the hunting set.  He was probably thinking of the very popular Beretta 92, a semi-automatic handgun which has become synonymous with the brand name to many, just as the recognizable Glock 17 and Glock 19 models are commonly just referred to as “Glocks” (Glock GmbH / Glock Inc. being the manufacturer) by casual observers.  Though it is funny that Joe Biden did make it sound like he was going to shoot Barack Obama with his BERETTA SHOTGUN if he tried to enact stricter gun regulations.  I guess it’d be funnier if Jon Stewart didn’t misinform a few million viewers into thinking Joseph Biden was full of shit and pandering to gun owners by clumsily pretending to own guns when he knows nothing about them.

Jon Stewart is the last person on television I thought would be unfamiliar with Wikipedia.  But not the last person on television I could think of that would misinform while slandering a public figure.  I haven’t watched any of his more recent episodes, but I am certainly not expecting a correction or an apology.

… and the cow goes moo