Happy to be wrong, but really don't think self-driving cars will ever really work as they would be required to absent massive reconfiguring of our infrastructure.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Stupid Transit Tricks
They spent a bunch of money building a tunnel to the stadiums, then didn't think that maybe they should stack trains for the inevitable post-game demand.
Not sure how anyone can be that stupid. My local transit authority is hilariously inept, but even they know to have a bunch of subway trains waiting when there are events at the stadium complex.
Not sure how anyone can be that stupid. My local transit authority is hilariously inept, but even they know to have a bunch of subway trains waiting when there are events at the stadium complex.
Has It Been 3 Years Already
It's been 3 years since the federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25, with no inflation indexing. If it had been indexed to the CPI it'd be up to $7.78 now. Annually, working 40 hrs./week and 50 weeks per year, that's the difference between $14,500 and $15,560.
Counterparties
DDay interviews Elizabeth Warren:
Warren: I think that many people just weren’t aware that Jamie Dimon was advising the New York Federal Reserve. So part of this conversation is just having a lot of people say, “What?” More broadly, Jamie Dimon should resign, but it’s also time to look at the structure of the New York Fed.It's a little easier to be the Best Big Banker in America when you're regulating yourself.
FDL News: Of all the regional Fed banks, no?
Warren: All of them, certainly, but let’s remember. The New York Fed decided to bail out AIG, and they set the terms for that bailout. When I was at the COP, we did a massive investigation to understand the process that the New York Fed went through. How they decided not just to bail out AIG, but to pay the counter-parties 100%. I’m sure you remember my questioning of a certain Secretary of the Treasury on that matter. The point is remembering the origin of that as coming from the New York Fed. The basic decisions and execution were shaped by NYFed. So Jamie Dimon should not sit in a position of responsibility, advising that bank, when there’s so much at stake.
What Happens When People Don't Have Any Money
The complete failure of Our Galtian Overlords to run the world properly, even, to some degree, to run it properly for their benefit (not a complete failure here, obviously), is in part due to their inability to comprehend what it's like to not have any money. Or, frankly, to not understand what it's like to exist on "only" $50,000 per year.
I didn't know what would happen with the housing bubble, and I didn't know about all the securitization games, but I did know we had a tremendous housing bubble simply because I knew there was no way so many people could afford $800,000 homes in Riverside and elsewhere.
They want people to be poor and broke and suffering and still paying off their loans and buying their crap. I do not know how this is supposed to work.
I didn't know what would happen with the housing bubble, and I didn't know about all the securitization games, but I did know we had a tremendous housing bubble simply because I knew there was no way so many people could afford $800,000 homes in Riverside and elsewhere.
They want people to be poor and broke and suffering and still paying off their loans and buying their crap. I do not know how this is supposed to work.
There Is Already A Crisis
I keep reading about the potential magnitude of the 'crisis' if Greece leaves the Euro.
There is already a crisis. 20%+ unemployment.
There is already a crisis. 20%+ unemployment.
Nobody Could Have Predicted
I assumed that the only reason they announced it was because it might be much worse...
Better give them some more free money. Who knows, maybe we already have.
The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank’s initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.
Better give them some more free money. Who knows, maybe we already have.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Once It's Gone...
Greece might want to... have to... institute capital controls before it's too late.
Money has been fleeing Greece ever since the country’s debt crisis began more than two and a half years ago. But the outflow has picked up velocity since last week’s election, when the elevation of anti-austerity leftist parties in Parliament raised the specter in international financial markets of a Greek default. At a time when Greek’s banking system needs all the help it can get from the rest of Europe, its own depositors are making the banks weaker by the day.
An average of 4 billion euros, or $5.1 billion, has flowed out of Greece every month since 2009, when the European debt crisis first broke open.
Everybody's Fault But Mine
One of the joys of the world economy is that Our Galtian Overlords get to blame everybody else for things going wrong.
By his own estimates the recovery really isn't even absent a total crisis.
Still he's right about this:
The question all along has been who gets to suck on it? The rich assholes who did it or the rest of us. Mostly the answer has been the rest of us.
Sir Mervyn King is warning now that the eurozone crisis is the single biggest threat to Britain's recovery from recession.
Indeed, a disorderly break-up of the eurozone would be so catastrophic that the Bank of England continues to exclude it from its forecasts. But even without it, the Bank now believes that the UK will only grow by around 0.8% this year (down from 1.2% previously).
By his own estimates the recovery really isn't even absent a total crisis.
Still he's right about this:
Governor King said that the most depressing thing about the crisis is that politicians keep treating the crisis as a liquidity problem, when the real crisis is about solvency.
The question all along has been who gets to suck on it? The rich assholes who did it or the rest of us. Mostly the answer has been the rest of us.
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