Agreed. Summary (and probably TFA, I didn't read it) is a bunch of FUD. I run Win7 on a VM, which is also running SQL Server and Visual Studio 2008, and I don't have any performance problems, despite allocating only 1 gig of RAM to the VM. There's no way in hell Vista can do that.
I believe the word Ahmadinejad used was actually "Zionists." Not all Jews are Zionists, and this would be consistent with the relative toleration of Jews in Iran.
The probability of accidentally getting it right at least 60% of the time with 118 trials is 2.6%, assuming an equal distribution of Republicans and Democrats. Not likely, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility. If I remember correctly, statisticians typically use 2.5% in a two-sided hypothesis test. I didn't RTFA, but it seems it could be too close to be able to declare statistical significance with just 118 trials. Then again, I might be butchering statistics, given it's been a few years.
if trade breaks down between the two, the USA can always find someone else to buy stuff from, sell food to, and sell (the fairly small percentage of total) government bonds to... not at as favorable rates as present, but enough to continue profiting from all three.
Who's going to sell stuff to us, when we have devalued our dollar to pay for our inability to finance our spending habits? Who is going to buy our bonds (at a non-extortionist rate) when the supply of our debt increases more and more every year? Even if it's a small percentage of our debt right now, we're still talking about financing trillions of dollars (the UST has to roll something like $3.5 trillion in maturing debt in the next three years...that's not including new spending). I don't think there is enough appetite for our debt to make that feasible, even if China keeps buying it.
Right now, China has to import food and energy. They sell crap to the U.S. for currency, and buy that food and energy with that same currency (they could exchange it, it doesn't matter). The seller of food and energy then uses that currency to purchase something from somebody else. China can simply cut the US out of the loop and directly export to the same countries from which they import. If an economy with N participating countries can function, so can an economy with N-1. That the US is the only country that imports cheap crap is totally arbitrary; they can shift resources to something else that the food producers want.
If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose.
That's not entirely true. Certainly the US loses if China quits financing American consumption, but the notion that they need someone to consume their goods in order to feed themselves is preposterous. They would certainly face a period of instability while they adjust to the idea of consuming their own products, but in the end, they have the manufacturing base now. They could, with a little effort (and a hit to their dollar-denominated assets, but that can be overcome), play both the role of producer and consumer, as America did for some time, but that would probably result in too much individual prosperity and the currently ignorant masses learning about individual liberty and questioning the authoritarian regime.
I agree, but that doesn't necessarily imply that it's wrong.
There are other articles related to Western China that would seem to indicate that the Chinese government is significantly affecting life in the interior.
Indeed, the Open Up the West campaign has intensified the long-term exploitation of the West as primary resource supplier for eastern development and increased the wealth disparity between the western regions and the eastern regions in China. For example, although the Chinese government has invested over 45 billion yuan on West-East Electricity Transfer Project (WEETP), most of the power generated is transmitted to the eastern regions instead invested in local development. It is fair to say that China’s campaign to “Open up the West” was mainly motivated by the eastern regions’ need for natural resources instead of the alleged goal of decreasing wealth disparity between the two regions.
I suppose they could land at the nearest airport, but I have a much better solution. Simply strap a parachute on the passenger, give him a brief overview of how a parachute is to be operated, and shove him out the door. And the passenger will also get lots of fresh, peanut-free air to breathe on the way down!
I shouldn't have said the Fed discount window; I meant the Federal Funds Rate, which is the rate at which banks lend out their reserves at the Fed to other banks (I believe the rate for the discount window right now is 1%). At a rate near 0%, it's very easy to buy long term liabilities and just keep rolling the short term debt. I suspect the ubiquity of this practice is what prompted the Fed today to issue their word of caution about interest rate risk.
Seriously, "20 cents on the dollar" is a major understatement. Due to arbitrage, those assets are never going to go lower than any reasonable estimate of what their real maturity value is. They will only get bid lower if there are real expectations that there will be more delinquencies.
The other reason they MUST make banks recognize assets at market value is because of leverage and deposits. Leverage, because their creditors need to have the right to force a margin call as per the contract terms that guarantee a certain profit (the large banks who pushed for the rule change had no problems issuing margin calls on smaller lenders and mortgage companies!). Deposits, because those banks have deposits guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayer that are backed by these securities. Why do you think the loss ratios have been so insanely high on many of the banks that have been seized by the FDIC this year? In other words, how is the FDIC supposed to know when a bank is insolvent if its assets aren't marked to market? In some cases, insolvent banks had overvalued their assets by as much as 30%. This has completely depleted the DIF, and our country is almost bankrupt now (it would have already defaulted if it hadn't raised the debt limit two weeks ago!), making it more difficult to guarantee deposits.
No, this nonsense about the credit markets is just what the banks sold you. Some of those banks were leveraged so far that a 5-10% decline in asset value would (and did) make them insolvent. And considering delinquency rates are far above 10% in some cases, it's not surprising that fair value on those assets would ruin them.
This is actually quite simple. The trick is to recognize gains as soon as possible, while waiting as long as possible to write off losses. This is the motivation behind FASB's rule change at the beginning of April 2009 (at the kind...er, suggestion...of the large banks) that allowed any asset marked as "held to maturity" to be valued at whatever they want (so long as it doesn't exceed the maturity value). That means that if 50% of your loan portfolio is delinquent and has no chance of ever accruing, you can put a label on it that says you'll hold it to maturity, and you don't have to recognize a 50% loss in your loan portfolio until 30 years down the road (so long as you don't foreclose on the debtors, of course). By simply waiting on the foreclosures, you can make billions off of free money from the Fed discount window (heck, you can even borrow that money from the Fed at 0%, and loan it right back to the federal government at 3%!), and rake in billions in "profits" (and bonus payouts). And then when your bills come rolling in, it doesn't matter that you have no income and all your assets are worth less than a Pontiac Silverdome... you've already cashed in your stock options. As they say, patience is a virtue!
Well, there was the joke part of it, but aside from that, it was just middling. No, I didn't hate watching it; I simply see no reason to ever watch it again. I'm just expressing disagreement with the OP (and others) that this movie merits repeat viewings.
That's funny, I never want to see it again. In fact, my roommate invited me to go along and watch Avatar with his group. I decided that staying home and watching Drag Me To Hell for free would be a better use of my time and money. And it was.
Yeah, I have no problem with a Chekhov's Gun every now and then, but they beat it into the ground. Another one I can think of is when they introduced the mobile facility in the floating mountains.
Ideally, it shouldn't be completely obvious to the audience that the plot element is there for no other reason than to facilitate a future plot element. Given that there are several of these, it seems the writers were a little too lazy.
During the part where Neytiri starts training John...er...Jake to appreciate nature, I actually thought they were going to break into singing "Colors of the Wind."
That's fine; this topic is not about the book, nor what Hawks' rant. They're both about the idea of a Boskop race. I think Hawks took care to point out that, like you said, he didn't read the book, but also that he was referring to the book because it is cited by the Discovery article. It seems that Hawks, Lynch, and Granger are all in agreement about the idea of the Boskop race; it's only the Discovery article that is supporting it.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Summary (and probably TFA, I didn't read it) is a bunch of FUD. I run Win7 on a VM, which is also running SQL Server and Visual Studio 2008, and I don't have any performance problems, despite allocating only 1 gig of RAM to the VM. There's no way in hell Vista can do that.
I believe the word Ahmadinejad used was actually "Zionists." Not all Jews are Zionists, and this would be consistent with the relative toleration of Jews in Iran.
The "punch" isn't due until tomorrow.
Unless it just leaked early. They wouldn't have that leakage problem if they just forced everybody to use the government's email service.
The moderators were right... That was funny!
The probability of accidentally getting it right at least 60% of the time with 118 trials is 2.6%, assuming an equal distribution of Republicans and Democrats. Not likely, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility. If I remember correctly, statisticians typically use 2.5% in a two-sided hypothesis test. I didn't RTFA, but it seems it could be too close to be able to declare statistical significance with just 118 trials. Then again, I might be butchering statistics, given it's been a few years.
What I meant to say is that any reference to the Python language is meaningless to me without the word "Iron" appended to the front.
No, you're not. I logged in just so I can make this same comment. I guess I've been working in .NET for too long...
Who's going to sell stuff to us, when we have devalued our dollar to pay for our inability to finance our spending habits? Who is going to buy our bonds (at a non-extortionist rate) when the supply of our debt increases more and more every year? Even if it's a small percentage of our debt right now, we're still talking about financing trillions of dollars (the UST has to roll something like $3.5 trillion in maturing debt in the next three years...that's not including new spending). I don't think there is enough appetite for our debt to make that feasible, even if China keeps buying it.
Right now, China has to import food and energy. They sell crap to the U.S. for currency, and buy that food and energy with that same currency (they could exchange it, it doesn't matter). The seller of food and energy then uses that currency to purchase something from somebody else. China can simply cut the US out of the loop and directly export to the same countries from which they import. If an economy with N participating countries can function, so can an economy with N-1. That the US is the only country that imports cheap crap is totally arbitrary; they can shift resources to something else that the food producers want.
That's not entirely true. Certainly the US loses if China quits financing American consumption, but the notion that they need someone to consume their goods in order to feed themselves is preposterous. They would certainly face a period of instability while they adjust to the idea of consuming their own products, but in the end, they have the manufacturing base now. They could, with a little effort (and a hit to their dollar-denominated assets, but that can be overcome), play both the role of producer and consumer, as America did for some time, but that would probably result in too much individual prosperity and the currently ignorant masses learning about individual liberty and questioning the authoritarian regime.
I agree, but that doesn't necessarily imply that it's wrong.
There are other articles related to Western China that would seem to indicate that the Chinese government is significantly affecting life in the interior.
I worry more about someone monitoring traffic through the proxy. The proxy here where I work is ridiculously intrusive.
I only have 35 friends.
I suppose that does make it easier to segregate out my 20 family members, 13 online acquaintances, and 2 real friends.
I suppose they could land at the nearest airport, but I have a much better solution. Simply strap a parachute on the passenger, give him a brief overview of how a parachute is to be operated, and shove him out the door. And the passenger will also get lots of fresh, peanut-free air to breathe on the way down!
I shouldn't have said the Fed discount window; I meant the Federal Funds Rate, which is the rate at which banks lend out their reserves at the Fed to other banks (I believe the rate for the discount window right now is 1%). At a rate near 0%, it's very easy to buy long term liabilities and just keep rolling the short term debt. I suspect the ubiquity of this practice is what prompted the Fed today to issue their word of caution about interest rate risk.
Mr. Paulson, is that you?
Seriously, "20 cents on the dollar" is a major understatement. Due to arbitrage, those assets are never going to go lower than any reasonable estimate of what their real maturity value is. They will only get bid lower if there are real expectations that there will be more delinquencies.
The other reason they MUST make banks recognize assets at market value is because of leverage and deposits. Leverage, because their creditors need to have the right to force a margin call as per the contract terms that guarantee a certain profit (the large banks who pushed for the rule change had no problems issuing margin calls on smaller lenders and mortgage companies!). Deposits, because those banks have deposits guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayer that are backed by these securities. Why do you think the loss ratios have been so insanely high on many of the banks that have been seized by the FDIC this year? In other words, how is the FDIC supposed to know when a bank is insolvent if its assets aren't marked to market? In some cases, insolvent banks had overvalued their assets by as much as 30%. This has completely depleted the DIF, and our country is almost bankrupt now (it would have already defaulted if it hadn't raised the debt limit two weeks ago!), making it more difficult to guarantee deposits.
No, this nonsense about the credit markets is just what the banks sold you. Some of those banks were leveraged so far that a 5-10% decline in asset value would (and did) make them insolvent. And considering delinquency rates are far above 10% in some cases, it's not surprising that fair value on those assets would ruin them.
This is actually quite simple. The trick is to recognize gains as soon as possible, while waiting as long as possible to write off losses. This is the motivation behind FASB's rule change at the beginning of April 2009 (at the kind...er, suggestion...of the large banks) that allowed any asset marked as "held to maturity" to be valued at whatever they want (so long as it doesn't exceed the maturity value). That means that if 50% of your loan portfolio is delinquent and has no chance of ever accruing, you can put a label on it that says you'll hold it to maturity, and you don't have to recognize a 50% loss in your loan portfolio until 30 years down the road (so long as you don't foreclose on the debtors, of course). By simply waiting on the foreclosures, you can make billions off of free money from the Fed discount window (heck, you can even borrow that money from the Fed at 0%, and loan it right back to the federal government at 3%!), and rake in billions in "profits" (and bonus payouts). And then when your bills come rolling in, it doesn't matter that you have no income and all your assets are worth less than a Pontiac Silverdome... you've already cashed in your stock options. As they say, patience is a virtue!
Even if you do work in finance IT, what are the chances that you get to actually develop new financial formulas on your own?
At least they weren't using "Police Squad!"
Well, there was the joke part of it, but aside from that, it was just middling. No, I didn't hate watching it; I simply see no reason to ever watch it again. I'm just expressing disagreement with the OP (and others) that this movie merits repeat viewings.
That's funny, I never want to see it again. In fact, my roommate invited me to go along and watch Avatar with his group. I decided that staying home and watching Drag Me To Hell for free would be a better use of my time and money. And it was.
Yeah, I have no problem with a Chekhov's Gun every now and then, but they beat it into the ground. Another one I can think of is when they introduced the mobile facility in the floating mountains.
Ideally, it shouldn't be completely obvious to the audience that the plot element is there for no other reason than to facilitate a future plot element. Given that there are several of these, it seems the writers were a little too lazy.
"they spent almost 47 dollars on the script"
They might consider asking for a refund.
During the part where Neytiri starts training John...er...Jake to appreciate nature, I actually thought they were going to break into singing "Colors of the Wind."
That's fine; this topic is not about the book, nor what Hawks' rant. They're both about the idea of a Boskop race. I think Hawks took care to point out that, like you said, he didn't read the book, but also that he was referring to the book because it is cited by the Discovery article. It seems that Hawks, Lynch, and Granger are all in agreement about the idea of the Boskop race; it's only the Discovery article that is supporting it.