Stopping early with links… I have to go to the Levy Institute Minsky Conference to see Steve Waldman speak, and I need to turn in.
Superbugs may have found their match in manuka bees The Independent; h/t May S.
Graves of Diseased Animals Spur Shift to Evian in S. Korea Bloomberg
Press bandwagon on antidepressants makes for depressing reading The Guardian; h/t Peter M.
Some market discipline for economists The Guardian
Economic ideologies Macrobusiness
Wrong-footed economists in interest rate blind panic The Daily Telegraph
U.S. Economic Optimism Plummets in March Gallup; h/t Furzy Mouse.
Yellen’ won’t help Macrobusiness: a commodity exporter’s view of the Fed.
Anarchy in the UK? That depends on how you handle the numbers The Guardian. Goldacre again. Two simple ways to obfuscate with numbers.
Bloggers take legal action over Huffington Post sale The Guardian.
JPMorgan Ex-Structured Product CDO Head Llodra May Face SEC Suit A little more news seeps out about JP Morgan and Magnetar.
The Timeline of Magnetar’s Deals Propublica, h/t TJA.
Manhattan DA Investigates Bear Stearns Mortgage Traders The Atlantic. H/t TJA.
The nightmare of taking on ‘too big to fail’ FT, John Kay.
Deutsche Maneuvers Around New Law WSJ. Goodness, a loophole in Dodd-Frank.
Tech snafu, improper foreclosure affidavit lead to sanctions for LPS Housing Wire’s spin on our story today. Regular NC readers may not be very surprised to hear that we expect more “Tech snafus” to surface. Ooh, here’s one, for instance. H/t TJA.
APRA Special: Observations on Fukushima Daiichi. Atomic Power Review. A bit late to post this (Fukushima’s now officially a “7” on the disaster scale, like Chernobyl), but interesting to see the insiders grinding their teeth at the range of mistakes; h/t Crocodile Chuck.
Antidote du jour:
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“I have to go to the Levy Institute Minsky Conference to see Steve Waldman speak, and I need to turn in.”
You guys should host this sort of stuff. Get a recording on a handycam; upload to YouTube and stick it in the link. I’m sure that I’m not the only one that would be interested…
Cat and Blue Jay Haiku
Kittens, stay in. The
hostile Jays are back; danger?
Aerial attack!
That’s good.
Here is a Haiku about Haiku:
If you can’t say it
in seventeen syllables,
do not say it then!
(Maybe just at least once a day. Haiku-ize your writing!)
Eighteen? Seppuku!
An extra syllable?
Whetted Katanas await
foolish samurai!
Maybe some Middle East links later?
I feel revolutions are like surgeries and as post-surgery care is critical, any good doctor would tell you, we have to be especially watchful now (the Yin or the invisible phase) in a couple of countries over there.
If you are not vigilant, a revolution can easily be stolen by thieves, like bacteria taking over a wound. You know who they are. They were amongst the protestors…probably shouting the loudest, during the Yan or the visible phase.
Yes, check out the charts and then check out their axes. They are not proportional– that is, what looks like a lockstep correlation is simply graphic distortion.
Damn. The reply was meant for curlydan below.
Interesting monthly charts and correlations between the S&P/Aussie Dollar vs the Fed Balance Sheet since the beginning of 2009 in the Macrobusiness article. Check it out.
Hot off the presses: the FED is issuing enforcement actions against all the major banks and in addition singles out MERS and LPS (and makes specific reference to DOCX) to get their act together regarding mortgage servicing and foreclosures. Is it window dressing, is it going to be ignored or is it going to result in positive changes?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/enforcement/20110413a.htm
Wow. The Fed just blinked.
Don’t doubt for a second, however, that this is anything but a cover-up. They will throw LPS under the same bus a Rajat Gupta and Angelo Mozilo.
But what’s the Fed’s next move? Even if they push this in the media as they’re doing something about the problem, this won’t stop people talking about lynching bankers. People are still losing their homes. The old saw about people staying home on election day and watching TV doesn’t mean anything to someone with neither a home nor a TV.
NY Governor Cuomo has vetoed $1.5M for foreclosure defense in the budget (was cut from $15M in negotiations). Most NFP FC defense will now have to be shut down in NY.
http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/morning_call/2011/04/cuomo-vetos-pay-for-foreclosure.html
Bird sits and surveys
On a twig christmatised by snow:
Cardworthy scene.
The latest Matt Taibbi piece is out. It takes a look at some interesting results coming out of the partial auditing of the Fed.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411
My favorite bits of irony:
+funding foreign automakers while limiting the bailout of our own+
+funding Quadaffi and paying for it by looting people’s pensions and healthcare+
+welfare for the super rich to the tune of 3 trillion just for GS and Morgan Stanley, while slashing welfare for everyone else+
Transformation: Jesus, Sin, Atonement, & Anxiety
First comes the attempt to fix the past, with knowledge of its mistakes, turning the behavior into an obsession, which is then followed by guilt and anxiety in order. You cannot fix the past, except by moving forward through the looking glass, because the future always has new variables and is always becoming the present, along the timeline of quantum physics.
If the last handler on the assembly line makes a mistake (just fix it), and responds to a complaint by moving to the forward station, the error on the assembly line is compounded. You cannot atone for your own mistakes, which are a function of historical behavior programs on the stack; others must do that for you. You just need a feedback system to provide all with the opportunity to learn from the mistake. The example of Jesus is the one and only way, which is why civil property marriage beyond the legacy nucleus is always such a colossal failure.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat … I was in prison and you came to me.” If you wait for any authority to solve these problems, you have no one to blame but yourself for being subjected to the yoke. “First they came for…”
“All those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them all, as everyone might have need.” Look at the difference between what any authority (govt, corp, church, non-profit) says and what it does. There is no more of God in a church than in a splinter of wood. You cannot find God through authority.
Asking how can I help you helps yourself. You need 2 + 2 to add up to much, much more than 4, to escape the black hole / lust for material possessions, which is conveniently there in the parallel wave, for use in the next dimension. You want errors that result in increased effectiveness; that is the solution to the traveling salesman problem, which is key to your AI apps.
The empire forces the nation/states into a false zero sum competition to ensure scarcity. The power of government is a function of its taxing authority. The pyramid monetization scheme pays the conformers, which are bred to avoid change as long as possible, with the ability to pay taxes.
As the old empire system approaches ground 0, half the population is paying no tax while the other half is paying taxes out of money printed and given to them for make-work, because all the real economic drivers are busy developing the next empire, which accelerates at a speed beyond the recognition of the old empire. Everyone in the old empire expects dad to pay the ultimate bill, right up until dad says no more. When the jig is up, they are always contrite, too late. The rest of the states will follow CA in the ignition chain. Adjust tax receipts for monetary expansion to see the Fed.
The planet requires intelligence and empires breed sub-human behavior. The new computers are “smarter” than those bred to keep pace with the old computers. Do the math. What is going to happen to property values, taxes, and all those dependent upon them when inflation takes off, rates are hiked, and the new computers are fully installed?
Unconditional love is key, but conditional love increases with generations and resulting outcomes. Natural marriages reduce conditions over time, while civil marriages increase them, which is the differential/integral between learning and the tree of knowledge. Now, we release the external proton, which has a different spin, back to the racked nucleus, to be followed by the electron / cue ball.
I have just finished training the last female, Assembly of God, shark, so they can re-boot their system. If you have not completed your gate system, you want to do so quickly. This will be the fastest devolution in History.
‘snafu’ = “situation normal, all fouled (?) up”.
The occasional technical hitch, cock-up or unexpected heffalump trap occurs in even the best-run operations – but for them to be normal indicates at best systemic carelessness, probably negligence and possibly malfeasance none of which should be allowed to constitute a defence.
hey Yves and everyone,
I’m sure many of you have read it, but Glenn Greenwald has an excellent summary of Obama’s shrewed negotiations.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/13/obama/index.html
I think I did it again.I made you believe
that I am your friend.
Oh, baby;
It might seem like a crush,
But it doesn’t mean
That I’m serious.
‘Cause to lose all my senses…
That is just so typically me.
Oh, baby; baby.
Oops!
… I did it again.
I played with your healthcare, pensions and taxes.
Got lost in the game.
Oh, baby; baby.
Oops!
… You think I’m a real president.
That I’m sent from above…
I’m not that innocent.
Regarding the SSRI article, I had another friend last week prescribed Prozac. I think she went in with allergies or something. She’s not depressed. She doesn’t need an SSRI. I know people who suffer from low-level and/or bouts of acute depression. SSRIs are wonderful for them.
But for everyone else, it’s truly out of control. To a maddening degree, no pun intended.
The culture of Anxiety.
Anxiety is a generalized mood condition that can often occur without an identifiable triggering stimulus. As such, it is distinguished from fear, which is an emotional response to a perceived threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is related to situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable.[6] An alternative view defines anxiety as “a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events”,[7] suggesting that it is a distinction between future vs. present dangers which divides anxiety and fear.
Physical effects of anxiety may include heart palpitations, muscle weakness and tension, fatigue, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, stomach aches, or headaches. The body prepares to deal with a threat: blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, blood flow to the major muscle groups is increased, and immune and digestive system functions are inhibited (the fight or flight response). External signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation. Someone who has anxiety might also experience it as a sense of dread or panic. Although panic attacks are not experienced by every person who has anxiety, they are a common symptom. Panic attacks usually come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perception of danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if he or she is about to die or pass out.
Anxiety does not only consist of physical effects; there are many emotional ones as well. They include “feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) of danger, and, feeling like your mind’s gone blank”[8] as well as “nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, deja vu, a trapped in your mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary.”[9]
Cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying. “You may…fear that the chest pains [a physical symptom of anxiety] are a deadly heart attack or that the shooting pains in your head [another physical symptom of anxiety] are the result of a tumor or aneurysm. You feel an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can’t get it out of your mind.”[10]
Behavior can be affected in the form of withdrawal from situations where unpleasant effects of anxiety have been experienced in the past.[11] It can also be affected in ways which include changes in sleeping patterns, nail biting and increased motor tension, such as foot tapping.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety
Skippy…Having spent the last 15 years with someone whom suffers its gifts. I would recommend CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy ) in the first case but, alas it is time consuming, expensive and not a quick fix.
PS. before they become physically and psychologically addicted other avenues should be exhausted. Good luck.