Bring out more violins. Congress has failed to pass any appropriations bills, we have NSA angering the entire world, they failed to deal with the debt limit, Iran is getting nukes, the Middle East is burning down. Obamacare has paralyzed the economy.
So what does Congress do?
They pass a special interest bill for gays and lesbians. I'm sure it will gain the members a few gay and lesbian votes, but really, we have have plenty of non-discrimination laws on the books, we don't really need another.
Congress critters ought to spend their time on things that benefit the entire nation, not dealing out favors to special interest groups.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
It's Halloween for taxpayers.
The US House just gave the banks a big green rustling handshake. It passed the "Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act" HR 992 on 30 October this year by a vote of 292 to 122. A Halloween special. All Republicans and 70 Democrats, including my Democratic rep Annie Kuster, voted for passage.
What's going on here? First we have to understand what "swaps" are. Swaps are a high stakes gambling vehicle which crashed Wall St back in 2008 and kicked off Great Depression 2.0. A "swap" is a deal between two banks, or a bank and a brokerage house, or an insurance company and a brokerage house, or any mix. Only two can play. the deal goes thus. "If certain bonds that you hold default, I will pay them off for you. You are relieved of all risk. In return you pay me a modest fee, in advance." It amounts to bond insurance against default. In 2008, big insurance company AIG sold credit default swaps on a whole bunch of shaky bonds. When the market crashed, all the AIG swapped bonds defaulted. AIG, big as it was, didn't have the money to pay off on the swaps. It went broke and we the taxpayers paid off all of AIG's $140 billion worth of swaps. The resulting market turmoil crashed Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, and others, and kicked off Great Depression 2.0, which is still with us, five years later.
Clearly "swaps" are dangerous. And, "swaps" do not promote any kind of economic development. All the money goes back and forth between Wall St players, none it goes to building new factories, buying airliners, financing inventory, or other useful purposes, it all stays on the Street. Swaps are a high stakes gambling deal.
Anyone in their right mind wants to forbid the sale of swaps, 'cause they are so dangerous, and they don't do anything worthwhile. Anyone, except a banker who enjoys playing bet-the-company games. And so, the Dodd Frank Act tried to limit swaps playing by forbidding the use of Federally guaranteed (FDIC) funds to play the swaps market. Which is a good idea. A better idea would be to outlaw swaps completely, but they didn't go that far.
And so, banks and bankers, who really enjoy playing bet-the-company games, introduced a bill to repeal all the Dodd Frank restrictions on "swaps". Spin the roulette wheel, the casino is open. And the House passed it last Wednesday. One of the Republicans finest hours.
And another triumph for the media. They concealed the existence of this odious bill until four days after passage.
What's going on here? First we have to understand what "swaps" are. Swaps are a high stakes gambling vehicle which crashed Wall St back in 2008 and kicked off Great Depression 2.0. A "swap" is a deal between two banks, or a bank and a brokerage house, or an insurance company and a brokerage house, or any mix. Only two can play. the deal goes thus. "If certain bonds that you hold default, I will pay them off for you. You are relieved of all risk. In return you pay me a modest fee, in advance." It amounts to bond insurance against default. In 2008, big insurance company AIG sold credit default swaps on a whole bunch of shaky bonds. When the market crashed, all the AIG swapped bonds defaulted. AIG, big as it was, didn't have the money to pay off on the swaps. It went broke and we the taxpayers paid off all of AIG's $140 billion worth of swaps. The resulting market turmoil crashed Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, and others, and kicked off Great Depression 2.0, which is still with us, five years later.
Clearly "swaps" are dangerous. And, "swaps" do not promote any kind of economic development. All the money goes back and forth between Wall St players, none it goes to building new factories, buying airliners, financing inventory, or other useful purposes, it all stays on the Street. Swaps are a high stakes gambling deal.
Anyone in their right mind wants to forbid the sale of swaps, 'cause they are so dangerous, and they don't do anything worthwhile. Anyone, except a banker who enjoys playing bet-the-company games. And so, the Dodd Frank Act tried to limit swaps playing by forbidding the use of Federally guaranteed (FDIC) funds to play the swaps market. Which is a good idea. A better idea would be to outlaw swaps completely, but they didn't go that far.
And so, banks and bankers, who really enjoy playing bet-the-company games, introduced a bill to repeal all the Dodd Frank restrictions on "swaps". Spin the roulette wheel, the casino is open. And the House passed it last Wednesday. One of the Republicans finest hours.
And another triumph for the media. They concealed the existence of this odious bill until four days after passage.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Time Warner Internet Access Croaks, again
I was ready to make the preceding post a couple of hours ago, but Time Warner flaked out on me. I could not connection with any web site at all. They fixed what every it was a few minutes ago, but they are having maintenance problems. For instance, TV channels 2 thru 12 have a severe herringbone interference pattern on screen. Channels 15 and16 (Cspan) have been dead for months.
HIgh Speed Rail for Merrie Old England.
The Brits call it "HS2", a high speed rail line from London to Manchester and Leeds. For a mere $69 billion, a little less in Euro's. Network Rail, which does the tracks thruout Britain loves the idea, and so does the Dept of Transport.
But, Manchester and Leeds are only 150 miles from London, closer than New York is to Boston. Conventional rail can do 60 mph on decent track, and 100 mph with a little work on the track. The New York Central was running passenger trains at 100 mph, under steam, way back in the late 1800's. Properly operated conventional rail ought to make the London-Manchester run in three hours, fast enough to beat airline time. To fly, you gotta get to the airport an hour before takeoff, and wait for ever to recover your bags after landing. On the NYC-Boston run, Amtrak takes nearly four hours, running on conventional track laid 100 years ago, but it's faster than flying. Conventional British Rail ought to be able to beat airline time on the relatively short London-Manchester run.
So I wish our British brothers well, but I think they are pouring money down a black hole to do "high speed rail" over such a short distance.
P.S. Good luck California.
But, Manchester and Leeds are only 150 miles from London, closer than New York is to Boston. Conventional rail can do 60 mph on decent track, and 100 mph with a little work on the track. The New York Central was running passenger trains at 100 mph, under steam, way back in the late 1800's. Properly operated conventional rail ought to make the London-Manchester run in three hours, fast enough to beat airline time. To fly, you gotta get to the airport an hour before takeoff, and wait for ever to recover your bags after landing. On the NYC-Boston run, Amtrak takes nearly four hours, running on conventional track laid 100 years ago, but it's faster than flying. Conventional British Rail ought to be able to beat airline time on the relatively short London-Manchester run.
So I wish our British brothers well, but I think they are pouring money down a black hole to do "high speed rail" over such a short distance.
P.S. Good luck California.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
WIMPS and MACHOS
The Universe is not heavy enough. This finding comes from watching galaxies rotate. They are rotating faster than they ought to be. Speed of rotation is something Newton worked out, and it's taught in sophomore physics. Using Newton's math, one can observe the period and diameter of a
satellite's orbit, and compute the mass of the primary quite exactly. The stronger the gravitational field, the faster an object has to move, to create enough centrifugal force to keep from falling.
They figured the mass of galaxies by counting the stars in them on the assumption that the mass is all/mostly stars, which shine by their own light and can been seen at great distances. Assume the astronomers took a few short cuts, like counting the stars in a tiny patch of galaxy and extrapolating the total number of stars in that galaxy. When they computed the mass required to account for the observed rotation speed, they came up short. The needed mass was two, three, and more times the observed (luminous) mass of the galaxy. And so, everyone, astronomers, physicists, science writers and so on, accept that there is a LOT of dark (non luminous) matter in the universe. Like more dark matter than luminous matter. Most of the universe is dark matter.
The obvious question " What is this dark matter?" came up with two possibilities. The universe could be rich in an as yet undiscovered particle. Something as hard to detect as a neutrino but with mass like a proton. These were dubbed Weakly Interacting Massive Particles" or WIMPS for short. The physicists loved WIMPS,. It gave them a new particle to hunt for. Now that the Higg's Boson has been claimed, there are a lot of accelerators and accelerator physicists looking for something else to do.
The other possibility is simply ordinary matter that is not stars. Like the earth, or Jupiter. Jupiter is an interesting case. It is a near star, it's pure hydrogen, and it radiates more heat than it absorbs from the Sun. Jupiter must be running low level nuclear fusion way down at its core. If Jupiter had been a little larger, it would be a star and shine by its own light, and we would live in a binary solar system. Binary systems are pretty common out there in the galaxy, say 10% or more.
Stars are formed by a not yet well understood process of gravitational attraction. Plenty of stars large enough to shine were formed. You can see them in the night sky. But, if the process can yield large stars, why can it not yield a lot of small ones like Jupiter? Ones too small to shine.
This is the Massive Compact Halo Object, or MACHO. And, this year, somebody detected one. It turned up in the search for extraterrestrial planets. It was a Jupiter sized object, way out in deep space, all by itself.
Right now, WIMPS are ahead, at least they get a lot of good press, and MACHO's are not talked about much. Me, I kinda like the MACHO idea. It's perfectly plausible and it doesn't require new invisible and undetectable particles.
They figured the mass of galaxies by counting the stars in them on the assumption that the mass is all/mostly stars, which shine by their own light and can been seen at great distances. Assume the astronomers took a few short cuts, like counting the stars in a tiny patch of galaxy and extrapolating the total number of stars in that galaxy. When they computed the mass required to account for the observed rotation speed, they came up short. The needed mass was two, three, and more times the observed (luminous) mass of the galaxy. And so, everyone, astronomers, physicists, science writers and so on, accept that there is a LOT of dark (non luminous) matter in the universe. Like more dark matter than luminous matter. Most of the universe is dark matter.
The obvious question " What is this dark matter?" came up with two possibilities. The universe could be rich in an as yet undiscovered particle. Something as hard to detect as a neutrino but with mass like a proton. These were dubbed Weakly Interacting Massive Particles" or WIMPS for short. The physicists loved WIMPS,. It gave them a new particle to hunt for. Now that the Higg's Boson has been claimed, there are a lot of accelerators and accelerator physicists looking for something else to do.
The other possibility is simply ordinary matter that is not stars. Like the earth, or Jupiter. Jupiter is an interesting case. It is a near star, it's pure hydrogen, and it radiates more heat than it absorbs from the Sun. Jupiter must be running low level nuclear fusion way down at its core. If Jupiter had been a little larger, it would be a star and shine by its own light, and we would live in a binary solar system. Binary systems are pretty common out there in the galaxy, say 10% or more.
Stars are formed by a not yet well understood process of gravitational attraction. Plenty of stars large enough to shine were formed. You can see them in the night sky. But, if the process can yield large stars, why can it not yield a lot of small ones like Jupiter? Ones too small to shine.
This is the Massive Compact Halo Object, or MACHO. And, this year, somebody detected one. It turned up in the search for extraterrestrial planets. It was a Jupiter sized object, way out in deep space, all by itself.
Right now, WIMPS are ahead, at least they get a lot of good press, and MACHO's are not talked about much. Me, I kinda like the MACHO idea. It's perfectly plausible and it doesn't require new invisible and undetectable particles.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Put a tax black box in your car?
Some states are talking about it. They want to collect a mileage tax on everyone's car, so they propose to put a tax black box in every car to record (and tax) every mile driven.
Dumb idea. That's what the gasoline tax does. And every gas station's pumps are set up to collect gas tax already. There has been some talk about how better gas mileage on new cars has reduced the take from the gas tax. Malarkey. What little improvement in mileage is because more of us are driving cheap econo-boxes now instead of decent six passenger sedans. And, with Great Depression 2.0 still in effect, fewer of us are driving to work anymore.
Many have decried the tax black boxes as unwarranted gov'mint snooping on private business. They suggest that the tax black boxes will be GPS boxes that will report everywhere we drive to. That's overkill, just recording mileage off the odometer would do the trick as far as the taxman is concerned.
And, it's not widely known, but the computer in all new cars records speed, throttle setting, brake application, miles driven, gear selected, and a lot of other stuff that you would just as soon not have fall into the hands of the cops after an accident. So far only the car companies know how to read this stuff out. Wait til the ambulance chasers figure it out.
Dumb idea. That's what the gasoline tax does. And every gas station's pumps are set up to collect gas tax already. There has been some talk about how better gas mileage on new cars has reduced the take from the gas tax. Malarkey. What little improvement in mileage is because more of us are driving cheap econo-boxes now instead of decent six passenger sedans. And, with Great Depression 2.0 still in effect, fewer of us are driving to work anymore.
Many have decried the tax black boxes as unwarranted gov'mint snooping on private business. They suggest that the tax black boxes will be GPS boxes that will report everywhere we drive to. That's overkill, just recording mileage off the odometer would do the trick as far as the taxman is concerned.
And, it's not widely known, but the computer in all new cars records speed, throttle setting, brake application, miles driven, gear selected, and a lot of other stuff that you would just as soon not have fall into the hands of the cops after an accident. So far only the car companies know how to read this stuff out. Wait til the ambulance chasers figure it out.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Battle of the River Plate
Goldie Oldie British flick from 1956. A docudrama about the sinking of the Graf Spee at the beginning of WWII. From the Rank people, whose opening trademark was a giant brass gong being struck with a mallet in the hands of a beefy guy with his shirt off. It's in Techicolor and Vistavision (wide screen process like Cinemascope). It came from Netflix. A period piece from the era of good WWII British war movies.
They used real ships, including one survivor of the 1939 battle, so the sea scenes are good, not model work. The real thing, was treated as a tremendous victory by the British, who were yearning for some good news after a disastrous string of German victories. Graf Spee was an extremely heavy German cruiser armed with 11 inch guns, far more powerful that the 6 or 8 inch armament of contemporary cruisers. The British, remembering the damage done to them by ultra heavy American frigates in the War of 1812. In that war much weaker British frigates felt honor bound to engage the Americans, who promptly used their heavier guns and bigger ships to blow the Brits out of the water. To prevent this sort of foolishness, the Brits dubbed Graf Spee a "pocket battleship", which enabled British cruiser captains to put up their helm and run for it, rather than getting sunk engaging a much stronger vessel.
Three British cruisers caught up with Graf Spee off South America and closed for a furious gun battle. None of the ships carried enough armor to keep out the enemy's shells and all ships took quite a bit of damage. Graf Spee broke off the action and took refuge in Montevideo harbor in neutral Uruguay. International law forbade neutrals to harbor belligerent warships and so after a couple of days Graf Spee weighed anchor and came out to face the British. Only she scuttled, blew herself up, rather than engage the three battered British cruisers lying in wait for here off Montevideo. The British treated their victory as the sinking of battleship rather than a mere cruiser.
The movie treatment of the Germans is sympathetic. But they omit a scene where German skipper Langsdorf gets a chance to explain why he decided to scuttle instead of fight. They do have scene where the British officers speculate on what Langsdorf might do, they all think Langsdorf will come out and fight. The action scenes could have been better. For a sea fight we want to see the guns firing, and then we want to see whether they hit or missed. The director didn't bother, we see the ships closing, but it is unclear who is hitting and who is missing.
Anyhow, it's a good sea flick, enjoyable as a period piece.
They used real ships, including one survivor of the 1939 battle, so the sea scenes are good, not model work. The real thing, was treated as a tremendous victory by the British, who were yearning for some good news after a disastrous string of German victories. Graf Spee was an extremely heavy German cruiser armed with 11 inch guns, far more powerful that the 6 or 8 inch armament of contemporary cruisers. The British, remembering the damage done to them by ultra heavy American frigates in the War of 1812. In that war much weaker British frigates felt honor bound to engage the Americans, who promptly used their heavier guns and bigger ships to blow the Brits out of the water. To prevent this sort of foolishness, the Brits dubbed Graf Spee a "pocket battleship", which enabled British cruiser captains to put up their helm and run for it, rather than getting sunk engaging a much stronger vessel.
Three British cruisers caught up with Graf Spee off South America and closed for a furious gun battle. None of the ships carried enough armor to keep out the enemy's shells and all ships took quite a bit of damage. Graf Spee broke off the action and took refuge in Montevideo harbor in neutral Uruguay. International law forbade neutrals to harbor belligerent warships and so after a couple of days Graf Spee weighed anchor and came out to face the British. Only she scuttled, blew herself up, rather than engage the three battered British cruisers lying in wait for here off Montevideo. The British treated their victory as the sinking of battleship rather than a mere cruiser.
The movie treatment of the Germans is sympathetic. But they omit a scene where German skipper Langsdorf gets a chance to explain why he decided to scuttle instead of fight. They do have scene where the British officers speculate on what Langsdorf might do, they all think Langsdorf will come out and fight. The action scenes could have been better. For a sea fight we want to see the guns firing, and then we want to see whether they hit or missed. The director didn't bother, we see the ships closing, but it is unclear who is hitting and who is missing.
Anyhow, it's a good sea flick, enjoyable as a period piece.
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