The Economist is unhappy about BlackRock in a cover story. The cover cartoon shows an enormous jet black Rock-of-Gibraltar leaning over the two lane road ahead, threatening to topple and block all traffic forever. BlackRock is a Wall St brokerage house, that buys and sells stock for its clients. It was founded in the '80s and has done pretty well, it has $4 trillion in assets. Part of BlackRock's success is a computer back office that tracks stocks and has made some canny predictions. It was canny enough to keep BlackRock out of the mortgage backed security black hole back in 2006. In fact it was so good that BlackRock now leases access to the system, bringing in $400 million in fees per year. The system, dubbed Aladdin, is so popular on the street that the Economist reckons that another $11 trillion in stocks is controlled by Aladdin, giving a grand total of $15 trillion under the influence, or perhaps control, of this one piece of software. That's quite a chunk of change, the entire US economy is about that size.
This concentration clearly bothers the Economist. If they had a say in the matter, they would put BlackRock under strict government regulation, lest they hiccup and crash the stock market. Good thing the Economist isn't in charge.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Facebook has started posting ads on your home. Used to be, you only saw posts from your facebook friends. Now they are giving me 10% straight ads from companies and organizations I never heard of and don't care about. And Firefox doesn't have filters to dump the ads.
There will come a point when the ads become so obnoxious that I will dump Facebook.
There will come a point when the ads become so obnoxious that I will dump Facebook.
Executive Council
We have a vacancy on the NH executive council. Beloved north country councilor Ray Burton died of cancer last month leaving his seat open. The democrats have picked their man, Michael Cryans, to run on their ticket. We Republicans have some competition, at least we think so.
Anyhow, Christopher Boothby is running. There will be a primary in January, 21st I believe. I never heard of Chris before he decided to run. I don't know who is running against him in the primary.
Anyhow, Chris is doing the reasonable thing, he is traveling round the district and talking to voters. I sent out an email blast to north country Republicans and Tea Partiers to come and meet the candidate. We had the back room at the Oasis Restaurant and it filled up with north country political types, including yours truly. I must be getting into the swim of things, I knew everyone who showed up. Lotta hand shaking and how-are-yous and chit chat. Chris and his wife Mara showed up on time, we had a pleasant give and take. Everyone in the room was an old friend of the deceased Ray Burton, and a lot of Ray stories were told, back and forth.
Chris looks OK to me. He won't be Ray Burton, but then its unreasonable to expect anyone to fill Ray'sa shoes. We will have to see if the competition makes it up to the north country.
Anyhow, Christopher Boothby is running. There will be a primary in January, 21st I believe. I never heard of Chris before he decided to run. I don't know who is running against him in the primary.
Anyhow, Chris is doing the reasonable thing, he is traveling round the district and talking to voters. I sent out an email blast to north country Republicans and Tea Partiers to come and meet the candidate. We had the back room at the Oasis Restaurant and it filled up with north country political types, including yours truly. I must be getting into the swim of things, I knew everyone who showed up. Lotta hand shaking and how-are-yous and chit chat. Chris and his wife Mara showed up on time, we had a pleasant give and take. Everyone in the room was an old friend of the deceased Ray Burton, and a lot of Ray stories were told, back and forth.
Chris looks OK to me. He won't be Ray Burton, but then its unreasonable to expect anyone to fill Ray'sa shoes. We will have to see if the competition makes it up to the north country.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Vodka Triumphant
The State Liquor Store has re organized again. Now the vodka shelf is twice as long as it used to be. Serious booze, whiskey and gin has lost shelf space. I figure shelf space allocation is a fair measure of popularity. Which means more people are drinking vodka than anything else.
Too bad. Vodka is for drinkers who don't like the taste of booze. They distill all the flavor out of the stuff, and then mix it with orange juice or tomato juice or Kahlua or whatever.
Too bad. Vodka is for drinkers who don't like the taste of booze. They distill all the flavor out of the stuff, and then mix it with orange juice or tomato juice or Kahlua or whatever.
The Aerospace Plane
The idea has been around for ever. I have a beautifully illustrated children's book from 1951 with a drawing of such a machine. Basically a high performance aircraft that would use wings and jet engines to lift an orbiter space craft high and fast. It would be reusable (you fly it back and land it after launching the orbiter) and hence lower cost than a throwaway booster like Atlas.
Attractive as the idea is, so far nobody has ever built one. There are five NASA design studies, the earliest going back to 1986. Since none of them ever flew, it's fair to say that the concept becomes less attractive when you actually have to build and fly one.
Anyhow, hope springs eternal and NASA is going to try again. This time with a rocket powered craft dubbed XS-1. Design goal is to loft a 3000-5000 pound satellite into low earth orbit for $5 million or less. NASA is talking about $3-4 million study contracts early next year, with a $140 million "build-a-flying prototype" contract in 2015. XS-1 is supposed to reach Mach 10 (roughly half orbital velocity). Gross takeoff weight might be 224,000 pounds. That's airliner weight. Presumably XS-1 burns all its rocket fuel on the way up and then glides back to a dead stick landing, the way the shuttle used to do.
Attractive as the idea is, so far nobody has ever built one. There are five NASA design studies, the earliest going back to 1986. Since none of them ever flew, it's fair to say that the concept becomes less attractive when you actually have to build and fly one.
Anyhow, hope springs eternal and NASA is going to try again. This time with a rocket powered craft dubbed XS-1. Design goal is to loft a 3000-5000 pound satellite into low earth orbit for $5 million or less. NASA is talking about $3-4 million study contracts early next year, with a $140 million "build-a-flying prototype" contract in 2015. XS-1 is supposed to reach Mach 10 (roughly half orbital velocity). Gross takeoff weight might be 224,000 pounds. That's airliner weight. Presumably XS-1 burns all its rocket fuel on the way up and then glides back to a dead stick landing, the way the shuttle used to do.
Retirement before entering service?
Airbus Military announced that the prototype A400M transport aircraft has been retired. A400M is the pan European heavy transport program. The aircraft are huge 4 engine turboprops. The first deliverable model only handed over to the French air force this summer. It will take years of production to fill all the back orders for the aircraft. Surely Airbus will have some engineering change orders needing flight check soon.
So why retire the prototype? These things ain't cheap, something like $100 million each. Is the prototype so bent and broken that nobody wants to fly it anymore? Why not fix it up and bring it up to standard and ship it, and get paid for it? Or use it for research and development. Surely there are programs that could use a truly big airlifter for something?
So why retire the prototype? These things ain't cheap, something like $100 million each. Is the prototype so bent and broken that nobody wants to fly it anymore? Why not fix it up and bring it up to standard and ship it, and get paid for it? Or use it for research and development. Surely there are programs that could use a truly big airlifter for something?
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Nelson Mandela died today
The news came over the TV late this afternoon. He was 95, so it cannot be called an untimely death, but he will be missed. Mandela saved his country from a bloody racial war. I don't understand how he did it, but it happened.
In the 1960s and 70's, a small white minority ran South Africa to suit them selves. Blacks were disadvantaged at law, herded into ugly slums, denied a decent education or a decent job. The whites owned all the property, all the companies, ran the army, the police, the courts, the government, everything. The whites had everything except numbers. The white minority was being as nasty and unpleasant as possible, and the majority blacks had had it up to there. They formed the African National Congress, were getting weapons and organizing for a war of extermination. They had the numbers and it looked like South Africa would explode into civil war that would go on until one side or the other was exterminated.
Working inside this powder keg, Mandela somehow convinced the ruling whites to open the country to free elections and allow themselves to be voted out of power. And, after obtaining power, Mandela was able to prevent the now empowered black majority from wrecking an awful vengeance on the white minority.
I still do not understand how Mandela pulled off this miracle, but he did. It saved his country.
In the 1960s and 70's, a small white minority ran South Africa to suit them selves. Blacks were disadvantaged at law, herded into ugly slums, denied a decent education or a decent job. The whites owned all the property, all the companies, ran the army, the police, the courts, the government, everything. The whites had everything except numbers. The white minority was being as nasty and unpleasant as possible, and the majority blacks had had it up to there. They formed the African National Congress, were getting weapons and organizing for a war of extermination. They had the numbers and it looked like South Africa would explode into civil war that would go on until one side or the other was exterminated.
Working inside this powder keg, Mandela somehow convinced the ruling whites to open the country to free elections and allow themselves to be voted out of power. And, after obtaining power, Mandela was able to prevent the now empowered black majority from wrecking an awful vengeance on the white minority.
I still do not understand how Mandela pulled off this miracle, but he did. It saved his country.
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