Worthersee wrote:

:) I used to have this on my cube at work.

RE: Smoky The Nanobot

Bottom line: We must not overshoot in regulating the markets just because they overshot in their risk-taking. That’s what markets do. We need to fix capitalism, not install socialism. Because, ultimately, we can’t bail our way out of this crisis. We can only grow our way out — with more innovation and entrepreneurship, which create new businesses and better jobs.

So let’s keep our eyes on the prize. Save the system, install smart regulations and get the government out of the banking business as soon as possible so that the surviving banks can freely and unabashedly get back into their business: risk-taking without recklessness.

Op-Ed Columnist - If Larry and Sergey Asked for a Loan ... - NYTimes.com

American academic Paul Krugman has won this year's Nobel economics prize, it has been announced.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Krugman wins Nobel for economics

McCain defends rival Obama

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US Elections 2008 | McCain defends rival Obama

The TED spread is the difference between the interest rates on inter-bank loans and short-term U.S. government debt ("T-bills").
...
The TED spread is an indicator of perceived credit risk in the general economy[1]. This is because T-bills are considered risk-free while LIBOR reflects the credit risk of lending to commercial banks. When the TED spread increases, that is a sign that lenders believe the risk of default on inter-bank loans (also known as counterparty risk) is increasing.
...
TED is an acronym formed from T-Bill and ED, the ticker symbol for the Eurodollar futures contract. The size of the spread is usually denominated in basis points (bps). For example, if the T-Bill rate is 5.10% and ED trades at 5.50%, the TED spread is 40 bps. The TED spread fluctuates over time, but historically has often remained within the range of 10 and 50 bps (0.1% and 0.5%), until 2007. A rising TED spread often presages a downturn in the U.S. stock market, as it indicates that liquidity is being withdrawn.

During 2007, the subprime mortgage crisis ballooned the TED spread to a region of 150-200 bps. On September 17, 2008, the record set after the Black Monday crash of 1987 was broken as the TED spread exceeded 300 bps[3]. Some higher readings for the spread were due to inability to obtain accurate LIBOR rates in the absence of a liquid unsecured lending market[4]. On October 9 2008, the TED spread reached another new high of 423 bps.

TED spread - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I believe marriage is meant to be a scared institution be a between 2 unwilling teenagers. But don't think I don't I tolerate gay people because I do. I tolerate them with all my heart.

Priceless.

Saturday Night Live - Palin / Biden Debate

A group of retired Gurkhas fighting for the right to settle in Britain have won their immigration test case at London's High Court.

They were challenging immigration rules which said that those who retired from the British Army before 1997 did not have an automatic right to stay.
...
The judge, Mr Justice Blake, said the Gurkhas' long service, conspicuous acts of bravery and loyalty to the Crown all pointed to a "moral debt of honour" and gratitude felt by British people.

excellent
the Gurkhas are extraordinary
crikey if they're prepared to die for this country then by God they've got the right to live here -- that's just natural justice

BBC NEWS | UK | Gurkhas win right to stay in UK

An 18-year-old blind Muslim student in Leicester is the first to be allowed to take his guide dog into a UK mosque.

In Islam dogs are regarded as unclean and are not allowed in mosques.

However, the Muslim Law (Shari'ah) Council UK has now issued a fatwa which allows guide dogs inside mosques but not into prayer rooms.

BBC NEWS | England | Leicestershire | Ruling allows guide dog in mosque

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help!

Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

- From BoingBoing.net

BuyMyShitPile.com: Hey Washington, can you buy my bad investments too?

During the present crisis I keep seeing numbers bandied about which talk about company x having assets of so many billion and I saw today how one company recently sold $31 billion worth of mortgage-backed derivatives for 22 cents on the dollar in late July and I remember my basics in economics that the idea of a monetary worth is at worst a fantasy and at best a narrative but sensible people treat it as a concrete thing on which to base very important decisions. The claim that they sold $31 billion in assets or that Lehmans has assets of x hundred billion dollars is not exactly a lie but something else. I was taught that monetary worth was what the market would pay at a particular point in time and that while there may exist some platonic concept of monetary worth it was impossible to say anything other that over time market forces should discover it by finding equilibrium. Price is dependent on the context of the market. Anyone who has ever conducted a stock take knows that the prices recorded for accountancy purposes are almost, but not quite, a complete fiction. You write down not an estimate of market value but a book price. I ran a shop and always conducted the stock take and the book price had no relation to fair market value. Apart from anything else how do you estimate fair market value. Should I have estimated the jewelry at firesale prices? At melt down value? Etc. My job for accountancy purposes was to provide numbers and give the values set by my employers based on the retail price they had set -- yet I was valuing unsold discontinued lines. So for accountancy purpose how do you value a junk bond, or the many, many different securities (sub-prime backed or otherwise).

I hear much talk of greater transparency in the markets which I think is fundamentally important and needed so people can make more rational decisions. But no market is wholly rational and the idea of transparency whilst taking much guesswork out of the market in that it would give traders a better idea of what a company thought its assets are worth is still based on the fiction that a particular company has a realistic estimate of its assets (edit. clearly also if you have more information about the precise breakdown of those assets ie how many are subprime securities and the value the company has put on them there is likely to be a more rational market). So we come back to confidence. So much of the markets is based on fictions and great mountains of fictions. And I am reminded of what FDR said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". Until the markets start believing in the narrative of confidence rather than fear there will be trouble. Also, where pure capitalists are wrong I believe is that, regulating the market whilst yes it does stifle the market also provides security, stability and an underpinning of confidence. If you are regulated like Fannie Mae and too big to fold then you are backed by the taxpayer: there is a base line of confidence. This is a lesson from the thirties that the political right had forgotten.