When:	2008-10-07 Tue 17:40
What:	Tradable Credit Default Swaps: Why did anyone think this was a good idea?!
Security:	Public
Mood:	incredulous

A Credit Default Swap is fundamentally an insurance policy that pays off if somebody defaults on a loan.

If you make a loan to Bob Smith, and you're worried he might not pay you back, there are institutions that will sell you a CDS. They take a portion of Bob's interest payments (or, alternately, a one-time payment with present value equivalent to the annuity), and in exchange, they agree to cover your loss of principal if Bob defaults. You are swapping some of your interest, for coverage on the risk that Bob defaults on the credit you've extended to him. Hence the name "credit default swap".

We've had two problems with this. First, the companies selling CDSs didn't actually bother to keep around enough assets to pay off their policies. This is as if you crashed your car, went to your insurer for coverage, and they said, "Whoops, we thought you were a perfect driver, so we didn't allocate any money to cover you!" This problem calls for stricter regulation of the amount of capital insurers need to have on hand -- it's closely related to existing regulations on the reserve requirements for commercial banks.

Second, the institutions that write CDSs turned them into tradable instruments, and issued lots of them. This meant that folks who never made a loan to Bob Smith, could accumulate CDSs against him. These people are basically betting that Bob will fail to pay you. This is, IMHO, slightly crazy. It's taking an instrument that's supposed to exist in order to balance risk, and using it to increase risk instead. Insurance is only supposed to benefit people who are actually at risk of loss.

Think of it this way: Would you want your neighbor to be able to buy insurance against your house burning down? If he bought such a policy, and then hung around in your driveway, playing with matches, wouldn't you worry a bit?

But then, I also don't understand why anybody thinks it's a good idea to let people sell stocks or currencies short without being able to specifically identify from whom they've borrowed the asset.

7 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-10-06 Mon 14:27
What:	Keating Economics
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

I guess with the McCain campaign having announced that they're going to try to "turn the page" on the financial crisis, by focusing nearly 100% of their ad buys over the next month on smears, the Obama folks decided it was time to remind people what exactly the Keating Five scandal was about, how it relates to the collapse of the Savings and Loan system, and how McCain either was too dumb to to understand what happened during the S&L crisis, or didn't care because he was on the payroll of the people who benefit from looting our financial institutions.

And the guy is still taking advice from Phil Gramm, and insisting that we ought to deregulate healthcare the same way we deregulated banking.

3 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-30 Tue 17:39
What:	A recipe (artichokes with lemon-pignolia couscous) and an opera (The Bonesetter's Daughter)
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

Not necessarily in that order.

The Bonesetter's Daughter is fantastic. If you can get tickets, go see it. The music draws on lots of traditional and modern Chinese techniques and instruments, as well as some stylistic elements that actually reminded me of Philip Glass (complex sequences of quick notes, repeated in slight variations, creating an emotionally evocative wash of sound). Amy Tan did a great job stripping her novel down to its most essential elements. And a couple of the performers are almost superhuman -- the woman who has the smallest of the three main female roles is actually probably the most impressive vocalist; it'd be hard to class her as an alto or soprano, because she can range from a low-alto note to a high-soprano one in the course of a couple of measures of music.

Also, recipe! I made this last week. Serves 2, with a bit of couscous leftover for a snack or small dinner some other time. You can extend a small serving of the couscous with some steamed or sauteed veggies -- summer squash, onion, greens, etc.

Acquire three globe artichokes or "eurochokes" (the version that has a longer stem and less-thorny leaves). Slice the top inch or so off of the top, and trim the bottom inch off the stem (it'll likely be dried out and fibrous, though the rest of the stem is edible and almost as good as the heart). Put a steamer in a large pot, and enough water to fill to just barely below the steamer. Place artichokes stem-up in the steamer, and steam over medium-high heat for 45 minutes, or until the stem is tender (doesn't noticably resist having a fork poked into it).

Dipping sauce for artichokes, which can be made shortly before they come out: Put two tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of mustard, and three tablespoons of lemon juice (all approximate) in a small bowl or cup (something you can dip in). Microwave for 15 seconds. Stir to combine. Add taragon, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper, to taste. This should make enough for both 'chokes. If you have a little extra, it's good on the couscous too...

While the artichokes are steaming, get two or three handfuls of pine nuts and spread them out on a piece of aluminum foil. Put them in a toaster oven at 250°F until they start to brown and emit a pleasantly toasty aroma. I never really time this, so I'm not sure how long it takes. Maybe seven minutes? Don't let them get too dark -- when you take them out, the residual heat in them will finish toasting them quite adequately.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of a medium pot, and saute a minced clove of garlic for a minute or so; don't turn the heat up too high, you don't want to brown/burn the butter. Add 1.25 cups of water with 0.25 cups of lemon juice, bring to a boil. Add 1 cup of couscous, the toasted pine nuts, and fine-ground black pepper, salt, tarragon, stir to mix, and let stand for at least ten minutes. When serving, add some grated parmesan (or even better, a grated aged gouda -- the aged-five-years stuff that's a rich caramel color is fantastic in this).


ETA: If you want to complexify the herbal notes, when we did the couscous with sauteed veggies, I added marjoram and sage to the veggies while cooking, and that came out nicely. They'd probably be good in the couscous and the dipping sauce as well.

3 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-25 Thu 15:14
What:	A local water issue...
Security:	Public
Mood:	hopeful

Palo Alto City Councilman Peter Drekmeier, a friend of mine, is one of our region's most dedicated environmental advocates; this post is a (considerably shortened) paraphrase from a notice I got from him, detailing some current water agency activities. Peter sits on the board of the Tuolumne River Trust.

The Tuolumne River is one of the major sources of water for our region. The Trust works to protect the biological and ecological integrity of the river, to make sure that it continues providing both clean water, and the beautiful and productive habitat that makes the river a site worth visiting for recreation. The local water authorities are currently working through plans on how to draw water from the river over the next decade or so. The trust has a petition asking them to focus heavily on making more efficient use of the current water withdrawals, rather than increasing the draw, which risks degrading the environment, which will cause a variety of long-term costs (aside from the direct loss of wildlife, when you screw up your ecosystem, nasty microbes that were previously held in check can bloom unconstrained, and then you have to spend boatloads of money to purify the water to make it safe).

If you live anywhere in the Bay Area, you probably use some Tuolumne water. Please consider telling the regional water authorities that you'd rather see them spending our monthly fees on helping us to use our current water more efficiently (better showers and sinks, reduction in water-intensive non-native landscaping, etc) than spend just as much money first on expanding the water withdrawals, and then on trying to fix the problems that will create.

4 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-18 Thu 10:59
What:	Even better illustration of the Obama and McCain tax plans...
Security:	Public
Mood:	impressed

This is a work of art.

post a comment

When:	2008-09-16 Tue 18:06
What:	Holy shazbat, John McCain invented the intertubes!
Security:	Public
Mood:	stunned

According to economic policy advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin:

"He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did."

I am the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The Committee plays a major role in the development of technology policy, specifically any legislation affecting communications services, the Internet, cable television and other technologies. Under my guiding hand, Congress developed a wireless spectrum policy that spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology that enables Americans to surf the web while sitting at a coffee shop, airport lounge, or public park.

6 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-13 Sat 17:13
What:	Want to go to Las Vegas for Halloween? Also, fundraising...
Security:	Public
Mood:	determined

If the election were held today, according to latest electoral-vote.com forecast, the electoral college would go 270-268 for McCain. In order to win the election, we need to get back into the lead in Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, Indiana, or Nevada. Current polls put us two points behind in each of those first four states, and only one point behind in Nevada.

Nevada turnout in 2004 was 830,000 votes, so one percent in the polls is 8,300 voters. Within Nevada, half the votes are in Clark County, where a labor-friendly, working class, Latino base is reliably Democratic but doesn't always make it to the polls. The Peninsula Young Democrats are planning a Las Vegas trip to do Get-Out-the-Vote work, targeting exactly these voters. Last election, our trip was something like 50% of the Young Democrats from California that traveled to Nevada, and that group made up the vast majority of people working in Clark County. So if we don't show up, it doesn't happen.

If the election happened today like the pollsters think is most likely, PYD bringing 350 people to Clark County and getting 25 voters each to come out and vote could literally make the difference between winning or losing the election.

Pause for a moment to let that sink in. I want to make sure everyone understands the deadly serious stakes in all of this. We're going to have a lot of fun partying in Las Vegas on Halloween -- bring your costume! -- but our efforts literally could swing the outcome of the entire Presidential election.

Sure, the exact scenario is unlikely, but it's plausible enough that it's what the pollsters are predicting today. What is clear is that our efforts will be a critical part of any winning strategy.

So please take a moment to consider whether you could take off Friday 10/31 through Tuesday 11/4, and take the road trip out to Nevada with us.

We'll be leaving in vans mid-day Friday or by plane after work Friday, spending Friday night, Halloween, in Vegas, and spending the next four days (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Election Tuesday) making sure every Democrat in Las Vegas manages to get to the polls.

If you want to come, just drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with our lead organizer for this effort. And whether you can make it or not, let your friends know about this.

Relatedly: The PYD's current two activities are voter registration on community college campuses (again, drop a line if you're interested in helping! just serving one shift as a volunteer could be extremely helpful, as we try to get everybody on the rolls) and fundraising for the Obama campaign. I personally am on the hook for five figures, and have made about a third of my goal. We've gotten support (and appearances at events) from a variety of electeds and influential figures, and we really need to meet our promises to these people. If we do meet our group goal of breaking into the mid-six-figures, we'll be setting ourselves apart from any other Young Dems group in the country, demonstrating the political engagement and influence of the next generation of leadership in Silicon Valley.

Consider: If you could've gotten up every day since January 2001, and paid one dollar for George Bush to not be president that day, by the end of one term you would've spent $1,461, and by today you would've exceeded the maximum legal donation of $2,300. So when you think about contributing a little to support the Obama campaign, to help ensure we don't continue with reckless and bellicose foreign policy and domestic policies that cram down most of us to give more to those who already have, think about higher numbers. Even the maximum is just not all that much, in the grand scheme of things. If you can afford to go out to eat once a month, you can afford to make sure the food you get there isn't tainted with E Coli. If you can afford a NetFlix account, you can afford to make sure we have a President whose notions about foreign policy don't come from Rambo and 24. If you can afford a ticket to Burning Man, you can afford to help protect our freedoms against warrantless wiretapping, anti-choice Supreme Court appointments, and institutionalized torture. Don't sit this one out, and then spend the next four years thinking that it'd be a great deal if you could pay just a dollar a day to have John McCain not be president.

I have been gradually sending out personal notes to a variety of people I thought were likely prospects, but at this point I'm resorting to the mass appeal, because school, TA'ing, and assorted political activities are making it impossible to sit down and write fifty individual emails. Sorry about that. But if you would please consider donating, here is our link:

http://peninsulayd.org/obama

Please put "Auros" in the field where it asks who referred you. Even five bucks helps, but please think through how much you can really afford, spread over four or eight years. And consider linking to this post from your journal or otherwise referring friends.

Lastly, if you're interested in hanging out with some young, smart, politically-engaged people, we have a bunch of fundraising events -- in the next couple weeks, there's a Clean Tech panel on Tue 9/23 featuring people from Tesla Motors, The Westly Group, and Google.org. And there's a Space Science themed party on Sat 9/27, featuring Karaoke with Congressman Mike Honda.

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-10 Wed 14:21
What:	Supporting a friend's classroom...
Security:	Public
Mood:	sleepy

A friend of mine, a teacher at the public school in one of the poorest parts of SF, has a project up on Donors Choose.

I generally think we ought to just fund our schools enough that teachers would have enough budget to work with to engage in interesting little projects like this, but I guess that's because I'm a terrible tax-and-spend liberal. :-P

In any case, in the absence of Prop13 reform, Donors Choose helps connect folks willing to drop $5 or $10 on a worthy cause with people who are devoting their lives to providing a decent start in life to people coming out of very difficult circumstances.

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-07 Sun 17:21
What:	Shimmer!
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Christa just brought home some colored sugar (blue, what else?) which she got because, hey, blue sugar, for topping desserts with!

I was glancing at the ingredients: sugar, blue vegetable coloring, and carnauba wax.

What the hell is carnauba wax, I wondered aloud? Perhaps it is wax from a carnauba?

Well, in fact, yes, it is. There's a palm called the carnauba palm. You get its wax by beating its leaves, and then processing the little flakes of wax that fall off of them. Yay for natural products.

But, get this: Not only is it useful for giving a shiny finish to food products (candy corn, gumballs, stiff frostings), it's also a common ingredient of industrial polishes (for cars, floors, furniture).

Whoa. It's both a floor wax and a dessert topping!

Could the inventors of Shimmer have had exactly the conversation we had about carnauba wax?

4 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-09-04 Thu 11:20
What:	Who's ready to lead?
Security:	Public
Mood:	impressed

Paul Butler, who went to the Naval Academy with John McCain, and was later held with McCain as a POW, says being a POW is not a particularly important qualification for being President, and that McCain lacks the temperament and judgement to be the most powerful man in the world.

( video )

And, unlike the swift-boaters, he doesn't even have to make stuff up! In fact, he doesn't even say McCain is a bad person -- just not fid to serve as President.

PS: Sarah Palin apparently can't even run a car wash competently, with lots of help. I mean, how dumb do you have to be, to have your business shut down by the authority of yourself? And we're supposed to believe she can run the entire country?

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-29 Fri 19:54
What:	Sarah Palin: Model Republican.
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Perhaps Sarah Palin's greatest qualification to be the VP candidate of the modern GOP is that she has her very own extra-special soap-opera corruption scandal. Her sister, Molly McCann, used to be married to Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten. During McCann and Wooten's acrimonious divorce and custody dispute, Palin repeatedly spoke to Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan about Wooten, and sent her husband Todd Palin to give Monegan a dossier of unflattering information about Wooten. Monegan felt he was being pressured to fire or otherwise discipline Wooten, as punishment on behalf of Palin and McCann. He refused. In July, Palin fired him.

Sense of self-righteous entitlement? Check!

Abuse of executive power? Check!

Disrespect for honest, impartial justice? Check!

Yep, she belongs in George Bush's and John McCain's party! Chalk it up with McCain getting his wife off of drug charges that would've sent most people (even most rich white people) to jail for twenty years. (I won't bother listing all of Bush's.)

I look forward to seeing indictments handed down against her, preferably during the campaign. That'd make her even more of a match for two other Alaskan Republicans, soon-to-be-indicted Rep. Don Young, and already-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.

I'd been sort of hoping McCain would pick Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, who seems to be in the Huckabee wing of the party -- kinda crazy about social/religious issues, but authentically interested in serving the public good (though disrespect for science and fact-gathering can make that difficult, and the whacked-out patriarchalism tends to mean that their idea of the public good isn't so great for women, GLBT, etc). He just happens to be extra crazy on religion -- he used to conduct amateur exorcisms in his spare time.

22 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-24 Sun 13:41
What:	Still looking to sell a couple pairs of opera tix.
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

I still have two pairs of SF Opera tickets for sale. Each pair cost me $185, and I'd like to recover that. If you're interested, but the given date doesn't work for you, I can swap the tickets to a different date.

All my tickets are in Dress Circle, E126 and E128. You can see what the view looks like on the SFO website. Or you can trust me that these really are fantastic seats.

Simon Boccanegra	2008-09-21 2pm (educational lecture at 1:05pm)
The Elixir of Love	2008-11-09 2pm (educational lecture at 1:05pm)

Simon Boccanegra is a lesser-known, but very good, Verdi tragedy. The Elixir of Love (L'Elisir d'Amore) is a popular romantic comedy by Donizetti.

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-15 Fri 15:52
What:	Unrelatedly...
Security:	Public
Mood:	still annoyed

Could this meme...

Republicans shouldn’t crow over the [Edwards] scandal. After all their own presidential nominee, John McCain, was still married to his first wife when he took up with Cindy.

1 comment | post a comment

When:	2008-08-15 Fri 14:12
What:	When good things happen to bad ideas...
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed

So, oil prices have been coming down. And the news today shows that futures speculators, people who buy and sell oil* with no intention of ever actually using it themselves, were probably playing a larger role in the oil market than previously believed.

* Actually, they don't buy and sell oil; they buy and sell digital contracts that allow the holder to take delivery of some oil on a given date. The whole point, for a speculator, is to not be left holding the contract on the maturity date. By definition, they don't actually want the oil. They just want to be able to buy the contract for slightly less than they can sell it, thus taking a nibble out of the actual oil users' profits.

Over the last few months, it's been the position of most center-left and sustainability-minded economists that speculation could not possibly be playing a major role in the actual price run-up in the oil market. Here's why: speculators buy and sell futures, not oil for immediate use; after all, they don't want to use the oil. If they buy in the spot market, or if they buy in the futures market and then can't flip the future before it comes due, they have to take delivery and find someplace to store the oil until they can sell it. So, instead of just looking at the futures market, look at its relation to the spot market, where oil is purchased for immediate delivery.

If future prices were well above spot prices, there'd be an incentive for people with oil to sell a future contract and hang onto the oil; as long as the spread between spot and future is larger than the storage cost, they make money. However, spot prices were actually higher than futures prices, so there was no incentive to hoard. Prices were just responding to basic supply and demand, not to people on the sidelines laying bets on what would happen next month. Unless you actually change the amount of oil in the market, speculating has no impact. And there's no evidence that anybody was hoarding inventory. (They would've had to hoard a heck of a lot, to drive the price up from $100 to $140. A study I saw a couple months back, which I'll look for, to see if I can add a link, suggested that there's not enough storage in the world that anybody could sock away that much oil that fast. Pro-speculation-theory folks respond that production could fall, thus storing the oil in the ground, but there's not any evidence of that either; production in some places rose, in others stayed constant, and in the US continued falling, but only in line with expected depletions -- the more oil you pump out of a field, the harder it becomes to extract the remainder, so in the absence of big new finds, supply has to fall over time.)

So, why did oil prices finally start to fall again? That's easy: high prices finally impacted demand. US oil consumption, which normally grows regardless of price, actually cut back sharply, back to the levels of 2003, rolling back five years of growth. When you cut demand, prices fall. Duh.

In the meantime, the Democratic Congress closed a trading regulation loophole, called the Enron Loophole because it was one of the things that company was exploiting in its own market manipulations. Was that loophole probably bad? Yes. Might it have contributed some to the price run-up? Yes. Was it likely responsible for more than a small portion of the price shift? No, for reasons outlined above.

And it's really irritating to think that now people are going to think that the speculation theory has been validated -- loophole closed, prices fell, we can get back to our regularly scheduled drill'n'burn lifestyle! -- when in fact it's still simple supply and demand. We can't get complacent about the need to be more efficient (get yourself a tire gauge -- the GOP is giving 'em out for free *g*) and act like this is just a temporary crimp in our energy-intensive lifestyle. We can't drill our way out of the current mess. Unless oil consumption falls, and keeps falling, oil prices are never going back below $100/barrel.

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-12 Tue 22:44
What:	California Prop 2 -- regulation of farm animal living conditions
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful

Nick Kristof has a column today endorsing Proposition 2, which would ban cruel factory farming practices. I'll want to look into it further, but it certainly sounds like a good idea. I am, in general, in favor of getting rid of most of our industrial agricultural practices in favor of those that are more humane, safer for the environment (and for humans, in the long run, since industrial animal farms spin out nasty diseases), and favor the use of labor (of which we have an excess -- see "wages, declining") over physical and natural capital.

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-11 Mon 15:09
What:	We're not the only ones!
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

As Xta has mentioned, Google Maps tried to kill us on our anniversary / the day I proposed, by sending us out along rutted, unsigned dirt roads ("Turn right toward NF-059") up in the mountains, in the dying light of early evening, such that if we'd gotten lost or stuck in a rut, we would've been in pretty serious trouble.

( Looks like Randall Munroe has had a similar experience. )

20 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-08 Fri 16:02
What:	The Real McCoy ^H^H^H Cain
Security:	Public
Mood:	impressed

McCain's hometown alternative paper (competing with the establishment-conservative Arizona Republic) dishes the real goods on his history as a petty, vindictive, partisan sleazeball. It ain't pretty.

And where's the "liberal" MSM when you need 'em? I'd heard some of this stuff before, but a lot of it is news to me. And I look for stuff like that!

5 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-04 Mon 14:36
What:	Opera tickets for sale...
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

I just got my SFO subscription tickets in the mail. I resubscribed in order to keep my "seniority", but I am selling some of my tix. I can't really afford the full subscription this year (due to being in school and underemployed; I'll be a TA this year, but that doesn't exactly pay big bucks).

All my tickets are in Dress Circle, E126 and E128. You can see what the view looks like on the SFO website. Or you can trust me that these really are fantastic seats.

Each pair of tickets is $185. (I'm willing to sell them individually, at $92.50 apiece, only if I receive offers on both; it's much harder to sell a singleton.) If you want to see a show but don't like the date, I can exchange for another day, for comparable seats; there's an additional fee, though. (I think $10, but it may have changed.) All of the current tix are Sunday matinees.

Tix available are:

Simon Boccanegra	2008-09-21 2pm (educational lecture at 1:05pm)
The Elixir of Love	2008-11-09 2pm (educational lecture at 1:05pm)
Tosca	2009-06-14 1pm (educational lecture at 12:05pm)
La Traviata	2009-06-28 2pm (educational lecture at 1:05pm)

4 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-08-03 Sun 11:40
What:	Wait, but Lou Dobbs said "illegals" were getting free medical care!
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated

Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals

In fact, hospitals are arranging to deport people. Yet another place where undocumented immigrants will have an incentive not to trust the authorities in our society. They're already so paranoid about the police that they won't help us investigate crimes; now it's doctors; soon they'll be resisting interactions with the grocery store clerk. If we end up with an epidemic of something, because most members of an immigrant community were afraid of getting treatment, I'm going to blame people like Lou Dobbs.

We would, in fact, be much better off just having universal care, even if some of it "leaks" into care for the undocumented. In the absence of universal coverage, non-emergency care is unavailable to millions of people, citizens and immigrants alike. Those people can't afford an ounce of prevention, so they show up at the ER in need of a pound of cure. Unless we're willing to have people literally die in the streets outside those ERs, we have to treat them. Then we ruin those people's lives (collections agencies, taking their cars, their houses, or, in some cases, deportation), and still don't manage to pay the bills they run up. So then the excess cost gets passed along into the bills of insured people, raising the cost of care, and eventually causing more people to become uninsured.

We'd end up paying less if we just provided the preventive care in the first place.

14 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-07-17 Thu 15:50
What:	Sean Tevis is made of 100% USDA Certified WIN
Security:	Public
Mood:	giggly

You Must Read This. Especially if the letters XKCD mean anything to you.

I'd recommend reading through his issues and blog before deciding to donate, but I did; he seems to basically be a moderate Dem, probably comparable to many of those who won seats in red House districts in '06. (Heath Shuler comes to mind.) Populist on taxation, favors legal immigration but has a strict-ish stance against illegal immigrants. Comes from a tech background, and is campaigning heavily on privacy for citizens and transparency for gov't. He's trying to raise $8.34 from 3000 individuals, which would shatter the record for most individual donations to a KS state leg race... And he's well on his way to making that goal.

7 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-06-23 Mon 16:17
What:	You may've seen this in Xta's journal already...
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

On Saturday evening we were invited to a small event in the city for Gabrielle Giffords, with Special Guest Detective Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

( pictures )

It was a great deal of fun. I discussed the pros and cons of H1B visas* with Gabby, who is intensely interested in both immigration and tech issues, and got to ask Bob Reich a couple questions about healthcare funding**. Reich apparently has known Gabby for a long time -- he was her professor at some point in the murky past. He heaped absolutely glowing praise on her, including predicting that she'll be the first female president. (If she gets another couple terms in Congress, then a term as AZ governor, she'd be a great VP pick in 2016, and she could run at age 54, in 2024...)

Any of you who live in the Tucson area (hint, hint) should sign up to work for her campaign!

* She favors having more of them, but weakening the individual employer's control over an employee's visa status.

** He thinks Paul Krugman has gone a little loopy on his critiques of Obama, which have most recently focused on the idea that while Obama's plan to make the tax system significantly more progressive is nice, it may leave too little money to do a good job on healthcare. Reich's take is that the Bush tax cuts expiring and Obama plans to not extend them; and we can wind down involvement in Iraq; and there's an opportunity to re-jigger or completely re-invent the Medicare drug benefit which Bush put in place with no option to negotiate prices, and to wipe out the "Medicare plus" subsidized private plans, for a total savings of $50-100B; so there will be at least $300B/yr available, probably more. Obama's giving up something like $70B overall in his tax plans, and devoting another chunk to reduce the deficit, but that would still leave at least $120B for healthcare. I take no responsibility if these numbers are slightly inaccurate -- it's not like I wrote them down at the time. In any case, he made a pretty compelling case.

ETA: Re: the pic with Bob Reich, the reason we're all grinning is that instead of saying "cheese," Bob said "Gingrich!"

3 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-06-21 Sat 14:39
What:	A public letter to the Human Rights Commission of San Jose.
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed

To: HRC@sanjoseca.gov
Subject: Civil Rights are not favored only by a "small vocal minority".

I understand that the San Jose Human Rights Commission refused to consider taking a position against the appalling anti-gay initiative that may be on the ballot in November, and that Vice-Chair of the Commission, Robert Bailey, stated he doesn't "think this commission should be spending its time on an issue like this for the benefit of a small vocal minority." I am not a gay American, but I am firmly in favor of eliminating the discrimination faced by my gay friends. What is the point of having a Human Rights Commission if it will not stand up for the civil rights of its constituents?

Personally, I'd be perfectly happy to make marriage an entirely personal or religious matter, by re-naming the rights granted by the State (while still recognizing the union as marriage for federal purposes, until/unless federal law catches up). Let everyone have civil unions, and then go get married in whatever setting, and in front of whatever community, they find suitable. That would make clear that we have no intention of stopping churches that object to homosexuality from being as bigoted as they please; we simply expect them to keep their dogmatic stupidity out of our legal system.

In a generation, we will look back on those who stood against, or even refused to stand up _for_, the rights of our gay brothers and sisters, with the same disgust that we now regard those who opposed or ignored the rights of interracial couples. The exact same arguments as were used 40-50 years ago are being deployed again now, and they are just as vile now as they were then.

California was an early state to legalize interracial marriage. We should be proud to be an early state to legalize gender-neutral marriage.

Regards,
(my full name, address, title)

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-06-20 Fri 06:02
What:	Beef stew/soup with lemon juice, nectarine, rhubarb.
Security:	Public
Mood:	full

I bought too much rhubarb, for making strawberry-rhubarb-nectarine crisp. And I also bought extra nectarines, just because, hey, nectarines are one of my absolute favorite fruits. (It wasn't so much that I bought too many stalks of rhubarb; it's just that the stalks were much bigger than they looked, or at least bigger than the stalks I'd gotten the previous two times. Really, this all makes sense... if you're me.)

Anyways, I was trying to think what to do with the rhubarb. Maybe make a compote for topping things with? Eh, boring. I'd made crisp three times already, which was kind of enough sweet rhubarb stuff for a few weeks. So I thought -- what about a savory dish? Then I remembered, years ago, seeing some contestant on Iron Chef, on the episode where the theme ingredient was peaches, make a beef stew with peaches. I had nectarines.

I had an idea. An utterly crazy idea. ( So crazy, it just might work. )

I got up super-early on Wednesday morning to make stew. (Using the oven for three hours at the end of the day, when it's 85° in the house, seemed like a bad idea.) There's still one serving left in the fridge. It has been quite tasty for lunch each day.

6 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-06-13 Fri 18:40
What:	A simple demonstration of why distribution curves are better than bar graphs.
Security:	Public
Mood:	geeky

Obama and McCain have tax proposals. The Washington Post has kindly offered us a bar graph, based on an analysis of the proposals from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

( large-ish image )

As it happens, the McCain cut is so heavily weighted in favor of the rich that you can easily tell that the median family is getting less under his plan than under Obama's more-or-less revenue neutral plan. (Obama goes slightly rev-negative on income taxes, but has some other proposals that would increase revenue, like actually bothering to collect oil and gas royalties, closing corporate tax loopholes, etc.)

In any case, here is a quick-and-dirty distribution graph, with percentile position of family on the X axis (so the poorest family is at left, and the richest at right), and percent-of-family-income tax change on the Y axis.

( another image )

(Credit for image goes to Kai Stinchcombe, president of Peninsula Young Dems.) This pretty much tells the whole story, doesn't it? Sure, Kai arbitrarily defined the bottom quartile and top quartile as "poor" and "rich", and that happened to more-or-less line up with the crossover between the two plans. But regardless of exactly whom you consider rich or poor, the glaringly clear message is: McCain gives more -- dramatically more -- to those who already have more, and hands a pittance to the rest of us, in the hopes that we won't notice that he's appropriating the wealth of the nation for a gang of plutocrats. Which is in keeping with the lunatic-right ideology of his good buddy Dubya. So much for being a moderate or a maverick.

15 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-06-02 Mon 09:59
What:	Endorsement for a race I'd forgotten about...
Security:	Public
Mood:	forgetful

I'm just about to update my endorsement list with names for the County Central Committees -- there are some people in each race that I know well.

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When:	2008-05-31 Sat 12:47
What:	Endorsements for primary election, June 3, 2008
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

( Endorsements in a variety of races around the Bay Area, and on the (very important!) propositions )

23 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-05-18 Sun 15:31
What:	An extensive article on the B Corporation concept, and AB 2944.
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

AB 2944 has now passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee, so now all Assemblymembers need to hear why it's a good thing... Here's an extensive discussion of the ideas it's supporting.

( 'B corporation' plan helps philanthropic firms )

1 comment | post a comment

When:	2008-05-09 Fri 16:06
What:	Who knew being a geek was so exciting?
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

There's a crime caper movie out now, based on a true story, about MIT students.

9 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-05-09 Fri 10:16
What:	Fruit Crisp makes writing papers less stressful. Or at least that's my theory.
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

And also my excuse for spending an hour or so making it, rather than writing.

Recipe derived from the most recent edition of the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook.

Filling:

• 5 cups of sliced fruit: apples, pears, peaches, apricots, whatever. If using any type of frozen fruit, thaw, but don't drain.
• zest from two small lemons or one medium-to-large one; orange zest would work fine too
• 2 to 3 tablespoons granulated sugar. If using blueberries, increase to 4 tablespoons. For tart cherries, increase to 1/2 cup. For rhubarb, increase to 3/4 cup. For blueberries, cherries, rhubarb, or strawberries, also mix 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour with the sugar.

Combine filling ingredients in a shallow two-quart baking dish.

Pre-heat oven to 375°F.

Topping:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup (packed, not loose) brown sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• spices, to taste; the recipe suggested 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, which is way too little spice; I probably used about 1.5 teaspoons of spice total, mixing allspice, cardamom cinnamon, clove, ginger, and nutmeg; for some fruits, tossing the fruit with a bit of vanilla extract before adding the sugar (and flour, if appropiate) might work well
• 1/4 cup butter (half a standard stick) cut into small cubes (I cut it 4x4x4, and that worked well)
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts and/or shredded unsweetened fresh coconut

In a large bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, spices. Add butter and mix til you get coarse crumbs. The easiest way to get the right texture for crisp topping is to clean and dry your hands, and then pinch bits of the dry mix around the cubes of butter. Keep doing that as long as you can see identifiable bits of butter, then add the nuts and/or coconut and squish everything around a bit more. It helps if you have a friend who can scrape topping bits off your fingers with the back of a knife, when you're done.

Sprinkle topping evenly over filling.

Place baking dish in oven. I suggest putting the baking dish on top of another dish (say, a cookie sheet), so that if fruit juices bubble over they won't make a mess in the bottom of your oven.

Bake for 30-35 minutes (40 if fruit started out frozen), til topping begins to brown.

What I actually made last night was strawberry-rhubarb -- two pints of strawberries from the farmshare and three stalks of rhubarb from a friend's garden. Tasty for breakfast, topped with yogurt.

3 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-04-23 Wed 11:28
What:	AB 2944: the California Business Leadership and Innovation Statute
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

AB 2944, a bill written by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D - San Francisco) in collaboration with B Labs, would explicitly give permission to officers of corporations formed in California to consider, in their planning, other interests besides short-term financial benefit to shareholders. This would include considering harms to employees, communities and the environment, and the long-term interests of the company. This type of protection has already been extended to financial trustees, such as the managers of pension funds, partly in recognition of the fact that those funds that were considering issues other than short-term return were actually performing better anyways.

The bill is currently before the Assembly Judiciary Committee. The New Voice of Business (an aspiring competitor to the Chamber of Commerce, seeking to represent the true long-term interests of business owners) has a page about this bill, with some downloadable form-letters to send to the committee members.

If you're in Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, or Los Angeles county, you can visit GuideToGov.org to find all of your elected officials, to see if you're in one of the targeted districts. (The districts are all gerrymandered to pieces, so the below info is only approximate -- virtually every significant city in the state is carved up to have pieces in more than one district.) If you suspect you might be in somebody's district, you might try this page to get a detailed map of the relevant district. (Google the person's name with "assembly" and you'll find their district number.) Alternately, try googling "whatever county registrar" to find your registrar of voters, and then look for a link that will tell you info on your districts and representatives. Most registrars do have something like that.

The targets for these letters are:

• Dave Jones from central Sacramento.


• Van Tran, from an area that runs from Garden Grove to Costa Mesa.


• Mark Leno, from San Francisco (for whom you should edit the letter to recognize that he's the author; he should be complimented/congratulated, rather than encouraged to support -- he obviously already does support his own bill).


• Anthony Adams, Claremont.


• Noreen Evans, Napa.


• Mike Feuer, Beverly Hills.


• Rick Keene, northeast CA (Lassen, Plumas, Butte, Sierra, Nevada, and Yuba counties).


• Paul Krekorian, Glendale.


• John Laird, Santa Cruz and Monterey.


• Lloyd Levine, NW Los Angeles (Northridge, Van Nuys, etc).


• Sally Lieber, South Bay (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Alviso).

4 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-04-04 Fri 11:57
What:	Do you live in a building?
Security:	Public
Mood:	geeky

If so, you pay property tax, either directly as an owner or as part of your rent.

Property taxes, properly structured, could be an incredibly powerful tool for driving smart growth, "new urbanist" human-friendly communities, preservation of habitats, and so on. Property taxes as currently structured are a) incredibly unfair, b) create a substantial "tax on moving", and c) favor sprawl over dense "urban village" development. And yet, there were some pretty big problems with the system we had before, which drove the epochal Proposition 13 reform, which gave us the system we have today.

Want to learn more about this important issue? On April 10th, the Peninsula Democratic Coalition, San Mateo and Silicon Valley Chapters of Democracy for America, and the Palo Alto Branch of the American Association of University Women, are all co-hosting a panel discussion and Q/A session with four of our state's top experts on this issue -- an event that is the fruition of an idea I had early last year, and did a fair bit of work to organize.

Panelists include:
Assemblyman John Laird, Chair of the Committee on Budget
Lenny Goldberg, Executive Director of California Tax Reform Association
Larry Stone, Assessor of Santa Clara County

Moderated by Joseph Bankman, Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School

When: Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 7 p.m. (with light refreshments provided at 6:30 p.m.)

Where: Mountain View City Council Chambers, Mountain View City Hall (500 Castro Street)

Convenient parking is available free of charge in the Mountain View Civic Center garage located directly under the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. The entrance to the garage is on Mercy Street. The "City Hall" elevator in the garage goes directly to the outer lobby of the Council Chambers on the second floor of City Hall. For those taking public transit, the 22 and 522 stop a couple blocks west at El Camino and Castro, and dozens of different buses, not to mention the CalTrain and VTA light rail, come through the downtown MtV CalTrain depot, which is about five blocks east of City Hall.

Come learn about abstract legal concepts, and why they have a major impact on the kind of town you live in! It'll be fun, and it'll make you a more informed voter when, some time in the next decade, we finally get a proposition on the ballot to reform our screwed-up property tax system.

10 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-03-30 Sun 15:19
What:	Convention highlight...
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

I amended one word of the CA Democratic Platform -- changed support for net zero energy buildings to net zero emissions (because the former is simply not feasible on all sites, and the latter emphasizes the real goal of addressing climate change and allows for investment in off-site renewables and various kinds of carbon offset to count).

ETA: Another highlight moment was on Sunday morning, when, slightly sleep deprived, I was approached by a guy who's making a documentary about the difference between conservative and progressive/liberal values. After rambling a bit, I came up with a line that I think was pretty good. I'd basically been saying that I really believe the rank-and-file conservative is a well-meaning person; I know the woman who I used to work with at the polls in College Terrace was extremely nice, the sort of person you'd trust to house-sit, or you'd tell the kids to go find if they get locked out of the house and you're not home... These folks like the way things are, or were when they grew up, or have a generally idyllic vision of a lost past -- maybe it's their parents' generation. In any case, they don't like to be pushed out of their comfort zone by anything new and different, and that includes people who don't seem to be like them. Whereas for progressives, other-ness isn't a problem; we're all us, we're just different kinds of us. We annoy everyone with our calls for recycling, because we see that you can't throw stuff away -- there's no such place (unless we're talking about lobbing things into the nearest star), the whole world is here. Anyways, I was riffing on this general topic when I got to a really good encapsulation: Conservatives see that the world is full of dragons, and call out for kings to protect them and walls they can hide behind; progressives say, "Hey, flying reptiles. Coooool! You think they'd come play with us?"

6 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-03-22 Sat 19:55
What:	Extremely Funny Economics Paper
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

The Theory of Interstellar Trade, by Paul Krugman, back when he was a young Assistant Professor. Samples...

From the abstract: "A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved."

From the introductory segment: "It should be noted that, while the subject of this paper is silly, the analysis actually does make sense. This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."

And it gets better from there.

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When:	2008-03-12 Wed 11:53
What:	Quantitative News List
Security:	Public
Mood:	geeky

My friend Kai -- fellow Peninsula Democratic Coalition boardmember, and recently-ascended president of the Peninsula Young Dems -- is starting up a mailing list that is currently being referred to as "quanty kids":

I'm starting a small email list for quantitatively-inclined people who follow news and politics. Basically the idea is that:

- Most channels of news information are terrible at conveying quantitative information, without which there are a lot of things you just can't understand.

- There exists a group of people that from time to time really want to understand an issue in the news, badly enough that they will go back and make sense of the coverage by generating themselves the quantitative information that was previously edited out.

- If you take a group of ~30 such people, who each once a month or so would anyway spend a couple hours trying to figure out the chinese air quality standards, or how the falling satellite compares to an ICBM, or what the actual difference between Obama and Clinton's healthcare plan is, or where the subprime money went, or whatever else -- you have an average of one "numbers note" every day or every other day.

- These people will see value added both in (i) having a group of quantitatively inclined people to run their own work by and share it with, and (ii) getting these random emails about "hey, here's what's actually going on in that news issue" shared with them so they have a better understanding of what's actually going on.

Incidentally, related to the topic, below is the draft of my column for this week about how crappy the MSM has done a job of covering the primaries.

Are you interested in being on the list? Do you have pals you think might?

7 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-03-10 Mon 13:33
What:	ph34r my 1337 sk1LL5!
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

I have a new printer -- one of those all-in-one scan/fax/copy/whatever devices, the HP L7680. I tried to set it up yesterday and it failed. It made unpleasant grinding noises, and reported a paper jam even though there was no paper in it. Had to give up to go meet with some classmates, but got back to it this morning, with an online chat with a technician.

After trying a few things (simple stuff like power cycling), and staring intently for a while at the part of the printer that was making the bad noises, I realized what the problem was. There was a printhead plug stuck in one of the moving parts of the printer -- exactly the same orange rubber plug that had been included to protect the ink inlets on the two inkjet cartridges (CM and YK) included in the printer box, sealed in separate packets. I checked my trash, and sure enough, both those plugs were in the basket -- so I'm not the one who dropped the plug in there. This looks like a quality-control problem at the HP assembly plant. Maybe they test the cartridges (most of which are remanufactured these days, not new) right before packing them in the box with the printer, and they dropped a plug when doing that and thought they'd lost it on the floor, but instead they lost it inside my printer...

Since the machine had already tried to start up, and parts had moved around, the plug had gotten pretty badly wedged into the spot where it was sitting, but after a few minutes of effort with long tweezers, I was able to dislodge it; a few more minutes effort and I actually snuck it past the various parts in the way and got it out. And now my printer works. I made a color copy of the cover of Girl Genius (lots of fiddly details to compare). It looks great.

I gave the tech the serial number of the machine. I hope they'll adhere to good Total Quality Management practices and actually send a report to the manager of the relevant assembly and packing plant...

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-03-01 Sat 14:20
What:	Perverse subsidies (and fines).
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed

There's an Op-Ed in today's NYT by a farmer who works famers' markets and supplies a Community Supported Agriculture program, who got hammered by fines from the Dep't of Agriculture for transitioning some acres designated for industrial monoculture corn, into producing fruits and vegetables for local consumption.

This is completely insane. I'm mailing my Congresscritters a link to the article and a short description, and a number of reasons why sustainable local farming is superior (e.g. it creates long-term work, rather than for seasonal migrant labor, and is thus better for the local economy -- it builds a stable community).

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When:	2008-02-27 Wed 15:43
What:	Life imitates art...
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Y'know, it's been long enough since West Wing that it hadn't occurred to me to make this comparison. But apparently Matt Santos was modeled on Obama, and some of his speeches actually contain input from Obama's writer, David Axelrod.

Here's hoping life continues to imitate art. After all, Santos won...

1 comment | post a comment

When:	2008-02-23 Sat 22:06
What:	Taxes and FAFSA complete.
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

And it only took me the whole damn day.

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-02-21 Thu 12:41
What:	Professor Lessig goes to Washington?
Security:	Public
Mood:	intrigued

Lawrence Lessig, esteemed Stanford professor, expert on copyright and freedom of expression, and progressive thinker, has started exploring the possibility of running against Jackie Speier for the Congressional seat opened by the death of Tom Lantos, on a platform focused entirely on reforming the system by which we fund politics.

Personally, I suspect Jackie will disarm this by simply taking the pledge he has proposed; she did in the past take money from insurers, but I suspect the ability of popular politicians to fundraise from individuals, in small amounts, has evolved to the point that she will be able to get by without PACs and corporate officers. Still, it'd be interesting having Lessig in the conversation.

6 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-02-12 Tue 18:17
What:	Girl gets bestest gifts.
Security:	Public
Mood:	loved

Christa just came home with an entire container of parmesan rinds, just the outer centimeter of the wheel, which I guess they cut off before grating the rest. That's the best part -- it's drier, which concentrates the flavor. And I am exceedingly pleased that girl remembers I like them. *love* :-)

8 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-02-08 Fri 02:06
What:	We now have an estimate on the number of voters disenfranchised in Los Angeles: 94,500
Security:	Public
Mood:	angry

See the Sacramento Bee's editorial page:

A major voting disaster Tuesday shows the pitfalls of having each of the state's 58 counties set its own rules and ballot designs. Voters in Los Angeles County who belong to no party ("decline-to-state" voters) and who wanted to vote in the Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday got a raw deal.

Where most counties simply give nonpartisan voters a party ballot at their request, Los Angeles County gives nonpartisan voters a separate ballot that requires voters to fill out a bubble for the presidential candidate of their choice – and a second bubble for a political party.

Many voters do not see and do not fill out the second bubble – and, thus, their votes do not count.

The scale of disenfranchisement is huge – 94,500 of 189,000 decline-to-state votes. That's half of the nonpartisan ballots. By comparison, in the infamous Florida "butterfly ballot" debacle in the 2000 presidential election, 19,120 Palm Beach County ballots went uncounted because of the bad ballot design.

19 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-02-07 Thu 08:44
What:	Sustainable restaurant...
Security:	Public
Mood:	anticipatory

Tinderbox is run by a friend of a Presidian, and is offering "SLOW" (seasonal, local, organic, whole) produce and meats. The menu looks very good. And they have an extensive bonus point schedule on OpenTable.com. (The 1000-point reservation basically means you effectively get a $10 discount -- every 2000 points gets you a $20 gift certificate good at any OT restaurant.) I will have to find a reason to get over there, some time in the next few months...

9 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-02-06 Wed 18:18
What:	Something does not add up here.
Security:	Public
Mood:	angry

If you have not yet heard about the Los Angeles double bubble, it's sort of a reincarnation of the butterfly ballot -- it was a needlessly confusing ballot structure that may have cost a lot of people their votes. In order for voters registered as non-partisan / decline-to-state to vote in the Dem race, they had to make two marks in the presidential section of their ballot (as opposed to the butterfly, where it looked like maybe you needed two marks, but actually you needed to not make the second mark).

It would appear that in the LA presidential returns, there are over a million votes split between Obama and Clinton. And yet, if you look at the numbers for Non-Partisan Voters who cast a Partisan Ballot, you'll find that less than 100k people successfully got counted in the Dem presidential race -- that's less than 10% of the ballots. N-Ps are ~20% of all registrants, and the only major primary they could vote in was Dem. (I think Dems are around 40%, so if all N-Ps voted in the Dem primary, they'd be a third of the voters in that race, not 10%. And at our polling station, that one-third figure is about right.)

We need competent registrars. And we need to support Debra Bowen in setting statewide standards for elections.

3 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-01-31 Thu 15:44
What:	Propositions
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

After some further research, I've come down leaning strongly to No on 92. PeteRates.com gives a pretty nasty review to that proposition, and as far as I can tell he's correct about the structure of the funding mechanism. He also has an excellent rundown on why we should oppose 94-97 (which I was already planning to do). I've written extensively before about my support of 93. (91 is orphaned -- the people who submitted it decided they didn't want it to pass after all.)

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-01-29 Tue 12:49
What:	An interesting fiscal policy idea...
Security:	Public
Mood:	intrigued

Andrew Samwick, a quite conservative (but sane) economist, has suggested that the federal gov't should start planning out its infrastructure capital investment over a period of several years, much as it already does for large defense purchases. (Big defense purchases, like naval vessels, are paid for over a period of several years; IIRC the defense budget can schedule expenses as far out as four years from the fiscal year officially being planned for.) Then it could easily empower a fiscal agency similar to the Federal Reserve to tweak the scheduling of those projects, creating instant hiring (boost aggregate demand) with the benefit of investment in infrastructure (boost aggregate supply) to provide economic stimulus when needed, without the kind of delays and policy arguments we're seeing currently. The agency could also force delays when the economy was already booming, both to help bring the budget into balance, and to help prevent inflation and the kind of "overheating" that allows money to flow into asset bubbles.

It's an interesting thought. And, it turns out, something just a little bit like it has been proposed by Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Hagel (R-NE). Their version is a federal infrastructure bank, which would essentially use monetary policy to influence fiscal policy, by infusing money into infrastructure projects (increasing gov't debt to spend on the infrastructure and associated jobs -- just like directly buying the projects would) when the economy looked like it could use a boost.

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-01-28 Mon 23:43
What:	I'm still not certain whether I'll vote Edwards or Obama...
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

...because I have a tiny sliver of hope that Edwards could accumulate enough delegates to play kingmaker for Obama and extract some promises to break out of right-wing frames and push truly progressive policy (or at least to appoint Edwards to some influential cabinet post -- say, SecLabor, where he could turn around the NLRB so it starts being a neutral arbiter instead of a tool of union-busting corporocrats). Nonetheless, this is a kickass analysis of the SC primary, telling off some of the pundits and prog-bloggers (many of whom I like) for dismissing Obama's SC win. Gacked from mickle.

Unrelatedly, Xta and I now live together. Moving is a lot of work, and distracts me from my classes. I need to do my entire Operations HW tomorrow, which I really should've started on about four days ago. Also should try to get through at least half the Macro HW tomorrow. And prep for a telecon on Thu concerning BizGov.

And I also want to find time to write an endorsements post on the Props. Short version is: 92 on community colleges leaning Yes but not fully decided; 93 on term limits definitely yes (google "site:auros.livejournal.com term limits" to find the post with details); 94-97 on Indian gambling, leaning pretty strongly no, because an expert I trust (Lenny Goldberg from Cal Tax Reform) is one of the authors of the argument against, saying that there is no adequate auditing of the revenues the new compacts will bring in, so even if you're OK with the gambling and with the way the compacts discriminate among tribes (to the potential detriment of many), the compacts are not guaranteed to actually provide real long-term benefit to the state.

PS: Kathleen Sebelius (link is to her delivery of the official Dem response to the Bush SotU) is my personal choice for first woman president. She does a highly effective job of making the case that mainstream Democratic policy is the center, and insofar as the GOP stands in the way of it, we're not talking about two opposing sides, with the "center" in between, we're talking about one party behaving in a sane and responsible manner, while the other ignores the wishes of even a significant chunk of its own electorate. (e.g. Upwards of half of Californians registered Republican believe that global warming is a serious issue and support Arnold's signing of AB32; meanwhile, there were basically no Republican votes for AB32 in the leg, and the executive board of the CA GOP has publicly insulted their Governor.)

ETA: Edwards has quit, so I'm voting Obama.

17 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-01-24 Thu 19:43
What:	Best economic stimulus proposal ever.
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

From Len Burman, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, in the NYTimes.

[I]f they were repealed in a year [note that this means moving the sunset date a year earlier than currently scheduled], the Bush tax cuts could spur a burst of economic activity in 2008. If people knew that their tax rates were going up next year, they'd work to make sure that more of their income is taxed at this year's lower rates. Investors would likewise have a giant incentive to cash out their capital gains now to avoid paying higher taxes later. In 1986, stock sales doubled as taxpayers rushed to avoid the capital gains tax rate increase scheduled for 1987. If people pour their stock gains into yachts and fast cars, that's pure fiscal stimulus.

The money involved could be considerable. Capital gains in 2007 were something like $700 billion, representing well over $1 trillion in asset sales. It looks as if gains will be much lower in 2008, but a looming tax increase could easily spur an additional $500 billion in sales. If only 20 percent of that translated into extra spending, we'd have as much or more short-term stimulus as we could get from the package Congress and the president are considering.

Best of all, this is one stimulus proposal that would reduce the deficit -- the single largest threat to the economy's long-term health. And that long-term benefit wouldn't depend on our getting the timing and amount of stimulus right, something policymakers are notoriously inept at.

2 comments | post a comment

When:	2008-01-20 Sun 15:25
What:	Anyone remember this story?
Security:	Public
Mood:	forgetful

There's a sci-fi story in which, after almost losing a war with a considerably more powerful alien species, and then managing to seize control of that species' huge terraforming engine and turn it against them, humans have gone on to terraform some more colonies and continue developing their capabilities. The story takes place on a station that's trying to produce wormholes, using tiny artificial black holes (which in some way stabilize the wormhole mouths). Every time they get a mass to sink inside its Chandrasekhar limit, it vanishes down the wormhole without coming out again like it should. They eventually figure out that it's actually being sucked into another universe -- a parasite. The ending of the story basically says: humans have gone from biological evolution, to cultural evolution, to being the agent perpetuating biospheric evolution (taking the entire set of ecosystems of Earth and perpetuating it, in mutated/adapted/localized forms, through terraforming), and has now discovered that entire universes may be engaged in evolution -- and if there are parasites, there might be predators out there...

I'm trying to remember the title / author / where this was published. I'm thinking it might've been a short story or novella in Analog... Anyone know that one?

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When:	2008-01-20 Sun 08:52
What:	I'm in the news...
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

The Palo Alto Weekly, to be precise.

I would've spoken with the author by phone, but I was in class all day, so I composed an email over lunch hour...

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When:	2008-01-15 Tue 14:57
What:	The Fact-Checking Department strikes again...
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Some of you may recall that I am Slate's Fact-Checking Department (though I kinda let them down from October through mid-December last fall when school got really intense; sigh). I'm debating whether to buy a wine fridge. At my current place, at the back of the garage there's a storage unit. The garage is below street level, so the storage unit is effectively an underground room; it stays at a very constant temperature. At the new place, we won't have that, so I thought perhaps a dedicated fridge was in order. Looking at stuff on Froogle, I came up with one listed for a rather improbable price. An amusing email exchange followed:

> On Tue, 15 Jan 2008, R.M. 'Auros' Harman wrote:
> I think the price on this item must be an error:
> http://www.appliancebestbuys.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=79309
>
> I don't think a 100+ bottle wine fridge would cost less than a hundred dollars...
> Though, let me hasten to add, I'll be happy to buy it from you at the listed $29 price. :)

Hello,

We do apologize for the error, there was a price mistake on that model.
We have deleted that item from our website since it is not available.
We apologize for any inconveniences.

Thank you,
Appliance Best Buys Customer Service Department

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