Sam (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
l33tminion) wrote2009-07-18 03:50 pm
l33tminion) wrote2009-07-18 03:50 pm
No Unifying Topic
Again, I delay posting because I can't decide what to post about, but there's stuff to say. So this is a little disorganized:
Fitness: Went climbing on Wednesday:
Passed:
Neon Sunrise (5.7)
Aaaaahhhhh (5.7)
Attempted:
[Unnamed High Finger Strength Course] (5.7+? 5.8?)
Working out, I've succeeded in some of my major goals. I can back-squat or deadlift two plates (225 lbs.), and as of today I can bench press my weight (170 lbs.). My medium (8 reps) on bench press has gone up from 50 lbs. to 170 lbs. in the last 9 months, which isn't bad at all.
I've been trying to revive my social life since getting back from camp. Patti, Dan, and Tegan's housewarming party last Sunday was fun, and I'll be hanging out with Tegan again this evening. I'll also be hanging out with Lynn on Monday, which is cool, scheduling is tricky since she's farther out from the city proper.
Still memorizing kanji, using Mnemosyne to get back up to date on the one's I've previously learned. Trying to avoid confusing 後 and 終; 北, 比, and 化; 可, 同, and 向; etc., etc. Probably more posts on studying Japanese later.
Speaking of posts later, I'll probably get back to doing my chapter-by-chapter of Megatrends, mainly because I do plan to finish the book and don't like quitting when I'm halfway through. Good writing practice if nothing else.
And news: How about that Goldman Sachs story? Record quarterly profits, record compensation for executives ($18 BILLION; $600,000 per employee, although not actually so evenly distributed, obviously; they paid back the TARP funds first to avoid restrictions on executive pay, but that's a paltry portion of their bailout billions). Goldman seemed to be one of the few firms that realized the subprime mortgage market was "toxic", they sold what they could and then heavily shorted what they sold (the financial equivalent of selling your neighbor a time-bomb and then taking out a large life-insurance policy). What they couldn't dump on the unwitting, they insured with AIG. Given that they knew how bad the subprime bubble was, they must have known that AIG risked becoming insolvent, but that was okay since the US Treasury was run by former Goldman execs (Paulson, among others). Goldman manages to pull of the functional equivalent of crimes in such a way that it's not clear they're crimes at all: Were they misrepresenting the subprime securities they sold, or just taking advantage of less clever competition? Was the relationship between Goldman, AIG, and the US Treasury an elaborate kickbacks scheme planned in advance, or was Goldman just taking advantage of preexisting (and stupid) government policy (most importantly, the "too big to fail" doctrine)?
What really surprises me about the above is the low incidence of actual outrage, even in the easy-to-anger domain of the blogosphere. There's a lot of "we should be outraged", the facts of the matter are pretty outrageous. But it seems that Americans are used to the idea that organizations like Goldman are willing to help destroy the economy for their own (evidently really significant) benefit. Or maybe there's no reason to care about the economy beyond employment and grocery prices... who cares if the government gives billions to the wealthy financial class, who cares about the machinations of the rich? Maybe there's some subconscious belief that it's all a house of cards, and the state of our existence in the lower stories of said house isn't worth much concern, even if the whole thing is seeming rather shaky...
Unrelated, but also political, sort of: While I was at camp, had an argument with a climate skeptic who believes that the last few years of evidence say solar cycles are driving climate in a cooler direction, regardless of anthropogenic global warming. A few thoughts on that:
1. The scientific modeling work is really interesting, there's still a lot to discover.
2. Activists for political change related to global warming will be really reluctant to believe it. And for good reason. Politically motivated climate skeptics were in favor of sun cycle theories of climate change way before the last few years, when the trend was clearly warming, seemingly for reasons of fatalistic denial as opposed to solid science.
3. The guy I was arguing with took the "they'll totally destroy the economy"whine line, which is really annoying. Even if that was climate liberals' goal (it really isn't), the chances of regulation that would actually be economy destroying getting passed and implemented is slim to none. (Unless it massively benefited the rich, I suppose.) I expect whatever gets passed will be minimal, commonsense stuff wrapped in lofty language.
4. Sun-driven cooling is either good news in the sort term (temporary reprieve to global warming, giving us time to get some of those factors in check) or really bad (little ice age during an energy crisis!).
More to write about various books, but I'll do that later, maybe.
That's enough of a brain-dump for now.
Fitness: Went climbing on Wednesday:
Passed:
Neon Sunrise (5.7)
Aaaaahhhhh (5.7)
Attempted:
[Unnamed High Finger Strength Course] (5.7+? 5.8?)
Working out, I've succeeded in some of my major goals. I can back-squat or deadlift two plates (225 lbs.), and as of today I can bench press my weight (170 lbs.). My medium (8 reps) on bench press has gone up from 50 lbs. to 170 lbs. in the last 9 months, which isn't bad at all.
I've been trying to revive my social life since getting back from camp. Patti, Dan, and Tegan's housewarming party last Sunday was fun, and I'll be hanging out with Tegan again this evening. I'll also be hanging out with Lynn on Monday, which is cool, scheduling is tricky since she's farther out from the city proper.
Still memorizing kanji, using Mnemosyne to get back up to date on the one's I've previously learned. Trying to avoid confusing 後 and 終; 北, 比, and 化; 可, 同, and 向; etc., etc. Probably more posts on studying Japanese later.
Speaking of posts later, I'll probably get back to doing my chapter-by-chapter of Megatrends, mainly because I do plan to finish the book and don't like quitting when I'm halfway through. Good writing practice if nothing else.
And news: How about that Goldman Sachs story? Record quarterly profits, record compensation for executives ($18 BILLION; $600,000 per employee, although not actually so evenly distributed, obviously; they paid back the TARP funds first to avoid restrictions on executive pay, but that's a paltry portion of their bailout billions). Goldman seemed to be one of the few firms that realized the subprime mortgage market was "toxic", they sold what they could and then heavily shorted what they sold (the financial equivalent of selling your neighbor a time-bomb and then taking out a large life-insurance policy). What they couldn't dump on the unwitting, they insured with AIG. Given that they knew how bad the subprime bubble was, they must have known that AIG risked becoming insolvent, but that was okay since the US Treasury was run by former Goldman execs (Paulson, among others). Goldman manages to pull of the functional equivalent of crimes in such a way that it's not clear they're crimes at all: Were they misrepresenting the subprime securities they sold, or just taking advantage of less clever competition? Was the relationship between Goldman, AIG, and the US Treasury an elaborate kickbacks scheme planned in advance, or was Goldman just taking advantage of preexisting (and stupid) government policy (most importantly, the "too big to fail" doctrine)?
What really surprises me about the above is the low incidence of actual outrage, even in the easy-to-anger domain of the blogosphere. There's a lot of "we should be outraged", the facts of the matter are pretty outrageous. But it seems that Americans are used to the idea that organizations like Goldman are willing to help destroy the economy for their own (evidently really significant) benefit. Or maybe there's no reason to care about the economy beyond employment and grocery prices... who cares if the government gives billions to the wealthy financial class, who cares about the machinations of the rich? Maybe there's some subconscious belief that it's all a house of cards, and the state of our existence in the lower stories of said house isn't worth much concern, even if the whole thing is seeming rather shaky...
Unrelated, but also political, sort of: While I was at camp, had an argument with a climate skeptic who believes that the last few years of evidence say solar cycles are driving climate in a cooler direction, regardless of anthropogenic global warming. A few thoughts on that:
1. The scientific modeling work is really interesting, there's still a lot to discover.
2. Activists for political change related to global warming will be really reluctant to believe it. And for good reason. Politically motivated climate skeptics were in favor of sun cycle theories of climate change way before the last few years, when the trend was clearly warming, seemingly for reasons of fatalistic denial as opposed to solid science.
3. The guy I was arguing with took the "they'll totally destroy the economy"
4. Sun-driven cooling is either good news in the sort term (temporary reprieve to global warming, giving us time to get some of those factors in check) or really bad (little ice age during an energy crisis!).
More to write about various books, but I'll do that later, maybe.
That's enough of a brain-dump for now.