Apple, Beneath All That Fuzzy Marketing ...

... is a soulless corporation just like any other. After paying money for shutting down ThinkSecret, they are after the FakeSteveJobs blog - all very sinister (if its true). Dont buy a Mac, dude. My next machine for sure will run some variant of Linux.

Update: Yep, it was made up as I expected.

Krugman on the Current Financial Mess

Paul is one of my favorite authors, and this is his first lectures I've been able to watch (I actually listened to most of this while driving to work). Thanks, YouTube!

Free the Markets!

Some monopolies are natural, ie the underlying market dynamics are such that it makes sense for a single company to be the sole provider of a particular good or service (utilities with a high fixed cost of distribution are typical examples). Other monopolies (or oligopolies), are legislated - ie the government decrees that a particular company (or set of companies) will provide a good or service. Examples in this category includes the TSA (airport security) and gambling. Online gambling is a particularly egregious example where local oligopolies are forced, so that a minority segment of the population can profit off of gaming. The segments that gain off this scheme are casino owners of Vegas, a number of indian tribes and their financiers, and politicians who receive contributions. The cost is to the society as a whole in terms of deadweight loss (high prices and unnatural profits). The internet has a tendency to eliminate boundaries and make the entire globe a single market. In the case of gambling, anyone with a gaming site can serve citizens of any country. Now there is an added cost to the US economy in terms of settlements with other WTO member countries which are suing as these laws go against the competitive requirements of the WTO. The US is taking a "rules dont apply to us" approach and paying off the EU, Japan and several other countries so that the complaint from Antigua does not get the required support. Tsk tsk - all this in a country that prides itself on free markets and every single student who takes an introductory economics class is taught that monopolies are wasteful to the economy.

The morality of gambling, whether we should allow people to gamble or not is a completely separate question. The issue is that if gambling is legal, should participating in that industry be limited to a few individuals or companies with ties to the government?

Your Suspicions Are True

Those annoying searches at the airport only slow you down and dont do much to secure the flights ... now confirmed by research.

And You May Ask Yourself ...

David Byrne of Talking Heads has a great article in Wired about (at least) six models for producing music today. Among other things, what jumped out at me was the metric that about $7 of each CD goes towards Label Overhead and Retail Overhead. If online distribution can eliminate that, then a whole new market segment opens up. iTunes gets us partially there, but currently they take a 30% cut - that should rapidly drop to zero if another company could break the monopoly. Hello, Amazon?

Housing Futures Point to Trouble

The futures market says that SF housing is expected to be down 6% in 2008 - great information for bargaining house prices. As Greg Mankiw is fond of saying - arent markets great?

Why is copyright expanding like a pufferfish?

Prof Netanel has written a paper on it.

Red Meat and Cancer

According to research published by Public Library of Science, eating habits are correlated with cancer as much as smoking is. In particular, the red and processed meats seem to have the most carcinogenic compounds, and risk of certain kinds of cancer increases more than 20% for individuals who eat substantial amounts.

Foreclosure Drivers

Interesting research paper from the Federal Bank of Boston - finds that the prime driver of foreclosure is depreciating housing prices, rather than recession in the economy. Havent read the whole thing yet...

Tom Friedman's Been Watching Jon Stewart Apparently ...

So he's written an op-ed thats so funny that it wants to make you cry, like any good satire piece should. Who knew Tom Friedman had it in him?

A Young and Prescient Jon Stewart

Conflict of Interest at Goldman Sachs?

Ben Stein questions the ethics at GS. Customers of investment banks, check to make sure they are putting their money where their mouth is.

The Drug War Tragedy

Of all magazines, Rolling Stone has a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the war on drugs. Very good companion piece to the movie Traffic, and the excellent BBC miniseries it was based on.

Against Expert Advice

Heartwarming story from Malawi. No doubt that left wing will look at this as evidence that free markets do not work in many situations. But my opinion is that this actually is a case of markets actually working, as long as you consider the government as part of the market. Academics usually tend to consider government as an entity that operates outside the market, but the reality is that the goverment IS an inherent stakeholder in the market. In this case the government considered an investment case where if they invested in the fertilizer, the returns to the whole economy increased. So like any rational actor in the market, they invested. The simpleton in this story is the western advisor who looked up his textbook - saw the maxim that government subsidies are bad - and repeated it without looking at the overall return to the economy. Dont attribute to market failure what you can attribute to stupidity. All governments (free market or otherwise) undertake projects that generate returns for the economy as a whole. The problem with planned economies is that they frequently tend to invest in projects that have poor returns to the economy. And the problem with naive academics is that they tend to put theory over pragmatism.

Macroeconomic Insanity

Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson argues for more credit infusion into the market, as well as regulation changes to help out the mortgage borrowers. However there are others (Ben Stein et al) who argue that the problem is relatively tiny when compared to the size of the entire real estate market. And congressman Ron Paul has of course thrashed Ben Bernanke that credit infusion will lead to higher inflation and further devaluation of the dollar. Paul Krugman thinks higher saving rate leads to a weaker dollar. And if you are not confused enough, then there are the conspiracy theories that link it all to elite puppeteers, war, finance, and religion. Fun times.

Michael Lewis on Investing

Lewis outlines the story of Dimensional Fund Advisors, which advises its clients to not churn stocks unlike other firms that actively trade. Interesting quotes:

"If you wake up in the morning and see Warren Buffett's face in the bathroom mirror, go ahead and buy some stocks. If you see anyone else’s face, diversify.”



"If you put a thousand people in barrels and push them over Niagara Falls, some of them will survive. And if you take those guys and push them over again, some of them will survive. And they’ll write books about how to survive being pushed over Niagara Falls in a barrel."

Whether the efficient market hypothesis is right or wrong is beside the point - what is really important is that there is absolutely no information in the past stock price data. Without insider information, everybody is better off buying low cost index funds or ETFs.

The Consequences of Mr Bush

Joseph Stiglitz lays out the case why Bush's policies have devastated the economic landscape of the country. Very substantial indictment - goes well with Ron Paul's public spanking of Ben Bernanke.

CIA and the Iranian Coup

Interesting feature from the NYT summarizing the involvement of the CIA in the 1953 Iranian coup. Quite interesting to note how CIA's efforts in curbing communism, the evil du jour, led to the rise of islamic fundamentalism in Iran - just like it did in Afghanistan (detailed marvelously in pulitzer winning book Ghost Wars by Steve Coll)

Ron Paul Surging

The Iowa electronic markets [graph] has the gynecologist towering over John McCain and Fred Thompson. And this is right on the heels of the bookies in london upgrading his odds of winning. This could get very interesting very soon - I hope he hangs around for a while.

Gene Simmons versus Terry Gross

This has to be one of the strangest interviews (12MB Mp3) NPR has ever aired. Gene starts off using a lot of bookish words but the conversation quickly degenerates (or gets fascinating, depending on your outlook). He is at various points in the conversation - sexist, delusional, funny, sincere, enlightened - I'm just not sure where he switches from one to the other. Well done Terry persevering through this interview. Probably diagonal opposite of the NPR Sigur Ros interview.

Frontline

The show's 2007 season kicks off with an excellent episode. Available to view online. Fits in very well with Naomi Klein's contention that governments use catastrophic events to expand their powers that could not have been achieved through normal procedures. Eminently watchable.

On Swearing

Steven Pinker on cussing - overview of linguistics, psychology, history, and the current attitude.

Tips for Healthy Eating

Five tips from across the continents - fairly simple and intuitive.

Where's the coverage?

This is exactly the kind of news that gets drowned out while the media freaks out about Chinese products.

Civil Liberties and False Positives

The Economist has a brief and lucid editorial on civil liberties. Quite unexpected from the bastion of rightist thought.

Migrant Statistics

Another excellent interactive graphic from NYTimes - this time about migrants by country, and the amount of money they send home.

Housing Prices in Major Cities

NYT has an interactive graphic that charts housing prices (both nominal and real) vs national averages.

LA Homicide Map

The LATimes has a site that maps out the homicides in the county. Data rich and interactive, it is fascinating. For example not only was I able to find out that there were three homicides in pasadena (well, northern pas to be exact) - I could find out there names and the details surrounding the crime. Macabre yet engrossing.

Debtor Nation

Meaty article in the Harvard mag that analyzes the US debt/deficit situation. It is, like most interesting problems, multivariate in nature and nobody really knows with any certainty what is going to happen in the future. But regardless, some very interesting points in the market - Why is China holding on to so many US T-notes? How are the current trade deficit and the housing price bubble related? What happens when foreign investors decide to withdraw their investment in the dollar? The article doesnt quite do justice to all these weighty questions - can someone quickly write a book with all (or some) of the answers?

Restting ARMs

Looks like there is going to be a world of hurt for mortgage borrowers in 2007 ...

Cerberus

A not too deep glance into the opaque world of private equity and Cerberus Capital.

The Two Chinas

ESPN, the unlikeliest of magazines, has a profile of China drawn around the theme of Olympics. It is a fairly engrossing travel narrative describing how a cross section of the country is changing in the new millenium.

Cowabunga!

The simpsons movie was good enough to get a rah-rah from The Economist. And deservedly so - it is full of wit, energy, and silliness that kept me hooked through the undergrad years. Go watch it on the big screen, man. And take some donuts.

Dr Ron Paul, the lone wolf

Profile of Ron Paul on NYTMag - will Dr Paul be to the 2008 race what Ross Perot was to 1996? I hope so.

Tshirt Democracy

NYTMag has a feature on Threadless, a tshirt site that sells user submitted designs selected by user voting.

Judicial Independence?

Turns out judicial candidates are allowed to raise campaign funds according to this article on the Economist. Interesting. So what really is the incentive to be impartial? That one ethics class that you took in lawschool?

Progress and ChartBloat

Think people are getting more informed as the arrow of time moves forward? Turns out the answer is that they are getting less informed. Here's the wired study.

Watch out for that graphic though - it sensationalizes the statistics. The metrics are mapped to the diameter of the circles and not the area. Makes the effect appear much more amplified than it really is. Someone needs to buy the reporter the Tufte book.

Mellow Terrorists

Funny beyond belief.

Smaller is Better

Gladwell strikes again and makes another strong case that he is one of the best analyst/writers in the country. In "Big and Bad" Malcolm takes on the SUV myth that bigger is safer. The article is peppered with quotes ("An elegant woman said that she needed her full sized-Lexus 470 to drive up over the curb and onto the lawns to park at parties in Beverly Hills"), anecdotes ("SUV buyers tend to be insecure, vain, self-centered, and frequently nervous about their marriage"), statistics ("the driver fatality rate humble camry is more than three times that in the mighty 4Runner), psychology research ("learned helpnessness") - and is a meaty and filling read. The basic gist is that SUVs are very bad at active safety, ie being nimble enough to avoid running into objets - and they tend to make drivers think that they are safe just by the virtue of being huge, and hence SUVers are less inclined to avoid collisions. The latter is a fallacy because safety standards for cars are much higher than those for trucks.

And incidentally, it praises the VW Jetta - "clearly audible engine, light and precise steering, short wheelbase - and so dwarfed by other cars on the road that it reminds an intelligent driver the necessity of driving safely and defensively". Quite a coincidence that last Sunday these exact features saved me from getting into a fender bender. I did a rolling stop manuever on a stop sign, and it turned out that it was not a four way stop and there was a minivan coming in from the right side. I slammed on the brake and swerved to the left and avoided a certain collision and patted myself on the back for my quick reaction time. Now I know that were I in a SUV - that would have been a certain crash. Suddenly I like my Jetta a lot more :D Danke, Wolfsburg!

Trade Policy: Goods vs Information

Good article by Cory Doctorow. The argument is that the US allowed cheap imports to flood the US market in exchange for developing countries promise to opt into the american IP laws. It is not clear (and I doubt it could be proven) whether that premise can be proven, or whether there was a conscious decision to go that route - but that is what happened in essence. Now the only option for US is to go whack-a-mole over companies in China and Russia that abuse the unenforceable IP laws. Good luck with that sisyphean task, old man Sam!

Farm Policy and Waistline

Sounds interesting - will read later.

Michael Lewis on the Subprime Mess

This article argues that the reckless borrower is as much to blame as the creditor. Lewis also points out that the real loser is the scrupulous subprime borrower who now cannot get a loan for his mortgage. Who is the winner in all this? In my opinion, it is the real estate agent who gets a guaranteed transaction cut, and the loan broker who pretty much gets paid regardless of how the loan turns out. It is a case of perverse incentives, where it is in the best interest of both of these parties to see the deal close - and no consequences if it goes sour later on. I for one, really hope that redfin succeeds in creating a new model for house purchases.

No signs of progress ...

Research from the Pew institute indicates that the internet and the 24 hour news channels arent really making us more informed.

Awwwww

IP Laws Found Harmful

Hal Varian (yeah, the guy who wrote your college econ textbook) writes a piece for NYT explaining how having no IP laws has actually been beneficial for the fashion industry. Particularly relevant now as the US hammers China on its "weak" IP protection. Lost in the debate is whether the firms that are clamoring for legislation are actually providing products that are valuable (by that I mean have a good cost to value ratio) to the consumers in China. Most people in Asia are not likely to drop $25 for a DVD when they make a hundred dollars a month - no matter how many laws you pass and how many illegal DVD sniffing dogs you train.

Einstein and Religion

"God does not play dice with the universe."

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

These oft repeated quotes have led people to generally believe that Einstein was a religious man. The truth of the matter is a little more nuanced than that. This article on Time sheds a little more light on his spiritual profile. Couple of very interesting quotes:

"I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

US Stats on Religion

Newsweek poll results.

Viacom, Google, and Intellectual Property

Viacom's WP editorial on the YouTube lawsuit. Michael Fricklas puts out the standard argument that copyright holders cannot be burdened with policing sites for violations of their property. What piqued my interest in the piece was a section at the end which says "Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws." This is a dubious claim at best because Google's success is a successful confluence of ideation(the pagerank algorithm), scaling (the massive decentralized infrastructure), and a disruptive business model (free advertiser funded software). Note that Google did not file a patent for their technology and sit back and sue competitors, but rather built an infrastructure and business model that has such tremendous scale that it becomes virtually impossible for others to replicate it. The way that copyright holders and patent trolls are wielding IP and patent laws recently, it is holding back innovation and growth - not fostering them. And I have already blogged about the NYT article on how IP laws unfairly tax the developing nations. And here's Google's response to the article.

Painting Obama

Profile of David Axelrod, a strategist for Obama on NYTMag. Some useful insights into the presidential politics (esp the bit about Hillary towards the end) and a couple of great quotes (What is a good reporter anyways but a writer who is able to distill a story into a few thematic quotes?).

“One of the reasons Bush has succeeded in two elections, is that in his own rough-hewn way he has conveyed a sense of this is who I am, warts and all.”

“So many consultants are fighting the last war, but David is fighting the next one, and that makes him very, very dangerous”

“What David is basically doing — and this is somewhat new for Democrats — isn’t trying to figure out how to sell policies. It’s a matter of personality. How do we sell leadership?”

“I know that there are people who wouldn’t vote for a black candidate, but I don’t know if they would vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. But I think that in a sense Barack is the personification of his own message for this country, that we get past the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us. He is his own vision.”

Karl Rove helped George Bush win two terms as president by “understanding that every election is a reaction to the last president” and then in 2004 by “figuring out how to make Bush’s stubbornness into a political virtue.”

World Press Photo Award - Outstanding Images

Great shots (esp the resisting settler ). Reminds me of a similar great image from Nepal.

Reverse Foreign Aid

Cheap credit, Intellectual Property and Copyright tithes, and tax holidays for large corporations - the unwitting gifts of third world to the first. (From NYTMag).

The Host

A huge hit in Korea, the Host is getting a limited release in the US, and we watched it last night. While it seemed to be a straightforward horror movie on the surface, somehow I thought there was a lot of messages floating around in the background. Such as

• The unhealthy US influence on Korea


• How family ties transcend individual imperfections


• The gullibility of the Korean government


• The helplessness of individuals in a fascist environment


• Some more servings of evil US influence and propaganda

At some points, the movie is comedic - and some parts in the middle drag on, and the scares are minimal. It was a big success in Korea, so I get the feeling there is a lot of cultural context I missed out on. A good break from the standard American thrillers nevertheless.

Incentive to Piracy (image from flickr)

Funny

The Immigrant Experience

Just watched Mira Nair's The Namesake. This piece is quite different from her previous work - Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding. The Namesake follows an indian immigrant family as they adapt to America. The story is simple (as most lives are), but still touching nonetheless. A little slow in the beginning, the movie becomes coherent towards the end - and so does Kal Penn's performance. Not a seismic event by any means, but still worth watching.

Mixtapes, Creative Commons, and Derivative Arts

In an age where we expect congressmen to parrot industry lines about how draconian copyright laws are necessary and good for society, we now hear a sane voice in washington - amazing. Another article that touches on the mixtape mess and how it is indicative of the problem with IP laws.

Oxley Repentant

Senator Oxley admits that the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was passed in a hurry, and looking back he would do things differently. And given that laws are easier to pass than repeal, this one's going to continue to hurt US businesses for a while. I know of at least one company that is spending a lot, and jumping through a lot of needless hoops because of Sox: mine.

Advertising Ecosystem

Lengthy treatise from Safa at Piper Jaffray (450 pages!) about the internet advertising industry. As most investment banking papers, its more breadth than depth and has the usual dosage of pontification. Nevertheless, a pretty good intro to someone who is looking for an overview. And it has all kinds of stats and metrics that are pretty useful.

DRM and Economics

Mike at Techdirt tries to use economic thinking to explain why DRM is bad for the economy. The argument is a little hard to follow, but what is abundantly clear is that DRM tries (although not successfully) to take a non-scarce resource and makes it scarce. And as I see it, any business built around that concept is bound to fail.

Sunday Creationists

Doonesbury Hilarity

Protecting the Children

The folks over at Techdirt frequently make fun of legislation meant to "Protect the children". This article explains why their ridicule is justified.

Women Discriminated by ... women?

An article on the Sunday Times points out an interesting flavor of sexism. I believe this is just a specific instance of a more general phenomena - the self discrimination among a minority population. Havent we seen instances of racism where an individual belonging to a particular race or nationality actually try to hold back the rise of others?

The Inverse of Praise

A new Po Bronson article. How children deal with different kinds of praise and how parents might be growing quitters by praising their childrens' intelligence rather than effort. This definitely touches a nerve -- as a child I was frequently cited as a smart kid, and I did withdraw from activities that I was not good at.

Lessig on the Copyright Decision Ruling

Link to Article

Lawrence Lessig comments on the mistakes that led to defeat on the Eldred vs Ashcroft case that would have put some checks in place for the limitlessly expanding copyright terms. Fascinating read (esp for someone like me with no exposure to how the SC works). Interesting contrast between the classroom and the court / the academic and the pragmatic.

Pandora - Musical Genome Project

Looks like the Musical Genome Project actually has been productized now. I remember hearing about them a couple years ago, and thinking that it sounded like a extremely labor intensive project with unclear goals. But Pandora which is derived from the MGP looks like a solid product. You create a station with your favorite artists, and it streams music from other artists/songs that contain the same musical characteristics. It is great because I like listening to music of a certain "mood", and there is no easy way on my ipod to do that. Would be a great acquisition for Yahoo! Media Group - imagine it integrated with the Yahoo! Jukebox.

Enron: Puzzle or Mystery

Gladwell on NewYorker

Another interesting piece by Malcolm Gladwell. The basic claim is that the problem with Enron was not one of disclosure, but of lack of watchfulness on the equity analysts' part.

Darfur vs the Runaway Bride

Link to Report


Interesting analysis on the traditional news media coverage of the Darfur crisis vs various news related to celebrities and flash in the pan events. The media source / consumer feedback cycle seems to have trained the media sources to focus on topics that are likely to keep viewers glued to the tube rather than substantial events and issues of the day. Is govt subsidized media (a la the BBC) the only solution to this? Does the free market really lead to a docile gawking media?

NYT Magazine: Unhappy Meals

Great article on how the focus on fads (low-carb! fat-free!) and basic nutrients rather than food and lifestyle as a whole is making americans more unhealthy. I feel much better about my tendency to not eat or drink anything that is labeled lowfat/diet.


Link to Article on NYTMag

Alright - finally I did it. I've started a blog. Not because I want to build a cult like following of like minded people, but more to keep track of worthwhile material that I read online (or off) - and to develop a distinct writing voice. If it helps my friends make fun of me for all my strange and copious online reading, even better.

Reporter: "A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary