Federal Market Manipulation Discussion on CNBC

This is amazing stuff: an open discussion about how much the Federal Government is (or is not) pushing the stock market up.  (ht The Market Ticket.)




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More reflections

This is at the Seattle Public Library, main branch.

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Pay Phones!

Remember these? There are called pay phones and people would actually put coins into the phone to make a call. These shiny pay phones are at the Seattle Public Library.

I shot a zillion pictures starting at the Seattle Public Library, then over to the Columbia Building, which sadly was closed, and then around Pioneer Square. These were all places I had never been before. Climbing the hill back to the library was a bitch!

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Dave Perry and Michael Jackson

DPerry.com: Michael Jackson - You will be missed.: "As I wandered around, I walked into his movie theater and watched him play with his kids, he was an amazing father to them. I watched him quietly from the shadows at the back, he had no idea I was there. They were watching the Three Stooges but had given up on that and instead were just having fun."

My mind is boggled.

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Goodbye, Putt-Putt

Putt-Putt, et.al., who lived, or shall I say, hanged, from an ethernet cable, have been released. The ethernet cable is no longer carrying signals and so it was removed and Putt-Putt and various other plush toys along with it.

We have nearly every Humongous game ever made and my kids loved them. I hope Windows remains compatible with those old games and many more children can enjoy them.

(I think Putt-Putt was hanging up there since 1998 so he was "hanging around" over 10 years.)

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Swiss Family Treehouse, Disneyland Paris

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Money Printing Nirvana

A huge quote from one of my favorite economic meltdown sites:

Economic Disconnect: Money Printing Nirvana:

Money Printing Nirvana

'...the weak economy likely will keep prices in check despite growing concerns that the trillions it's pumping into the financial system will ignite inflation.'

The FED feels that because wages are static or going lower and the price of an XBox is static or going lower they can create money unabated with no consequence.

Now, Economic Disconnect, you might say 'all that money is not going into new credit, hence there is no velocity of money, thus no inflation as it can only cover debt destruction'. And of course you are correct and the next step is deflation.

To this I would ask;
-If wages could be kept low (by economic factors or edict)
-If consumer prices could be kept low (by lack of demand or edict)
-If banks will not lend out money, but instead use it to write off debt (this may well be what is going on)

Then would it not be nirvana to simply print enough money to cover all debt, call it 'cancelled out' by all the new paper, and start all over again?

Indeed, this seems so devilishly simple I would wonder why every nation in the history of the world has not had this as their economic centerpiece.

And I think this leads me to my 'inflation' predisposition. You may define inflation as an increase in the money supply, but I could define it as de facto devaluation. If the US prints say 10 trillion dollars to absorb mortgage losses, credit card losses, commercial real estate losses and other losses not yet known then yes, that money never enters the money supply as new capital. But it was used to pay for the debt that was taken on and could not be paid back in real money. As a creditor you just got paid back with printed money that came from nowhere. At this point the currency has no moorings in reality (not that it does now, but if kept as a slow process the world accepts this as a cost of doing business) and thus any creditor will want either MORE of the dollars, or they will not want them at all and demand payment by other means.

This is the danger of the 'printing press', not hyperinflation because of a sea of money, but inflation due to limited desire for a particular money or a lack of belief in a particular money form.

Hence my concern we're getting severe inflation relatively soon (3 - 12 months). I think it's already started - I judge by our own costs and not some random government number based on eating hamburger instead of steak. *Sigh*.




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Layered

I love this picture. I had it as my computer desktop for a year. It's an unprocessed photo from the Charles de Gaulle International Airport. All of the layering comes from reflections of reflections. I'm standing in the terminal looking out toward a parking structure.

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Martians

The Martians are starting to emerge from the Earth!


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Make3D at Stanford

3-D models created by DrStephenCW

There is a cool program at Stanford which analyzes 2D pictures and produces 3d reconstructions.

Try it out!

Update 2009 06 23 - Now it's possible to embed the processed imagery:



... and ...




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An Interview With Paul Samuelson, Part One - Conor Clarke

Paul Samuelson, who brought Keynes' and his nonsense to the forefront of American lunacy, says, regarding Alan Greenspan:

An Interview With Paul Samuelson, Part One - Conor Clarke: "And this brings us to Alan Greenspan, whom I've known for over 50 years and who I regarded as one of the best young business economists. Townsend-Greenspan was his company. But the trouble is that he had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy. He actually had instruction, probably pinned on the wall: 'Nothing from this office should go forth which discredits the capitalist system. Greed is good.'"

Mind you, this is a description of Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve, which, in case you don't know, is a state chartered, privately held organization that holds a monopoly on the production of money, and they can print as much as they want, and the Congress can not even audit their balance sheet.

The idea of the chairman of the Federal Reserve promoting capitalism is really fucking funny. Ha ha ha ha! Competition! Ha ha ha! Transparency! Ho ho ho! Massive unrelenting market manipulation! He he-

Oh wait, that's exactly what they do.

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Army of Volunteers

All of these Foxglove plants are volunteers. I'm worried they are massing for an attack.

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Outlet Wall

Outlet Wall: More Powerful Than You Could Possibly Imagine



Sadly, outlet wall costs a fortune. See the entire article.
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RGE - Bailout Costs vs Big Historical Events

RGE - Bailout Costs vs Big Historical Events




Click for original image at BailoutNation.com. (I wish the article was more specific about whether these are inflation adjusted amounts but the overall impact of the graphic is strong nonetheless.)

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Thoughts from Chairman Ben

I hate to quote an entire article from the NY Times but it is so succient:

Thoughts From Chairman Ben

2009
"We continue to expect overall economic activity to bottom out, and then to turn up later this year."
- Ben S. Bernanke, Fed chairman, in testimony to House Budget Committee, June 3, 2009

2008
"Recent information indicates that overall economic activity continues to expand, partly reflecting some firming in household spending. . . . Although downside risks to growth remain, they appear to have diminished somewhat."
- Federal Open Market Committee statement, June 25, 2008

2007
"At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained."
- Bernanke testimony to Joint Economic Committee, March 27, 2007

2006
"At this point, the available data on the housing market, together with ongoing support for housing demand from factors such as strong job creation and still-low mortgage rates, suggests that this sector will most likely experience a gradual cooling rather than a sharp slowdown."
- Bernanke testimony to Joint Economic Committee, April 27, 2006

(Thanks to David A. Rosenberg, the chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Sheff, a money management firm based in Toronto, for cataloging some of these comments.)

Visit the original article to enjoy people's comments.

[Update 2009 06 18 - Here's a longer list of "everything is okay" statements from our fearless financial central planners.]
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Bellevue's Historic Wooden Train Bridge

I snapped this while driving (once again) around road construction on the way to work.

The joke on the Seattle Dinner Train is that this bridge is tested twice a day - once when the Seattle Dinner Train crosses going north and again when it returns.



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Puget Sound Live Cam (Daylight Hours)

My friend Trey sent me this link to a Puget Sound Live Cam and so I'm sharing it with you! It's a beautiful view from some lucky person's home. And the time lapse is really fun.

The picture below is actually his most recent live update (it only updates during daylight hours - at least for now!) and you can click on the picture for a larger version. So this blog post will be changing all the time!







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Transforming Earnings into Loans

Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers - The Case for Financial Regulatory Reform - washingtonpost.com:

Over the past two years, we have faced the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial system failed to perform its function as a reducer and distributor of risk. Instead, it magnified risks, precipitating an economic contraction that has hurt families and businesses around the world.

Interesting. I thought the financial system existed to provide a mechanism for storing and trading wealth.

But I guess that would be a wealth based economy which should not be confused with Geithner's debt based economy. 'Cause, you know, if you don't have a debt based economy, you won't have interest payments, and then what would be the point? It's not money that makes the world go 'round - it's debt and interest.

First, existing regulation focuses on the safety and soundness of individual institutions but not the stability of the system as a whole. As a result, institutions were not required to maintain sufficient capital or liquidity to keep them safe in times of system-wide stress. In a world in which the troubles of a few large firms can put the entire system at risk, that approach is insufficient.

No worries! Central planning to the rescue! 'Cause, you know, that worked out so well for the Soviet Union. And the existing regulation to which Mr. Geithner refers to worked so well that we should probably have more of it.

Fifth, and finally, we live in a globalized world, and the actions we take here at home -- no matter how smart and sound -- will have little effect if we fail to raise international standards along with our own. We will lead the effort to improve regulation and supervision around the world.

Obviously if Mr. Geithner doesn't believe in personal responsibility, or corporate responsibility, there is no reason he should believe in sovereign responsibility.

Anyway, good luck with your plans for global domination Mr. Geithner. I don't think you're too credible with the Chinese but they are only 1/5th of the whole world population so don't let that discourage you. Central planning FTW!

[Update: 2009 06 16 - I can't believe I missed the last paragraph.  It's probably because the article made me want to puke.  But this captures it all:

By restoring the public's trust in our financial system, the administration's reforms will allow the financial system to play its most important function: transforming the earnings and savings of workers into the loans that help families buy homes and cars, help parents send kids to college, and help entrepreneurs build their businesses. Now is the time to act.

[Emphasis added.]

Wow.  There it is in black and white.  It's all about the loans.  Transforming earnings into loans.  Good fucking grief.

"Workers."  Workers!  Who the fuck is he talking about!?  Workers!  How about this: 

Workers of America Unite!  Save your fucking money and don't take out any loans!

Sheeshkabob.
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Disneyland Paris, Street View

View Disneyland Paris in a larger map

(I've had nothing but trouble with the "Link" button on Google Maps. Now it's zooming in after the first display. Who knows what you're seeing.)

I heard on Inside the Magic that Google has driven around the streets of Disneyland Paris with the Google Cam and made street views of the whole thing.

Cool!

But maybe you can only see the street view of Disneyland Paris in Google Earth?

If you do fire up Google Earth, you'll also get another treat: the amazing 3D buildings that the community has made. I might even go so far as to say they look spectacular.

And if you look very carefully you'll see Tinkerbell flying around the Castle ...




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Bellevue Construction - The Long View

(Click for larger picture - so large you might have to scroll your screen to see it all.)

A lot of those buildings say "Microsoft" on them so hopefully (thanks to a capitalist enterprise) the commercial credit crisis will have a "soft landing" here.


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Acceptance ... and Roadmap

I am less pissed about the bailouts and the coming inflation.  That's because I've passed from anger to acceptance.  And I've rearranged my life so the impact of various scenarios is as small as I can make it.  It is hard to innoculate oneself against such chaos since the timing is so random thanks to previously unheard of levels of market manipulation by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the investment banks, the "regular" banks, the credit card companies, and the Obama stimulus money.

I'd love to tell you how to inoculate yourself but everyone's circumstances are so different I'm afraid you have to figure it out for yourself.

Just because I've crossed over to acceptance doesn't change that it's a cluster fuck of epic proportions. I think those of us that have "pre-panicked" are going to get through the next crash more easily than those that will be further shell shocked.

Still, I find I'm starting to post about more pedestrian things and taking more photos and such like.

Since the coming stages of the global clusterfuck are fairly well known I'll just post interesting roadmaps as I come across them.

This picture from Credit Suisse (which I found reading Calculated Risk) lays it out for you:

Click image for big picture.  Basically it says the current clusterfuck is scheduled out to around 2013; obviously it doesn't include any new clusterfuckness caused by further debt bubbles created by the Federal Reserve.

The next crash will be brutal because everyone thinks we're past the worst! That will make the next crash doubly depressing and really hard on everyone.






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Herding Cats

The Daily Bell:

"Daily Bell: Second, what's different about the Austrian model?

Richard Maybury: The speech explains this. But very briefly, for one thing, the Austrian view is that the economy is not a machine, it's an ecology, made of biological organisms, meaning people. People have free wills, and they change their minds, all day every day. Trying to predict their behavior and steer it is like trying to herd cats.

Daily Bell: An interesting analogy.

Richard Maybury: Imagine putting fifty cats in your house and trying to herd them. What would your house look like afterwards."

This analogy is used all the time in computer game development as well.

My wife, who was a computer project manager, says it is trivial to herd cats. Just pop open a can of tuna and they all come running.

I think the Federal Reserve thinks that lowering interest rates is like opening a can of tuna fish and people will just fall in line. But sadly, as the Austrians suggest, herding people is actually more difficult than herding cats. The Federal Reserve can print the money but they can't predict what people (or institutions) will do with it. It's a classic example of central planning gone awry, and if this was happening in the former Soviet Union, we'd be laughing at what dumb-asses those guys are.

Too bad it's happening here so there is not too much laughing going on ... although there are some yucks at LOLFed.

This is true:

Daily Bell: If a depression is the correction period following an inflation, what's a recession?

Richard Maybury: A recession is an incomplete depression. The government stimulates, which means it creates more money out of thin air, and this injection of new money stops the shakeout of the malinvestment.

Daily Bell: So, a recession is actually worse than a depression, because we go through a surge of bankruptcies and unemployment, but in the end it accomplishes nothing, because government officials re-inflate before the corrections can go to completion.

Then the next crash is worse. And everyone will be surprised! Well, not everyone ...

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Puttin' on the Ritz

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Safe Haven | Money Confusion and Inflation/Deflation

Safe Haven | Money Confusion and Inflation/Deflation:

The total supply of US dollars, as measured by TMS, is about 10% higher now than it was a year ago. Also, the total amount of credit within the US economy is higher now than it was a year ago thanks to the government's yeoman-like efforts to replace the bursting private-sector credit bubble with a public-sector credit bubble. With the supply of money and credit continuing to expand -- at an accelerated pace, in the case of the money supply -- you have to be inventive in order to make an argument that the US is experiencing deflation. You must either argue that non-monetary quantities such as collateralised debt securities and other derivatives form part of the money supply, which is the tack taken by the author of the article posted HERE, or argue that a decline in the combined market value of debt counts as deflation, which is what Mike Shedlock routinely does at his web site. Neither argument is valid, in our opinion.

The idea that collateralised debt and other products of the 'shadow banking system' constitute money holds no water because you can't use these things to buy goods and services. If you don't believe us, try handing an ABS (Asset Backed Security) to the person at the Walmart checkout and see how far you get. Securities of various types can be posted as collateral when purchasing other investments, but that just means they have perceived value, not that they are money. Money is the general medium of exchange.

The idea that a decline in the market value of debt constitutes deflation boils down to defining deflation in terms of prices (the price of debt, in this case). However, the market values of debt and other investments rise and fall for many reasons, some of which are related to inflation/deflation and some of which aren't. The point is that a decline in the market value of anything (including debt) does not, in and of itself, constitute deflation.

I recommend the entire article. Inflation is here now. Yes, the prices on big ticket items are down due to a lack of demand - enjoy that while you can.

There was (and is?) some huge number of credit default swaps worth $50 trillion dollars or maybe even 10 times that. I don't think anybody really knows the amount. If that was "real" money then we would have seen price inflation due to massive monetary inflation. But that money was just accounting entries. (The magic of banking is converting those accounting entries into real profits, but I digress.) Therefore as that money disappears we do not see massive price deflation. It was generally just imaginary bookkeeping ala Bernie Madoff.

Bad money chases out the good money. By that is meant that as more bad money enters circulation people will tend to hoard the good money.

Not all things people think of as money is money - and not all money is the same. Right now, some Starbucks are not taking checks because they are likely to bounce. Therefore a check is not the same as cash or even a credit card!

The amount of "real" circulating money has gone up and continues to go up. That leads to price inflation and that's what is happening.

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Criminals and Honest Money

Only Criminals Use Honest Money - Christopher P. Casey - Mises Institute:

But under such circumstances, might Austrian economic thought be tested and compete, legitimately, on equal footing with the perceived legitimacy of 'mainstream' (i.e., Keynesian) economics?

Such a situation may currently exist with prisons in testing the validity of fiat currency. Since money is banned in prisons, the historical use of cigarettes by prisoners as money avers that money requires alternative value (i.e., value apart from its use as money) and proves that our present system of fiat currency (and fractional-reserve banking) is eventually doomed.

Prisoners exchange cigarettes for sex, drugs, gambling, and the killing of other inmates (all other recreational activities being provided free of charge by taxpayers). The cigarettes hold alternative value through their direct consumption (smoking).

And what happens to the experiment when cigarettes are banned? Like a free market moving from a gold to a silver standard, prisoners switch to the next best good that possesses the qualities demanded of money: portability, durability, homogeneity, and divisibility.

The article 'Mackerel Economics in Prison Leads to Appreciation for Oily Fillets' published in the October 2, 2008 issue of The Wall Street Journal, revealed the new monetary system in prisons: cans of mackerel, or 'mack' in prison nomenclature. Just as a various goods (e.g., gold, silver, copper, rice, salt, peppercorns, large stones, etc.) have long competed in the marketplace to be the standard of currency, so mack had to fend off books of stamps, PowerBars, and cans of tuna.

Fiat money does not exist in prison. Prisoners do not dye sheets of paper green and attempt to circulate them as money. No inmate would accept this as money, not even if the penal equivalent of a Bretton Woods agreement existed between the toughest gangs.

*Sigh*. Another large quote from an article - I recommend following the link to the entire article.

Money is simple. Banking is obfuscation. Hence some of our national troubles.


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Hyperinflation

Safe Haven | The First Steps to Hyper-Inflation:

Retail prices inflate in an overheating economy when there is a supply shortage of consumer goods. Because demand outstrips supply the producer has the whip hand, and he exploits it by asking more money for his goods. But look around you today and you will see there is no supply side shortage in the world economy. So if we do get inflation it's not going to be because of overheating.

Hyper-inflation, on the other hand, has little to do with supply side shortages and overheated economies. It happens when a currency dies. Once the realization grips savers (not consumers) that their money is losing its purchasing power then they exit money and look for better stores of value.

So while 'normal' inflation is driven by consumer-pull for goods, hyper-inflation is driven by saver-push of money, and this explains a big qualitative difference between inflation and hyper-inflation.

I read a lot of blog posts about our economy and the big debate is inflation or deflation? And by that is usually meant price inflation vs. price deflation.

The article I've linked to explains that it is the wrong debate. The correct discussion is whether our currency will collapse due to a lack of confidence in its long term value.

If you loan me $10.00 and I pay you interest on the $10.00 by printing $1.00 every year you'll eventually realize I'm not good for the original $10.00. I'll even tell you I'm giving you a printed $1.00 - it will be an IOU. But I'll also give you a song and dance about how I'm investing for the future and it's better for you to get the IOU rather than your money back at this time.

It's the same with $10 trillion and $1 trillion. If the US prints $1 or $2 trillion every year, China is going to figure out we're not good for the $10 trillion in loans we have outstanding. Bad money chases out good money - so China is perhaps "stuck" with some IOUs from us but in the meantime they are hoarding gold, oil, copper, and other commodities that will have long term value.

The US debt situation is beyond anything the Federal Reserve can handle (not that the Fed should exist at all... but I digress). Right now, government spending has gone insane with debts that exceed all accumulated debt since the country was created. The only way to avoid hyper inflation is to either default on some loans or to drastically cut back on government spending. It's hard to see either event happening.

Remember, inflation is not uniform. The first beneficiary is the person that prints the money. The second is the person that gets the printed money and it dilutes (slowly) from there.

So, I'm a beneficiary of the stimulus money because I'm getting a new road intersection put in nearby. But before me is the construction company. And before the construction company is the city who I'm sure carved off some administration fees. But after all of us early beneficiaries is everyone else whose dollars are now worth a little bit less at the store. So prices go up. But not uniformly. It happens in fits and starts.

Hyperinflation is when people catch on to what's going on and refuse to hold cash because they can't trust the value it will have in a year, a month, a week, or a day. If you're China you need to have confidence in the dollar for 10 or 20 years or 30 years.

Why would they? We keep printing IOUs. Our nation's books are open. It's no secret what we are doing. The Federal Reserve claims to be buying US Treasuries to keep the interest rates down. What if they didn't? Not only would the rates go up but it is entirely possible that the latest allotment of IOUs would not sell out!

Again, the only fix is to either default on some loans or to drastically cut back government spending. That means canceling the wars; canceling the stimulus; canceling medicare; canceling social security. I don't see that happening. So the debt will be papered over with IOUs held by the Federal Reserve. "Don't worry," they say, "We're good for it ... just not at this time."

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Forget the elephant in the room

Family lives with Hippo


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Professor Taylor wins Sigsoft Outstanding Research Award

press release @ the bren school of information and computer sciences:

Richard Taylor, Professor of Informatics and Director of the Institute for Software Research, was presented the 2009 ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) Outstanding Research Award at the International Conference on Software Engineering Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

The Outstanding Research Award annually recognizes an individual who has made significant and lasting research contributions to the theory or practice of software engineering.

Professor Taylor was my thesis adviser and I was his first Ph.D. student to graduate.

Congratulations Professor Taylor!

Check out what some of his other students have done:

Over the past decade, Taylor has guided a group of graduate students who have been instrumental in shaping the Web as it is today:

• Roy Fielding is first author of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Specification (HTTP/1.1), which to this day governs how Web clients and servers interact.
• Jim Whitehead spearheaded the development of WebDAV, an extension to HTTP that governs collaborative authoring and versioning over the Web, a protocol upon which such widely used products as Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat rely every single day.
• Justin Erenkrantz is the president of the Apache Foundation, famously responsible for free, superbly engineered implementations of the infrastructure components upon which the modern Web rests, including Apache.

That's a nice legacy.
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Hulu - Profitable?

Hulu Will Be Profitable "Very Soon," Says NBC CEO (CLIP) (GE):

"Jeff: We expect Hulu to be positive for us very soon. Again, head of of plan. It's exceeding every expectation.

Kara: Cash-flow positive?

Jeff: Absolutely.

Kara: It's not profitable at this point?

Jeff: Soon. Soon. But you know it's exceeded in every aspect. In every respect."

I've heard Hulu is profitable and Hulu is a sink hole. Apparently it is neither. It is cash positive. That's a big achievement and particularly notworthy as I don't think any other video streaming service has been cash positive! When Hulu launched I thought it was doomed to the same fate as all of its predecessors. But I was wrong on that one!

Congrats Hulu team.

On a similar subject... my family and I were treated to a barrage of advertising for new shows on Cartoon Network during the ad roll before Up, the new Pixar movie. I think all of the shows were reality TV shows. My son leans over and says, "How amazing is it that all of these new reality shows are going to be on a channel with the word 'cartoon' in its name?"
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