Notes: The picture was taken inside a mirrored box at the Exploratorium.
The camera tripod is a Gorillapod.
Meme is pronounced
meem, and roughly means an idea.
meem, and roughly means an idea.
|
Newest First ... Oldest First
Science doesn't take reports of flying saucers and alien abductions seriously, but interstellar travel is possible. Two human spacecraft (Pioneer 10 and 11) are on their way out of the solar system even now. True, it will be millions of years before they reach another star, but they have left. Designs for faster ships have been created (see Project Daedalus.)Read the whole thing here: Hoping Not to Find Life in Space Link Comment
Charge every employer, formal or informal, a $10,000 fine per day, per undocumented employee. If the employer can't pay, then liquidate their business (or home) and sell it at auction the following month.I replied with an article giving my opinion of the whole issue: Read the rest here. Link Comment
It's not that I think his policies are great. I don't actually think there's much of a difference between him and Hillary Clinton. Both are ridiculously overreaching. Even with a Democratic Congress, they won't get a tenth of what they are promising passed. And as a Libertarian, I think that's a good thing! Most of the things they want are either wrong-headed, or things the government has no business doing. On top of that, I expect the economy to stink by election day, and I'd be surprised if Iraq stays calm for the next four years. Even if neither of them tries to draw down forces there. If we do withdraw, anything could happen. And by 2012 or so, I expect baby boomer retirements to start obviously inflating Social Security and Medicare costs. That issue will become serious far faster than most people expect. So whatever they think their agenda is, I expect the next President to be at the mercy of events. As for personality, it's true that Hillary seems to be more highly strung, more self-absorbed, and readier to demonize her opponents. Obama seems more relaxed and above the fray. The thing to remember though is that normal people don't run for President. First, you have to think you are up to the job. Given the state of the world, and the challenges facing the country, that's delusional. Second, you have to think you deserve it. You should be the head of the armed forces with your finger on the button. You should control the executive branch, which eats up 20% of the economy. You should appoint Supreme Court justices. Etc. In other words, you'd have to be full of yourself. Lastly, you need the temperament to get through the election process. For the better part of two years, you have to give speeches to all kinds of groups about how wonderful you and your policies are. I couldn't do that even once, let alone dozens of times! I'd start laughing and gagging over the words after a few times. The kind of person who can do that must just love the sound of their own voice. Or be able to detach themselves from their words and actions beyond what even actors and other celebrities do. Again, you'd have to be a strange sort of person. You also have to lie a lot. There are too many one-issue groups that want you to agree with them before they will support you. You can't even run a real race in farm states like Iowa without supporting farm subsidies and ethanol subsidies. Both parties are just collections of interest groups that have to be satisfied. I don't see how you can get through that with any integrity. In fact, I think the problem with some candidates, like Mitt Romney or Al Gore back in 2000, is that they get cynical about the whole process. They start running the whole campaign by polling for the "correct" response on each issue. I imagine them thinking "the public doesn't want to hear a thoughtful response. So just tell them what they do want to hear. Get elected, then you can do some good." Unfortunately, people eventually detect that lack of enthusiasm, or lack of consistency. You get branded a "flip flopper" or as "wooden." Or just cynical. So I don't think either Hillary or Obama are normal people who can be taken at their word, or evaluated in the normal way. I don't take their agenda seriously. What's left to decide between them? Like a lot of people, I'm dismayed at the idea of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. There are a lot of talented people in this country. We don't need to keep electing the same families to office! Also, if Hillary is running on her experience as "co-president", then she's had her 8 years in the White House. Bill certainly has, and there's always going to be the suspicion that he'll be running at least some things behind the scenes. On the other hand, if Bill is really out of there, and Hillary is running on her one term in the Senate and experience as First Lady, then I don't think she's particularly qualified. Of course, neither is Obama. So finally it comes down to the problem that Hillary has had all along, which is that she's polarizing. If she has to take strong measures on the economy, or pull out of Iraq, she'll get nothing but bitter opposition from the Republicans. Obama may not be any better, but he could hardly be worse. Not much of a recommendation, but it's all I can come up with. Link Comment
Link Comment
As a libertarian, I'm of course disgusted that the government has so little respect for contracts or the workings of the economy. Even putting that aside, I don't regard this as a good sign. None of the possible explanations are really encouraging. First, it could be that they are really panicked by the entire mortgage bubble mess. In that case, this move looks like a pretty trivial response. They won't avoid foreclosures by people walking away from houses that are underwater (a huge group.) They won't avoid the ones already past their reset who can't afford their loans. They won't avoid the ones who have lost jobs or just bought more house than they could afford even on the teaser rates. Instead, they will help the tiny fraction that thought they could refinance and now discover they can't. Even those foreclosures won't be avoided, just delayed. Nationally, housing is predicted to drop by a few percent. In the high-cost areas like California and Florida, 40% drops are being predicted (but we've already seen some new homes discounted that much at auctions.) If that happens, prices will not recover quickly. It could be a decade or more before nominal prices (not corrected for inflation) recover. In that case, five years from now when this freeze ends, all the high loan-to-value mortgages will still be underwater. The borrowers won't be able to refinance, since the house is worth less than the loan. Without another extension, they will just hit foreclosure anyway. This is a recipe for prolonging the housing collapse, not curing it. This "freeze" could also make things worse, not better, in the short run. I'm not sure what the state of the mortgage market is right now. I have the impression that sales of mortgage backed CDO's has dropped dramatically. I also have the impression that banks have tightened their standards and are no longer offering some products. I don't know if that means there's no such thing as a 95% loan now, or no such thing as an ARM. I still get a fair amount of loan spam in my email (though a lot less than a couple of months ago.) If the freeze makes lenders and investors shy away even more from exotic mortgages, then it will be that much harder to get a loan. This can only hurt the housing market. Already, I'm reading plenty of stories about people not being able to close on houses because they can't get loans. Or not being able to sell their old house because buyers can't get loans. I would assume that these things affect the low end more than the high end. First time buyers with little money down should be finding it even more difficult to get a loan. A loan with 10% or 20% down is fairly impossible in California, since with the average price at $700,000, a first time buyer would have to have a pretty decent pile of savings (and want to tie it up in a house) in order to get a loan. Second, I've read some comments to the effect that Paulson isn't panicked by the actual situation, but by what Congress wants to do about it. There's a bill in the works to allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of a loan, rather than let it foreclose. The industry is strongly opposed to that. The hope is that this freeze plan, which is voluntary on the part of banks, will satisfy Congress and head off more draconian action. I can understand being afraid of Congress, but this story doesn't seem to hold water. The President is all on board with this too, and most of the Democratic candidates are calling for even more generous mortgage relief. There must be a fair amount of actual pain out there, in order to produce this quick a political response. Of course, an election year does make Congress panic more quickly, so I can't rule this out as being all political. Third, this could be the usual response to any economic problem for the last 20 years. Just pump in more money, lower interest rates, or now, easier mortgage terms, and assume we can "grow our way out of it." It's worked before, so why not now? It's also bizarre to read that politicians want to "head off recession", as if there should never be another one ever again. I think economists would say that without recessions, you won't get growth either. Or that you will bias the economy towards a cycle of bubbles and crashes, rather than small recessions followed by modest growth. Another opinion is that this is exactly what the Japanese did when their property bubble collapsed. They tried to carry all the bad debt instead of writing it off. They propped up the economy and stock market as long as they could with lower interest rates (down to nearly 0%). They stimulated the economy with lots of public works projects like highways and bridges. They ended up with a 15 year recession. I could see us doing the same thing, except for a few problems. First, unlike Japan, I don't think major corporations and banks will toe the government line. Someone will bolt for the exits rather than take pain along with everyone else. Second, we don't have the huge pile of savings that Japan did going into their slump. The public will feel the pain and demand more aggressive action by the government (which I would guess will make things worse.) In any case, I don't think our system is capable of a slow, drawn out slump. Third, within another 4-5 years, the bill for Baby Boomer retirements, both Social Security and Medicare, will start to come due. As soon as the budget starts to show the increased drain, it will become obvious even to Congress that we are out of time on this problem. It will be obvious to foreign investors too. At that point, the future of the U.S. budget will look pretty scary. Finally, because we are so dependent on foreign investment, I don't think we will be allowed to just run the budget into the ground, and borrow what we need to make ends meet. If the future looks really bad, foreigners will stop investing here. At that point, we get a recession whether the government likes it or not. |
Writings
Projects
Other Sites
|
