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Alice in Billionaireland

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:57:00 +0700

It's confusing to see the snarling red faces of America's financial overlords. Of all the people on earth, what do they have to be angry about? They almost obliterated the world economy, and as punishment, we opened up the U.S. treasury and told them to haul off as much as they could carry. Meanwhile, everyone else is just praying the Medicare age won't be raised beyond 82.
However, their fury makes perfect sense if you understand that they live inside an all-enveloping fantasy world. You may have seen that Paul Ryan was recently spotted downing two $350 bottles of wine with Cliff Asness, a hedge fund manager. When a woman approached and criticized them for that kind of extravagance as Ryan plots to slash all social spending, Asness apparently said to Ryan "fuck her." Asness was previously known for staging a memorable public freakout about the Obama administration's bailout of Chrysler in an open letter titled "Unafraid in Greenwich, Connecticut."
So far so normal in 2011. But I don't think anyone's noticed this, from Asness's bio on his company's website:

He received an MBA with high honors and a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago where he was Eugene Fama’s student and teaching assistant for two years (he is still respectfully scared of Gene).

In other words, Asness is a protege of Fama, who's an extremely schmancy figure in right-wing economics. (And John Cochrane, a University of Chicago finance professor who was also eating with Asness and Ryan, is Fama's son-in-law.) This is the milieu in which Asness spends his days.
And here's the significance of that: Fama was recently spotted confidently telling everyone that the sky is green:

But suppose we buy into the more common negative current view of finance. There is still a big open question. Beginning in the early 1980s, the developed world and some big players in the developing world experienced a period of extraordinary growth. It’s reasonable to argue that in facilitating the flow of world savings to productive uses around the world, financial markets and financial institutions played a big role in this growth. Despite any role of finance in the current recession, are the market naysayers really ready to argue that worldwide wealth would be higher today if financial markets and financial institutions didn’t develop as they did?

As Paul Krugman pointed out, that's obviously false—developed world economies have grown more slowly since 1980 than before, while the fast growth of China had nothing to with the increased size of financial markets. (And just yesterday Krugman noted that essentially the same imaginary belief is held by another top right-wing economist.)
But here's what you have to understand: in the teeny-tiny world in which Cliff Asness and Eugene Fama live—i.e., the world of wealthy University of Chicago economics professors and their hedge fund manager former students—the sky actually does look green. While the U.S. economy grew more slowly starting in 1980, it did grow, and almost all of the growth in income went to people like Asness and Fama. Since they're such a small group, they and everyone they know has been doused with a gushing firehose of money. And because they have no imagination and no curiosity about anyone outside their mental circle, they assume that must mean that the rest of the world has gotten doused too. Moreover, it's all due to them and the "financial markets and financial institutions" they've created.
And that's why Asness and co. are burning with rage at any suggestion that maybe society should put some limits on the number of Indonesian street children they're allowed to eat. They've worked so goddamned hard for decades, manfully enriching all humanity with their brilliance, and merely asking for the smallest sliver of the extraordinary bounty they've created—and THIS is the thanks they get? What possible reason could anyone have to criticize them except jealousy and a secret desire to keep mankind poor and stupid and easily ruled?
If you lived inside their fantasy world, you'd be mad too.
P.S. This is from a recent article about Asness:

“His super-villains are intellectual dishonesty and ignorance,” says Jonathan Beinner, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a former classmate of Asness. “When someone offers an opinion that Cliff feels is incorrect or dishonest, whether it be related to investments, politics or pizza, he feels it is his duty to stand up, even if it’s not in his best interest.”

...Look, obviously the sky is bright green, because if it weren't and people were just dishonestly and ignorantly claiming it was, my friend Cliff would stand up and DEMAND THE TRUTH, no matter the personal cost to him. The only possible alternative explanation is that here in the financial stratosphere we're all incredibly vain people who live in a fantasy world, and part of our vain fantasy is that we're courageous truth tellers. So clearly we're on firm ground with this sky-is-green stuff.

Barack Obama Is Powerless Before the Majesty of the Law

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:55:00 +0700

Does the 14th Amendment of the Constitution trump the debt ceiling and allow the executive branch to continue borrowing past August 2nd? Oh man, if it did that would be great—Obama could just tell the Republicans to forget it, he's not going to be blackmailed into slashing Society Security and Medicare!
Sadly, Obama's lawyers have told him it doesn't, and therefore, as Obama explained at a public appearance today, that settles that:

OBAMA: Now, the gentleman asked about the 14th Amendment. There is -- there's a provision in our Constitution that speaks to making sure that the United States meets its obligations. And there have been some suggestions that a President could use that language to basically ignore this debt ceiling rule, which is a statutory rule. It’s not a constitutional rule. I have talked to my lawyers. They do not -- they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument. So the challenge for me is to make sure that we do not default, but to do so in a way that is as balanced as possible and gets us at least a down payment on solving this problem... But I’m sympathetic to your view that this would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own. (Laughter.) It would mean all these conversations I’ve had over the last three weeks I could have been spending time with Malia and Sasha instead. But that’s not how our democracy works.

Huh:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations. Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20...
Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

Of course, as people with a sophisticated understanding of the law know, there's a huge difference between ignoring the debt ceiling and bombing Libya. For instance: Obama wants to bomb Libya.

Alzheimer's and Caffeine: It's Not Just Mice

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:55:00 +0700

I'm taking a break from the usual futile political analysis for something that may actually help someone somewhere. You may have heard about this news when it was published in 2009:

[The] Florida ADRC study included 55 mice genetically altered to develop memory problems mimicking Alzheimer's disease as they aged. After behavioral tests confirmed the mice were exhibiting signs of memory impairment at age 18 to 19 months – about age 70 in human years – the researchers gave half the mice caffeine in their drinking water. The other half got plain water. The Alzheimer's mice received the equivalent of five 8-oz. cups of regular coffee a day. That's the same amount of caffeine – 500 milligrams -- as contained in two cups of specialty coffees like Starbucks, or 14 cups of tea, or 20 soft drinks.
At the end of the two-month study, the caffeinated mice performed much better on tests measuring their memory and thinking skills. In fact, their memories were identical to normal aged mice without dementia. The Alzheimer's mice drinking plain water continued to do poorly on the tests.

(The PDF version of the study is here.)
My father has had progressing symptoms of dementia (not formally diagnosed as Alzheimer's, though that's been both our assumption and his doctors') for several years, and it had gotten to the point where he was so cognitively impaired that he couldn't recall the names of just about anyone other than immediate family and he was sleeping 20+ hours a day. On my most recent trip home my mother mentioned that he'd stopped drinking coffee, but while I was there we happened to give him a few cups—and we noticed an immediate and dramatic improvement in his awareness, alertness, short-term and long-term memory, level of engagement, and many other more subtle things as well. It was like having my old dad back.
In researching a possible connection I came across the 2009 study mentioned above, and since then we've been making sure he has at least 5 cups of coffee a day (which translates roughly into the 500mg dose mentioned in the study). It's continued to have a dramatic effect, which we see within a few minutes—"like watching a flower open in time-lapse", as my mother said—and lasts throughout the day as we supplement the coffee dosage. I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it happen for myself; after years of watching my father drift further and further away from us, it's nothing short of miraculous. Luckily for us he loves coffee (that's one of the things he seemed to have forgotten), but if that ever becomes a problem we'll try adding caffeine pills to his daily pharmaceutical regimen.
So if you know someone with symptoms of dementia, try giving them caffeine, and if you know someone who knows someone with symptoms of dementia, tell them to try giving that person caffeine. There are no guarantees that it will have the same effect it did with my dad, of course, but it's so simple and low-risk there's no reason not to try it. Seriously: tell everyone and anyone you know who might benefit from this, because it could literally change their lives.
If you do try this I'd be very interested to hear what kind of results you see, whether positive, neutral or negative.
(A little more on my father here, if you're interested.)
MORE INFO: Here's an excerpt from the abstract for a 2002 study:

Patients with AD [Alzheimer's disease] had an average daily caffeine intake of 73.9 ± 97.9 mg during the 20 years that preceded diagnosis of AD, whereas the controls had an average daily caffeine intake of 198.7 ± 135.7 mg during the corresponding 20 years of their lifetimes (P < 0.001, Wilcoxon signed ranks test). Using a logistic regression model, caffeine exposure during this period was found to be significantly inversely associated with AD (odds ratio=0.40, 95% confidence interval=0.25–0.67), whereas hypertension, diabetes, stroke, head trauma, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, vitamin E, gastric disorders, heart disease, education and family history of dementia were not statistically significantly associated with AD. Caffeine intake was associated with a significantly lower risk for AD, independently of other possible confounding variables.

So consuming 198.7 ± 135.7 mg of caffeine a day may help you avoid Alzheimer's.

It Turns Out What Was Obviously Going to Happen Will Happen

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:54:00 +0700

MCCONNELL: It set the template for the future...no president — in the near future, maybe in the distant future — is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.

So there will be an infinite number of chances for Democratic presidents to slash Social Security and Medicare—and sure normally they'd love to hold an extensive debate on such a momentous decision, but darn it, they're being held hostage by the dastardly insane Republicans so there's NO TIME WE MUST SLASH SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. Etc.

No, You Should Start Blaming Yourselves

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:53:00 +0700

A liberal writes about his erstwhile man-god:

Should liberals blame themselves, as so many are suggesting, for missing these red flags? How can we when so many were convinced of his sincerity? He is the most gifted orator in generations. He made us hear what he wanted us to hear. We so needed to find hope after eight dispiriting years under Bush that we had to believe—the alternative, that he was just another slick-talking politician, would have been nihilistic.
We must stop making excuses for him and stop blaming ourselves for blindly supporting him.

You would think that objectively and accurately assessing the readily available evidence concerning Obama rather than euphorically embracing his empty rhetoric would be recognized—after the fact, if nothing else—as rational, not "nihilistic". You would think an adult would understand that nobody can make them hear anything, if they choose to exercise their own judgment and skepticism. You would think it would go without saying that "blindly supporting" any politician—or indeed any authority figure—is an act for which people most certainly should blame themselves, if for no other reason than to demonstrate a sincere intention not to do it again.
You would be wrong. In the age of Obama, being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry.
— John Caruso

Thanks a Lot, Asshole

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:53:00 +0700

Two things have been obvious since at least the summer of 2008: (1) Obama's dearest wish was to be a centrist corporate president and rerun the Clinton administration exactly; and (2) circumstances would prevent that and force him significantly to either the left or right of Clinton. It's been clear since soon after he was elected that when he had to choose he was going to go far to Clinton's right, and tonight he made that choice irrevocably.
The worst part about Obama's behavior isn't the agreement to slash government spending, though that's bad enough. The worst part isn't even his wholesale adoption of right-wing rhetoric and fairly tales. The worst part is that—because he wanted to use the debt ceiling as leverage against the 17 remaining liberal Democrats in Congress—he eagerly created the precedent that this will happen whenever the debt ceiling is raised and a Democrat is president.
So get ready for this every couple of years for the rest of your life. Won't let us zero out Medicare? WE'LL CRASH THE ECONOMY. Won't let us make it illegal to say the words "global warming"? OUR FINGER'S ON THE DETONATOR! Won't let us pass a law tying the serfs to the land? WE'LL BLOW UP THE WORLD!!! And then the Democratic president will agree to it and send out the press release celebrating the "kind of compromise that makes America great."
Thanks a lot, asshole.

Aqua Buddha Thrilled by Rand Paul Result; Terra Buddha, Pyro Buddha, and Aero Buddha Profoundly Discouraged

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:54:00 +0700

Aqua Buddha threw up his watery hands in moist thanks for Rand Paul's election as the new U.S. Senator from Kentucky, but other elemental Buddhas around the world shook their heads in despair at what they saw as terrific neglect by most of their worshippers.
"None of our worshippers won a single seat of any importance whatsoever," said the earthy Terra Buddha, scratching himself. "A Pyro Buddha follower won comptroller of something," he continued. "What the hell is that?"
The other elemental Buddhas agreed that, with the election of Rand Paul,
a huge Aqua Buddha booster, the Buddha of the Water, as some know him, will be "absolutely insufferable."
Pyro Buddha was too angry to speak, but Aero Buddha tried to take Paul's win in stride. "Yes, the Aqua Buddha worshipper won," he conceded. "But let's not forget -- the Witch lost."

AT&T and T-Mobile to Create Nation's Largest Non-Functioning Cell Network

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:51:00 +0700

AT&T and T-Mobile today announced plans to merge in order to vastly increase their reach and value, spokespeople said.

"Now," explained Shirley Dickinson of AT&T, "we can fail to provide service to twice as many customers as before."

Dickinson's additional comments were unclear, due to poor sound quality. Calls back to Dickinson for clarification were repeatedly dropped.

In person, Dickinson later told reporters that the merger would result in "even more bars in more places," although listeners could not be sure she was not talking about prisons or nightclubs, based on their own experiences with the company.

One real upside of the merger is that the two companies would be able to charge more money for less service, according to an anonymous source, AT&T Vice-President Gil Maddingly. "This is another victory for the American consumer," he said, "because a victory for American Capitalism is a victory for everyone."

He uses Verizon.

Debt Ceiling Battle to be Followed by Showdown Over Ugly Debt Wallpaper, Drab Debt Carpeting

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:47:00 +0700

Nation Weeps

A frightened nation held its breath today over final negotiations to replaster the debt ceiling even as GOP negotiators threatened even tougher stances on replacing the ugly debt wallpaper and debt carpeting.

"Mark my words, we will not be replacing the debt carpeting unless we get a balanced budget amendment and a lifetime supply of twinkies and beer for every member of the Republican Party," Speaker John Boehner told reporters today.

Democrats practically wept over Boehner's threat, saying they were already exhausted with the effort of caving in on the debt ceiling. "Some people may not understand, but capitulating to every demand of the Republican Party is very effortful," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid was going to say "taxing," but reconsidered under pressure from GOP leaders.

"I'm just happy they were able to come to an agreement over the ceiling," said April Pishter, a housewife from Debuque, Arkansas. She was untroubled by the terms of the agreement, so long as long as the ceiling remained intact. "It's just so important to have a roof, a ceiling, anything hanging over our heads."

The Geekian Chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:14:00 +0700

Hey! Wow! We've found water on Mars!

Um, wait, haven't we known that for some time?

Well, yes - for one thing, it's been known for some time that the Martian polar ice caps are water ice (a lot of it) and there's ample evidence that at some point in the past Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is now (the Mars rovers showed that) and there very likely were large seas. More recently, upon examination some features of the planet's landscape can best be explained by flows of water in the "recent" past - "recent" in quotes because what was meant was geologically recent, which could be 100,000 years ago or more. (Hey, when you're used to talking in terms of tens of millions or even billions of years, 100,000 years just ain't that long.)

So what's so cool about this latest news? Because a)we're not talking about ice, we're talking about liquid water and b)we're not talking about 100,000 years ago, we're talking about now. We're talking about seasonal flows of liquid water on Mars, now.

To be more precise, not exactly water but salty mud. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is so low that any water that actually was free on the surface would boil away to vapor vary quickly, so this is likely water mixed with soil - that is, mud. And it's likely salty because the freezing point of salty water is below that of fresh water and Mars is so cold that the difference matters.

Scientists, of course, are not claiming this is absolute, rock-solid proof - only that present-day seasonal flows of salty mud are the best explanation anyone has come up with of the observations. But that doesn't change two facts: One, this is about the strongest evidence to date that liquid water is to be found on present-day Mars and two, that first fact increases the chances that there may be something alive there. It would be unlikely in the extreme to be anything more than microbes - but it would be life on another planet.

And that is just damn cool.

I love science.

GUESTBOOK TUKARSHARING

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:26:00 +0700

Bagi para Blogwalking,Adsenser dan pembaca setia Artikel Tukar Sharing wajib mengisi Guestbook dibawah ini,karna kelebihan dan kekurangan yang ada didalam blog ini kalian yang menilai.saran dan kritik kalian sangat berharga.terima kasih.

history of car insurance

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:17:00 +0700

Now let's see how the history of car insurance first, of course, also has a history ...
The accident was a tragedy that is hard to avoid. Order and prudence that we've done does not guarantee that the pet is free from crash car.

When cars were on the highway, there are many factors that influence each other, for example: poor road conditions, driver behavior, weather factors and others.

One of the efforts that are offered to protect favorite car is the "insurance", because the purpose of insurance is basically to reduce the uncertainty of the possibility of unexpected losses.

In general, insurance is defined as an agreement where a person makes a bond with an insured to receive a premium to provide reimbursement to him for any loss, damage, or loss which may be experienced due to unforeseen events.

Humans in general does have an instinct for always trying to save his soul from various threats. One of history on this issue contained in the Qur'an Surat Yusuf verse 43-49 and the Bible Old Testament Genesis 41:

It is related of one of the king in the land of Egypt, who had a dream saw seven cows are emaciated each swallowed a cow fat. In the second dream the King saw an empty seven-grain wheat. Joseph U. S. asked to interpret the dream and explained that the state of Egypt will experience seven consecutive years of fertile wheat crop and then the next seven years in a row will have the lean times. For that NabiYusuf U. S. have advice to give, so when the harvest is abundant, most harvest is reserved for the lean times to come.

An ancient book from India called the "Rig Veda" written in Sanskrit, also cited a history of "Yoga Kshema", which means the coverage.

In addition, circa 2250 BC, there is a habit of living in the Babylonian Euphrates and Tigris river valley (now Iraq), which is almost equal to the insurance practice at the time there was a ship owner sekarang.Jika need funding to operate a boat or do a trading business, he can borrow money from a merchant (Creditors).

As a guarantee, vessel owners would pledge his ship with the addition of the cost of risk borne by the owners of capital, with an agreement that is: Boat owners will be exempted from payment of debts if the vessel safely to destination. These additional costs can be considered the same as "premiums" are known in the insurance now.

Likewise, when the Chinese to form new colonies, they often send a cargo ship full of supplies across the Atlantic. Cargo ship is usually owned by a group of investors. Owner of the cargo ship is often lost due to sinking ships or piracy. To protect the ship and cargo is, investors took a guarantee from one particular company. Now the way is known as marine insurance, this type of policy is still an effective way to protect ships and cargo they carry.

Car insurance is actually the other models of marine insurance. Car insurance was developed after the policy makers decided that the operation of publicly owned motor vehicle is a privilege. With this policy, the automobile and motorcycle riders are required to buy insurance to protect innocent third parties against injury or damage suffered.

The first automobile insurance policy issued, written by a British company in 1895. While in the United States in 1898 and was written for Dr. Truman J. Martin. Car insurance shall be applied for the first time in Massachusetts in 1927, although some of the previous decade has been running the car insurance. In fact, if traced back even further, the insurance policy had been there a hundred years before the introduction of motorized vehicles in the United States in 1908.

Currently, in every state in the United States auto insurance is an obligation that must be met by the vehicle owner. Although auto insurance liability from one State and another State is different, but stick with one goal which is to protect innocent victims from harm. Unfortunately, not all vehicle owners obey the law of that State.

There is a perception that is not true, who think that car insurance is one form of waste. In fact, the insurance vehicle owners can save a lot of costs when involved in a car accident. In many countries, automobile insurance policies for all types of car and driver, to protect from physical damage caused by your vehicle and other vehicles you might come into contact with your vehicle.

Car insurance also offer liability protection. That is, if you have an accident and cause someone else hurt, your car insurance policy will cover some of the costs of their treatment. Liability car insurance can also provide protection against damage to property owned by you or others who are victims of insurancecar kecelakaan.demikian-world explanation, hope useful for all of us.

Daftar Isi Blog Sharing Ilmu Pengetahuan

noreply@blogger.com (sharing ilmu pengetahuan) — Sun, 3 Apr 2011 18:32:00 +0700