China Heralds Bust of Major Hacker Ring

2010-02-08 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to the story on the Wall Street Journal. Let me know if this link should break.

China heralded a major bust of computer hackers to underscore its pledge to help enhance global online security, with state media saying officials had shut what they called the country’s largest distributor of tools used in malicious Internet attacks.

I am beginning to wonder if my suspicion mentioned in the comment of the post More On Chinese Computer Hacking may have been true, that the recent stories of Chinese government hacking have been propaganda put out by the west.

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Let’s Finish The Job On Health Reform

2010-02-08 | Filed Under Greenberg's Law of the Media, SteveG's Posts |

In case you are reading this on facebook, here are the links.

Follow this link to the request to take action to help finish the job.

Follow this link to the USA Today story Medical expenses have ‘very steep rate of growth’

I followed the suggested action and put the following comment on the Worcester T & G comment board for a news story about health care reform:

Health care spending rose to an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009, or $8,047 per person — and is now projected to nearly double by 2019.

So the government’s spending of $1 trillion over ten years to get some control of health care spending seems a lot smaller when you consider that we are already on a path to spend $25 trillion to $50 trillion over the next 10 years on health care.

When anybody touts a single number with the intention of getting you to gasp at how large it is, you always have to ask, ‘Compared to what?’

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Easy = True

2010-02-07 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to the article on The Boston Globe’s web page.

How cognitive fluency shapes what we believe, how we invest, and who will become a supermodel.

This little teaser is more realistic than the phony one with which they start the article:

Imagine that your stockbroker – or the friend who’s always giving you stock tips – called and told you he had come up with a new investment strategy. Price-to-earnings ratios, debt levels, management, competition, what the company makes, and how well it makes it, all those considerations go out the window. The new strategy is this: Invest in companies with names that are very easy to pronounce.

This would probably not strike you as a great idea. But, if recent research is to be believed, it might just be brilliant.

I do not know, yet, how this will influence the way this blog is written.

As Nicholas Taleb said in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, people are on much firmer ground when they describe an observation than when they try to explain the reason for it. The explanations in this article about why certain behavior might occur look more like confabulation to me than the actual reasons. So read the article for the description of the phenomena themselves and file the explanations of the reasons for the phenomena in the little round file.

The discussion of picking stocks might be better worded as follows:

If you were going to pick a few stocks for your portfolio by random selection instead of by traditional measures of quality, you would be better off if you at least chose the stocks that were easier to pronounce. Of course you would be a fool to pick stocks this way.

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Alabama Pork Holding Up Security Nominees

2010-02-06 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to the article that explains Senator Richard Shelby (R. Ala.) has put a hold on nominees to be the top Intelligence officers at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security as well as the number three civilian at the Pentagon.

The reason for the hold amounts to extortion on Shelby’s part. There is a $35 billion defense contract that he wants in his state and he doesn’t seem to care what he has to do to extort it.

I imagine I am not the only one who is starting to wonder why the Senate has to give in to this crap.

The harm that these rules produce probably far out weighs the harm that they prevent.

Follow this link to see what the White house has to say about this.

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In Honor of Melanie Shouse

2010-02-06 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to the facebook page about Melanie Shouse.

Melanie was a tireless activist who fought until losing her battle with cancer on Jan. 30. She was fighting…because she understood that there were others coming behind her. President Obama

The article By Michael Sorkin St. Louis Post-Dispatch clarifies further the significance of Melanie Shouse.

On Thursday night, President Obama cited her case in promising to continue working for health care legislation.

In a speech, Obama spoke of Shouse’s death and her obituary in the Post-Dispatch.

How can I say to her … ‘We’re giving up’? Obama said.

I believe the Obama speech to which the article refers is the one in my post A Conversation With The President

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John Edwards Revealed

2010-02-06 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link for a review in The Daily Beast of the book about John Edwards.

Say this for John Edwards and Andrew Young, the author of a chilling new memoir: they deserved each other.

Previously RichardH had sent me this link to Grifters’ Tale, a comparison of the John Edwards phenomenon to the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

I hope these stories don’t lead to a new cynicism that all politicians are like this. I figure that when a person has an extraordinary ability to move people with his or her words, they could very easily realize they can use that ability for nefarious purposes. Almost by definition, a successful politician has this extraordinary ability. Not every person with this ability becomes a con artist. Some become trial lawyers, beauty queens, or movie stars. Perhaps for beauty queens and movie stars the looks move people and the words don’t matter. Maybe the looks even work for some trial lawyers.

Of course, some con artists may just realize they can use their skills for political purposes.

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A Conversation With The President

2010-02-05 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

January 4, 2010, Organizing for America hosted a conversation with President Obama. The President spoke to grassroots supporters and answered questions about OFA’s plan going forward.

Watch the video of the event below.

This video answers a lot of questions you might have about what has already been accomplished and how we will accomplish the rest of the agenda.

Follow this link to the event on the OFA web site.

Follow this link to this video on YouTube.

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Homeowners Walk Away From Mortgages

2010-02-04 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to an article in the New York Times about homeowners who can afford to pay their mortgages, but decide it makes more financial sense to just walk away from their underwater mortgage.

Walking away – also called jingle mail, – because of the notion that homeowners just mail their keys to the bank, setting off foreclosure proceedings – began in the Southwest during the 1980s oil collapse, though it has never been clear how widespread it was.

My sense of history goes back beyond that. I heard from a Texas real-estate agent in the 1970’s that such a situation existed in the Seattle, Washington area during a severe downturn for Boeing. She talked about people mailing in their keys to the bank and walking away. As I recall, this agent had moved from Seattle area to the Dallas, Texas area.

Talking about one particular homeowner, the artile goes on to say:

Most of all, though, he struggles with the ethical question.

I took a loan on an asset that I didn’t see was overvalued, he said. As much as I would like my bank to pay for that mistake, why should it?

That is an attitude Wall Street would like to encourage. David Rosenberg, the chief economist of the investment firm Gluskin Sheff, wrote recently that borrowers were not victims. They signed contracts, and as adults should also be held accountable, he wrote.

Of course, another way to look at it is that the bank, too, was acting as an adult. It signed a contract that said in essence, you agree to pay back this loan or you will forfeit your house to me. The homeowner is merely taking an agreed upon option of the contract.

By the way, I have no direct personal stake in this issue. I am not underwater on a mortgage.

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Food Rules From Michael Pollan Worth Following

2010-02-03 | Filed Under SteveG's Posts |

Follow this link to the article in the New York Times, Rules Worth Following, for Everyone’s Sake by Jane E. Brody.

As Mr. Pollan puts it, If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

I know it’s not politics, but it is an article I want to remember. Besides being my politics blog, I also use this as a repository of useful information.

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