naked capitalism

Richard Smith says:

Yves, do you have the back story to Barry R's post on CRA? He and Gasparino had a shouting match on CNBC about it. Barry's been digging into the story since then.

The Ritholtz/Gasparino flareup begins about 20 mins into this piece:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=876802511&play=1

Something for your copious spare time.

Richmond Rambler says:

re: If you can’t fall in love with an otter, you can’t fall in love at all.

Cross-stitched on my heart, Richard!

Anonymous says:

yves: “[Regarding Palin,] Mid-market call girl. … Revealing the intellect and political experience of a whelk.”

anon 9:56am: “I would be curious to hear the author’s personal experiences with mid-market call girls to determine the soundness of his assertions.”

Given that Yves is a woman, it is unlikely she has experience with call girls, mid-market or otherwise. Statistically few women (lesbian or otherwise) frequent female prostitutes.

Anonymous says:

It’s the yield curve stupid!

Dave Raithel says:

RE Russia collapsing: Population trends project Turkey eclipsing Russia around 2050…supposing that anybody at all is still around…

Anonymous says:

“an authoritarian state with nukes can last well beyond its sell-by date, even with a starving population, as North Korea attests”

Sorry madam,

but your words fit perfectly to the present situation of US, MORE (FAR MORE) than to Russia

Anonymous says:

As a fan of Palin please allow me to make brief explanation of why she is popular among conservatives.

1) She had the guts to go after corrupt members of the GOP in Alaska. This gives me hope she will have the guts to go after corrupt democrats if she makes it to DC. George Bush lacks such guts.

2) She was effective enough to get a deal done to build a pipeline to get natural gas delivered to the lower 48. This had eluded her predecessor. She also sued the federal government about the moronic decision to list the polar bear as endangered which was intended to give DC yet another means to strangle development.

3) She was willing to actually criticize Obama in her convention speech- as opposed to the mealy-mouthed gutless furtive polite disagreements republicans can usually manage to force themselves to make. This is yet another flaw of the present dolt in the White House.

4) She’s hot. Stupid, but I remember someone telling that they planned to vote for Jennifer Granholm for governor of Michigan because he thought she looked like Marilyn Monroe.

By the way- she was not a seperatist nor is she a pig. Of course conservatives have long since giving up on any kind of fair treatment from the leftist media so I don’t care what that jackass thinks about Palin or anything else.

jest says:

Yves-

i found this missive pretty good:

“And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin’ Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. A new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23318320/mad_dog_palin

Anonymous says:

I’m the anon of 7:47.

1) The accusations of corruptions are spurious. E. g. “troopergate”. It is alleged that Palin attempted to fire an Alaska state trooper for no good reason. Left out is that said trooper was caught drinking on the job, tasered a young child, and threatened to kill Palin’s father. Why should this individual retain a job as a state police officer anyware? Because Palin is a Republican she should ignore this conduct?

2)If you consider yourself unable to comment on Alaska politics then don’t. I dispute your assertions about global warming. Even if you are correct you should direct your complaints more to China and India than the US. Good luck with that since both have explicitly they will not limit in any way CO2 emissions.

3) Palin had significant input into what was said. Do you think she never saw that speech before she gave it? The person moderating the debate was Gwen Ifill who has a partisan pro-Obama book coming out on inauguration day. She stands to make a lot of money if Obama wins. Your complaints about the debate are true of every politician these days.

4) I completely agree about “hot” as any qualification for any office. Granholm is a democrat and the individual who expressed that sentiment was also a democrat. This is idiotic but this how democrats think- as well as some “independent” voters. If they vote in this idiotic manner they will help make McCain president.

Lastly, I’ve seen stories about “heavy hitter” Clinton supporters who have decided to support McCain due to Palin. Whatever. We’ll know soon if this matters

Anonymous says:

jest,

So you get your political information from a magazine about music?

Pathetic. Sad. Moronic.

But completely typical.

Helpful suggestion: If you have to get your political information from a magazine (bwahahaha!) try a political magazine. There are many out there.

Your comment reminded me of something the that Granholm voter would have said.

Have a nice night.

Yves Smith says:

Anon of 7:47,

You like to make selective use of facts, You are either willfully ignorant, or choosing only to present the part of the trooper firing most favorable to Palin.

First, the trooper in question was involved in a nasty divorce with her sister. A rather vital fact you choose to omit. She exerted inappropriate influence to get him fired. And the substance of the allegations you recite against him is in some dispute.

Second, her office also leaked information about his finances, a clear violation of Federal law.

These corruption charges are serious enough that the Alaska Senate approved the hiring of an independent investigator.

A governor has no business meddling in the affairs of the state trooper’s office on a personal vendetta. But you think that sort of conduct is reasonable. There are procedures for investigating allegations of misconduct, but no, you applaud someone, who in her oath of office swore to uphold the law, but when it suits her personal ends, will sweep that aside.

The US is still the biggest source of CO2 emissions China is forecast to surpass the US in 2009. India is well down the list and emits only 1/4 of the level of the US and China, so I see considerable prejudice on display here.

The US, as a long standing leading industrial power, has done FAR more to create this problem than China.

As for Ifill, the debate format allowed her no latitude to follow up, and the format was negotiated for short statement times, precisely because the Republicans did not believe Palin could talk intelligently for more than two minutes. All the commentary I have read said Ifill did a lousy job, her questions, which was the only thing she controlled, were softballs.

As for Palin seeing the speech, of course she saw it, I have no doubt she rehearsed a good deal. But do you think a neophyte from Alaska is going to edit a script that was written by top political pros? Frankly, if she did, that would say she has terrible judgment and is unwilling to listen to experts. This is a woman who barely got through college.

Anonymous says:

I bet if they fired every trooper in Alaska who ever drank on the job they’d have no troopers left!

Edward Harrison says:

To the anon of 7:47.

1) The accusations of Palin’s alleged corruptions are not spurious. A statement by a judge in this regard will be released in days. Let’s wait to see what he has to say. Whether Palin is a Republican or Democrat is irrelevant.

2)As to global warming, China and India are red herrings. Irrespective of whether they are bigger polluters than the US, it shouldn’t make one iota of difference on the US response on global warming. The US response must be based on what the US needs to do first. Your statement is akin to saying the US can beat criminal suspects into confessions because China and India do.

3) Palin may have had significant input into what was said as you assert. However, the speech was still crafted by others and McCain’s team has said as much. So what? The Gwen Ifill storyline is a naked attempt to change the subject and goad the Obama campaign into a defensive response. It is not substantive and is irrelevant unless she demonstrates obvious bias, which she did not.

4) If “hot” were a qualification for any office, we would elect Pamela Anderson to congress? This is idiotic and thus irrelevant. Don’t you have anything substantive to say?

And you say — Lastly, I’ve seen stories about “heavy hitter” Clinton supporters who have decided to support McCain due to Palin. Whatever. We’ll know soon if this matters. — fair enough. Only time will tell.

Yves Smith says:

Anon of 7:47 PM,

She is a laughing stock. I refer you to last week’s and the week prior’s Saturday Night Live.

You choose to ignore the argument, and show woeful ignorance of and disregard for the law. Palin took interest in this case SOLELY because her sister was involved. This was a CLEAR vendetta. There Is NO proof that Palin took interest in any other state trooper accused of misconduct.

Wooten, the trooper, also cliams his misconduct was exaggerated. He admits to the Tasering, but says the boy, his stepson, asked for it to be done, and he did it with a much lower than normal charge (that was still colossally stupid, but the boy was claimed not to have been hurt) and he denies the drinking charge. He appears to have been well on his way to being fired, regardless, but there are procedures with well established standards within police forces for handling employees whose conduct is not up to par. There was no evidence Wooten was getting a soft-glove treatment and thus NO reason to intervene.

And as for the claim that he threatened Palin’s father, that has NEVER been substantiated, it is a charge launched by the Palin family with no supporting evidence.

You also failed to acknowledge the fact that her office is charged with a Federal violation, of disclosing financial information about him. That is pure and clear harassment, and does nothing to help the people of Alaska.

You also brush off the fact that this was deemed serious enough to merit the appointment of a independent investigator.

You also switched gears considerably in the thrust of the discussion on CO2. I first said that Palin’s minimizing the role of human activity made her judgment on where to draw the line between development and environmental protection questionable, You never responded, which I take to be an agreement.

You continue to display considerable ignorance about the US record. The US, along with Australia, is one of the few non-participants, Even China and India, along with 135 other developing countries, signed. It admittedly was a weak agreement, committing countries to goals without monitoring or enforcement, but the US refused even to commit to an INTENT to reduce greenhouse gases. And you argue otherwise?

I see you refused to look at the link I provided earlier on methane. You are also clearly willfully ignorant of the fact that climate models PREDICTED a slight fall in global temperatures over the next decade, and they would rise quickly after that. So I can only assume you do not care what kind of planet we leave for your children.

As for Ifill, you have provided no evidence that her conduct during the debate was biased, nor has ANY commentator pointed to any failing in her conduct, save she was way way too weak. All you can do is fulminate about a book she has coming out, but that is irrelevant. What matters is how she conducted herself in the debates, and you offer no shred of evidence that she did anything wrong.

Yves Smith says:

You also failed to include the biggest element of misconduct, namely, that Palin fired a state employee, the State Public Safety Commissioner, allegedly for refusing to fire the trooper, Mike Wooten.

AP is now reporting it now appears that Palin and her husband will not testify in the ethics investigation. If her conduct is blameless, she should be eager to participate.

Yves Smith says:

Your ignorance is simply breathtaking. British Petroleum set as a target that it would reduce its CO2 emissions to 1990 levels in ten years. It did it in three, by spending $30 million, and saved $650 million. They came out way ahead in cutting their carbon footprint, and there is no reason not to believe that many companies would come out net ahead too.

But no, you’d rather wave the Big Lie that millions of jobs would be lost. No economic analyst has ever come up with such a figure.

And after Wall Street getting free passes from the Bush Administration (in particular, the SEC let the 5 biggest brokerage firm get a waiver from capital requirements, which played a significant role in our financial mess), you make unproven charges about judges favoring Democrats. The Federal bench has FAR more Republican judges than Democrats, so again your statement files in the face of facts.

But you’ll just come here and make stuff to prove your point. Unless you start providing links for your factoids, your comments will be deleted. I am tired of wasting my time with someone who cannot be bothered with facts.

doc holiday says:

My opinion is that rates will fall, and I also think there will be some new inventory added in the form of discounted Treasuries (zero-coupon bonds) which will add more pressure to the tsunami of cash headed to the short term. The big question is how the floating dollar will impact falling bond yields; it may provide a cushion, but I think that cash pipeline may end up being diverted to The Yen. All boats will fall on this tide, so it will be a liquidity trap that make any movements risky.

FYI: An alternative to alternatives, zero coupon bonds offer best returns
http://www.bfinance.de/content/v…ent/view/14626/

A clear advantage of the zero coupon bond is that pension administrators are able to precisely match their actuarial liabilities without risk. If a pension fund CIO allocating for maximum risk-adjusted performance had invested in a 30-year Treasury bond yielding 4.8% a year ago, the total return on his investment would be 16% compared to a loss of about 20% for the S&P 500.

It’s all relative
Zero coupon bonds have generated a return of 24% in the past year. “There is no security that we can think of that has come remotely close to matching that, risk-adjusted or not,” notes a Merrill Lynch report.

Many U.S. institutions were the creditors of the Latin American countries, so in 1989, U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady devised a plan to convert the Latin American bank debt into a new structure called a "Brady Bond." Brady Bonds were U.S. Dollar denominated bonds which were collateralized by zero coupon U.S .Treasury bonds. The debtor nations would exchange their defaulted bank debt for Brady Bonds and then purchase the zero coupon bonds. The zero coupons were held in escrow by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Also See: Level, Slope, Curvature: Characterising the Yield Curve in a Cointegrated VAR Model
http://www.economics-ejournal.or…version_1/ count

See: Nelson and Siegel (1987) introduce a latent factor model where the factors are unobserved but the loadings represent level slope and curvature. The latter uses an affine latent factormodel, imposing a no arbitrage condition.

>> In conclusion, our model not only shows that the yield curve is explained by a level and slope factor but gives meaning to them by identifying the cumulated residuals that drive them: the long end of the curve determines the level and the medium sector the slope. The short end does not contain information on yields of other maturities

Anonymous says:

What’s this? Are you too ignorant and stupid to block my IP address?

Do I need to tell what posts I made so you can delete them and make you think you won an argument?

Pathetic, and all too typical of the left. Losers all.

Richard Smith says:

I remember, Doc. Habitat loss: the downside of boom times. Still, at least there will be a new one tomorrow.

Yves Smith says:

7:47, I don’t block IP addresses because that means I could block an entire company, which might have some legitimate readers.

And that very remark proves you have been barred from blog before so this is not the first time you have been excluded due to unacceptable behavior.

I very clearly told you the ground rules. You needed to provide links for your assertions. You provided a rant with no links, Any post like that gets deleted.

As for some of my earlier claims, unlike you, I can substantiate them.

On companies making a very handsome return on investing in energy savings, from McKinsey, which makes its bread and butter from big companies, so is the antithesis of a greenie shill:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/04/why-companies-arent-fighting-climate.html

And it turns out my memory was wrong, BP spent only $20 million, not $30 million as I said above. to save $650 million by reducing its greenhouse gas output to 1990 levels. This post has a link to a Guardian story:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/02/politics-of-global-warming.html