The Nation's Financial Condition

[Farfromgeneva]

Man, more Boeing news. It never ends...

https://www.axios.com/2u-guild-educatio ... b3dd2.html

[PizzaSnake]

Man, more Boeing news. It never ends...

https://www.axios.com/2u-guild-educatio ... b3dd2.html

Those Pratt & Whitney razors sure require frequent blade changes, don’t they?

[Farfromgeneva]

Man, more Boeing news. It never ends...

https://www.axios.com/2u-guild-educatio ... b3dd2.html

Those Pratt & Whitney razors sure require frequent blade changes, don’t they?

Damn, wrong link. Try this one.

https://www.theonion.com/boeing-scrambl ... 1840980952

[CU88]

Fed Likely to Maintain Near Zero Interest Rates

On Tuesday during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed would keep interest rates near zero for the foreseeable future (WSJ). Powell said, “The economy is a long way from our employment and inflation goals,” adding that the near-zero rates would continue until “substantial further progress has been made,” which he said, “is likely to take some time.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerome-pow ... _lead_pos2



Tech Stocks Pare Losses as Fed Looks Dovish to Investors

https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-sto ... _lead_pos1

[Farfromgeneva]

2-10s spread is widest it’s been since beginning of Trump term (early 2017) as if the four years never happened.

Shade under 1.30%. This reflects the spread between the 2yr US T note and 10yr Treasury bond. Not insignificant to be at a 4yr wide. What it’s signaling I’m not sure however but it’s not equilibrium.

[PizzaSnake]

2-10s spread is widest it’s been since beginning of Trump term (early 2017) as if the four years never happened.

Shade under 1.30%. This reflects the spread between the 2yr US T note and 10yr Treasury bond. Not insignificant to be at a 4yr wide. What it’s signaling I’m not sure however but it’s not equilibrium.

“What it’s signaling I’m not sure however but it’s not equilibrium.”

You expect stasis? Or are you being facetious? We have a polity seemingly hopelessly divided by class , income, and religiousity most likely as a result of deliberate plutocratic propaganda for the last 40 odd years followed by a pandemic that has illuminated the decline in educational and wisdom. As a capper we have a slow uneasy sense of dread creeping in as the natural world begins to be exhibit more immoderation.

I’m sort of surprised things are as calm as they are. Could be like a slip fault. Pressure keeps building, and building, and building until it lets go with a “bang”!!

[Farfromgeneva]

If you haven’t, I’d encourage you to check out a couple of books by a dude named Nassim Nicholas Taleb called The Black Swan and Antifragile. Suspect you’d enjoy them. I love the guy. Based on your comments, particularly Antifragile but Black Swan should kind for be read first IMO. Really Taleb wrote an earlier book called Fooled By Randomness which is also good and intended these three to be related so if your ambitious and care add that one but I think you can get by on these two which are plenty of reading should you choose to do so.

Black Swan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bla ... Improbable

Antifragile
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile

[PizzaSnake]

If you haven’t, I’d encourage you to check out a couple of books by a dude named Nassim Nicholas Taleb called The Black Swan and Antifragile. Suspect you’d enjoy them. I love the guy. Based on your comments, particularly Antifragile but Black Swan should kind for be read first IMO. Really Taleb wrote an earlier book called Fooled By Randomness which is also good and intended these three to be related so if your ambitious and care add that one but I think you can get by on these two which are plenty of reading should you choose to do so.

Black Swan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bla ... Improbable

Antifragile
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile

So are you saying our current state is fragile or anti-fragile?

"Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation "disorder cluster"). Likewise fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading a negative sensitivity to increase in volatility. The relation between fragility, convexity and sensitivity to disorder is mathematical, obtained by theorem, not derived from empirical data mining or some historical narrative. It is a priori".

[Farfromgeneva]

Fragile and getting worse. And the more we try to de risk society the greater the fractures or violence of the distress will be the outcome. I’m not binary on this but have long believed that the unintended consequences of many well intentioned actions by our representatives (on both sides) have and will continue to do more long term harm than good so it appeals to me to put some math,biology and philosophy to it the way he does.

For background, Taleb is Lebanese and has been a fianamce practitioner as a equity derivatives trader for credit Suisse for a bit in the 80s and is shaped a lot by black Monday in 87 and the failure of “great” economists and experts like the Black Scholes folks and the guy who created portfolio insurance (which triggered 87, not don cheadles firm) both of whom won Nobel prizes for their work respectively. I believe he’s also taught and spent a lot of time studying biology, physics and philosophy and brings that old school enlightened Lebanese/Persian mentality to it. He’s also arrogant and doesn’t hold anything back and made a lot of enemies but he’s almost always correct.

[PizzaSnake]

So here we are:

“Situation in which the manager of a business is not the true owner, so he follows a strategy that cosmetically seems to be sound, but in a hidden way benefits him and makes him antifragile at the expense (fragility) of the true owners or society. When he is right, he collects large benefits; when he is wrong, others pay the price. Typically this problem leads to fragility, as it is easy to hide risks. It also affects politicians and academics. A major source of fragility.”

[Farfromgeneva]

Yep, there’s risk transference all over the place unfortunately. Private and public sector. He’s a huge proponent of “skin in the game”. I may be out there but I tend to view any action as having benefits and costs and try to find who bears the risk. It’s never honestly presented by anyone at all so it’s not easy to know or see always.

But sure I’m not going to defend wall st bailouts broadly and agree there’s many agency problems with public companies. He won’t either.

[PizzaSnake]

Sounds like my kind of guy.

“Although Boyd Tonkin of The Independent criticized Taleb’s style as "vulgar, silly, slapdash and infuriating", of the ideas in the book he remarked "time and again I returned to two questions about his core ideas: Is he right, and does it matter? My verdict? Yes, and yes."

I could care less about his style. Give me good ideas clearly expressed. I have little patience for bloviating fools.

[Farfromgeneva]

So here we are:

“Situation in which the manager of a business is not the true owner, so he follows a strategy that cosmetically seems to be sound, but in a hidden way benefits him and makes him antifragile at the expense (fragility) of the true owners or society. When he is right, he collects large benefits; when he is wrong, others pay the price. Typically this problem leads to fragility, as it is easy to hide risks. It also affects politicians and academics. A major source of fragility.”

But I would add that if you really read it you’ll see he’s not going to be any easier on other cohorts who pull all sorts of crap either. It’s not just focused on private business. Antifragile starts out with a mix of biology and philosophy and ultimately translates it to other “organisms” like business, colleges, government/politicians and even non profits.

[Farfromgeneva]

Sounds like my kind of guy.

“Although Boyd Tonkin of The Independent criticized Taleb’s style as "vulgar, silly, slapdash and infuriating", of the ideas in the book he remarked "time and again I returned to two questions about his core ideas: Is he right, and does it matter? My verdict? Yes, and yes."

I could care less about his style. Give me good ideas clearly expressed. I have little patience for bloviating fools.

I don’t know who Boyd Tonkin is. This guy crushes anyone he thinks is wrong. Told a few noble prize winners in economics they should give back their medals (believe he was referring to Robert Merton and the portfolio insurance guy) and pissed off that community. refers to their work as “elegant mathematical models” that miss the size and severity of fat tail (2nd standard deviation events) and utilize variables which they have no ability to forecast or even identify correctly like volatility in option pricing.

What’s interesting is I was thinking of him a number of years back when ACA was being pushed. Ezekiel Emmanuel was on CNBC totally irrational when (probably Keenan) questioned certain aspects with fair questions and Emmanuel kept yelling “where’s your model, where’s your model!” as if that meant anything to this discussion or that models have some scientific value hat they really don’t.

Economics got fubarred,IMO, by buying into the Friedman piece that argues that it’s a positive science (rather than a softer one).

[a fan]

You expect stasis? Or are you being facetious? We have a polity seemingly hopelessly divided by class , income, and religiousity most likely as a result of deliberate plutocratic propaganda for the last 40 odd years followed by a pandemic that has illuminated the decline in educational and wisdom. As a capper we have a slow uneasy sense of dread creeping in as the natural world begins to be exhibit more immoderation.

I’m sort of surprised things are as calm as they are. Could be like a slip fault. Pressure keeps building, and building, and building until it lets go with a “bang”!!

They already went bang. The Jury rendered the verdict: the top 20%ers win in America. And the bottom 80% will continue to fall behind.

"The deliberate plutocratic propaganda has American conservative voters wearing tinfoil hat, and bickering about Mr. Potato head instead of demanding that their school districts teach kids how to code, and how to weld or build homes.

There is no bang. There's the quiet desperation after Reagan and then the Clinton Dems sold out the working class, all while FoxNation told voters Mr. Potato head was more important than infrastructure......including, as you point out very well: education.

[PizzaSnake]

“Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way”

Now it is the American way?

Just a thought. Did we really achieve independence from Great Britain? We copied their methods and made the same mistakes...

[PizzaSnake]

“The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”. — Yeats

[Nigel]

[Farfromgeneva]

“Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way”

Now it is the American way?

Just a thought. Did we really achieve independence from Great Britain? We copied their methods and made the same mistakes...

Everybody hates the British.

We didn’t run Harry Waters, Roger’s kid, out of Hobart my FR year. He was quiet and wasn’t equipped for the degeneracy in upstate NY.

[Farfromgeneva]

You expect stasis? Or are you being facetious? We have a polity seemingly hopelessly divided by class , income, and religiousity most likely as a result of deliberate plutocratic propaganda for the last 40 odd years followed by a pandemic that has illuminated the decline in educational and wisdom. As a capper we have a slow uneasy sense of dread creeping in as the natural world begins to be exhibit more immoderation.

I’m sort of surprised things are as calm as they are. Could be like a slip fault. Pressure keeps building, and building, and building until it lets go with a “bang”!!

They already went bang. The Jury rendered the verdict: the top 20%ers win in America. And the bottom 80% will continue to fall behind.

"The deliberate plutocratic propaganda has American conservative voters wearing tinfoil hat, and bickering about Mr. Potato head instead of demanding that their school districts teach kids how to code, and how to weld or build homes.

There is no bang. There's the quiet desperation after Reagan and then the Clinton Dems sold out the working class, all while FoxNation told voters Mr. Potato head was more important than infrastructure......including, as you point out very well: education.

Education is fake news.

We don’t need no education. Teachers, leave us kids alone!