Network Admin Goes to Jail to Protect His Baby
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
How autistic are you?
A friend whose grandson is autistic tells me that this 50-question assessment devised by Cambridge University is considered by those in the autism community to be a pretty accurate assessment of where one falls on the autism spectrum. It’ll take you only a few minutes to complete it, but the results might startle you. It certainly did startle several readers in a thread below, which is why I’m giving it its own entry.
For the Wall-E Fans Out There
An interview with Andrew Stanton who is the the creator of Wall-E. (h/t Crunchy Con)
It's all bad
Calculated Risk on M&T’s conference call….
M&T is the first of the top 20 largest banks to report quarterly results, and the news is bad.
I just don't understand
It use to be the stock market would go up even when bad news was announced. Now we have have a bank run on a bank that has already been taken over by the FDIC. Can someone explain that to me?
I mean, are people really so ignorant that they don’t realize that the damage has been done once the government has taken over? If their accounts are under 100 grand they have nothing to worry about. If their accounts are over 100 grand it is to late to do anything about it.
It would seem more rational for their to be a run on banks that have not been taken over yet.
Edit: I just found this story from Reuters…..
At a branch at IndyMac’s headquarters, customers began arriving at 4 a.m., five hours before the doors opened. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp now operates the thrift’s 33 Southern California branches.
“I didn’t think anything like this would happen,” said retired teacher Charles Tengeri from Pasadena, who was first to emerge from the branch after withdrawing $171,000 — about two-thirds of his life savings. “I withdrew as much as I could. I know it’s going to take a little time.”
The FDIC said the renamed IndyMac Federal Bank will cover insured deposits, mostly up to $100,000, and initially cover 50 percent of uninsured deposits.“I have $360,000 in this bank, and I was misled by this bank,” said Robert Clark, a Glendale resident. “I gave the names of my mother, my sister and my brother on the account so I thought I would be insured. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know what to do.”
The guy who came out with $171,000 must have had a joint account. Otherwise he would have only got $100,000 out. And if you had $360,000 why would you try to game the system by giving the names of every relative under the sun so that you could keep all your money in just one account? Why not just open up an account somewhere else?
I think the guy knew that Indymac was in trouble but wanted to take advantage of high interest rates they were offering. You play with fire, you get burnt.
Control thoughts and you control reality
Or at least, that is what the SEC must be hoping. From Macro Man…..
At the same time, we have news that the SEC is looking at policing market rumours, particularly those surrounding the financials. Something tells Macro Man that this will be a one-way street; anyone suggesting that, for example, PIMCO and SAC have pulled Lehman’s line will face reprisals, but anyone suggesting that Warren Buffett is going to buy Lehman for $100 per share will remain unscathed. The UK has a head start on this particular slippery slope, with the FSA pursuing banking sector rumour-mongers and imposing farcically low disclosure thresholds for short interest in banks doing rights issues.
It’s all vaguely 1984-ish to Macro Man. If you use inappropriate language about a bank, they’ll do you. If you sell the wrong bank short, they’ll do you. If you wonder aloud on possible forthcoming bad news about a bank, they’ll do you. Perhaps sellside analysts should just cut to the chase and rate every financial out there with a “Doubleplusgood” rating. Who knew that MiFID stood for the “Ministry of Financial Information Dissemination.”?
Poem of the Week: 7/13/08 – 7/19/08
This week’s poem of the week is Lamentations 3.
Rant of the Week: 7/13/08 – 7/19/08
The Irish tend to be good at ranting as Kevin Myers proves in this piece on Africa. We do not believe that the number of people are in Africa is the problem. Africa could easily support twice the amount of people it has now if it was properly run. But Mr. Myers does highlight the willful blindness of many professional do-gooders.
Essay of the week: 7/13/08 – 7/19/08
You should read this report on Russian demographics because it is scary and it goes with an upcoming Chieftain of Seir essay.
If you are intimidated by the size of the document you can just consider the executive summary to be an essay (which it practically is) and skip the rest.) Keep in mind as you are reading it that this document was put together by Russians. As such they pulled a lot of punches because they were afraid of the government.
At least, in the executive summary they did. The main body of the text is a little more hard hitting. But it still glossed over some serious issues.
How Israel Bombed Osirak
This article provided a good overview of the problems Israel faced when it was bombing Orsirak. This is why I have always been skeptical that Israel could damage Iran’s nuclear program by itself. At least, if it restricted itself to conventional air attacks. As the article hints, there may be other options under consideration.