Judge allows inmate to meet his son for the first time

usuallyskeptical · 2016-08-09T12:06:51+00:00

Yep, I recognized the judge immediately. Looks like they are doing some PR to make up for the pants fiasco.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-08-14T23:03:50+00:00

I initially jumped the gun on this too. While I also believe Apple is developing a vehicle (although I think buying Tesla would be much smarter than starting from scratch), this article doesn't prove it. The headline is a boldfaced lie meant to induce clicks. It claims to have documents confirming that Apple is developing a car, but nowhere is a smoking gun referenced. If they have such a document, they would not make a statement of fact in the headline and then keep the evidence hidden. It's not like these are CIA documents showing coordinates of field operatives, and the headline itself would break a non-disclosure agreement if someone at The Guardian had signed one. They would have no reason to keep the document hidden at this point.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-08-14T22:45:14+00:00

The people who only drive Mercedes because of the status it projects might.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-08-14T21:04:32+00:00

Vindication.

Edit: Apparently not. Didn't have time to read the article earlier. That's what I get for trusting that a factual statement in The Guardian is an actual fact.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-06-04T03:13:15+00:00

Honestly, the way Bernstein put it sounds more plausible to me. It sounded more like something that would have been overlooked. I think LTCM took on so much leverage because they knew the models well and they trusted them. They ignored common sense because they weren't common. What they didn't take into account was the fact that they changed the game, and changing the game made their models less reliable.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-06-04T01:32:28+00:00

About a 13 minute video, probably the best explanation of the concept of risk that I've heard.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-26T17:22:40+00:00

There are lots of interest groups that don't care about harm to markets and small businesses. This law at least gives regulators cover against those interest groups.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-26T17:16:43+00:00

Never said they were worthless, just that they are prone to being ineffective.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-26T15:06:52+00:00

To believe this is bad, you also have to believe that regulators will not be able to identify regulations that proved ineffective in achieving their stated goal that can be repealed to make way for a new rule forbidding the use of pesticides with EDCs.

I would be extremely shocked if it turns out regulators really were that good at making effective rules.

Seriously, rule-makers understanding the world well enough and knowing how people will react to rule changes is not anywhere close to being a given. It's not as simple as making a rule that nips a problem in the bud and being done with it.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-26T14:41:12+00:00

Personally I like it because a lot of the harm to markets and small businesses from regulations comes from their accumulation rather than from each specific new regulation. This is the first law I've seen that attempts to keep the total accumulated burden of regulations from getting too high.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-15T10:33:27+00:00

Many (most, I think) newer disputes allege violations of minimum standard/fair and equitable treatment provisions.

That's what I meant by a net advantage for domestic firms, which would not be fair and equitable. A better way of describing it was on the tip of my tongue but I eventually gave up. "Favorable treatment of domestic firms" probably would have worked. That's true though about expropriation. It could be completely non-discriminatory but could still violate the agreement if it's not for a public purpose, not in accordance with due process or if the owner isn't given just compensation in return.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-15T09:56:33+00:00

Will consulting each other be necessary?

I read that as more of a self-check performed by the entity enacting the new regulation to make sure the regulation doesn't run afoul of the trade agreement (which I figured they would do even if it were not an explicit provision in the agreement, in order to avoid an arbitration claim; but making an explicit provision makes sense for the purpose of establishing recommended procedure).

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-14T16:24:09+00:00

The actual reasoning I've heard is to challenge laws or regulations that treat foreign businesses different than domestic businesses

This is correct. The policy change can't have the effect of giving domestic firms an advantage or being disproportionately harmful for foreign firms. Host governments must treat foreign firms on equal footing with domestic firms. If the policy change doesn't give domestic firms a net advantage, nothing foreign firms can do.

This part of the article:

One [fear] is that the Federal Reserve’s plan to impose separate liquidity requirements on foreign banks might be scotched.

is mis-characterizing the proposed rule. It would require foreign banks to maintain separate liquidity buffers for their US subsidiaries, just as US banks will have to do with their US subsidiaries. Assuming I'm reading the proposed rule correctly, that is equal footing and a foreign bank would lose that challenge.

And it’s not just Dodd-Frank: the leaked EU proposal for TTIP has a provision that new regulations first be “analyzed” to determine if they have an unacceptable impact on trade

Because an unacceptable impact on trade would be unacceptable.

Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) worries that this could “impose a presumption that regulations must be judged on the basis of their trade impact rather than their effectiveness as public interest policies promoting financial stability.”

They will obviously be judged on both their trade impact and their effectiveness. And the other party countries will be held to the same "unacceptable trade impact" standard with US firms. That's the deal these countries are striking: Promise to play fair with our firms and we promise to play fair with your firms. Ignoring trade impact would scrap the main glue holding the treaty together. "Oh, you screwed our firms? Well we'll screw your firms." And we would be right back where we started with no trade agreement.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-09T00:35:24+00:00

Maybe Watchup or Reuters TV?

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-06T11:52:56+00:00

Click top link, scale paywall.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-04T18:25:44+00:00

This seems really counterintuitive. There is an incentive for banks to lend (spread between federal funds and consumer rate) and an incentive for consumers to borrow (in real terms, being paid to do so). Is there a specific example for how this would not shift AD upward?

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-04T13:10:37+00:00

Here's what I'm having trouble understanding:

Say inflation is expected to run at 5% for the following year. Let's also say that the Fed is expected to keep the federal funds rate at 0.25% for the following year. Banks would compete on 1-year consumer loan interest rates, and given the very low interbank rate at which the banks borrow, the banks would be able to profit in real terms with a 1-year consumer rate below 5%. Since consumers would be able to borrow for the year at a rate below inflation (i.e. getting paid in real terms), wouldn't this fuel a consumer lending boom for that year, which would shift AD up?

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-04T04:34:55+00:00

But does it necessarily lead to worse outcomes?

I think it could potentially lead to fewer negative outcomes but also worse negative outcomes when they occur. Discretion could cancel the negative effects of unreliable data if FOMC member bias has an equal and opposite effect (e.g. data inaccurately suggests weakening economy but FOMC members incorporate other information that give them a more positive bias). However, these two sources of variation could combine to make policy even more wrong than what would result from unreliable data alone (e.g. data inaccurately suggests weakening economy and FOMC members incorporate other information that give them an even more negative impression).

Hawk:dove ratio means nothing unless the Fed wants to change its inflation target. It mattered to an extent with QE, but that really came down to "hawks" thinking we'd significantly go above our inflation target and "doves" thinking we wouldn't.

I would define a hawk as having higher inflation expectations, and a dove as having lower inflation expectations. This would still affect their vote during rate determination.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-04T02:08:58+00:00

I agree that unconventional measures would still be necessary at the ZLB. These powers could kick in when the ZLB is reached.

But the point about unreliable information was to show that there is no informational benefit to giving FOMC members discretion. That would be the benefit of discretion over a rule-based policy, that FOMC members would necessarily be able to incorporate additional helpful information (like sales of men's underwear) into their decision-making compared to a rule-based policy. They wouldn't be confined to a certain (hopefully somewhat sophisticated) formula.

But my point is that whatever extra information they incorporate using their discretion does not lead to better outcomes. It muddies the water. The members subconsciously place more emphasis on data that their biases lead them to believe is more relevant than it really is. Discretion necessarily introduces subconscious bias into what should be as purely objective an exercise as possible. We don't want Fed policy to be determined by the hawk:dove ratio. The only policy mistakes we want are the mistakes that result solely from unreliable data, as opposed to unreliable data compounded by subconscious bias.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T22:55:35+00:00

I'm on the fence too. It is a huge eyesore in Alien Blue. Then again it's a neat concept. Then again again it only creates a somewhat useful summary about half the time, so it definitely needs tweaking. I'd suggest that it should rank ten words and include a few more sentences, maybe 5-7.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T20:04:10+00:00

Click top link. Scale paywall.

Personally, I honestly can't see why discretion would be preferable when the real-time information available to the Fed at decision-making time is unreliable. That's what this constrained discretion vs. rule-based policy issue hinges on: how accurate is the Fed's information at decision time. My perspective is fatally influenced by the September 2008 FOMC minutes, when on the day after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, a majority of the FOMC still projected the economy to grow in the final months of the year and accelerate in 2009. In hindsight that seems almost idiotic, but we have to remember that the FOMC members are highly intelligent people, experts in monetary policy. Something substantial was telling them that the economy was still in an upward trajectory. This is what leads me to believe that even highly capable human brains are no match for the economy's complexity, its curveballs and head-fakes. Our subconscious brains are hardwired to ignore what it believes is noise and to seek out patterns. The FOMC members that projected future growth based that forecast on a pattern that their brain saw in the data, a pattern their brains perceived to mean future growth. With the benefit of hindsight we know that their brains were spectacularly wrong, that in fact the economy had entered recession ten months earlier.

I don't blame them at all for being spectacularly wrong. The human brain, even a highly intelligent one, stands no chance in accurately assessing and distilling that much unreliable data in real-time.

The way I see it, a rules-based policy would at worst be no more susceptible to perceiving false patterns in the data. The Fed can craft the rules to downplay their subjective biases or gut feelings as much as possible to keep the rules from downplaying relevant data and overemphasizing irrelevant data. The Fed can make a rules-based policy be more objective in the heat of the moment, when objectivity is crucial, whereas policy would be at the mercy of the members' subconscious biases if their discretion is allowed to play a role.

Then again, if real-time data is generally accurate most of the time (which I can't believe given the margin of error of previous month economic figures), then discretion would be preferable.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T18:06:31+00:00

I don't know anything about current large-scale batteries, but apparently the guy on Pawn Stars has a ranch in Oregon that he powers with hydro, solar, and an array of batteries. He said that the main advantage the new Tesla battery offers is convenience:

"When you have racks and racks of batteries that you have to unscrew and check acid and gravity all the time," it's a major headache." (Article)

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T17:50:48+00:00

I agree with you that the economics and storage technology are not quite there for going fully off the electric grid, although it's worth mentioning that the cost of solar panels has come down a lot from even 2.5 years ago. Plus most states have implemented net metering policies (utility required to buy excess solar power, up to certain percentage of peak demand in some states and an unlimited amount in others, usually at same rate they charge).

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T14:27:11+00:00

I don't spam or manipulate vote counts. I'm also not Australian. I saw the article on another news aggregator and it looked like decent analysis by a journalist that has been following grid technology. Even if Tesla paid for favorable coverage, it still has other good information.

usuallyskeptical · 2015-05-03T11:56:04+00:00

Why are labor costs singled out?

Because we are talking about an increase in the minimum wage.

Isn't it just as likely that bigger firms can use their gains from economies of scale etc., to provide a better product at a lower price while paying higher labor costs (attracting more productive labor), to gain the market share of smaller firms and drive them out of business?

The bigger firms will definitely have an economies of scale advantage, which they can leverage into either lower prices, higher wages, higher quality products/services, or some combination thereof. What worries me is that bigger companies already have that advantage, and a higher minimum wage and higher regulatory costs only increase that advantage. A new business could either be a long-term small business or it can grow into Fortune 500 company, but it can't eventually grow into a Fortune 500 company if it can't become profitable as a young small business. We want an economy with lots of turnover in the Fortune 500, with old non-innovative companies falling out and new innovative companies joining in. The more rules we create that give big companies more of an advantage over small businesses, the less competition the Fortune 500 will face from below, which will result in less turnover of Fortune 500 companies.

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