[QUOTE=only_human;295676]Although this thread has been withering lately, I don't really want to see its' Friday humor and cynicism installments vanish,. So, for today, I offer this:
[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/in-russia-a-watch-vanishes-up-orthodox-leaders-sleeve.html?src=me&ref=general"]$30,000 Watch Vanishes Up Church Leader’s Sleeve[/URL]If the links are paywalled, chrome incognito mode might work.[/QUOTE]

Nice. :)

Much of the withering has been due to my being (a) busy with my own projects, and (b) wearying of hearing myself blog. I expect thread traffic is roughly tracking the VIX market-volatility index, which has recently reach multi-year lows as the "everything is fixed, Apple to $1000" sell-side-pumped market meme has gained traction, even as Europe has gone over the cliff in slow-motion, a crash the MSM have studiously ignored so far. Once the Euro-debt-crisis re-explodes in the coming months with a bang so loud even the MSM have to pull their collective heads out of the metaphorical arses of the Wall Street bankers and debt merchants, the VIX will rocket, and hopefully the thread will again come to daily life.

Couple recent pieces from Mish`s blog:

[url=http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/04/over-20-of-all-real-estate-loans-in.html]Over 20% of All Real Estate Loans in Spain are Delinquent; Construction Firm Delinquencies Ended 2011 at 17.65%; Late Payment on All Loans Ended 2011 at 7.61%[/url]

Even more striking than the absolute bad-loan numbers is how rapidly they have increased in the past year.

[url=http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/04/us-local-governments-cut-payrolls-to.html]U.S. Local Governments Cut Payrolls to Lowest Level Since 2006[/url]

Unfortunately, 2006 levels are still much, much too high, especially when one factors in the massive increase in pension & benefits (even when normalized by similarly inflating public-sector wages) over the past decade. Also notice the ever-present bullish sell-side spin:
[quote]
"Municipalities, which depend largely on property taxes, are probably cutting jobs [u]because the housing market is still rebounding and homeowners are pressing for lower assessments[/u], said Alan Schankel, a managing director at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia. "
[/quote]
No - if it were still "rebounding" prices would be rising and the clamor for lower assessments would be easing. But, never let ugly facts stand in the way of a good narrative.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;295749]
No - if it were still "rebounding" prices would be rising and the clamor for lower assessments would be easing. But, never let ugly facts stand in the way of a good narrative.[/QUOTE]So, it's simply incorrect verb tense:

"Municipalities, which depend largely on property taxes, are probably cutting jobs [U]because the housing market [/U][strike][U]is still rebounding[/U][/strike] has not yet rebounded [U] and homeowners are pressing for lower assessments[/U],"

[QUOTE=ewmayer;295307]Mish reveals a personal struggle he has been dealing with the past several years - makes it all the more amazing that he manages to continue to run (and grow) such a high-quality site:

[url=http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-wife-joanne-has-als-lou-gehrigs.html]My Wife Joanne Has ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease[/url][/QUOTE]

Tuesdays With Morrie | mitchalbom.com
mitchalbom.com/books/3856/tuesdays-morrie

I disagree with the libertarian philosophy...because, unfortuneatly, everything I do affects my neighbor...but that disagreement doesn't extend to horrible things like ALS.

Is there anything our not-inconsiderable computational talents can do to help?

[QUOTE=Christenson;295822]

Is there anything our not-inconsiderable computational talents can do to help?[/QUOTE]To me, the most obvious possibility would be one of the life-sciences distributed computing projects.

Here's distributedcomputing.info's page of active projects in life sciences: [URL]http://www.distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html[/URL]

Here's Wikipedia's list of distributed computing projects: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects[/URL]

I didn't see any project description that mentioned ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. I searched each of those pages for "ALS" and "Gehrig", but found nothing. I don't know whether one of the protein-folding projects could be helpful.

[b]Oh look, they actually caught one![/b]

But given the relatively small sum involved, DA Bharara`s characterization of the mortgage-fraud scheme in question as "massive" seems just a bit overdone:

[url=http://links.reuters.com/r/7EU6K/CBH4K/PFEKOR/9C0PM/621RGV/YT/h?a=http://links.reuters.com/r/7EU6K/CBH4K/PFEKOR/9C0PM/FK0HU6/YT/h]NY equities boss pleads guilty in $66 million mortgage fraud case | Reuters[/url]: [i]The president of a New York brokerage firm pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiracy in a $66 million mortgage fraud scheme -- the latest victory in U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign against financial fraud.[/i]


[b]The Unsinkable U.S. Financial System:[/b]

On this, the eve of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the "unsinkable" luxury liner [i]Titanic[/i] on its maiden vayage westward across the Atlantic, allow us to present a titanically apt metaphor for the U.S./global financial system by Charles Hugh Smith from [i]Of Two Minds[/i], courtesy of the masterly-metaphor
appreciators at ZeroHedge:

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-ten-minutes-after-titanic-struck-iceberg]Guest Post: Ten Minutes After The Titanic Struck The Iceberg[/url]
[quote]As we all know, the "unsinkable" Titanic suffered a glancing collision with an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Ten minutes after the iceberg had opened six of the ship's 16 watertight compartments, it was not at all apparent that the mighty vessel had been fatally wounded, as there was no evidence of damage topside. Indeed, some eyewitnesses reported that passengers playfully scattered the ice left on the foredeck by the encounter. But some rudimentary calculations soon revealed the truth to the officers: the ship was designed to survive four watertight compartments being compromised, and could likely stay afloat if five were opened to the sea, but not if six compartments were flooded. Water would inevitably spill over into adjacent compartments in a domino-like fashion until the ship sank. The financial system of the United States of America is like the Titanic. Hubris led many to declare it financially unsinkable even as its fundamental design was riddled with fatal flaws and the human pilots in charge ran it straight into the ice field at top speed. We have some time left before the ultimate fate is visible to all. Ten minutes after the collision, the Titanic's passengers had 2 hours and 30 minutes before the "unsinkable" ship sank. How much time we have left is unknown, but the bow of the ship will be visibly settling into the icy water within a year or two--and perhaps much sooner.[/quote]
I caught this nice 2006 BBC/Discovery [url=http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Iceberg_that_Sank_the_Titanic][i]Natural World[/i] documentary[/url] on the (likely) history of the iceberg the Titanic collided with on PBS last weekend - very interesting stuff. There is one amusing point in the docu where the narrator notes that "the iceberg that sank the Titanic started its life as a snowflake." Well ... that one snowflake by itself was surely quite harmless, but it brought along plenty of its friends. Strength in numbers, nothing flaky about that.

The docu also noted that given the Titanic's use of independent watertight compartments, it would have been best, once the berg was spotted and a quick mental calculation showed collision to be unavoidable, for the ship to reduce speed as much as possible but actually aim to hit the berg dead-center, which would have thrown the people aboard about quite a bit and completely destroyed the bow section but would have resulted in at most 2-4 compartments being flooded (survivable) versus the six which were beached in actual side-swiping that resulted from the attempt to veer out of harm's way. Of course this is extremely counterintuitive and depends on certain knowledge that a collision cannot be avoided, i.e. is the kind of post hoc judgment "Monday morning quarterbacks" make which look starkly different in the actual life-or-death scenario which occurred. Interesting nonetheless.

In fact, the one piece of technology which was available in 1912 but not used which would have prevented the disaster is a powerful forward-facing searchlight as used on all modern ships.


[b]Friday Funnies:[/b]

With Europe already relapsing now that the latest trillion-Euro dose of ECB-bank-bailout heroin has worn off, ZeroHedge re=presents this very funny (and still spot-on, since nothing has been fixed since then) 2010 sketch by Aussie comedic duo Clark and Dawe:

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/friday-fun-financial-fatalism]The Million-Dollar Question: John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis[/url]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;296363]In fact, the one piece of technology which was available in 1912 but not used which would have prevented the disaster is a powerful forward-facing searchlight as used on all modern ships.[/QUOTE]Actually there was another one which could have been used. The watertight bulkheads were all arranged across the beam so a sideswipe, on either side of the ship, would allow water right the way across the vessel. Longitudinal bulkheads would have protected against this effect.

Subsequent engineering models have shown that the Titanic would probably have survived the collision had there been at least two longitudinal bulkheads, using only the same mass of steel to implement the compartmentation as the original design.

Forget Greece. Forget Iceland. Forget Ireland. Regardless of the amount of damage they have done, their economies are not large enough to radically derail the Euroconomy. Portugal is in trouble. Italy is in trouble. But Spain is the economy that has the potential to drastically re-shape the Eurozone. Spain is on the ropes. Spain is wrestling with persistent @23% unemployment. Spain has a housing/construction bubble that is deflating at a rising pace. Spain's banks are zombies, they have no equity left and they have no nationwide backstop to prevent them from freefall. Spain's government bonds are estimated to be worth only 70% of face value. Housing is zapped, banks are zombied, government is zilched. Spain is going over a cliff in slow motion and it is a long way to the bottom.

So tell me, how do the Euro Ministers plan to rescue Spain?

Methinks they could make progress by loading the whole mess on xilman's back. :D :) (note where xilman lives before rejecting this)

DarJones

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;296433]So tell me, how do the Euro Ministers plan to rescue Spain?

Methinks they could make progress by loading the whole mess on xilman's back. :D :) (note where xilman lives before rejecting this)

DarJones[/QUOTE]Well, I'm doing my bit to rescue the Spanish economy. I, SWMBO and a couple of in-laws are heading off to La Palma for two weeks vacation next month where we'll doubtless spend money which would otherwise have gone into the British economy. Indeed, we've already done so because the accommodation had to be pre-paid.

Paul

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;296433]Methinks they could make progress by loading the whole mess on xilman's back. :D :) (note where xilman lives before rejecting this)[/QUOTE]

What would be in it for xilman? Maybe Spain could sell a ring of land surrounding the Rock.

Lots of fine cheeses and tasty hams? (American ham tastes like pink water by comparison)

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;296433]Forget Greece. Forget Iceland. Forget Ireland. Regardless of the amount of damage they have done, their economies are not large enough to radically derail the Euroconomy. Portugal is in trouble. Italy is in trouble. But Spain is the economy that has the potential to drastically re-shape the Eurozone. Spain is on the ropes. Spain is wrestling with persistent @23% unemployment. Spain has a housing/construction bubble that is deflating at a rising pace. Spain's banks are zombies, they have no equity left and they have no nationwide backstop to prevent them from freefall. Spain's government bonds are estimated to be worth only 70% of face value. Housing is zapped, banks are zombied, government is zilched. Spain is going over a cliff in slow motion and it is a long way to the bottom.[/QUOTE]

Quibble: "Persistent" implies continuity, lack of variation - last time I checked Spain's unemployment rate was climbing fast. And the Spanish pols are blabbing about raising taxes, which would only accelerate the economic implosion.

Regarding debt loads and zombie banks, [url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/exercises-parabolic-insanity]this ZH article[/url] has some nice charts, including one added by a ZH contributor (all of the anonymous ones post under the the [i]Fight Club[/i]-inspired nom de plume 'Tyler Durden') in the reader comments (which are usually idiotic and polemical, that's why if there's something worthwhile in there it needs special mention).

So, any guesses as to when the Eurozone sh*t hits the fan in earnest, in the "markets plunge"-MSM-headline and serious-talk-of-breakup sense? Or will the central wankers of the world once again be able to kick the can down the road for another year via printing of untold trlllions and desperate all-is-well lapdog-media propaganda?


[b]Former FDIC Head Reveals Plan to Fix Income Equality Issue and Economy In One Fell Swoop![/b]

[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fix-income-inequality-with-10-million-loans-for-everyone/2012/04/13/gIQATUQAFT_story.html]Read her startlingly original plan here.[/url]