TinyTim

Getting Technical: The Humpy Pattern Thesis Lives On

Ummmm. Climbing a wall of worry.

People feel compelled to climb because they need the returns.

The Importance of Fed Independence

"people do not feel like the Fed is operating on their behalf, they don't think that the Fed's actions are in their best interests,"

Guess what? They're not.

Your thesis is that the Fed needs to be independent from government. They are 100% independent of government already. It's the banksters that they are beholden to.

To hell with the Fed. Let Congress (as opposed to the banks) issue it's own money without the banks per the Constitution. Why should taxpayers pay exorbitant fees (interest) to banks to provide a service the Treasury is supposed to do.

The irony is painfully obvious. The one function the government shouldn't outsource is one of the few they do.

Assessing Black Swan Events in the Insurance Industry

Power law phenomona in nature, such as eathquakes and asteroids are more applicable to insurance underwriting than a normal distribution black swan.

The big question is how applicable the power law is to finance and economics.

Nissan to Build the World’s Cheapest Car

This is interesting when combined with Nissan's BEV Leaf and the surprisingly low pricing announced for it.

Obviously, Nissan sees a lot of volume in "Third World" emergence.

Motorola Keeps Destroying Value

What are the chances of them finding a buyer for the old General Instruments?
About the same as the cell phone div a few months ago. Although they should try again with all the Droid hype.

Without detailed analysis, one factor that shouldn't be discounted is - they need the cash. This happened eight years ago when they spun off the government electronics business to General Dynamics. Defense is a nice, stable sector right now. They probably wish they had sold something else.

Chris Galvin was in way over his head. The grandchildren usually don't survive in family businesses.

It's amazing how many technologies Motorola created, developed and took a swing at, only to whiff in the market for one lame reason or another. Only to have another company make a killing on the same idea.

If they sell set-top boxes and cell phone, what's left?
First responder radios and cell phone infrastructure?

Book Review: The Greatest Trade Ever, By Gregory Zuckerman

Thanks for the great review. I plan to read this one.
I love these unexpected success stories, like Rich Dennis' turtles.

Dan Gross has an interesting podcast with Zuckerman at Slate:
www.slate.com/id/2234549/

It's curious that Zuckerman took the trouble to cover others that had a similar idea. Apparently he wasn't as accurate with these without the one-on-one interview time. I followed Michael Burry's Scion Capital hedge fund for some time and while he was way early and a lot of his investors wanted or did pull out, he still made an amazing fortune. The guy was a freshout Stanford brain surgeon. Go figure.

Here's a Jon Markman piece from two years ago on Burry:
articles.moneycentral....

Treasury Meets the Bloggers, Gives Them Cookies

Very good point. How does one measure big?
I'm all for busting up the megabanks and keep up the good work in refuting arguments like Too Small To Compete.

The worrisome point is that even smallish banks could have a huge systemic impact considering the LTCM situation with deriatives.

Considering the demise of many local papers and consequent rise in importance of bloggers, these invites are indicative of the saavy of the Treasury types.

Besides, what would they do if they gave a meeting and no one came.

"The free cookies were good and fresh, with a warm, fluid chocolate interior"
LOL. A measure of the high regard for the blogger audience?
Those were the most expensive cookies you will ever eat.

Buffett's BNI Purchase: Bearish Bet on the Economy?

BNI has good routes and is well managed, as Buffett obviously knows thru his past purchases. They have the opportunity to haul coal if needed.

I think Buffett is thinking more along the lines of cheap transportation during high oil price periods.
There are fewer more capital intensive industries in the US these days.
This is also a play on hard assets, considering the rolling stock, track and land that goes along with the purchase.

Does Anyone Actually Believe in Market Efficiency?

"“I was told that she was irascible, difficult, stubborn, unreasonable.”"

Notice no consideration of performance qualities like smart, experienced, good judgment, etc.

I saw that Frontline and Levitt later came back and commented on just how capable she was.

Breaking Up the Banks: How Likely Is Legislation?

"Sheila Bair “no, I don’t know how we would do that.”

Hell, just ask the Europeans.
This is all about regulatory capture.

Complex Motives Behind Buffett's Burlington Northern Buy

Anything is complex if you analyze it enough.

PG&E’s Smart Grid Challenges and Solutions by Region

Agreed.
Tang sounds like a marketing type.

"one of those cars can make up a load equal to the peak summer load of a typical household in the hot Central Valley "
BS- try an electric range or hot water heater

"Charge them at night, however, and the nation could manage charging of plug-ins equal to about 70 percent of its existing car fleet without adding a single new power plant,"

So which is it?
The obvious solution is a separate meter for electric cars to ensure night charging. Meters are cheap.

Intel’s Home Energy Management Plan, Part II

I've been looking at home automation at CES for 30 years.
I doubt HEMS will be the driver.
As would be expected, Intel has had many miscues.
The main energy users in the home are- HVAC, hot water, (pool pump), refrigerator. They can all be automated with cheap timers, thermostats, etc. or made more efficient.

The remaining energy- lights, cooking is a smaller fraction and easily manually controlled.

Smart meters and the daily energy consumption feedback provided are useful and interesting. Until utilities require time-of-use rates, not much will happen and even then, the cheap simple controllers will handle most of the load and create most of the savings. There has to be an economic incentive like rate structure.

A similar thing happened a few years ago with residential demand controllers, a fairly expensive and complex piece of equipment. The market was entirely driven by the residential demand rate one local utility issued, and dried up when the rate went away.

An interesting aspect of smart meter feedback is that for people on tight budgets, the advantage is knowing exactly how much the bill is going to be well ahead of time, as opposed to saving energy. The point is that knowledge may not influence conservation actions, especially for a renter.

Why There Can't Be a Cap on Bank Capital Ratios

"the risk to the taxpayer associated with any given bank grows exponentially with that bank’s size. "

My impression was the cap ratios were just that- ratios, and the actual capitalization required would increase with the bank size.

You intimate a single step-wise ratio.
Based on your quote above, they're all a bad idea if risk is exponential.

Based on other factors, such as interconnectedness, fianancial environment and management, the actual required capitalization would probably be prohibitive to maintain.

There's no substitute for busting up the banks.
A sliding cap rate based on size would add a measure of safety.
I would forget the other factors as regulators would probably not be successful with them.

Photographers Are Not Authors, Says Judge in Google Book Case

No good deed goes unpunished (twice)