billp37

My Thoughts on Bernanke, Boeing and Citibank

"Northwest Jet Suffers Similar Malfunctions to Air France Flight

[D]uring the brief but dramatic event, the Northwest Airbus A330's crew was left without reliable speed measurements for three minutes. In addition, the computer safeguards designed to keep the aircraft from flying dangerously too fast or too slow were also impaired. Like the Air France A330 jetliner, the Northwest plane entered a storm and quickly started showing erroneous and unreliable airspeed readings. ..."

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/whitman59/w...

My Thoughts on Bernanke, Boeing and Citibank

My impression, with more reflection, is a no Boeing engineer would fail to report a potential problem because of fear job termination.

My Thoughts on Bernanke, Boeing and Citibank

"... the reason they kept coming up 7s and 11s on their previous commercial programs was that all were rather conservative forward moves from existing platforms."

I was coauthor with Pat Corey and ? of the 767 software certification policy document in 1980, a consultant to Boeing Commercial Aircraft Corporation..

I worked at Payne field in Everett, WA commuting by plane from Pullman, WA.

Corey was the project leader.

Corey and ? were experienced with the AWACS software.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

AWACS software apparently ran on a mainfram type computer.

The 767, if I recall correctly, had a large numbers of microcomputers [microntrollers] connected via an ARINC 429 bus.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Cory was concerned about the software cost since AWACS software apparented costed-out to over $100 per line of code.

Number of lines of code in the 767 were very high and Corey was concerned that software costs migh cause Boeing financial trouble.

My view was that microcomputer/controller software can be very different from mainframe software in that micocontroller are frequently shorter and simpler to accomplish a required task.

Point is that my impression was that Boeing engineers are very conservative, careful, smart, SUPEREXPERIENCED so I am not suprised by delays in the 787.

Boeing and Sandia Labs labs made me job offers in 1980.

I went to Sandia because I thought the work would be more interesting. Right on.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Bridges, a sociologist, is president of whitman college

----- Original Message -----
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Cc: "John/Catherine Alsip" <[e-mail]&... "William Batie" <William.Batie@morg... "Bob Collins" <[e-mail]>, "Melvin Davidson" <melnbarbara@comcas... "brian dohe" <[e-mail]>, "Fred Fair" <fredfair@taosnet.c... "Brad M Gravelle" <brad.m.gravelle@sm... "Cargill Hall" <[e-mail]... "art morales" , "Ron Short (RBC Wealth Mgmt)" <[e-mail]&... "John Sobolewski" <nwminerals@hotmail... "Robert & Susan Wayland" <sbwayland@comcast.... "David Woodward" <dawood01@earthlink...
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:07:38 PM GMT -08:00 Tijuana / Baja California
Subject: haaretz comment

seekingalpha.com/artic...

I look forward to hear next week about liberal arts solution to future electricity supply problems.

Fun read.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/whitman59/w...

:-)

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Cryptome

cryptome.org/

posted links to

Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development
Facilities

Abdullah Toukan, Senior Associate

Anthony H. Cordesman
Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy
March 14, 2009

www.csis.org/media/csi...

with Harretz msm comments

www.haaretz.com/hasen/...

Iran, like the rest of us, needs additional electricity.

Bombing Iran may do bad things to our investments and drive up the price of gas and diesel? And maybe even start WWIII?

Here is the REAL PROBLEM.

Thu Oct 02 01:00:00 CDT 2008 A new study released this week highlights what experts have been saying for years: the U.S. faces significant risk of power brownouts and blackouts as early as next summer that may cost tens of billions of dollars and threaten lives.

The study, "Lights Out In 2009?" warns that the U.S. "faces potentially crippling electricity brownouts and blackouts beginning in the summer of 2009, which may cost tens of billions of dollars and threaten lives." ...

www.utilityproducts.co...

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Historian R Cargill Hall

www.marshall.org/exper...

emails

-----Original Message-----
From: Cargill Hall [mailto:overflight@att...
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 10:49 AM
To: Collins, Bob; Alsip, John & Catherine; Payne, Bill; Greenlee, Gene; Lyons, Doug; Rosenberg, Tom
Cc: Hallion, Richard; Julie Charlip; Fair, Fred
Subject: 50th Anniversaries
Gentlemen:

Our 50th college reunion this month prompted me to reflect on others just past and impending. One of them, the launching of Sputnik I and with it the "Space Age," occurred while we were at Whitman. John Corr and I had just returned from a semester at the Escola Brasileira de Administracao Publica in Rio de Janeiro. I vividly recall standing outside the Green Lantern (affectionately known as the "Green Latrine") one evening just after the launch, watching in amazement the Soviet carrier rocket periodically twinkle in the sunset rays as it tumbled in space, end over end. Perhaps it had an affect on my choice of vocations--who knows? In 2007 Quest magazine asked me to write a 50th summary of the event; it is enclosed for your amusement.

The next noteworthy 50th: the shootdown of the CIA U-2 spy airplane on 1 May 1960, deep inside the USSR. The current shenanigans in Washington DC provoked me to consider the political parallels.

President Dwight Eisenhower authorized peacetime aerial overflights of "denied territory" on or shortly after 15 March 1954, when he approved NSC Directive 5412 "on covert operations." The directive defined them as "all activites conducted pursuant to this directive which are so planned and executed that any U.S. Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them." It also established a committee to vet these operations, composed of representatives of the secretaries of state and defense, and the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). As events transpired, the 5412 Committee would consist of the DCI, the undersecretary of state, deputy secretary of defense, and be chaired by the president's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs-an arrangement made formal in 1955 with the issuance of NSC 5412/1 and 5412/2. To those with knowledge of the committee's existence, it became known as the 5412 Special Group, or simply, "the Special Group." The president approved or denied its recommendations.

The first overflight of the USSR followed on 21 March 1955 and they continued, using modified military airplanes, until Eisenhower terminated that program in December 1956. By then, the U-2 had come on line. Because the aerial intrusions violated international treaties to which the U.S. was a contracting party, these covert programs were closely held. Only a few in Congress and the Executive Branch were "witting" of them. Little is known of the SENSINT military overflight program because it never lost an airplane and the records were mostly destroyed. The CIA's U-2 program, however, which carried the cryptonym TALENT, ended rather more spectaculary in May 1960. Eisenhower at first offered a "plausible denial" (a weather research airplane over Turkey had strayed off course), a cover story that collapsed after the Soviets produced the pilot and charged him with espionage. The resulting international furor mightily embarrassed the administration, and it ended a Summit Conference almost before it began, with Soviet leaders demanding a personal apology from Eisenhower, one that would not be forthcoming. Shortly thereafter, the president announced publicly that the United States would not in future conduct clandestine aerial overflights of the Soviet Union, a pledge that he and his successors would keep.

Political parallels: If the U-2 incident closed a chapter on aerial overflights, it also prompted many in the media to ask why the president would "lie" to the American public in the interest of national security. And it reverberated in the presidential election in November when the Democrat challenger, John F. Kennedy, narrowly won the contest. On assuming office in January 1961, however, Kennedy did not release classified records involving these projects, and he did not authorize his Attorney General to determine whether his Republican predecessor and other administration officials responsible for the U.S.-sponsored aerial overflight policy should be officially sanctioned or possibly even prosecuted for clearly violating the terms of international conventions. Nor did leaders in a Democrat Congress clamor for Senate and House investigations of his policy, or for a "truth commission" in which former officials could be commanded to reveal just how and when that national policy had been forged. It was, after all, 1960-61-a different world, a different international threat, and, most assuredly, a different caliber of American political leaders.

We graduated together in significant times.
Carg


You don't graduate.

You are graduated by an institution.

PS Hall and I are totally different people. We have successfully avoided each other for more than 50 years. Until next week.

We are concerned that bombing of Iran nuclear electricity could possibly trigger WWIII AND may drive up the price of oil.

Both would be bad for us senior citizens.

So we continue to advocate peacefull settlement of these unforunate matters.

www.marshall.org/exper...

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Adam Riesz Regional Director at Goldman Sachs
Phoenix, Arizona Area Tuesday May 12, 2009

The Outlook for the U.S. Economy

held in Albuquerque, NM sponsored by Morgan Stanley.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/goldmansach...

Will 'Bad Bank' Stocks Become Worthless Like GM?

Have you considered the effects University of New Mexico Japanese spy sting on GM?

www.prosefights.org/ja...

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

"OMAHA, Neb., May 3 (Reuters) - Billionaire Warren Buffett on Sunday criticized some life insurers for taking on "crazy" financial risks by selling variable annuities, or retirement products that promised unrealistic guarantees to buyers.

The products are tied to stock market performance and in some cases guaranteed a certain periodic return, while principal could not be eroded by investment losses.

"I always thought they were crazy when they were doing it," said Buffett, at a press conference in Omaha, his hometown, because of the financial risks to the insurer.

Insurers such as Hartford Financial (HIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Genworth Financial (GNW.N: Quote, Profile, Research) have been badly burned by over-selling these products, which performed badly as the credit crisis sent markets plummeting.


The industry’s retirement products guaranteeing minimum returns on equity-based investments were “crazy,” Buffett said today at a press conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Berkshire gets about half its profit from insurance, mostly from property and casualty coverage.


The industry’s retirement products guaranteeing minimum returns on equity-based investments were “crazy,” Buffett said today at a press conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Berkshire gets about half its profit from insurance, mostly from property and casualty coverage.

When insurers “tell the policyholder that he gets some of the up side and you take all the down side, that’s poison,” Buffett said. “That would be like a stockbroker telling you that he’ll pay you back if your stocks lose money.” "

www.bloomberg.com/apps...

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

The Plug In Vehicle Scam

Listen up America – It's a scam! The emperor has no clothes! There is no such thing as a cost-effective electric vehicle that will carry a family of four at highway speeds. But the cautionary if not downright conservative analysis from sources as diverse and credible as the Department of Energy, the White House and Carnegie Mellon University somehow manages to get lost in a media sideshow that focuses on scientific breakthroughs that promise a 5-minute recharge time for batteries nobody can afford to buy.

seekingalpha.com/artic...

made a splash today.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

College and University employees retirements are often funded by TIAA/CREF.

CREF is the variable annuity portion of these employees retirement funds.

TIAA is fixed annuity.

2008 ANNUAL REPORT, COLLEGE RETIREMENT EQUITIES FUND received Monday March 22, 2009 contained truly terrible numbers.

Below is hard to read because the Inception date, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and since inception must be aligned with columns in the table.


PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2008
Total return Average annual total return
since
Inception date 1 year 5 years 10 years inception


EQUITIES
CREF Stock 8/1/1952 -39.68% -1.49% -0.73% 9.38%
CREF Global Equities 5/1/1992 -42.29 -1.21 -1.01 5.61*
CREF Growth 4/29/1994 -39.78 -3.64 -4.94 4.16*
CREF Equity Index 4/29/1994 -37.50 -2.33 -1.12 6.37*

FIXED INCOME
CREF Bond Market 3/1/1990 1.24 3.53 5.00 6.73*
CREF Inflation-Linked Bond 5/1/1997 -1.78 3.84 6.48 6.09*

EQUITIES & FIXED INCOME
CREF Social Choice 3/1/1990 -23.45 0.23 1.52 7.67*

MONEY MARKET
CREF Money Markett 4/1/1988 2.44 3.18 3.34 4.61”
NET ANNUALIZED YIELD NET ANNUALIZED YIELD
(30-day period ended 12/31/2008) (7-day period ended 12/30/2008)
Effective Current Effective
CREF Bond Market 3.50% CREF Money Markett 1.26% 1.27%



* The performance shown is computed from the inception date of the account (the date on which the account became publicly available). Previously, performance for this account was computed from the day prior to the inception date.
As with all the CREF variable annuity accounts, the funds you invest in the CREF Money Market Account are neither insured nor guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation or any other government agency. The current yield more closely reflects current earnings than does the total return.

The returns in this report show past performance, which is no guarantee of future results. Returns and the principal value of your investment will fluctuate. Current performance may be higher or lower than that shown, and you may have a gain or a loss when you redeem your accumulation units. For current performance information, including performance to the most recent month-end, olease visit tiaa-cref.org, or call 800 842-2252.

so I post some jpgs at

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/whitman59/w...

CREF, my wife reports, resets variable annunity in May.

Added Debt Won't Rescue the Great American Ponzi Scheme

Bernie Madoff case may help us recover $22,036 stolen from our Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union retirement-protected saving accounts by SLFCU CEO Christopher Jillson.

MarketWatch

Madoff's victims can deduct losses in '08
IRS grants break on investment and 'phantom' income, but carry-back varies

www.marketwatch.com/ne...

pointed us to IRS form 4684

www.prosefights.org/nm...

which is EXACTLY what we need to FIRST try to convince National Credit Union Administration [NCUA] to give us fraud loss restoration of our savings.

Almost unbelieveable is that Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenie and Dr Mamoud Ahmadi Nejad are involved in the reason our $22,036 was stolen.

www.prosefights.org/nm...

We filed an official genocide criminal complaint affidavit against Brzezinski in New Mexico federal 97 CV 266 for

"Nojeh Coup

In July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski of the United States met Jordan's King Hussein in Amman to discuss detailed plans for Saddam Hussein to sponsor a coup in Iran against Khomeini. King Hussein was Saddam's closest confidant in the Arab world, and served as an intermediary during the planning. The Iraqi invasion of Iran would be launched under the pretext of a call for aid from Iranian loyalist officers plotting their own uprising on July 9, 1980 (codenamed Nojeh, after Shahrokhi/Nojeh air base in Hamedan). The Iranian officers were organized by Shapour Bakhtiar, who had fled to France when Khomeini seized power, but was operating from Baghdad and Sulimaniyah at the time of Brzezinski's meeting with Hussein. ..."

Let's see what happens?

The Escalator of Life Is Going Down (Part 2)

"The Money Is Gone. Now What?
FLOYD NORRIS
Published: March 19, 2009

The losses from the worldwide financial implosion are only now being tallied up. Adjusting to the reality is proving hard.

...

As a society, we are not as rich as we thought we were. The Federal Reserve now estimates that American households as a group are poorer than they were four years ago, even before adjusting for inflation. That had not happened in any four-year period since the Fed began making those estimates more than half a century ago.

It is not an easy reality to adjust to. But simply assuming that we deserve to live as if it had not happened will only make things worse."

www.nytimes.com/2009/0...