links for 2009-01-05

"The argument against this is that the agencies should have known that the structured finance market they created by rating all this paper was, itself, changing the complexion of the underlying mortgages, and that this could change both default rates and default correlations (as, indeed, occurred). They should have factored this 'reflexivity' (to use George Soros’ term) into their models, and made their ratings tougher. And there’s a great deal of truth to this, but I think this objection gives the agencies too much credit. After all, if all they got wrong was not paying attention to the tails of the distribution – the 'black swan' problem – then they made the kind of error that happens all the time in finance; indeed, the kind of error that routinely creates bubbles."

"Food stamps are another strand of the safety net. As of September, 2008, a record 31.5 million Americans were receiving them. That's roughly 10.3 percent of the population, each receiving $100 per month per family member. These numbers can be expected to rise considerably in 2009 and 2010. The current economic emergency is putting many more Americans at risk. Food stamp allocations should be increased." Let me say that for emphasis: 10 PERCENT OF YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS ARE ON FOOD STAMPS.

… which is not to say that he's succeeded, because Liza is still way cuter.

I like most of these, especially what John has to say about Apple TV. And yes, I think 2009 will be the year I get an TV. Why? Well, it's one of the few pieces of Mac hardware I don't own. :twitch:

I … think … Erica will know how to take that comment. I know that Bryan will—he will laugh his nose off.

… and if it wasn't important enough for me to blog, I wasn't going to shove it onto the blog.

Awwww, that was a really sweet thing for Bryan to say.

"In such a heated atmosphere as this, people are quick to dismiss you if you seem to support either 'side'. One thing we try to do is to help those around us see what we see; when I talk with Mohammed, Ahmed, Noora, Moshe, Jacob, or Ronit, I'm not talking with 'one of them', I'm talking with neighbors, acquaintances, friends. We wish those militants launching rockets or the pilots dropping bombs could see the same. PEOPLE live there, not Jews or Arabs; people." A point Andrew Sullivan has been making.

"So even if a future Letter From Steve were to reveal that Steve has been diagnosed with something that's customarily terminal and inoperable, understand that those two words have different meaning when the patients have nearly unlimited resources." After all: Steve beat pancreatic cancer. Admittedly, he had a rare form that responded to treatment, but again … STEVE BEAT PANCREATIC CANCER.

I really do think that iCal validation is important.

"This is a perfect example of why the process that Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby went through for RSS/Atom feeds will be so valuable for iCalendar feeds. Quite a few details that affect interoperability turn out to depend on assumptions and interpretations that aren’t explicit.

"Maybe I’m misreading the spec, and it really does forbid blank lines between components. If so, great, the validator can enforce that rule. But maybe it neither allows nor forbids. In that case, the validator can say so, and suggest a best practice. In this case, my guess is that the best practice would be not to include blank lines."

"Had Mr. Paulson executed his initial plan, and bought Citigroup’s pile of troubled assets at market prices, there would have been a limit to our exposure, as the money would have counted against the $700 billion Mr. Paulson had been given to dispense. Instead, he in effect granted himself the power to dispense unlimited sums of money without Congressional oversight. Now we don’t even know the nature of the assets that the Treasury is standing behind. Under TARP, these would have been disclosed."

"Harry Markopolos sent his report to the S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain the fraud to them since 1999. He had no direct financial interest in exposing Mr. Madoff — he wasn’t an unhappy investor or a disgruntled employee. There was no way to short shares in Madoff Securities, and so Mr. Markopolos could not have made money directly from Mr. Madoff’s failure. To judge from his letter, Harry Markopolos anticipated mainly downsides for himself: he declined to put his name on it for fear of what might happen to him and his family if anyone found out he had written it. And yet the S.E.C.’s cursory investigation of Mr. Madoff pronounced him free of fraud."

"If one looks at the composition of the House of Representatives, then, one shouldn't be surprised that there are so few black senators and black governors, because states are far more heterogeneous (racially and otherwise) than individual Congressional Districts, and African-Americans are by and large not getting elected to the House outside of a certain number of highly black, largely homogeneous, and often heavily gerrymandered Congressional Districts in the urban North and the rural South.

"The question, of course, is why African-Americans aren't getting elected in these districts. Racism is undoubtedly part of the answer, but it probably can't be a complete one now that the country has just elected Barack Obama to the White House."

And here is where I admit that I'm intimidated by taking photos in fog, which is really fucking stupid.