Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
How even Solar energy kills the environment
iGoogle: "But Shi Zhengrong hasn't gotten rich off of China's surging hunger for energy. A whopping 88 percent of Suntech's revenues come from just two nations -- Germany and Spain"
A really sad piece about a chinese company that uses polysilicon to make solar panels and dumping posionous silicon tetrachloride in poor villages in China.
The really tired saying of making an omlette required broken eggs doesn't make sense here as the broken eggs will kill you.
A really sad piece about a chinese company that uses polysilicon to make solar panels and dumping posionous silicon tetrachloride in poor villages in China.
The really tired saying of making an omlette required broken eggs doesn't make sense here as the broken eggs will kill you.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sorry, for writing so much about the money thing in the U.S.. A topic of which I know next to nothing about but which irritates me a lot. Timothy F. Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve of New York a man who in this speech just last year in 2006 said,
"We judge the appropriate balance not against the standard of whether it reduces to zero the probability of a major financial crisis, the failure of a large individual financial institution or a major reduction in asset prices. That is not an appropriate objective of policy. Some vulnerability to crisis is a necessary and unavoidable feature of a dynamic and efficient financial system where asset prices need to be able to adjust to changes in fundamentals. "
and
"On balance, we believe these changes in the financial environment are likely to come with substantial benefits in terms of overall market efficiency"
In other words he justifies the creation and use of highly risky and unstable financial derivatives using only market efficiency as his criteria.
He is aware that :
"The same factors that may have reduced the probability of future systemic events, however, may amplify the damage caused by and complicate the management of very severe financial shocks. The changes that have reduced the vulnerability of the system to smaller shocks may have increased the severity of the large ones"
and
"As the aggregate size and importance of those funds increases, distress among those institutions can have greater effects on overall market dynamics, potentially increasing risks to the regulated core. Over time, this will force us to consider how to adapt the design and scope of the supervisory framework to achieve the protection against systemic risk that is so important to economic growth and stability.
For the present, however, our hierarchy of priorities should focus on improving supervisory incentives to make counterparty discipline more effective and to strengthen the resilience of the core institutions to more adverse economic and financial conditions"
What I read this to mean is that although very dangerous system shocks are likely we don't need to do much about this right now because the God Efficiency will be angry.
"We judge the appropriate balance not against the standard of whether it reduces to zero the probability of a major financial crisis, the failure of a large individual financial institution or a major reduction in asset prices. That is not an appropriate objective of policy. Some vulnerability to crisis is a necessary and unavoidable feature of a dynamic and efficient financial system where asset prices need to be able to adjust to changes in fundamentals. "
and
"On balance, we believe these changes in the financial environment are likely to come with substantial benefits in terms of overall market efficiency"
In other words he justifies the creation and use of highly risky and unstable financial derivatives using only market efficiency as his criteria.
He is aware that :
"The same factors that may have reduced the probability of future systemic events, however, may amplify the damage caused by and complicate the management of very severe financial shocks. The changes that have reduced the vulnerability of the system to smaller shocks may have increased the severity of the large ones"
and
"As the aggregate size and importance of those funds increases, distress among those institutions can have greater effects on overall market dynamics, potentially increasing risks to the regulated core. Over time, this will force us to consider how to adapt the design and scope of the supervisory framework to achieve the protection against systemic risk that is so important to economic growth and stability.
For the present, however, our hierarchy of priorities should focus on improving supervisory incentives to make counterparty discipline more effective and to strengthen the resilience of the core institutions to more adverse economic and financial conditions"
What I read this to mean is that although very dangerous system shocks are likely we don't need to do much about this right now because the God Efficiency will be angry.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A tantalum story
The Dirt in the New Machine - New York Times: "At the Kuwait mine, everything came unglued."
This is a fascinating story of how our incessant consumption destroys weak nations.
This is a fascinating story of how our incessant consumption destroys weak nations.
Networks for Life
Open Source Cuba for the Long Run (II): Adrian Lopez Denis: "People developed alternatives to it, or a sense of networks… Building on top of a long tradition of an informal economy in Cuba, those networks are now responsible for the dynamics of daily life… They cross all divisions. These are networks of survival, so when you need to survive you can not look at the ideology or the race or the gender of the person you are interacting with. You can’t be that picky.
This talk about networks of survival ties with Jeff Vail's ideas about Rhizomes as a resilient social model for the future of life.
Unfortunately as Dr. Lopez points out this network is formed to survive in a society because of racism and the opression of the Afro-Cuban people, most of whom are of a slave background. The network is a creative response but the Revolution likes a top down approach and anyone who gets creative gets sent to jail. Life fights accomodatively to survive but diembodied dare I say intellectual approaches don't play fair.
This talk about networks of survival ties with Jeff Vail's ideas about Rhizomes as a resilient social model for the future of life.
Unfortunately as Dr. Lopez points out this network is formed to survive in a society because of racism and the opression of the Afro-Cuban people, most of whom are of a slave background. The network is a creative response but the Revolution likes a top down approach and anyone who gets creative gets sent to jail. Life fights accomodatively to survive but diembodied dare I say intellectual approaches don't play fair.
Damn Interesting » The Sheep Incident
Damn Interesting » The Sheep Incident: "The original compound was created by Ranajit Ghosh, a chemist working at Imperial Chemical Industries"
Really strange/sad that an Indian actually created VX nerve gas.
Really strange/sad that an Indian actually created VX nerve gas.
A 1930s history lesson - How the World Works - Salon.com
A 1930s history lesson - How the World Works - Salon.com: "there is that little affair in Iraq, sucking down trillions of dollars that perhaps could be better spent stabilizing an economy that is spinning wildly off course".
What does the Gospel say about removing the splinter in someone else's eyes and having a log in your own. Or even what the air hostess says about putting your own oxygen mask first before helping your kid.
What does the Gospel say about removing the splinter in someone else's eyes and having a log in your own. Or even what the air hostess says about putting your own oxygen mask first before helping your kid.
Monday, March 17, 2008
America's Most Admired Companies 2007 - Bear Stearns snapshot - FORTUNE
This firm was the second most admired securities firm behind Lehmann Brothers as recently as 2007 in Fortune magazines estimates. Today it will probably get sold or will declare bankruptcy.
Sort of shows the shallowness of Fortunes's analysis of the company when two of the judgement parameters were financial soundness and as long term investement value.
From Naked Capitalism I read that the Fed is lending USD 30 billion to prop the firm. How is it possible to trust the running of our world to this kind of setup? If your loans are small who cares but if you need 30 billion in loans then you are important enough to get help because if I don't help you there goes my economy. In other words inspite of being really irresponsible and greedy as long as you help mad capital churning of the economy, I need you to survive so that the unwashed don't get unhypnotised.
Sort of shows the shallowness of Fortunes's analysis of the company when two of the judgement parameters were financial soundness and as long term investement value.
From Naked Capitalism I read that the Fed is lending USD 30 billion to prop the firm. How is it possible to trust the running of our world to this kind of setup? If your loans are small who cares but if you need 30 billion in loans then you are important enough to get help because if I don't help you there goes my economy. In other words inspite of being really irresponsible and greedy as long as you help mad capital churning of the economy, I need you to survive so that the unwashed don't get unhypnotised.
What I am about
It is my belief that I need to embrace life beyond the safe confines of my current world. Some of the posts on this site will be an exploration of different things on the web where life is suppressed or misdirected (IMHO). Other things will try to bring out what to me looks like life abundant. Since I have a Christian (mainline church) , malayalee, non-resident-indian background my thoughts will obviously colored with these lenses.
I probably will not write essays and my posts will mostly be on responses to the things I see on the web. Most of the subjects will be theology, theoretical ideas on a new way of living and any other random thing that catches my fancy.
Mostly I am doing this for my daughter to see when I am not around.
I probably will not write essays and my posts will mostly be on responses to the things I see on the web. Most of the subjects will be theology, theoretical ideas on a new way of living and any other random thing that catches my fancy.
Mostly I am doing this for my daughter to see when I am not around.
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