Ones and Zeros

I was tired last night so I confess I wasn’t paying much attention to the words that either McCain or Obama were saying. But, when I did pay attention those words were quite familiar. So I gather they were treading familiar ground. As this campaign’s been going on in one form or another for two years now I have a hard time understanding why there are still undecided voters.

What I did notice was McCain’s Turette’s Syndrome grimaces and blinks and weird smiles. It was like he wanted to blow his stack but was barely restraining himself. Or perhaps it was that he knew he was lying and the cognitive dissonance was showing through on his face. He’s smart enough to realized what he’s traded from his reputation for this shot at the Oval Office.

The staffers that told him to make sure he smiled probably regret that now. McCain’s “smile” was as unnatural as boots on a frog. It would have been better if he’d let his face be more honest even if that meant a scowl.

This first is an interview with economist Nouriel Roubini. Wow, Roubini must be a lot of fun at a party. He probably sits in the corner brooding, and occasionally ranting, “It’s all going to fail, don’t you understand? We’re all doomed!”. Whereupon the hostess walks him quietly out of the room, pats him on the back and gives him another drink and gets the music going again. (I think Greenspan played the hostess role in real life for a while there.) However it’s useful to read his stuff and nice to know that some people were aware of the potential problems even if they couldn’t get anyone to listen. See Steps to Halt the Slide. (Thanks to CDB for the link.)

Two other interesting links from the same site are: Long-Term Implications of the Financial Crisis and Grasping ‘Radical’ Economic Change.

The WSJ says that “Government is Contributing to the Panic” and that markets should do their “messy work”, while others say that the market economy doesn’t work at all. As usual, I suspect the truth lies in between.

And, congratulations to Paul Krugman on his Nobel Prize recognition. I should read up on economic geography and international trade - it’s come a long way since my economics classes!

I’ve been applying my little-used economics degree to understand our current crisis. Hindsight is useful; it helps to predict future trajectories. But this post is mostly to help me understand the largest financial crisis of our lives.

It’s clear that this situation was set up by excessive borrowing, but by whom and how did they do it? And what are the steps that led from borrowing to meltdown? For some years, if not decades, the US savings rate - the percentage of people’s disposable income that is not spent - has been quite low. We’ve been trained to believe that debt is not a problem. We have been strongly encouraged in this by credit card companies and banks. They share some responsibility. Nonetheless, we should accept personal responsibility for our own debts and purchases, in specific, houses that we can’t afford.

Books will be written on this subject but I’m not writing one here. My non-technical summary of the steps to this crisis is:
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Part of my exercise program is a long run on the weekends. I’m up to eight miles now. Not that long for some, but long for me right now. But I don’t think of it as very long. I ran a marathon once and that reset my idea of “long”. I want to do a marathon again too, but right now my goal is consistency to get the long run to 10 miles (16 km). The eventual marathon is icing on the cake to use a less-healthy metaphor.

Especially on longer runs my mind tends to wander with little direction. I listen to conversations of people I’m passing or that are passing me, I wonder about the twinge in this ankle or that foot or knee. I look at the plants and trees I’m passing, calculate and re-calculate my time & distance, and consider technical problems at work.

I see the weed Polygonium along side the trail - ah, that’s edible! And, with a little more work, so is that deer I just past (not that I’m hunting). It’s unusual to see a deer near noontime, usually they’re resting till later. But there are too much deer in this area. We got rid of all the carnivores and the deer are overpopulating. Some parts of WV and VA have no understory in the forest.

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