I'm too myopic to be concerned with politics right now, but there were a couple of Supreme Court decisions that everyone should know about: A) the Court ruled that Grokster can be sued, and B) that the major broadband service providers don't have to lease their lines to smaller companies.

The lower appelate courts said that Grokster couldn't be sued because they were protected under the Sony v. Universal Decision. The Sony decision said that Sony couldn't be responsible for the way it's users utilized their Betamax product. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court's judgment and said that Grokster's business model was deliberately built around overturning copyright and, therefore, could be sued. The problem is that the court said that intent matters, which will make it very difficult for start-ups to get a product to the market, since they don't know how "intent" is defined by the law. It's not a horrible decision, or an end of the world decision, but it's not a great decision for the little guys.

The second case was a definite win for the powerful and loss for the rest of us. A small company sued a major company because they refused to let them lease their broadband lines. You laisse faire types will think that's great, but think about the ramifications: without pressure, no rural people would have electricitiy, phone lines, television, radio stations, or any amenities that we can think of. It's too expensive for market pressures to bring services to out of the way places (and that includes small towns). Also, companies could now decide to prevent you from going to Amazon, for example, and ship you off to Barnes and Noble instead. Remember this: those lines were built with a lot of federal funding and tax incentives. Lastly, this will stifle competition, since it effectively allows regional monopolies.

A few days ago I saw Howl's Moving Castle. It's another brilliant film by Hayao Miyazaki and I can't recommend it enough.

( Two more beautiful pictures from the movie. )

Pink Military's "Degenerated Man" (1981)

Doom and Gloom: or How I Learned to Love the Coming Apocalypse

I'm learning a lot here at JP Morgan Chase. I'm not learning how to make money, but I am learning about markets and I'm learning how to scare the shit out of myself. I work in Market Risk, so I get to see what Wall Street is afraid of. And Wall Street, right now, is very, very afraid.

(Most of this is cobbled together from various other articles. I've just been a DJ today, letting real writers work together to scare the shit out of you.)

The U.S. has become the world's biggest debtor, with three outstanding obligations at alarming highs: consumer debt, or our mortgages and credit cards; the federal deficit; and our current account deficit with foreign countries. See below to see how much you, individually owe just this year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has simply shifted one bubble - the 90's bubble in stocks and bonds - into another, in real estate and overconsumption, or the American propensity to pay for an ever-more-lavish lifestyle on credit.

We have a couple of other fiscal dangers as well: the hedge fund bubble and unregulated derivatives. Hedge funds are simply private investment groups that are unburdened by the SEC. They are "hedge" funds because they bet an amount against the side they think will win. However, right now there's a whole lot of them and they have accrued a massive amount of unregulated power. Hedge funds and derivatives almost brought the market to its knees under Long Term Investment Capital (in the late 90s) and were partially responsible for the downfall of Enron and Tyco.

But the real nightmare involves the U.S. dollar. If Asian central banks weary of buying Treasury bonds -- an asset denominated in the weakening dollar -- then look out below. Asia (China in particular) has been investing heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds in order to keep their yuan devalued. This allows them to keep their export prices low. However, the value of the dollar has been declining recently, which means that their investment is worth less money. Since Americans don't save, around 75% of bonds are owned by China and Japan. If they suddenly started selling our bonds, our economy would go into a tail spin, interest rates would sore, and we'd probably fall into a recession.

( More frightening quotes and more data... )

foetuscide

Electric Wizard's "Vinum Sabbathi" (2000)

The West Side Stadium looks to be finally dead. Thank you Joseph Bruno and Sheldon Silver, you have my new found respect (even though I still disagree with you on most everything else). Thank you for having balls, common sense, and some understanding of what NYC needs.

I don't want the fucking Olympics, the fucking Super Bowl, the fucking West Side stadium, or moronic Jets fans cluttering up Chelsea. And I haven't met anyone else who lives here who does. We live on tiny, overcrowded, barely connected islands, and the last thing we need is stupid money-losing spectacles populated by gazillions of morons.

The Olympics

New York City doesn't need the fucking Olympics. Let goddamn Paris or London have it. First of all, according to the International Olympic Committee's poll, a pallid 59 percent of New Yorkers had any desire at all to host the Olympics. 68 percent in London wanted it, 77 percent in Moscow, 85 percent in Paris, and an astonishing 91 percent in Madrid. If that many Spaniards want the Games, how could we possibly disappoint them?

And the bullshit about the Olympics being a fiscal windfall for host cities is not supported by the VAST majority of economists. Athens spent $11.5 BILLION and it was estimated that they would spend $5.9 million. That's $5,900,000 compared to 11,500,000,000. Hefty difference, huh? And no one is accounting the infrastructure programs like the subway extension to the airport. Athens lost a shit load of money, and didn't get much back. Sure, it's cool to host the Olympics, but the host city is going to lose a shit load of money doing it.

The Stadium

And the Stadium? By backing the Jets, the nearly bankrupt MTA is underselling the land and air rights by almost $700 million. In February, Cablevision offered to buy the West Side property for $600 million, far above the Jets' offer of $100 million, yet Bloomberg wanted the broke ass MTA to turn them down.

It's also no secret that the stadium deal would involve dumping $600 million of state and city funds into the coffers of a successful private firm. Why is the owner of the team, Woody Johnson (heir of the Johnson and Johnson fortune) getting $600 million?

Why the fuck are we giving the Jets any money? According to their website, there are "NO individual game tickets available. If you are not a season ticket holder, you may join our Waitlist. There are currently over 10,000 people on our Waitlist. ... There is an annual fee of $50 to join and remain on the waitlist."

According to most economists, stadiums bring in money, but no where near what Mayor Bloomberg and The Jets are claiming. (More on that below.)

So let's get this straight. We're giving $600 million, up front, to a successful business with little obvious benefit to New Yorkers. Aren't we supposed to dispise communism? Aren't we supposed to believe in the free market? WTF?

This is yet another instance of socializing the risk and privatizing the profit.

( More about the stadium from a NYPress article... )
88 Reasons the Olympics Should Stay Away from NYC

Baby Huey's "Hard Times" (1971)

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1. Stanley Milgram tested people’s responses to authority in an experiment at Yale in 1961. To everyone’s surprise, including his own, he found out that the vast majority of people (65%) followed their orders to creepy and disgusting ends. They knew that what they were doing was wrong and the only reason they did it is because they were told they had to – no further explanation was necessary.
   
   You’ve probably heard of the test (or seen its parody in The Simpsons or Ghostbusters). Milgram got a group of people (at first students, later ordinary people) to act as “teachers.” They were testing negative reinforcement with electro-shocks. With each wrong answer, the voltage was increased. At first, the victim groaned and grunted when they were shocked. Later, as the voltage increased, the victim (in reality an actor) screamed in agony and told the ‘teacher’ that he had a heart problem and the shocks were hurting his heart. After a few more shocks, he went quiet.
   
   The test was repeated all over the world. The range of subjects who went all the way with the shocks was between 65% and 85%. Gender, race, socio-economic background, and all other distinctions made no statistical difference – there was no way to predict who would be the dissenters and who would be the sadists.
   
   Click HERE to read a truly frightening summary of the experiments written by Milgram himself.




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2. In 1971, Philip Zimbardo organized the Stanford Prison Experiment. After a barrage of psychological testing, he picked 25 people to create a prison in the basement of Stanford. It was supposed to be a two week experiment but Zimbardo stopped it after six days.
   
   After three days, there was a prison revolt. This was met with a sadistic response from the guards who broke up the revolt with fire extinguishers and implied violence. The guards prevented further riots with solitary confinement, the use of informants, and by pitting the prisoners against each otehr. After five days, things had gone too far out of control; there was sexual humiliation and general sadism of all types. Even Zimbardo had inadvertently completely adopted his role as prision warden.
   
   Click HERE for a short slide show full of pictures and videos. I dare you to read it and not be completely disturbed.





( Read more... )Evil is banal and exists in all of us. As a country we are ignoring the weak, the poor and the suffering, and seem hell bent on further rewarding the rich and successful. This path is the logical outcome of libertarianism; the obvious result of extreme indivdualism. I am as guilty of it as my country.

1. They ruled that HMOs are in business for denying health care, not providing it, and as such can not be held liable for denying necessary health care. Once again, this counrty moves towards a two-tier system: in this case heatlh care for the rich, none for everyone else.


( To read about the other 5 rulings, click HERE )

( More funnies from the the Sharpie® of George W. Bush. )