Disqus - Latest Comments for amitav

Re: The Devil Is Beautiful - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:54:58 -0000

Fantastic book... should definitely be required reading, also for people interested in public policy-- people in general and Americans in particular do not have a strong understanding of risk and risk-based decision-making.

Re: The Devil Is Beautiful - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:10:01 -0000

Don't all advances have relative costs and benefits? For a struggling farmer, options and futures were a breakthrough in allowing them to pass on a huge risk to people who could better own it. The difference is palpable in developing countries where there are no commodity exchanges, and farmers have to own the risk of price volatility for their goods-- which means they can't afford to invest in better production or more land or labor.

There were definitely a lot of bad practices associated with the housing boom, and a lot of people suffered in the aftermath of the crash. That's a far cry from being able to say that one element or practice, such as the CDO or CDS, is an inherently "bad" thing, or the singular cause of the crisis. (Shouldn't dubious mortgage origination practices be getting a lot more attention?)

Stock markets crash all the time, and people often lose their shirts-- but I'd argue that the advent of the publicly traded equities had far more benefits than costs for society as a whole. This doesn't mean things can't be better, or regulation can't be improved, or laws can't be better enforced-- just be careful about throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or the wholesale banning of an entire class of financial instruments.

Re: Talk To Me Like I'm Stupider - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:46:47 -0000

I need to read to the bottom of these threads before commenting, as several people make my points about bundling and grading tranches below. So my only original contribution is: check out those couple of chapters in Liars Poker! The whole book is kind of a time warp back to the Gordon Gecko-era Wall Street days-- completely different from our recent era. (Then: cocaine in the bathroom. Now: champagne in the VIP room. Or something like that.)

Re: Talk To Me Like I'm Stupider - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:37:28 -0000

Great, great explanations here. I just want to reiterate the basic point about slicing and dicing bundles of regular home loans into various tranches ("mortgage-backed securities") with various levels of risk (and I appreciate additional perspectives as I'm an informed layman but not a practitioner). As I understand it, ratings agencies (S&P, Moody's) would "grade" these tranches and the resulting grade would determine who might want to own those tranches (e.g., a pension fund might want to own 95% super-safe, low interest tranches, and 5% super-risky, high-interest tranches).

It turns out that the grading was not always accurate and was predicated on rising home prices-- i.e., super-safe was not always super-safe and moderately safe was often super-risky-- so the first problem when everything went down was that the wrong people owned the wrong amount of risk at the wrong price. On top of that, increasingly exotic sub-slices and re-slices and side bets on all these bundled home loans created a lot of complexity that no one knew how to manage (and most people didn't realize existed), and when the original home loans started defaulting at a higher than expected rate, everyone's sub-slice or side bet started going bad, on top of the original security.

A great primer on the creation of mortgage securities in the late 70s and early 80s is in Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (his first and best, imho). A couple of chapters talk about how the bond department at Saloman Brothers solved the fundamental problem of how a group of loans with different risk profiles and terms and maturity dates could be merged into a bond with smooth cash flow and risk profile. I'm interested to go back and reread in light of the last two years or so; has anyone else seen how those chapters read today?

Re: Go To School On TNC: Fredericksburg - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Sat, 01 May 2010 13:20:13 -0000

Those novels got me interested in infantry tactics of that period. The early chapters of On Infantry have some answers (though they quickly move into the WWI period). One interesting insight was that many pre-modern tactics were focused on keeping enlisted men fighting-- e.g. advancing in unison was to help stop men from breaking and fleeing en masse, among other things. This had terrible consequences in the Civil War and World War I, when tactics didn't change in line with technology (e.g., advancing large units in unison against Gatling guns, rather than sending small squads of light infantry).

The key tactical difference layed out in the Cromwell novels and other books b/w the French and British is that Napoleon's infantry was massed in short, deep ranks, because they were mostly conscripts who were supposedly not as well trained as the British, and this order was supposed to keep them fighting. Against the Italians and others, these long deep ranks supposedly broke the opposing forces quickly. The British fought in long, thin lines, and were supposedly a better-trained, all-volunteer army. The geometry was such that the British could always bring more firepower to bear on French lines, and this was supposedly one of the reasons Wellington never lost a battle against the French.

Re: "I Don't Want To Hate You... - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:06:57 -0000

But that's the point. The original comment was that

I read Andrew as... being primarily interested in the maintaining status quo.

My point is that the core value of conservatism as I understand Andrew is more reflective of Jefferson-- that radical change must be justified in light of established tradition, that the accumulated wisdom of previous generations should be acknowledged when we seek to break with the past. That doesn't mean change is not necessary or valuable, just that it should meet a high bar.

One can separately argue the good faith of people who take that approach-- whether they use the past to justify current oppression not because they are conservative, but because they are bigots, greedy, etc. But I think that philosophically there was always a strong conservative approach to civil rights, as is being argued in the gay marriage case, for instance. There used to be a strong conservative approach to environmentalism, in terms of stewardship of natural resources.

Incidentally, I don't "endorse" conservatism. I am not a conservative, either tribally or philosophically. I think traditions are interesting and worth understanding, but I personally have no problem throwing them overboard if necessary. However, I find it disgusting that any part of the Republican leadership of the last ten years feels like they have any right to that word. I'd like people such as Andrew to reclaim that label.

Re: "I Don't Want To Hate You... - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:05:17 -0000

I don't think that's a fair reading of Andrew's philosophy. I think it's more along these lines:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Not that change is bad-- but radical change is suspect unless there is some obviously great wrong to be corrected. Hence, Ted Olson arguing for gay marriage in Federal court.

Re: "I Don't Want To Hate You... - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:57:27 -0000

I think the reason Andrew's political constituency is hard to pin down is that Sullivan seems to define conservatism as a disposition, not a set of beliefs. It's a character trait more than a political ideology.

While I think Andrew greatly admires those traits you mention below (calm, temperance, etc), I'm pretty sure he's said before that they don't necessarily describe his own disposition-- in particular he's noted in the past that he tends to be the opposite of calm on issues that he cares about. And one can calmly and rationally advocate for the expansion of the state into economic activities, for instance. I think for him it really is more about political philosophy than disposition-- but a poltical philosophy that encompasses more than just the role of government, and has its basis in some fundamental views of human nature.

Re: "I Don't Want To Hate You... - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:48:17 -0000

I think it is important to distinguish between conservatives and liberals as tribes of people with specific responses to specific policies/issues, versus conservatives and liberals as people who invoke a certain philosophy about how to govern. Sarah Palin is in the first group, while Andrew Sullivan is in the second.

Most elected bigots--Thurmond, Helms, etc-- are identified with the conservative tribe. But mostly, their invocation of state-sponsored oppression is at odds with what people like Andrew consider to be conservatism. But I think there have been public officials with a conservative mindset who have not belonged to the tribe. I'd argue that Obama has always been more in the latter group than in the former, which is why he frustrates people in each tribe.

I think what it boils down to is that some people deal with the complexity of the world by establishing black and white convictions that make it easy to respond to policy suggestions-- if you know unequivocally that abortion is evil, free trade is bad, capital is out to screw labor, poor people are lazy, then you don't have to think too hard, or explain too much, when you take the opposing position. I think the people taking the more nuanced approach, like Andrew, are willing to see shades of gray, make decisions based on the best available evidence, and when all evidence fails, they fall back on their philosophies (e.g. incremental change over radical change) to help guide decisions about complicated issues.

Maybe it's the difference between ideology and philosophy.

Re: McCarthyism - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:05:35 -0000

Any thoughts on Karen Armstrong's short book on Islam? I have it at the house but have not had a chance to delve deeply...

Re: McCarthyism - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:36:31 -0000

So I'm a liberal now.

Yeah, I was just about to ask you why you hate America so much. =)

Re: McCarthyism - Personal - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:24:06 -0000

Exactly! It dumbfounds me that people arguing against unchecked executive power are automatically labeled "liberal" in this debate, whereas warrantless wiretapping,
torture, indefinite detention, endless war, etc. are now assumed to be core conservative values by people who claim to wrap themselves in the tradition of Jefferson and Madison. No wonder so many "conservatives" are fleeing from that moniker.

This harks back to the issue of splitting the difference between "extreme" right and "extreme" left, and calling it "moderate." Apparently the reasonable center in the national security debate now rests somewhere far to the right of Richard Nixon, and anyone who deviates from that is an extremist.

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:58:53 -0000

ritePen sounds pretty sweet. Also the Evernote bookmark hack. Something like those, plus good search functionality, on an e-reader with a very fast page refresh. That's what I want. Maybe some touch/stylus capability too.

Sometimes I think about trying to explain card catalogs and making notes on index cards to my son...

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:35:50 -0000

Yeah, you can highlight and comment in the Kindle. It's just too clumsy for me (or I imagine it would be if I used those features regularly). I think the flipping around thing would be critical for me though. I'm sure the tech will get better. Maybe my kids will see it from the opposite POV.

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:26:17 -0000

According to the internet, 9 Tejanos died at the Alamo (out of 189 men), and none of them were officers or leaders. So I could understand a principled stand that says, hey, we shouldn't single out dead patriots for the color of their skin, <cough, crispus="" attucks,="" cough="">. Except that here it's in the broader context of ignoring Tejano contributions to the Texas Revolution and the systematic persecution in some places thereafter. Also, some of the so-called heroes of the Alamo/Revolution were major-league assholes. It would be nice if that got put into the textbooks.

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:18:07 -0000

Over in the Texas schools thread, Incertus commented about the potential impact of e-readers on high school textbooks. I wondered if anyone else has found reading non-fiction (esp of the non-narrative variety) on the Kindle or other devices to be difficult. My feeling is that it's going to have to be a lot easier to flip back and forth, annotate, highlight, etc (like, with a stylus or something), before I will find nonfiction e-books better than hard copies. I'm not in school, but I've realized that with nonfiction that's not a linear story like a biography, I'm much more likely to flip back to re-read something than I am with straight fiction. And it's just not that easy with a Kindle.

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:07:19 -0000

My school district had a Bowie High School, Crockett High School, and Travis High School. No Ezparza or Losoya. Several Texas counties were named after prominent Tejanos in the Texas Revolution (Seguin, Navarro, Zavala), but the history of Texas after 1836 was not kind to Tejanos, even though many were involved in the fight against Mexico. Land-owners on the border where whites wanted ranch land were essentially screwed, if the history of the King Ranch is anything to go by.

So it's not that surprising that Tejanos got written out of Texas history while Davy Crockett got a Disney series. It won't be that surprising if their roles are more actively considered when the state revisits the curriculum in ten years.

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:57:45 -0000

There is nothing "conservative" (in the Burkean sense) about the so-called conservatives on this board. They spit in the face of tradition and accumulated wisdom. They are radicals

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:50:47 -0000

So, the proposed standards were written by experts and teachers (including "experts" nominated by conservative board members). But the process allows board members to make whatever amendments they want, for any reason they want. Logical, right?

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:46:36 -0000

They were not actually making changes to textbooks. They were revising curriculum standards for social studies for the next ten years. Publishers will have to incorporate those standards into their textbooks.

Re: It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant Cont. - National - The Atlantic

amitav — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:43:07 -0000

The good news is that McLeroy was defeated by an apparently sane opponent running on an apparently sane platform in the Republican primary a few weeks ago. There is definitely a level of disgust and fatigue at the antics of this board across the state. Unfortunately he won't leave until November.

The other good news is that things like the AP history curriculum should supersede the state standards. And in any case, presumably kids will still learn that TJ wrote the Declaration. One of the sad things about this board is that they treat children without respect-- they think that spoon-fed dogma will somehow influence behavior, as if kids can't think and question on their own.

Check out this response by a conservative board member to a Latina board member's complaints (from the Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/disp/s...

Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, said the standards ignore the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, Texas Rangers “killing Mexican-Americans without justification” and the U.S. Army's role in the attempted extermination of American Indians.

...

She had failed in an attempt earlier in the meeting to get the history standards to identify Tejanos who fell defending the Alamo.

...

Shifting demographics and political winds likely will produce yet another outcome when Texas tackles the standards again sometime after 2020, Bradley acknowledged.

“Mary Helen may have her wish, and it will be the Hispanic Education Agency,” he said.

My bold.... It is obvious that the polarization of this board is as extreme as anything we've seen in Congress or elsewhere. They just don't trust each other's motives. From an earlier Chronicle article about the meeting where the standards were debated. (http://www.chron.com/disp/s...

Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, was unable to attract any Republican support for her motion to teach students that government is not supposed to favor any religion. Knight's proposed amendment: “Examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from protecting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others,” was defeated.

Board member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, a Liberty College law professor, called Knight's proposal inaccurate.

“We don't want our religious history to be drawn from a viewpoint that is not historically accurate,” Dunbar said.

Later, she said the nation's Founding Founders were not antagonistic toward religion: “They did not have a ‘barring' ideology.”

Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, called the vote on Knight's amendment “stunning.”

Religious wars in Europe pushed the Founding Fathers to guarantee religious liberty to ensure a strong and united country, said Miller, whose liberal-leaning organization monitors the board.

“Clearly, this board doesn't understand how critical that was to America's founding,” she said.

David Bradley, R-Beaumont, said Republicans generally distrust their liberal colleagues.
“There's a hostility toward faith, specifically Christianity,” Bradley said, calling Knight's motion “one more attempt to muddy the waters.”

Long and short of it is that we will plan to be actively involved in our kids' education, regardless of curriculum.

Re: Hubris

amitav — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:04:18 -0000

McKinsey just published an exhaustive study of energy efficiency opportunities in the US economy. They concluded that ~$520bb of investment could result in ~$1 trillion in savings from energy efficiency. There are many, many _EASY_ fixes in a typical commercial or industrial facility, let alone homes-- lighting retrofits, lighting controls, power factor correction, variable frequency drives, motion sensors, timers, compressor optimizers, scheduled preventive maintenance such as cleaning condensor coils, etc-- that have significant impact and very short paybacks/high ROI.

So if the economic opportunity exists and people aren't doing it, it would appear to mean that there is imperfect information about the opportunity-- i.e., people are undereducated.

Re: Money on the First Amendment

amitav — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:12:07 -0000

You already can deduct business expenses on your personal taxes. And corporations cannot deduct non-business expenses. Those are the rules, and whether people break them is an altogether separate issue. So it's not clear what you are talking about. As others have discussed elsewhere, the value of incorporation is in the ease and efficiency of capital-raising.

Re: Money on the First Amendment

amitav — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:21:54 -0000

Thank you for your eloquent translation of my reasoning. I now realize that what I thought was my lifelong advocacy for individual liberties and free markets is actually an obsession with oppressing minorities. I am glad that your cogent reinterpretation exposed this fact-- you are absolutely correct that allowing transparent, voluntary individual donations to corporate PACs instead of unrestricted gifts of shareholder money to political candidates is exactly equivalent to the jackboot of tyranny on the throat of freedom.

Thanks also for a civil discussion of legitimate policy differences. I now understand that an absolutist ideology that regards pools of capital formed solely for economic purposes as the equivalent of living, breathing human beings is in fact the only possible way to view this issue, and any other perspectives deserve only the most withering contempt.

I will now attempt to expunge my totalitarian impulses by reading Atlas Shrugged by the light of a burning copy of Das Kapital.

However, I am still unclear about your view of the rights of Citgo Corp (wholly owned subsidiary of PdVSA) relative to Chevron (minority foreign ownership) relative to my company (privately-held energy firm owned solely by good Americans). Also, is it right and proper for us to deny the franchise to these pools of capital, since they are just like human beings? Can any man claim to be free while these capital pools are thus subjugated?

Re: Money on the First Amendment

amitav — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:34:06 -0000

Actually I've given you three reasons: 1) the principle that the privilege of limited liability for corporate entities can entail certain restrictions in non-economic activities when democratic societies decide to do so, 2) the belief that government by and for consumers would be harmed by the unrestricted participation of corporate interests in the political sphere, since corporate interests would be focused on rent-seeking, and 3) the point that we should generally avoid radical departures from established practice when no obvious harm can be shown to individuals by the status quo.

Essentially, my perspective is pro-individual/consumer/taxpayer, whereas you appear to be blithely unconcerned with potential harms to the above group. I also hold corporations in a distinct category from individuals, and don't believe they are accorded the same freedoms as individuals. You appear to believe differently, though you haven't explained why.

I've outlined my ideas ad nauseum elsewhere in this thread so we should just agree to disagree at this point.

Out of curiosity, in your world would Citgo Corp be accorded the same rights and freedoms as ChevronTexaco? If not, why not? What lines, if any, do you draw in mapping out who gets to participate in this liberty-maximizing utopia of yours?