Sunday Sermon 10/27/13

Today's readings are wonderful examples of the richness of early Christian writing.

The gospel is that of the Pharisee and the tax collector, pit against each other in the mind of God. On the surface it appears a simple criticism of success in the material world but quickly it emerges as much more. The Pharisee is not praying, he is declaring. In essence he is praying to himself. What is on the chopping block here is not success--in the world or spirit--it is a very human trait: Self-satisfaction. What Christ is criticizing is self-content, the lack of self-criticism. He wants us to be restless, to search. Revelation wants us to search!

And Paul's letter to Timothy: "Beloved: I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand." Just beautiful.

This used to be everyday reading for people. Skepticism has stripped this finery from us and left us with the occasional insightful snarky political editorial.

Cab Thoughts 10/26/13

"Faith in central banks today is equivalent to faith in the word dot-com in 1999 or faith in the eternal rise of housing prices in 2006."--Mauldin

While children tend to be a slight hindrance in the economy, when they mature and become young adults they usually become producers and contribute to growth estimated as about 1% of GDP expansion. When they become old, their contribution declines. So economic growth seems to be connected to a society's demographics. A low birth rate, combined with a low number of young adults with an expanding retiree population should reverse the expansive-driving demographics of the post-war West. (There is a big curve here. There must be production to meet consumption so an expanding productive base, regardless of the demographics, should compensate to some degree.)

The town of Benidorm in Alicante, Spain, had almost completed its 47-story skyscraper when it realized it excluded plans for elevator shafts.

Here are the ages of some of the nation's early founders as of July 4, 1776: Marquis de Lafayette, 18; James Monroe, 18; Gilbert Stuart, 20; Aaron Burr, 20; Alexander Hamilton, 21; James Madison, 25; Thomas Jefferson, 33; John Adams, 40; Paul Revere, 41; George Washington, 44; Samuel Adams, 53; Benjamin Franklin, 70. In the 1750s, the average person would live to only 36.9 years of age. The youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence was Edward Rutledge, 26, of South Carolina.

There is an interesting, if unproven and cynical, explanation of The American-Saudi rift: Natural Gas. The theory goes that Obama was tolerable despite his lack of help to the Saudis as long as he kept the growth of natural gas in check. But any growth during Obama's administration seems to depend on the growth of fracking and that his administration seemed to soften on it sent the Saudis over the cliff.

The war that Genghis Khan waged against the world was astonishing. He killed everyone who resisted. 1,600,000 people at Harat in 1220. At Nishapur, according to contemporaries, 1,747,000 died. China's population declined by more than 30 percent during the years of the Mongol conquest. The armies were organized by tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands, each segment with its officers, who were chosen not according to favor or birth but proven ability. The Mongol soldier carried a double recurve bow of laminated horn, with a pull of 160 pounds, which fired arrows accurately up to a distance of 300 yards. He wore no armor, only leather. Khwarezm and Persia were crisscrossed with an elaborate underground irrigation system that since antiquity had sustained a thriving culture; the Mongols destroyed them. They killed the caliph of Baghdad, Islam's ruler, and the caliphate has never been restored. Arabic scholars contend that the region's economy has yet to recover fully from this devastation.

The price of oil in Indian rupees has gone from 1100 to 7800 in the last 10 years. Imagine what a change like that would do to the U.S.. And these politicians still act as if our costs are insignificant to a broader, visionary picture.

Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolutionary biology, was also the father ten children with his cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

"Each excess was felt to be 'solved' by measures that in fact fueled following excesses; each crash was fought by an accommodating monetary policy, sowing the seeds for new bubbles and future crashes." French geophysicist and complex systems analyst Didier Sornette wrote this about economic bubbles as he expanded his thesis on "crisis" from the physical world (like earthquakes and avalanches) to economics. His basic thesis is that any sudden crisis is the result of longstanding structural instability and the precipitating factor, so easily seen and rectified, is not a cause anymore than the camel's back's last straw is.

According to the IMF, the Danish government's net debt is 10.3% of GDP, Australia's is 12.7%, New Zealand's 28.8%, the Netherlands' 35.5%, Canada's 35.9%, Germany's 56.2%, France's 86.5% — and the United States' 89%.

Electrical energy storage devices are rated by both the rate at which the storage device can deliver the energy, and the amount of energy it can deliver, at that rate. The rate is measured in Watts and its multiples, kilo (1000) Watts, mega (1,000,000) Watts, etc. The amount of energy a device can deliver is rated in Watt-hours (Watts multiplied by the number of hours), and its multiples.

SolarCity has never recorded a profit, but powered by subsidies, its stock price is $57 a share.

The idea of "government investment" is hardly new. In the 1830s, American States, seeing the spectacular success of the Erie Canal, thought all government "investments" would pay for themselves and started to borrow money like crazy. Towards the end of the 1830s most were either defaulting on their interest or frankly ignoring their debts. This little song popped up in the English press:

Yankee Doodle borrows cash,
Yankee Doodle spends it,
And then he snaps his fingers at
The jolly flat who lends it.
Ask him when he means to pay,
He shews no hesitation,
But says he'll take the shortest way,
And that's repudiation!

(Literary Gazette, London, January 1845)

There is a book review of "Fire and Ice" (Game of Thrones) in The New York Review of Books, no less, that I carefully avoided for fear of spoilers but which calls the books a "remarkable feminist epic."

Resign: (looks like "re-sign" but is the opposite--although both come from "signing") v: late 14c., "give up, surrender, abandon, submit; relinquish," from Old French resigner "renounce, relinquish" (13c.), from Latin resignare "to check off, annul, cancel, give back, give up," from re- "opposite" (see re-) + signare "to make an entry in an account book," literally "to mark" (see sign (v.)).
The sense is of making an entry (signum) "opposite" -- on the credit side -- balancing the former mark and thus canceling the claim it represents. The specific meaning of "give up a position" is first recorded late 14c. Sense of "to give (oneself) up to some emotion or situation" is from 1718. Related: Resigned; resigning. (online etymology)

American authors are making the tough decision to allow their books to be censored for sale in China, The New York Times recently reported.


Kathy Boudin, former Weather Underground member and convicted murderer, is on the Columbia University School of Social Work's faculty. Rehabilitation must work.

AAAAAnnnnnnddddddd.......a map:

All significant conquests and movements of Genghis Khan and his generals during his lifetime. His lifetime!

Conspiracy

Colorado Judge Robert Lowenbach, noting that district attorney Alex Hunter prepared possible charges against John Ramsey and his wife, Patsy, three years after the death of their daughter Jon Benet, has ordered the indictment to be released and made public today. The indictment has remained sealed for 14 years because Hunter decided against pursuing charges, but officials have never explained that decision. To spare you the anticipation anxiety, the father did it in sex-play-gone-wrong.

Or so Cyrl Wecht, the celebrity forensic pathologist said in a speech last night. He also said a number of other things. He thinks O.J. did it but not alone. He said Robert Kennedy was shot in the head at close range --inches--from behind. (Sirhan Sirhan shot at him from the front.)

And JFK. He said Kennedy was killed by two shooters and it is unlikely that Oswald was one. He thought that Oswald never was involved with the attempted shooting of Edwin Walker although Oswald himself said he was. He felt that the incredible errors and coincidences involved in the case were evidence that a large conspiracy was involved and the only organization capable of that was the CIA. Dr. Wecht thinks the President of the United States was murdered by the CIA.

We love a narrative, a story that is consistant and complete. And these captivating stories are like unfinished rhymes; we need them to be summed up. One of Dr. Whecht's arguments, like the Jon Benet situation, is the willingness of these public officials to hide information. Reams of material in the JFK murder remain sealed and will continue to be. Such secrecy is the lifesbood of conspiracy and is a poison to the wellbeing of a free society.

When the Mediocre Rise to the Occasion

A big problem emerging in the Middle East was met with an almost comic American response.

The Daily Mail reports the Saudis plan to cut back on diplomatic relations with the U.S. as Saudi Arabia is concerned about signs of a nascent reconciliation between Washington and Tehran, their religious enemy.

Saudi Arabia's current intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan is vowing that the kingdom will make a 'major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Trouble has been brewing since the U.S. had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011.

'Prince Bandar told diplomats that he plans to limit interaction with the U.S.,' the source said.

Saudi Arabia signaled its displeasure over Obama's foreign policy last week when it rejected a coveted two-year term on the U.N. Security Council in a display of anger over the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues. Their disrespect for the U.N. aside, the Security Chair is a plum.

In Washington another senior Saudi prince --and the former intelligence chief--criticized Obama's Middle East policies, accusing him of 'dithering' on Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"The current charade of international control over Bashar's chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. And designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down (from military strikes), but also to help Assad to butcher his people," said Prince Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family and former director of Saudi intelligence.

The Mail's "source" said the changes in relations between the two countries would include "arms purchases and oil sales." Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, invests much of its earnings back into U.S. assets. Most of the Saudi central bank's net foreign assets of $690 billion are thought to be denominated in dollars, much of them in U.S. Treasury bonds.

This difficulty involving complex Sunni-Shi'ite conflicts, oil, international commerce (remember the oil embargo of the '70s?) in the Middle East hotbed was met with a typical American laser response: Representative Chris Van Hollen, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives' Democratic leadership and a man close to Obama on domestic issues, told Reuters, "And the Saudis should start by stopping their funding of the al Qaeda-related groups in Syria. In addition to the fact that it's a country that doesn't allow women to drive."

Doesn't allow women to drive?

Cab Thoughts 10/23/13

'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' --E.L. Doctorow

The Internet Crime Complaint Center got over 250,000 Internet fraud complaints last year with an estimated fraud loss of over $525 billion, and that is just what was reported.

Class 8 tractors, the workhorses of the global freight hauling industry, consume over 100 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year and emit over a gigaton of CO2.

In an article recently, Dennis Prager objects to what he calls "moral equivalence" of very disparate events in history in an article in the NYT. An excerpt from The Times' article: "The Hutus in Rwanda called the Tutsis cockroaches, the Nazis depicted the Jews as rats. Japanese invaders referred to their Chinese victims during the Nanjing massacre as 'chancorro,' or 'subhuman.' American soldiers fought barbarian 'Huns' in World War I and godless 'gooks' in Vietnam." He says the basis of this is anti-Americanism; he might have a point.

Progressivism has roots in utilitarianism. Like the soldier's sacrifice, the value to society trumps individual freedom. Hence Prohibition and the eugenics movement of the early last century. So does this make the Tuskegee experiment reasonable and proper? Ditto waterboarding?

The age of consent in the Colonies was ten in the early 1600s and continued so into the 1800s in many states.

Who was......Grace Bedell?

The Death Master File is a list of dead people and their Social Security Numbers ostensibly created by the Social Security Administration to help financial institutions and businesses prevent identity theft. For ten dollars anyone can obtain records for one person . An annual subscription with unlimited access to all of the files of deceased individuals costs $995. The IRS has flagged 91,000 tax returns that were filed under the names of recently deceased individuals this year. Thieves also steal the personal information to apply for credit cards, cell phones and anything else requiring a credit check. About 2.4 million deceased Americans each year get their identities stolen each year -- amounting to a rate of more than 2,000 thefts per day according to ID Analytics.

So a possible agreement on the U.S.' increasing its debt ceiling is seen as a good thing for the stock market?

There is some talk about a spurt in growth based upon Big Data and its ability to retrieve information from labs, especially government labs where a lot of information lies unmined. It is being compared to GPS.

A bill in Congress called the INFORM ACT would require congressional budgeting offices to actually state the long-term fiscal impact of current legislation on future generations. This bill has the support of 12 Nobel laureates and over 500 economists.
"This generation of Americans is very likely to be the first generation in our history as a nation to leave a worse economy and a worse fiscal position than the one they inherited. The INFORM ACT is a step in the right direction toward informing Americans of the magnitude of this problem." – James Heckman, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2011/09/americas-greatest-threat.html

A starting forward on the USA Soccer Team has not scored in 17 months. That tells a lot about soccer's low appeal in the U.S..

We might consider Lupron therapy for governmental leaders. After all, we make them put their financial interests on hold.

Oliver Wendell Holmes' vision of law through the lens of "realism" makes it dependent upon the populous' (and their agents') willingness to enforce it. In this sense, law is independent of content as opposed to morality.

AAAAANNNNNddddd..........a graph:

Hosting Angels

Last week there was a meeting of the Angel Capital Association in Boston attended by investors and angel group managers (mostly the latter) from all over the country. It was held in a warehouse building devoted to housing local startups.

The Angel Capital Association is the leading professional and trade association and supports the success of angel investors in high-growth, early-stage ventures. It offers professional development, provides an industry voice and acts as a policy advocate to its members, more than 200 angel groups and more than 10,000 individual accredited investors. ("Accredited investors" meet federal requirements of net worth, income and the like. Essentially this excludes many people from access to these investments. Why, is unclear. It is always said that such accredited investors are more sophisticated but a sophisticated investor is almost an oxymoron. It is more likely that an accredited investor is one who will not be ruined by a loss. However, startups are more transparent, more accepting of advice, more intensely driven and have much larger reward when successful. Again, the individual must be protected from himself by someone who knows better.)

This meeting was mainly a trade meeting aimed at organizers, not investors, of these groups but was nonetheless enlightening. Two main themes emerged. First, the loosening of the requirements to invest in these startups and the loosening of the investment structure has caused considerable anxiety among the organizers. The concern is partly legal; with the legalization of "open solicitation" and "crowdsourcing," the new and less regulated investors may accidentally wander into the stricter more regulated angel groups and result in legal vulnerability. For example, can a student, clearly not an "accredited investor," go to see an angel meeting? Or can a friend a family member or associate go without filling out the accreditation forms? For that matter, can the startup company representatives go? Second, there is a palpable fear that the open investing forum will pull investors away from angel groups and into looser affiliations that are cheaper. One such group was represented there and had 7,000 members and had made 70 investments this year. Those are large, intimidating numbers. It would be a devastating trend.

The second theme was accidental. All of the stages of angel investing were discussed from the organizational template to recruiting to investing to mentoring to exits. What is the crucial element to the entire system? The exit. What was the least discussed? The exit.

Popular and Unpopular Science

"Popular Science" Magazine" has decided to drop the "comments" section on their published articles and their on-line editor, Suzzanne LaBarre, explained why:

“A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics,” writes LaBarre. “Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to ‘debate’ on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.”

LaBarre says there is evidence suggesting that skewed comments can actually impact a reader’s original view of a news story, even if the comments are inaccurate or misleading. “Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they'd previously thought,” LaBarre writes.