Coruscation

Aspen idea merchants

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:11:45 +0000

Aspen Idea Festival gathers the idea merchants: journalists, entrepreneurs,
and academics who talk about ideas more than about people, and about
people more than about things.

Ethics column done right

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:32:42 +0000

One of this country's greatest achievements is its separation
of legality from morality, so that individuals can hold themselves
to a higher standard, as they see it, without forcing it on
everyone else.

-- Slate's William Saletan sets the bar higher than the NYT's 'ethicist'.

How to argue: complaining means losing

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:01:43 +0000

"When you are crying foul in a presidential campaign, it usually
means you are losing."

-- Mr. Chris Lehane, the Democratic operative, pronounced himself
delighted that the McCain campaign was feeling victimized.

What do you want out of law school ?

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:42:09 +0000

What do you want out of law school ? Lawyers !
When do we want them ? Now !

A more refective take on the attorney factory.
[Via lawandletters]

Subway Maps, overlay, by on ny turf

Fri, 30 May 2008 04:33:44 +0000

onnyturf overlays subway maps with street maps for New York City.
Useful ! And updated.

Hockey season peaks

Sat, 24 May 2008 05:53:57 +0000

2008 STANLEY CUP FINALS (Best-of-7)
1. Detroit vs. Pittsburgh, 8 p.m. Saturday, May 24
2. Pittsburgh at Detroit, 8 p.m. Monday, May 26
3. Pittsburgh at Detroit, 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 28
4. Detroit at Pittsburgh, 8 p.m. Saturday, May 31
5. Detroit at Pittsburgh, 8 p.m. Monday, June 2
6. Pittsburgh at Detroit, 8 p.m., if necessary Wednesday, June 4
7. Detroit at Pittsburgh, 8 p.m., if necessary Saturday, June 7

Great live news at NHL.com.

Previously: 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Consumer pharmacology of Provigil

Fri, 23 May 2008 02:06:08 +0000

I am really grinding my teeth. I am too hyper, too often,
madly jumping from one project to another, making lists with
even more zeal than normal. During a staff meeting in which
I know I am going to be grilled on topics I am extremely familiar
with, I feel like I am going to have a heart attack. Or at least a
panic attack. Are my fingers tingling or shaking or not actually
moving at all? I'm going a little crazy.

I can, for the first time, understand how people who are
heavily medicated feel crazy and out of control and even suicidal..

-- Like the Amazon.com customer reviews of drugs, but much
more entertaining.

Intergenerational Redistribution is Regressive

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:38:07 +0000

Decreasing marginal utility of stuff is an argument against
large current investments in climate change mitigation.
Basically, future generations will (presumably) be richer
than us. So, our sacrificing now to help them amounts
to a regressive intergenerational redistribution.

-- Overheard.

ARMs in Wachovia's closet

Wed, 21 May 2008 21:36:03 +0000

ARM (negative amortization option pay adjustable rate mortgages)
sales training at World Savings:

"So if I'm paying that minimum payment, I'm not actually
putting a dent in my principal though right? My principal and
interest they're just going to keep climbing up right?" the
borrower asks in the video tape. "It's optional," the broker
in the video replied.

Oakland, California's Golden West Financial Corp., the No. 2 U.S.
savings and loan specialized in ARMs, which comprise about
99 percent of its mortgage lending.

World Savings and Golden West are both now part of Wachovia.

How to argue, part 8

Mon, 12 May 2008 04:53:24 +0000

Yglesias' argument is emphatically about a practical,
politically feasible Democratic foreign policy, and not
about seizing the quasi-pacifist moral high ground.

-- CC@unfogged.

2008

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:42:24 +0000

Back on line with MT 4.1 .

Converting ARMs to fixed rate mortgages: required ?

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:01:06 +0000

"Save the borrower" legislative proposals abound. And,

Sheila Bair, chairman of the FDIC, who proposed yesterday
that mortgage servicers freeze all adjustable rate mortgages
facing resets at their current rates.

Naked Capitalism thinks such
forbearance is doomed.

Lost in lossy: compression loses information

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:29:52 +0000

Jpeg: image compression artifacts.

Nobel prize in economics ?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:25:28 +0000

Who will win the Nobel Prize in economics ?
Coruscation presents the short list:

Eugene Fama
Robert Barro
Jagdish Bhagwati (with Amy Chua)
Oliver Williamson
Sargent and Wallace
Jean Tirole
Lars Hansen
Walter Block and Naomi Klein

Interest Rate Monitor, bond glossary, BEEM, REMIC

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:40:22 +0000

Interest Rate Risk Monitor by James Baker
obsesses about bonds and interest rates.

And from the bond glossary:

Bond-Equivalent Effective Margin (BEEM): The average spread of an adjustable
rate security over the underlying index for the life of the instrument.
BEEM assumes the index remains constant and the coupon of the security
completely resets to the index over time, taking into account all caps, collars
and floors.

REMIC (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit): A tax treatment introduced
by the 1986 Tax Reform Act for multi-class mortgage-backed securities such
as CMOs, Strips and senior/subordinated pass-throughs. An objective of the
REMIC legislation was to permit issuers to assume a more streamlined legal
form than that of the owners trust under which most CMOs had previously
been issued. Issuers have the option to elect REMIC tax treatment until 1992,
when REMIC tax treatment becomes mandatory. REMIC treatment identifies
the securities created as one or more "regular" interests and a single "residual"
interest. In market parlance, the term REMIC is used to refer to a structured
mortgage-backed security electing REMIC status. More loosely, it is used
interchangeably with CMO.