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Water
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic for the year is water. Access to fresh water is an increasing problem around the world as the combination of increasing population and climate change leave more people without it. Many people get their fresh water from glacial runoff or from aquifers, and the one is melting…
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Proposition 23
Last summer’s bizarre California ballot initiative was proposition 16, a PG&E funded measure which was fortunately voted down. This season’s appears to be proposition 23. Proposition 23 is admittedly much less crazy than proposition 16: it calls for the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 to be suspended until California’s unemployment rate drops to…
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China Money 2
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the arguments about China’s currency control. Before the financial crisis got going, it was fairly easy to understand. China controlled their currency by investing in U.S. Treasury Bonds, which had the effect of keeping U.S. interest rates low. People in the U.S. borrowed money at low rates…
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The Facebook Movie
I really enjoyed The Social Network, although I doubt it had much connection to the real people involved. I don’t doubt the events as such, but I doubt the interpretation. I noticed one thing in particular. One of the motivations of the Mark Zuckerberg character was that he really wanted to get into a Finals…
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Foreclosures
There have been steadily growing reports of invalid paperwork being used to foreclose on mortgages. This has now built up to the point where some large banks are suspending their foreclosure proceedings pending a review of the paperwork. This seems to be a legacy of the fast moving mortgage market before the crash; the banks…