Borrowed Friday Night
Okay, so I have a strange concept of an interesting Friday evening. Last week I spent far too many hours reading and researching the Federal Debt, Federal Deficit, Federal Debt Limit, and various related concepts. It was one of those things that I wasn’t really sure why I was researching it, but I just had to get to the end and satisfy my thirst. Next time I hope I get thirst for the bubonic plague or some hydrochloric acid.
This isn’t my usual style but here’s a link dump of what I considered the most useful and insightful documents: (I’ven’t read these since last week, because I was preparing my own documents to go along with this entry)
- “National Debt” – A quick look at the National Debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They win no awards for their tricky HTML.
- Historical Debt from the Treasury
- How Trust Funds Work – A truly excellent document. Accessible, but quite enlightening.
- The Unbearable Costs of Empire – The US Debt in view of post-9/11
- Cancel the Bond Fire – A PowerPoint presentation. While I’m not sure if it suffers from the flaws described in The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint, it does suffer from picking the figures needed to make your argument. Figures never lie but liars figure, and this is an example of it. The flaw: utilizing the “debt held by the public” figure instead of the “total debt” so his 34% figure should instead be about 57%. He does though make an excellent point the borrowing is a way of investing in the future.
- Federalbudget.com – Another link dump/opinion site. This one has a libertarian conservative slant.
- Historical Tables from the President’s 2005 budget – Tables, tables, and more tables. I’d recommend skipping to The Goodies
- The Trust Fund FAQ at the Social Security Office – Quick simple answers, but useful.
- The GAO’s 1996 FAQ to the Federal Debt – 50 pages of pure technical detail, but quite readable.
- The GAO’s 1999 Update to the FAQ to the Federal Debt – An additional 59 pages of technical details, and slightly repetitious of the 1996 edition, but it also deals with what to do with the “budget surpluses”
Okay, so after reading all of the above links, and some more I’ve come up with a few opinions.
One. Abolish the Federal Unified Budget. Its a horrible bit accounting trickery.
Here is a different way to look at the issue. Instead of investing in stocks a 401k you issue bonds (debt) to your 401k fund. Since you are borrowing from your 401k you get the benefit of having the money that you put into your 401k to utilize today, and you promise to yourself to pay back your 401k later. After executing this transaction, but before spending any additional money, your net worth has moved exactly nowhere. (Its actually likely to decrease, because of fees involved with executing the transaction.) So you’ve obtained the benefit of spending your 401k today. You promptly purchase a boat with all of the money. Instantly you’ve wiped out your savings, but it still exists on paper, you just owe yourself your savings. Sound confusing and dubious?
Another way to look at it that I like better. A company, JABFM Co. has three divisions, two regular operating divisions and a bank. One of the operating division, POTA Inc., is quite profitable, depositing all of the profits into the company’s bank, JAFS N.A.. The company’s bank also accepts deposits from other non affiliated people, and perhaps even from their competitors. The other operating division, SLNT LLC promptly borrows all of the money deposited in the bank at excellent interest rates, because the bank knows that SLNT is a good credit risk, well because their credit officers only produce one credit decision, “Yes, you can borrow that.” Its a form letter from 1958 that has been reproduced so many times the quality has deteriorated to the point that it appears the original edition was a stone tablet.
So while as a whole JABFM is not doing too bad, POTA will eventually want to withdraw money from their account in JAFS, but JAFS won’t have any because its all lent to SLNT.
On paper it all looks excellent, but in actuality its a huge mess waiting to implode, and there won’t be any insurance to cover the mess because the FDIC would never let a bank like JAFS be so wreckless with their lending criteria.
So what we’re stuck with now is something that looks decent on paper, and almost excellent, but is just a series of shells waiting to implode under pressure. Enron anyone?
What should really happen here? JABFM should report each of its divisions separately, and if it were an actual company it would likely be required to. Anyone reading the annual report would recognize that SLNT needs to a major turn around effort led by the people of Texas Pacific, POTA needs to find somewhere better to invest their money perhaps Delta Airlines, and JAFS needs to be spun off and merged with the remnants acquired from NextBank because a merged JAFS and NextBank would actually have a better credit quality than JAFS alone.
A clear accurate truthful accounting methodology would never allow this to happen, and any investors would jump ship from JABFM if they insisted on continuing their accounting legerdemain.
We must demand better.
Second. This is the part that took quite a while, and quite a few swear words at Excel to produce. While we always get charts of the federal debt, we never get charts of the Federal Debt Limit, the Federal Government’s credit limit. (Yet another slight of hand, the government sets its own credit limit. I’ve asked several credit card companies if I could set my own limit, the polite ones said, “No, I’m sorry sir.” The realistic ones said “I’m sorry what the fuck are you smoking?” and then hung up.)
So, after some searching I decided I’d have to put together the chart myself.
- A chart of the debt limit since 1940 to 2003
- A chart of the debt limit as a percentage of the GDP since 1940 to 2003
- Both of the above combined and charted together
- A subset from 1980 to 2003 of the combination chart above
- The charts and the source data as a collection of ZIPd Excel files
I’ll skip the analysis because I’m really quite tired. Unfortunately to say we’ven’t been doing very well recently, and both the Debt Limit and the Debt Limit as a percent of GDP has gone up significantly.
The Debt Limit info comes from Historical Tables from the President’s 2005 budget the GDP info comes from Bureau of Economic Analysis.
So thats what I did with my Friday night…. Now can I get it back with some interest, please????
Damnit finish
Okay I’ve been really really good at finishing nothing lately. So first I’m going to finish the following entry then lay out some goals publicly for myself.
Infone has the following great statement on their FAQ why they don’t do their billing via the phone company.
Why do I want to be billed on my credit card?
With your authorization, we charge your credit card (or debit card, if you wish). Phone companies aren’t very good at billing; banks and credit card companies are. So you are likely to get charged correctly by us by using your credit card. Also, in using your card, you aren’t beholden to any particular phone company making it possible for you to receive our service from just about any phone.
Given my Cincinnati Bell bill I now know what they’re talking about. I don’t want to go into a full analysis of the issues, but the “one time charges and adjustments” section is a complete clusterfuck, and more or less has been since I’ve been a customer of theirs… I wish I had some viable alternatives.
And one more thing they need to clearly state what time period the bill covers.
Okay enough about Cincinnati Bell.
Things that need to be done today:
- Blog about the debates, before reading any other blog entries.
- Finish my blog entry about my <sarcasm>thrilling</sarcasm> Friday night research.
- Clean my room, the rest of the apartment has been cleaned and it now looks like pig sty.
- Consider doing the laundry.
- Wash the dishes. (no considering about this, they need to be done)
- Look up my 7th and 8th grade English teacher and ask for her to give the lesson on subject-verb agreement to George W Bush. I am embarrassed to have as the leader of our country someone who lacks the ability to speak it at the college level, despite graduating from Harvard.
- Blog about recent rodentesque road kill.
- And do some more work on my recent programming project, currently called X.cgi
Deep Family and a bitch….
One of my recent endeavors has been watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from the beginning and in order.
I’ve been accomplishing this through my Netflix 2-at-a-time membership. Which means at maximum I could make it through half of a season in a month. (4 DVD’s x 4 episodes per DVD=12 episodes. 12 episodes/26 episodes a season = about 1/2 a season.)
I just made it through the end of the second season. Arguably this is when the series began to hit its stride. The aborted story lines and relationships have been shaken out and we’re beginning to see the seeds of the larger story of Deep Space Nine that would play out in the later seasons.
But onto the point. I was watching the “extras” part of the last DVD in the second season. Most of the interviews from the extras section were filmed during 2002, about three years or so after production on the series wrapped. There is this sense of loss and a fond memories from the show that comes through in the interviews.
It sounds strange and pathetic, but I miss Deep Space Nine. In some ways they, the characters, actors, crew, and writers feel like family.
I miss being a part of a family. This is not to say I’m not currently family less. All of my immediate relatives are all still alive, kicking and annoying me. (not always annoying me, but ya know family does that sometimes) But we’re no longer the nuclear family, all together in the same house, having dinner at the same table every night. We’ve progressed beyond the house reactor, having melted down and radiated along a latitude through the midwest into our components.
I can name a plethora of families that I’ve been part of at one time or another. Middle and Upper School at Miami Valley was a family for me for quite sometime, Lambda Union was a family that I was with for almost three years, Horizon Theatre‘s Negro Dance Lesson was my family during summer 2002, CSD Relay’s third shift was my family during 2003.
But, right now I feel family-less. Its not to say I don’t have friends, or friends of friends, that almost resemble families, but they lack the key quality I’m looking for — fellowship, a common bond that brings us all together.
I dunno. I want something more permeant than a job, or a theatre production that’ll end soon.
Now for a completely different topic, but somehow related in my mind.. I received this email a few days ago:
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 07:53:38 -0400 (EDT)
To: nick@inmff.net
From: jane <eyre@hotmailorsomething.com.co.uk.usa>
Subject: idoit
X-Pass: WebEmail
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
jane: eyre@hotmailorsomething.com.co.uk.usa on Friday, September 17, 2004 at 07:53:38
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
content: are you a sad idiot or what. do you actually get paid to do this? be boring and weird?!!!!!!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
REMOTE_ADDR: 212.85.1.101
Since this wonderful person decided not to leave a proper email address and in some way this pisses me off here it goes………..
First, its my website, no I don’t get paid to do this… I actually pay a pretty decent chunk of change to run my website. Second, if you don’t like my Web Place go find something else like dildo practice or something to entertain yourself, as apparently this isn’t your cup of tea, don’t be a bitch and cut me down. I don’t need it, it doesn’t do anything and yeah, I’m weird I know that, boring?? Just fuck off.. thats all I have to say.
An Entry
I’ve been telling myself for quite a few days that I need to write a blog entry.
Its not that I’ven’t had ideas to write entries I’ve just not written them.
I’m going to put down a dream I don’t want to forget, a deed, and one thought and call it a night.
Dream
I had a dream I was talking on the phone with Shawn he didn’t recognize me. I don’t remember feeling hurt or really anything, perhaps just a bit shocked. Really this is a valid point from my sleeping self. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me.
Deed
I did a random act of kindness last week and saved a guy a bunch of hassle. Its nice that Oprah arranged to have several million dollars of cars given away. It would’ve been nicer if she did it without the fanfare.
Thought
I’ve been lying to a bunch of people recently about mundane things. Its dishonest to them, but its more of a white lie for myself. I’m not sure what I should do about it..
Nutty Chat
Me: my theory
Me: I’d rather work in evenings but 2nd shift sucks because you blow your whole day away
Me: 1st shift. ick
Me: I hate getting up in the morning
Jen: yeah
Jen: I think mom would prefer third or first
Jen: since she’s up
Me: 3rd shift AAAHHHHHhhhhhh… (good ahh, not a bad ahh which would be typed AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! not AAAHHHHHhhhhhh… yeah I know there isn’t much of a difference but you know what the hell, i’m just being anal and techinal and thats one of the things you like me for isn’t it? well if not it should be, because well yeah I am. And if I’m not who would I be. And if I wasn’t me i’d be someone else in which case you might not like me because I wouldn’t be me and I’d be someone not me. But if I were someone not me the whole logic of the world goes out the window, but if the whole logic of the world goes out the window does logic really matter in the first place. Besides we’ven’t actually chosen a logical system that everything is going to work on. there are lots of wacky logical systems that exist … especially meridith.. its a strange piece of crap that well I don’t wanna touch. but well you know I think I’ve typed quite a enoug
Jen: lol
Puggets of updates
There is nothing like the lack of a great start.
I start school tomorrow. (Well actually today, but Nick’s logical day naming system states that for non-legal purposes it is the day I woke up on until I fall asleep. Just to finish the theory a day is determined by the actual day you wake up on. This can introduce some strange quarks.)
But enough procrastinating. I’m uneasy about this whole school thing. I’ve been out of school for almost two years, and although I will meet my goal of being back in school, it just feels like a great unknown again, and I’m a freshman again.
But to add onto it, my car is dead, so instead of sleeping in my bed I’m crashing at Eric’s so he can get to school tomorrow as well as I. Timesharing a car is fun!
Hmm… What else? Work. Bleh, work. I now know why the portfolio I’m working on got sold from its original owner to my current employer. The people who are running it don’t really know what they’re doing IMHO. Eh, I’m just a peon, I’m just a peon, I’m just a peon. Enjoy being a peon with little responsibility!
A blank text box staring back at you on a monitor that is older than half of the blogging population. (okay, well maybe most of the blogging population is over twenty years old, but I bet their monitors aren’t twenty years old.) The reason behind decades spanning Apple computer hardware setup? One dead backlighting system on my laptop. So I’ve attached the S-Video Composite dongle to the iBook and wired the composite out into the Apple IIc Color Monitor input. Standards are great things!
For better or worse recent events have induced me into examining my own feelings and actions during January 2002. There is someone, soon to be related to me, who reminds me a whole lot of myself during that time. I was utterly infatuated and enamored with Shawn at that time, to my detriment. I’d pay anything to repeat that time again. I’d pay anything to have that time erased from my memory a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I’m still conflicted and confused about the whole thing. I’ve more or less packaged the whole thing up and pitched it firmly into the unmutable, confusing past. I’ve purposefully tried not to integrate it, not to understand it, not to belabor over it, not to utilize it.
I’ve also since then learned to trust my gut. I’ve made a recent decision, one which I know will not be forgotten by anyone in my family for a long, long, long time. In my mind I’ve tried to justify it, and I’m about 75% there, but given the situation 75% isn’t good enough.
Life isn’t a philosophy class. I’d never attempt to make anything in a philosophy class fly with only 75% of it supported.
Felines
I’ve just been watching my boys. (for the Nick-uninitiated, “my boys” are the two felines who cohabitate with me in my apartment.)
I’ve just been watching them play/fight. Its mesmerizing. There are days (like today) I wish I were a cat and life was simple.
Airport Express
I posted this to TidBits Talk, but it fits here too…
I got my Airport Express two days ago. I used it to replace my used Airport Graphite, which I’m giving to my sister for use with her new laptop. (Plus it gave me an excuse to buy an Express for myself.)
I had a bit of a rough time with it. Starting out the telephone outlet in my bedroom was non-functional and needed a new outlet attached to it. (The Graphite was in a different room, but I wanted the Express close to my printer/stereo.)
After getting that straightened out and resetting the Express a few times. (It wasn’t playing well with the Graphite which was on but connected to nothing, additionally they were both on different channels.) I had horrible reception; My iBook 700mhz would have a full strength connection, and then without moving anything no connection at all. The fix was disabling WPA (Instead I configured it to only allow access only from my laptop), restricting it to 802.11b only, enabling interface robustness, and dropping the multicast rate down to one. I know this is a bit of overkill but it took a finicky mostly non-functional Airport Express and made it into a very stable setup. (I’ve since moved the multicast rate back to the default, two, with no loss in performance.)
I’ve really enjoyed AirTunes, but I was a bit frustrated with the lack of a volume control at first, but I looked up that command up/down arrow controls the volume. I’d been used to using the volume controls on my keyboard. (Oh, I don’t need no stinkin remote, thats my laptop…)
Printing works like a charm.
All in all its a great little box, well worth the money!
Nick Barnard
BTW: Amazon has Airport Expresses on sale for $118 and change.
Un-Bourne
I really should get to bed but I want to get this in first.
I saw The Bourne Supremacy tonight. It was a solid action flick. (for those lacking in movie reviews from me, solid means, it stood up on its own, but ultimately I won’t see it again. Its a C movie. (in the sense that C is average, I don’t do grade inflation.)
What disappointed me is that director Paul Greengrass jettisoned most of what Doug Liman, the director of the first Borne flick, brought to the table that made it special. Liman spent a great deal of time rounding out Borne, making sure that in several ways he’s a plausible real character. Liman had scenes scattered thorough the movie that enforced, this not the standard bookends that action movies do. (I.e. Scenes establishing full roundedness…LOTS OF ACTION…closing scenes reinforcing full roundedness.)
Another thing, Jason Borne does not once disappear before the audience’s eyes during this movie. Liman felt that this was an important little trait to add in, Greengrass on the other hand would’ve been well served by watching the first DVD with the commentary to pick up on this technique.
Finally, the camera work was just too action movieish. Bourne One had an un-action movie feel because it wasn’t as fast cut happy as your average movie. Greengrass has once again missed this stylistic technique that separated Bourne from other action heros.
Doug, next time please direct the sequel or at least get someone who can crib some of your work so the movies feel like they’re one coherent family, instead of a schizophrenic set of twins.