TinyTim

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  • Remunerating Managerial Talent
    "there might be rather more luck and happenstance involved"

    The skill is being able to politic your way into the job. Once you've been there, the experience is all that matters; record, not so much.
    Jan 06 15:27 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The Law of Unintended Consequences: 20th Century and Beyond
    Very provocative article but very good.
    Surprised no one mentioned tax policy as another chief agent for unintended consequences.
    No coincidence that 1987 brought income tax law changes that basically created the home equity loan market by eliminating deductibility of other interest expenses.
    Another "minor" tax change at the same time created the S&L debacle.

    Jan 05 18:39 pm |Rating: +5 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Dubious Statistics of the Day, Toxic Mortgage Edition
    "groups put out garbage masquerading as useful research on a daily basis; it's the job of the press to recongnise it as such and ignore it."

    except it rarely happens, especially on the Internet.
    Nothing new here, move along.
    Dec 31 16:02 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Smart Grids' Year of Growth
    Maybe I just have a problem with the name, but SmartGrid is a lot of hype. Blackouts are not a major problem unless Enron is involved.
    Smart meters are useful for the limited number of residences that are interested in monitoring and reducing expense -check interest in TOU rates.
    Load leveling is a powerful idea for efficiency and reducing carbon. Utilities have had emergency cut-off agreements with large industrial users for years to handle extreme situations. Residential demand rates have been a flop. For normal load leveling, the only thing I see on the horizon is electric vehicle recharge, which has a dual advantage. But even this is bringing up the base load, not reducing the peak.

    Cogeneration has had the biggest potential to increase generation efficiency and it's been around for years. Reducing transmission losses is a matter of getting supply and demand closer and using bigger conductors. Accomodating micro-distributed demand (residential solar panels) requires no special networking. What's so smart about that?
    Dec 30 00:20 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Why Give Nobels for Financial Economics?
    Economics is a social science that aspires to be a "hard" science, complete with rigorous math. There are bonehead economics winners just like there are bonehead peace-prize winners. Applied science, like engineering or medicine, usually reveals itself fairly quickly as good or bad. Applied economics, such as finance and investment, has a lot longer latency.

    I see no reason to remove the Nobel motivation or incentive. It's marginal anyway, so it wouldn't make much difference. Much applied economics is directly connected to wealth creation. That's penty of incentive. "Bad" or faulty science is a byproduct of good science. The Nobel panel is certainly not infallible. Let the practictioner beware.

    Lastly, if the human race could snuff itself out due to genetic modifications or nuclear annihilation, does that mean the medicine or physics prizes are too dangerous to be allowed to continue? Similar to Almagordo, a few weeks ago, there was debate about whether the startup of a new accelerator at CERN could create a black hole of Earth.
    By comparison, what's the loss of a few bucks between boneheads?
    Dec 29 23:45 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • IBM: It's All About Smart Grid in 2009
    what a bunch of hype.

    load leveling is one thing, but the only way to drop transmission losses is to put generators near consumers.

    most "smart grid" companies are making smart meters to reduce monthly read cost and provide better feedback to consumers who care e.g. conservation

    "UC Berkeley's Arun Manjumar recently said that the U.S. consumes 100 quads (or 100 quadrillion BTUs) of energy a year and 50 to 60 quads get lost as waste heat or by other means before it can be used."

    this is either a typo or complete bullsh*t
    Dec 23 16:03 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • California OKs Controversial SDG&E Transmission Project
    Environmental damage from transmission lines?
    What damage? LOL The towers can be aesthetically designed (see FermiLab). US hasn't built any significant T&D infrastructure since the 1970's. I can understand the NIMBY stuff, but a line thru nowhere??

    Proclaimer- so the thermal waste from nukes does what? Don't tell me global warning. LOL All steam turbines waste heat, no matter what the fuel, it's thermodynamics. Speaking of hot air...

    Sad to say, commissioner Dian Grueneich had it right. This line was probably more to draw power from new gas plants in Arizona and from Palo Verde NGS - largest in the USA & I believe SDG&E is part owner.
    Dec 20 20:28 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The GMAC Game of Chicken
    sorry-
    that would be the Ultimatum Game
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    Dec 12 16:13 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The GMAC Game of Chicken
    This scenario is right out of the Ultimate Game theory.
    Wonder if human nature still applies in committees.
    the phenomona of "risky shift" also applies.
    Dec 12 15:58 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The Economic Policies of Failure
    "The greatest limitation set in place is the inability of the economy to deflate and the necessity of liquidity to continually grow in order to prevent the house of cards from collapsing. "

    "Liquidity is and always has been the lifeblood of economies. Our fractional reserve banking system is the most efficient means yet invented to ensure that money supply expands in tandem with output."

    "an overinflated economy cannot tolerate a liquidity / credit reduction explains exactly where we are now"

    The original article comment at top reflects the reality of our situation most accurately. Fractional reserve banking is extremely sensitive to a contraction in liquidity. There is a lot of hysteresis when liquidity growth changes direction. This isn't an "inability to deflate", but a discontinuity when it does. In the worst case, when liquidity goes negative, discontinuity is a nice word for collapse.

    Fractional reserve banking is a way to keep the money supply expanding on auto-pilot while economic output is growing. It's crude and besides the reserve rate, is subject to other variables like velocity. When the economy is slowing, it breaks down in terms of efficiency. When liquidity is contracting, it's an economic trap. So it only works in one direction.

    I've always thought economic cycles have more to do with elections than politics. When the economic cycle is in phase with the election cycle, the incumbents win.

    Dec 11 16:36 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Saudis Try to Re-Invent the Internal Combustion Engine
    Regarding alternatives to crude:
    all of the above except corn ethanol.
    I don't like paying gasoline prices for food.

    The key here is timing. And timing depends in large part on substitution cost. OIl won't run out. It will just get more expensive and the 25% used for non-fuel will displace the other uses. If the transition away from crude fuel is to be relatively painless, then these technologies all will play a role. There is no one panacea. I would buy an econobox electric car in an instant to replace my Yaris. Hybrids are a pain-all the disadvantages of both technologies in one expensive package.

    The efficiency of ICE has improved hugely since the first oil panic in 1973 mainly due to technology. The premise of this article is the Saudi's can continue this progress by improving the fuel. This is so much BS. Sure, they can probably make it burn cleaner (less CO2??), but I doubt they can increase the chemical energy in a gallon of regular gasoline. So, "They aren’t selling it yet because they don’t have the product yet". Don't hold your breath.

    According to the book "The Seven Sisters", oil prices have been highly volatile since Titusville. Did they have speculators back then too?

    Oh yeah, I didn't know Frank Zappa read Plato, but it doesn't surprise me.
    Dec 11 15:34 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • How Low Can Gasoline Prices Go?
    Funny, no one is complaining about speculators on the way down to $1 / gallon. Nary a peep about peak oil either.

    what's this: "I rode DTO (double-short oil) from $140/bl to $100/bl over the summer for a 40+% gain"

    The media is more responsible for short term price swings than anyone. Speculators aka sellers are the other half of the market. Try working a market without liquidity.
    Dec 10 16:19 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The Fundamental Problem of Newspapers on the Internet
    Interesting article. the issue has been around since the dawn of the Net. Just surprised it took this long.

    Two possible results:
    -online papers will move toward local or even sub-local news where the content has few competitors
    -Ad sites where the content and prices are continuously updated for a limited area

    In both cases, the coverage area is decreasing and the timeliness is increasing. This model would also replace TV news for access, depth and searching.
    Dec 08 20:50 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Understanding the Recession
    Gub'mint attempts

    I like it
    Dec 03 17:27 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • A 5-Point Plan for Getting Out of This Mess
    "the lower overall scores of HS students. USA is now ranked almost bottom 15% among world high school comparision in most subjects, especially sciences and math.
    The teachers' unions are the worst of all time. The are destroying the whole system, and get away with it."

    There are many problems with the US grade school system, but I don't think the unions have a lot to do with them. In states with limited union influence, the results are still abysmal.
    Also, I don't see how the US university system can be tops when the students going in are low. they simply wouldn't last.

    Grade schools are taking on the responsibility of families for teaching kids morals, ethics and common sense. Families that are remiss don't even realize it. Families that do teach typically get upset. This effort detracts from the classroom time for traditional subjects.

    Most district schools are able to provide programs that challenge motivated students. These small numbers of motivated students are the ones that make it into good college programs. Unfortunately, the large numbers of unmotivated students are forcing universities to lower entrance and program requirements for retention to keep classes full. This is not a good sign.
    Nov 30 15:54 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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