October 01, 2004
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????
Quick Debate Notes
Okay that dang federal budget thing too too much time.
So here are my notes on the debate last night:- Kerry delivered a strong performance, but I want more details on his Iraq plan and how it is differentiated from Bush's current plan (the actual on the ground plan the the diplomatic portion, I think Kerry has made himself very very clear about the diplomatic portion)
- GWB embarrassed the country with his physical posture. He slouched half of the time, and had a disrespectful look when he was listening to Kerry. Regardless of their differing positions, I expect a president to be able to be cordial to an opponent when at a negotiation table, summit, or debate. He failed at this tonight.
- Kerry has to be more personable at the next debate. He was an excellent statesman tonight, but not exactly very personable.
- GWB seemed to have trouble flat out composing his answers. It is acceptable, and even admirable to stop and compose your thoughts before speaking, it isn't acceptable to flounder like a fish out of water, even if you are a fish out of water.
- GWB's wander then charging drive home to end his response reminds me of a cornered rat, just trying to get something that seems substantial out of his mouth before stopping
- Kerry needs to look into the camera. Bush did this very well several times and likely will help him in connecting with the average voter.
- Kerry needs to figure out how to differentiate himself on the radio. GWB comes out unprofessional on the television, but he holds is own on the radio. The sound bites will be replayed and replayed. Make yours stick
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to watch the debate again, because I may feel a need to attack the screen when GWB is speaking, and I cannot afford to replace my laptop..
October 04, 2004
Gay Man's Election Concerns
So I ran across Kerry's gay conundrum by Chris Bull. I was actually kinda annoyed by the thing.
Okay, so Kerry has a great pro-gay, stance in so many ways. But, he doesn't support gay marriage (he only calls for civil unions) and he hasn't made gay rights a direct stump issue.
My take? Who cares? Any reasonable gay man would take just about any other politician other than George W. Bush.
But let's step back from that and work a quick hypothetical: I'm the same in every conceivable way, except that I'm heterosexual. I'd still want Bush out of office. Surprisingly some of my straight friends seem to actually want Bush out for his anti-gay stance more than I want him out for his anti-gay stance.
GWB provides a great figurehead to direct anger towards. I once was saw Moisés Kaufman speak. He stated that Pastor Fred Phelps was important because he brought some of the implicit hatred for gays to the surface and displayed it for what it was. While I won't give GWB as much credit as Phelps, GWB does the same thing.
Any self respecting Gay or Lesbian voter need not look any further than GWB's mouth to know why they should vote for Kerry. Hell, even the Kerry campaign knows this: "Indeed, Kerry strategists clearly believe that Bush's anti-gay record will drive gay voters into their camp and keep them there." Oh and don't go pulling that I'll vote for Nader crap. In a safe election, I might support you on that. But in this election, I respectfully defer the argument to my elders.
October 11, 2004
Like, green, leaking stickers
Okay, I am completely disturbed. I'm sitting at my favorite unfindable Starbucks in Newport reading my October Wired. [I'm finally up to date on the magazine reading... well almost I've got a backlog of 12 magazines, three Cargos (which is facing the possibility of an unceremonious cancellation), three Advocates (which just were extended till around 2008 or so.), two Out Travelers (the near useless ride along to The Advocate sometimes), a Vegetarian Times (how the hell I got a subscription to this I don't know, but I do know I didn't pay for it), a MacAddict, and a Technology Review. (both of which are under consideration for their usefulness.]
But back to the point after the list of the USPS supporting material I am in possession of. The one thing I really like about this Starbucks, is well its has two sets of comfy chairs, which in Starbucks land is almost unheard of. I'm sitting in one set of them and across the way is the other set, which is currently occupied by two teenage girls. What prompted a fit of laughter and well distain for speaking the same language as the girls is the indescribable high usage rate of the word "like" by one of the girls. I debated the merits of counting the number of times she used the word like within say a two minute period and then presenting to her her like rate per minute. I would estimate that it is somewhere around fifteen usages per minute. Okay but here is the thing that really disturbs me. I caught a glimpse of her shoes, and low and behold she has the same celtic green chuck taylors that I have and really like for their inherent coolness and dorkiness. So now I feel in some disturbed way compelled to go home and incinerate my pair, because they've been like contaminated, and thats well like unacceptable.
Another thing I'd love to give her a copy of this entry.. although the logistics to do so are annoying..
Okay in other news I've discontinued the external chemical influencing of my serotonin and norepherine levels, to surprisingly positive results. Although I have noted that I've been having more of a bitter wit, which I so love.
Okay now the chuck taylor like destroying girl and her friend are taking a picture of themselves with the arm length method. Sometimes I just feel that I should carry a gun with tranquilizer darts to neutralize nuisances like these two, I mean its for the public good, and someone has to take responsibility for it, and politicians will claim that they look out for the public good but they're really just looking out for their own hides in so many ways. Someone has to make the hard choices and take the heat, and I am the one to do it. Or so I believe at the moment.
Okay a related thought to this is I've been debating what to do with the inordinate number of people who currently have Bush/Cheney stickers on their cars. (or the even more annoying variant, the W'04 circle sticker) I was originally planning on purchasing black spray paint and marking over the offending advertising on the road. Then I thought, "Hey I've got these Kerry/Edwards stickers, it would be nicer just to put those over the offending bumper stickers, at least this way I'm not damaging their car.... (snicker)" Okay but enough about the ethics of annoying political crap. I will leave this topic with one thought. In the game Tropico you can choose not to hold elections, the text is something along the lines of "the people do not know what they truly want" then something about not having elections.
Dang, that was a dribbling piece of diarrhetic crap. You know how they prevent the same variety of anal leakage from cadavers? They sew their asshole shut. (I'm not making this up.) Now think of the indignity of a gay man who dies and has their asshole secured from anal leakage. There thats something for you..
October 12, 2004
Zoomtown and Fuse.net DSL suck
Cincinnati Bell sucks. Their billing service is substandard as I've previously noted. Their DSL model is the most funkitified thing I've met. Finally their technical ISP acumen is pathetic.
Okay now some detail.
The billing service I've already covered, but I'll add one more item on, their whole web design focus is far to centered on catering to Microsoft Internet Explorer users. I actually had to call the customer service rep to reset my password, a majority of the call consisted of interrogating me if there was a copy of Internet Explorer somewhere on my computer. (I've deleted the Mac version, its even crappier than the windows version.) After I arguing with the rep for a while conceded and started to load up Windows 98 on VirtualPC. Around the same time he finally gave up on me and just asked me for the information over the phone and logged in as me and did what I needed to do. (Something tech reps are not supposed to do, but oh well.)
Oh and another thing about the Microsoft Centricness. I'm not against Microsoft software, I just find it much harder to get it to work properly and efficiently. Cincinnati Bell's billing system is hosted on Microsoft web and database servers. I have no problem with this, if it works.. I despise that well it, doesn't work. Anytime I have to load my bill up online I need to load it twice, the first request being a collection of Microsoft Server errors, the second being the actual bill.
Okay onto the real reason that got me onto this subject. My DSL is down, it has been down for three hours. To top this off there is no tech support rep to get a hold of to fix and or consult about the problem, and their network status page happily proclaims that everything is working fine.
Imbeciles.
(I have to go review George Bush's tax return again and make sure he doesn't own Cincinnati Bell, because the hallmark of his management skills are quite evident at Cincinnati Bell.)
So I might be happier if I was able to get a hold of someone, but they're closed from Midnight to 7 AM. This relates into my feelings about The 8 AM Regime, if a company wants to keep my business they should offer 24 hour service. Thats only fair to those of us who are up and doing work at 3 AM in the morning.
To top it off this is a monopoly service. Unlike other DSL markets where you can get your service from another company with Cincinnati Bell you're stuck into buying the connectivity from them, dealing with their crappy model where you by the DSL service from them, and then buy the connectivity from someone else. Its the dial up model all over again. (Which incidentally is better than the DSL/Cable model because there is built in redundancy, with DSL/Cable you're stuck with an unregulated monopoly, at least when you had dialup the telephone line was a regulated monopoly that had a legally required uptime of 99.999% now you have unregulated crap with an unregulated uptime. I want DSL to start putting in service level agreements at the residential price points.)
So instead of being able to purchase DSL from Speakeasy (I had the best service from them, albeit most expensive service, but I had a rarer line type.) and letting them handle the tech support and buffer me from the crap of the telephone company I now have to deal directly with the crap of the telephone company with no additional service and the headache's of their imbecile service and crappy substandard equipment.
Unfortunately cable isn't an option, and even if it were I'm not sure they'd be much better. This area is ripe for some competition, perhaps fixed wireless?
October 24, 2004
Driving News Vol 1.0
Apparently I missed the memo that we were supposed to be playing bumper cars in Cincinnati today. I was driving home on the best poorly designed Interstate in the country. (I-75 in any Ohio city) There were no fewer than three single car accidents; people just decided that it was time to run into the wall on the side of the highway.
I don't really get what is too hard about driving in rain of any volume. Its a relatively simple ratio that needs to be followed, as the volume of rain falling increases, your speed needs to decrease, at the same time you need to increase your following distance (in seconds). Is this so hard people?
I am a less efficient driver when I'm in Ohio, because people don't use turn signals and the like; ergo, I have to drive much more defensively. Ohio knows this an issues their drivers mandatory front and rear plates for their cars, they want to know who you are coming or going. In Kentucky, they trust us enough just to know us by our rears.
In other driving news, I have been noticing a curious epidemic of prenegotiated alternative traffic patterns. (An epidemic in this case is two instances in a month, but given that this is an incalculable increase in the eighty-seven months I have been driving, I feel completely justified in using the word epidemic. If you don't feel that is justified then I'll justify it by wanting to induce fear. (oh wait I'm neither GWB or BG))
Onto the actual description. I assume most people are as flummoxed as I was about the concept of a prenegotiated alternative traffic pattern. Essentially at two instances when I was waiting at a stop light people rolled down their windows and yelled and asked permission to execute a traffic pattern not prescribed by the code laid onto the road. During both instances I agreed out of bewilderment with the whole concept.
While I don't plan on instigating any other prenegotiated alternative traffic patterns I will keep my eyes out for other instances of traffic hippies. Oh and bumper car drivers as well..
October 30, 2004
Struggling to be myself...
I watched I ♥ Huckabees the other day. Its one of the oddest movies I've seen in a while. In the vein of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Gattaca to name a few. Essentially its a movie where the filmmakers set out not to tell a story but to explore a philosophical idea. In this case the plot is subservient to the philosophy. (This is a much better alternative than the plot being subservient to special effects, you only get crappy action or sci-fi movies that way.)
This one asks multiple questions, one of them is: "How am I not myself?"
If you're going to be a literalist, you're always yourself. But being a literalist isn't very interesting, and well is a bit limiting.
But its an interesting question. One I realized I've been working at for a while, and even attempted to pin down in such ominous and/or bland sounding documents as Personal Marketing and Personal Statements of Purpose. I also listened to an interview on NPR with Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman . The part that is relevant here occurs about in about six minutes into the interview. Those documents are not me. Many times I wish they were me, but they're not. I try to get there, and I think many of us try to get to our ideal but we have to compromise with the actual world.
I've been kicking around going by the name of Cliff for a while. While that is still me (Cliff is derived from my middle name) part of it is a motivation to make a bit of a fresher start. (not a fresh start, I'm not looking to be birthed again)
Part of this is I look back on all of the records which comprise part of the history of "Nicholas Barnard" and well many of them don't look so great.- I'ven't left a job on good terms in about four years. (Excluding the temporary position that came to an end.) Its not to say that I wasn't a good employee, but when I left it wasn't pretty and left me in an "unrehirable status."
- School-wise I'm on college number four, and its going just grand. (sarcasm)
- Theatrically, I've done a bunch of good things, but I've also incinerated my bridges with nuclear bombs.
- Dating, I won't touch.
- Writing/Programming, they're both littered with loads of false starts, and no finished products.
This isn't to say I'ven't done some very good things, and I know the people who know me well think highly of me, which counts more than the failures I see. To be fair to myself I do have positive attributes to each of the above complaints about myself, its just I remember the negatives more strongly than the positives.
For balance here's the list of things I'm proud of:- Nick's Place (i.e. My website) I've managed to put a huge amount about myself here, plus keep the dang thing organized and sane to manage. (Previous websites I've worked on spiraled out of control into crazy insane works that ended up driving me nuts, and became very hard to manage and update.)
- My friendships. It sounds like an odd thing to be proud of, but I'm actually pretty picky about who I surround myself with and who I call a friend.
- My values and my ability to strive towards them. I'm the first to admit that I do not fully live upto all of them, but the direction I tend to move in is one of improving compliance with my values. (No, they're not "family values" or "liberal values" or some other similarly crazy system of prepackage values that people don't fully understand or even agree with, although they profess them.)
- Levity. I'm not the one to make a good joke, but I can keep things funny and light, even if its others laughing at how bad my jokes are, I know they're bad and I'm also laughing at my joke's Grade ZZ level.
Okay but back to the point of Cliff. I'm wanting to make a break, and steer away from the crap I've done in the past.
So to start off I'm going to be using the pseudonym Cliff on my new novel that I'm writing with National Novel Writing Month I have no idea at the moment what exactly its going to be about, but I'd expect it to be more in the vein of I ♥ Huckabees or the like. So I start writing it sometime around November 1.
Yeah, Cliff is getting off to a great start...