Chapter 20 details how CEOs of the "big 9" we summoned to an unexplained a meeting by Henry Paulson and told by Treasury that they would all be participating in TARP, and how much each would receive: "Bank of America: $25 billion; Citigroup: $25 billion; Goldman Sachs: $10 billion; JP Morgan: $25 billion; Morgan Stanley: $10 billion; State Street: $10 billion, Wells Fargo: $25 billion." (the book omits who the last two banks were and how much they were to receive) When Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich objected, Henry Paulson to him "Your regulator is sitting right there" "And you are going to get a call tomorrow morning telling you you're undercapitalized and that you won't be able to raise money in the private markets".
Other points of interest in the book- The picture of the $9 billion check Mitsubishi used to invest in Morgan Stanley
Personally, I enjoyed Michael Lewis' "The Big Short" much more.
A good driver, by definition, mitigates the bad driver by taking appropriate actions to reduce the risk. It is not how you drive, its how you manager the drivers around you that makes you a good driver.
You are stopped at a red light, cars are stopped ahead of and to either side of you. Driver approaching behind you is distracted and doesn't see that you are stopped. Any suggestions for mitigating this impending collision?
I wonder if they've had any success with the opposite -- trying to get rid of memories. I bet there'd be a big market.
Yes, inhibiting protein creation while a memory is being recalled, which actually re-creates the memory, can prevent the memory from storing again. There have been human trials. This Radiolab discusses it http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jun/07/
Factoid- prior to national events two parallel timing systems are set up and tested against each other to ensure consistent results. IIRC, anything greater than 5 thousands variation between them calls a timing system into question.
maybe let's at least try to read the article and then the Wikipedia article about whatever we are posting about and at least attempt to flame those that don't. Nobody up for that?
If we look at this a bit further, the obvious alternative to US treasuries would have been AAA rated securities, such as the collateralized debt obligations which more or less caused the current economic crisis. That makes this paper pretty foresighted.
Ok, I've read. From page 1 of the paper "The financial services industry has grown tremendously in this country over the past eight years, and done a very good job of handling growth and the increased risks that accompany it. The industry accomplishes this task most fundamentally by separating risks by type, making them easier to evaluate and price." From this, I question that the paper is "foresighted"
It was the failure to understand CDOs and accurately assess their risks by the issuing banks, S&P and Moodys, and their government regulators that caused the most recent financial calamity. Michael Lewis' "The Big Short" has good insight into the mortgage bond market melt down.
As there was no significant (not just token) firings, prison time, and lawsuits for the banks, ratings agencies, and their federal regulators, another round of this type of economic catastrophe will occur again soon, and on a larger scale.
There are several practical issues with optical systems for automated vehicle recognition- number and class markings are already tough to get consistent without requiring an additional barcode or QR large enough (some competitors would gripe about a huge barcode) to be useful at the 30'+ distance finish line sensors are set back to minimize getting hit by spinning cars. Add in the fact that existing markings some times fall off on course, or competitors in dual driver cars forget to change numbers between runs, and it's tough to be certain you'd have something consistent to try to recognize.
The national T&S system uses a wireless barcode reader operated by a worker in the starting queue to read stickers placed on competitors helmets to register cars in the T&S software. Locally, we position the T&S trailer to allow the operators to manually enter vehicles as they enter the start queue. Human eyes really are the most flexible here "shouldn't 80ES be 180ES?".
I like one of the comments above about a webcam triggered by the finish light taking a picture with a clock display in it. Unless there was OCR to immediately post the result to the software, the results feedback would be too slow for our region- we have real time announcement of finish stats, and the software can post results to a web server real time for smartphone access in paddock. The T&S software uploads a small file to the web server in the 20ish second gap between finishing cars.
Apologies for not offering solutions, but hopefully the extra info about some of the issues can help shape a solution.
taking their rightful places on the junk heap of other failed ideologies and social/economic systems which are based upon....greed.
Agree with your other points, but capitalism works because it accounts for greed. Many of the other systems fail because they don't.
Daniel Suarez provided some interesting near term solutions to some of these stagnation issues in his recent very enjoyable "Daemon" and "Freedom" novels. Sad that I also agree with his vision that these solutions would be violently resisted by various interests.
Wernher von Braun settled for a V-2 when he coulda had a V-8.