"[Gold] looks overextended, the MACD is high enough to give Arnold the Giant a haircut, and the RSI is way overbought. Still, as recent history has shown us, the gold price can remain overbought for a long time."
That is a gold bug talking... The actual commodity is overbought... people are trading in futures, ETNs, ETFs and these things are starting to take on the same character as the mortgage crises...
The similarity:
People see others making a profit - they too want to make a profit but houses are 250,000 +... Invest in the securitized obligations! Nothing could go wrong... The house price will never go down!
People see others making a profit - they too want to make a profit but Gold is already 1800+ per ounce... so how to "Break in" to the market? Well, but a share in a mine or an ETF... No need to actually hold specie... just invest in shares... Nothing could go wrong... the gold price will never go down!
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Economics and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
Much more to come from this, but, generally, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that one cannot measure both the instant position and speed of a particle as once you measure one, you affect the other qua your measurement.
Translating this to economics [draft 1]:
One cannot know both the instant state and the future behavior of a given market as once the state is acquired and that data released to the population [of the traders in the market] the data will modify the future behavior.
This is a very rough first draft of this theory - but I think it holds.
Translating this to economics [draft 1]:
One cannot know both the instant state and the future behavior of a given market as once the state is acquired and that data released to the population [of the traders in the market] the data will modify the future behavior.
This is a very rough first draft of this theory - but I think it holds.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Post 9/11 counterfactuals
The following is a set of musings over the various possibilities following 9/11. Nothing was edited, it is very roughly typed, the question raised is from me, the first part is Justin Herzog's response, the second response is my response to him. I'll try to keep this readable.
Question Presented:
Many have spoken about how unjust the iraq invasion was, how bush lied etc... hypo: would the war in afghanistan have been drastically different (worse? Better?) had we not invaded iraq simultaneously?
_______________________________
Justin:
Somewhat. I have said, and will say again, that a ground-force level action would have taken place in AFG given a Gore presidency+911.
Interestingly, the CIA under clinton's retained director had a plan of its own for the AFG gig, that was being pursued in the first few weeks, that emphasized heavily on pinning & capturing the al queada elements.
concurrently, the rumsfeld DOD pushed its own plan to get to Kabul fast and 'finish things up.' There was a frontline episode that had a bit of research suggesting that the drums of war were already beating for Iraq in 2001, ie that cheney/rumsfeld/'daddy issues' had already concluded that WTC gave an adequate excuse to invade Iraq even in 2001. That the pretenses could be invented later.
As you know, troops, especially specops units, were pulled from AFG prematurely in 2K2 in prep for iraq; we invaded in april 2003. That means that we were in AFG for less than a year at full commitment, probably never.
(worse? Better?) had we not invaded iraq simultaneously?
Unequivocally, better. Not invading a country so close to arabia would have meant that AQ would have had less recruiting/popularity opps...which is good geopolitcially. Recently, a Taliban commander came out saying 'Ive never seen any AQ up in here, if you can find them I'd like to talk to them/have them on my team.'
This was of course not the case in Iraq. It's a country that's quite close to the center of AQ popularity (discontents in Syria, Saud, and the Gulf).
A second point of 'chemical' equilibria is also at play. without a bullshit invasion, the Coalition in AFG (which has always had a significant NATO component...) would have had more troops from allies, as they wouldn't be putting their homes at the same level of risk at home.
Sympathy/rally power was SUPER strong in 2001-2003 behind the US. Imagine it untarnished, imagine the level of help.
Not to be ignored, the full level of development $ that went into iraq could have gone into AFG & the neighboring central asian countries.
Further, the bullshit invasion of Iraq being absent would have diffused the general mideast situation, alleviating pressure on the Israel/Palestine axis, which is one of the reasons sympathy with more extreme elements, ie, the intensity of the Palestine conflict is directly proportional to the sympathy (not neccesssarily support) of terrorists.
Further, without an Iraq invasion we might have Not Alienated Syria/Iran (TM). in 2001 the mullahs in iran were smelling the progressive wind in the mideast. The videos of iranian youth tagging walls in tehran with 'Metallica et al' were all too common and celebrated images. With the Iraq invasion, the promise of becoming a regional/minor power simply by opposing America became a valid, and more ego-stroking FP strat to pursue/more popular domestically.
some interesting preliminary musings.
In all, the geopolitical equilibria were really dicked. invading a backwater in Central Asia=Whatever/SUPER excuse/justification, no loss of political capital.
Invading the fulcrum of civilizaition/dicking up the middle east further than it was==introducing volaitility to the beaker.
Invasions, in a world without war, are a mark of a domestic political desire. Intelligence and covert warfare, coming from the hegemon, can and does fulflill all reasonable security objectives.
fin for now.
________________________________
Matthew:
- Iraq untouched
I think the major focus of the difference in the counter-factual is that as we have seen Iran using our invasion to further its political goals, Saddam would have similarly built a larger political base / sympathy with estranged elements of neighboring countries. Thus, money/men/supplies would have flowed into Iraq to counter American invasion of AFG with no check or balance.
- Gore+9/11
This part of the counter factual forks into two ways each with two sub forks
1) Gore invades AFG Only
1a) Gore invades AFG with as much or more power as Bush did
1b) Gore invades AFG with less power than Bush did
2) Gore invades AFG and Iraq
2a) Gore invades AFG and Iraq with as much or more power as bush did
2b) Gore invades AFG and Iraq with less power
Each "b" could also encompass only a war of subterfuge without a waging of a boots-on-the-ground war.
I think in both "a" scenarios one could reasonably see that the tactics would have been notably different and arguably better.
But the point of this entire exercise is that in the 1) counter factual, we are looking at a vastly different Mideast political milieu with a vastly different mindset. Iran and Iraq are long time enemies... this leads to 2 possible counter-factuals
1) Iran, Iraq non-aggression pact OR mutual defense treaty
2) Iran, Iraq hostilities
Counter-intuitively, I think each of these two are equally possible because there are so many variables; enemies recognizing that a much more dangerous enemy is around the corner can lead to a plethora of odd outcomes; also keep in mind I do not believe that Iran, Iraq neutrality would have been likely. I can not fathom how that would have worked; the political situation would not have allowed it to lead to neutrality with the US in AFG.
EITHER of these two cases... could have led to a very very dangerous situation for our exposure in AFG... And this leads to the source of my initial musings. An Iraq-led Mideast alliance against the US invasion of Islam. The conclusion I draw from this is that no matter how repugnant Bush's invasion of Iraq was, no matter how much lying he did, no matter how much it tarnished our image... his invasion of Iraq probably caused a great deal more good than harm.
Question Presented:
Many have spoken about how unjust the iraq invasion was, how bush lied etc... hypo: would the war in afghanistan have been drastically different (worse? Better?) had we not invaded iraq simultaneously?
_______________________________
Justin:
Somewhat. I have said, and will say again, that a ground-force level action would have taken place in AFG given a Gore presidency+911.
Interestingly, the CIA under clinton's retained director had a plan of its own for the AFG gig, that was being pursued in the first few weeks, that emphasized heavily on pinning & capturing the al queada elements.
concurrently, the rumsfeld DOD pushed its own plan to get to Kabul fast and 'finish things up.' There was a frontline episode that had a bit of research suggesting that the drums of war were already beating for Iraq in 2001, ie that cheney/rumsfeld/'daddy issues' had already concluded that WTC gave an adequate excuse to invade Iraq even in 2001. That the pretenses could be invented later.
As you know, troops, especially specops units, were pulled from AFG prematurely in 2K2 in prep for iraq; we invaded in april 2003. That means that we were in AFG for less than a year at full commitment, probably never.
(worse? Better?) had we not invaded iraq simultaneously?
Unequivocally, better. Not invading a country so close to arabia would have meant that AQ would have had less recruiting/popularity opps...which is good geopolitcially. Recently, a Taliban commander came out saying 'Ive never seen any AQ up in here, if you can find them I'd like to talk to them/have them on my team.'
This was of course not the case in Iraq. It's a country that's quite close to the center of AQ popularity (discontents in Syria, Saud, and the Gulf).
A second point of 'chemical' equilibria is also at play. without a bullshit invasion, the Coalition in AFG (which has always had a significant NATO component...) would have had more troops from allies, as they wouldn't be putting their homes at the same level of risk at home.
Sympathy/rally power was SUPER strong in 2001-2003 behind the US. Imagine it untarnished, imagine the level of help.
Not to be ignored, the full level of development $ that went into iraq could have gone into AFG & the neighboring central asian countries.
Further, the bullshit invasion of Iraq being absent would have diffused the general mideast situation, alleviating pressure on the Israel/Palestine axis, which is one of the reasons sympathy with more extreme elements, ie, the intensity of the Palestine conflict is directly proportional to the sympathy (not neccesssarily support) of terrorists.
Further, without an Iraq invasion we might have Not Alienated Syria/Iran (TM). in 2001 the mullahs in iran were smelling the progressive wind in the mideast. The videos of iranian youth tagging walls in tehran with 'Metallica et al' were all too common and celebrated images. With the Iraq invasion, the promise of becoming a regional/minor power simply by opposing America became a valid, and more ego-stroking FP strat to pursue/more popular domestically.
some interesting preliminary musings.
In all, the geopolitical equilibria were really dicked. invading a backwater in Central Asia=Whatever/SUPER excuse/justification, no loss of political capital.
Invading the fulcrum of civilizaition/dicking up the middle east further than it was==introducing volaitility to the beaker.
Invasions, in a world without war, are a mark of a domestic political desire. Intelligence and covert warfare, coming from the hegemon, can and does fulflill all reasonable security objectives.
fin for now.
________________________________
Matthew:
- Iraq untouched
I think the major focus of the difference in the counter-factual is that as we have seen Iran using our invasion to further its political goals, Saddam would have similarly built a larger political base / sympathy with estranged elements of neighboring countries. Thus, money/men/supplies would have flowed into Iraq to counter American invasion of AFG with no check or balance.
- Gore+9/11
This part of the counter factual forks into two ways each with two sub forks
1) Gore invades AFG Only
1a) Gore invades AFG with as much or more power as Bush did
1b) Gore invades AFG with less power than Bush did
2) Gore invades AFG and Iraq
2a) Gore invades AFG and Iraq with as much or more power as bush did
2b) Gore invades AFG and Iraq with less power
Each "b" could also encompass only a war of subterfuge without a waging of a boots-on-the-ground war.
I think in both "a" scenarios one could reasonably see that the tactics would have been notably different and arguably better.
But the point of this entire exercise is that in the 1) counter factual, we are looking at a vastly different Mideast political milieu with a vastly different mindset. Iran and Iraq are long time enemies... this leads to 2 possible counter-factuals
1) Iran, Iraq non-aggression pact OR mutual defense treaty
2) Iran, Iraq hostilities
Counter-intuitively, I think each of these two are equally possible because there are so many variables; enemies recognizing that a much more dangerous enemy is around the corner can lead to a plethora of odd outcomes; also keep in mind I do not believe that Iran, Iraq neutrality would have been likely. I can not fathom how that would have worked; the political situation would not have allowed it to lead to neutrality with the US in AFG.
EITHER of these two cases... could have led to a very very dangerous situation for our exposure in AFG... And this leads to the source of my initial musings. An Iraq-led Mideast alliance against the US invasion of Islam. The conclusion I draw from this is that no matter how repugnant Bush's invasion of Iraq was, no matter how much lying he did, no matter how much it tarnished our image... his invasion of Iraq probably caused a great deal more good than harm.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
WAR!!!
What does the term "war" mean today? The unrest in the Caucasus is unending, however, the out right aggression by Georgia against those who believe they are part of South Ossetia, and Russia's reaction did lead to military movements, bombings, dead bodies, ceasefire negotiations and other signs and symptoms of a war; however, was it actually a war?
There are two main ways of looking at this question, first, certain things feel like war to the participants and thus it is a war (the Korean "War" when it was actually a police action), second, that war is what we say it is. I do not like either option and I doubt anyone would agree there is some transcendental definition of "war" out there to which all wars must adhere or else they are some other conflict.
A list of a few things that are not sufficient conditions for war, simply having military operations, a country's military attacking another country (Civilian population or otherwise), the overthrow of another country's government, all references to "against (undesirable social ill)", deaths at the hands of governmental agents (Covert or Overt ops; internal or external), this list is neither dispositive nor exhaustive, simply an attempt at getting some of the commonly used ones out of the way.
I would also venture to say that having a declaration of war is no longer a sufficient condition nor is it a necessary condition for war; such a declaration has almost become irrelevant anyway.
So, what the hell is "War"? I haven't a clue...
There are two main ways of looking at this question, first, certain things feel like war to the participants and thus it is a war (the Korean "War" when it was actually a police action), second, that war is what we say it is. I do not like either option and I doubt anyone would agree there is some transcendental definition of "war" out there to which all wars must adhere or else they are some other conflict.
A list of a few things that are not sufficient conditions for war, simply having military operations, a country's military attacking another country (Civilian population or otherwise), the overthrow of another country's government, all references to "against (undesirable social ill)", deaths at the hands of governmental agents (Covert or Overt ops; internal or external), this list is neither dispositive nor exhaustive, simply an attempt at getting some of the commonly used ones out of the way.
I would also venture to say that having a declaration of war is no longer a sufficient condition nor is it a necessary condition for war; such a declaration has almost become irrelevant anyway.
So, what the hell is "War"? I haven't a clue...
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Empiricism! And nothing else...
There exists only the empirical... and nothing else... A is A, it really is... I promise! If what you have to say is not empirically verifiable, save the oxygen for more important things... Like filling up pretty balloons!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Meaning denied
There are certain words that get tossed around frequently which essentially have no meaning. Words such as homophobic and reverse-racism are obvious examples, but some words are a bit more obscure. The context in which people use the word "establishment" begins to demonstrate how this word has lost all real meaning and is really just a laughable concept.
At one point I am sure that there was an establishment that some counter-cultures (another contradiction-in-terms pseudo-word)felt that they were against and as such they were outside the establishment... I would accede that at this point the word establishment did apply and people who were against the establishment or the machine were legitimately using those words; however, a person who exposes a snake oil salesmen by giving false information and false promises... is a snake oil salesmen himself... he cannot call himself a counter-snake oil salesmen, he cannot say he is against the snake oil salesmen ethos, he is - a snake oil salesmen.
To this end, every congressperson, every "news" reporter, everyone who is working in the mainstream or is attempting to enter said stream cannot be against the establishment... he or she ->is<- the establishment, we are the establishment, we the people... are... the state.
The problem that some people enter into when they are attempting to convey a distaste for the current state of the state is that our system is designed to be malleable, we are able to change the direction of our will, we as a country are able to have a difference of opinion without it leading to auto-destruction. Thus, as an individual from within the state, expresses distaste for the current state of the state, he or she is part of the state and is not outside of it; herein lies the error, no congressperson can be against the establishment, no congressperson can be against the state, one can only express dissatisfaction and posit a change in policy.
At one point I am sure that there was an establishment that some counter-cultures (another contradiction-in-terms pseudo-word)felt that they were against and as such they were outside the establishment... I would accede that at this point the word establishment did apply and people who were against the establishment or the machine were legitimately using those words; however, a person who exposes a snake oil salesmen by giving false information and false promises... is a snake oil salesmen himself... he cannot call himself a counter-snake oil salesmen, he cannot say he is against the snake oil salesmen ethos, he is - a snake oil salesmen.
To this end, every congressperson, every "news" reporter, everyone who is working in the mainstream or is attempting to enter said stream cannot be against the establishment... he or she ->is<- the establishment, we are the establishment, we the people... are... the state.
The problem that some people enter into when they are attempting to convey a distaste for the current state of the state is that our system is designed to be malleable, we are able to change the direction of our will, we as a country are able to have a difference of opinion without it leading to auto-destruction. Thus, as an individual from within the state, expresses distaste for the current state of the state, he or she is part of the state and is not outside of it; herein lies the error, no congressperson can be against the establishment, no congressperson can be against the state, one can only express dissatisfaction and posit a change in policy.
Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton needs to be taught as a more pivotal figure in our country's history. One word that describes his entire body of work is: prescience. As early as the age of 20 he was clearly describing our United States well before they formed and even before the first shot rang of the Revolutionary War. Economics, politics, society, nothing was outside his prescience. Finally, his republican sensibilities make him a perfect candidate for study in our world today.
Oh, and his writings are wonderful to behold. Perhaps one of the most important documents ever written in U.S. History:
page 261 of this book, "A Few of Hamilton's Letters"
Oh, and his writings are wonderful to behold. Perhaps one of the most important documents ever written in U.S. History:
page 261 of this book, "A Few of Hamilton's Letters"
Friday, April 09, 2010
nonsequitor
sine qua non ignorance we would't know truth; truth qua conceptual truth id est truth is not sui generis yet it is simply the abrogation of ignorance.
Thus, willful caprice and willful ignorance are the sources of evil qua society.
Ex nihilo nihil fit... yet why do I hear anarchists and socialists and libertarians continue to make noises with their mouth? Worse off, those who don't care at all about society, politics, who "Hate the government" why do they espouse a philosophy at all? Your disjointed rantings that contradict in every other breath... Why speak?
Thus, willful caprice and willful ignorance are the sources of evil qua society.
Ex nihilo nihil fit... yet why do I hear anarchists and socialists and libertarians continue to make noises with their mouth? Worse off, those who don't care at all about society, politics, who "Hate the government" why do they espouse a philosophy at all? Your disjointed rantings that contradict in every other breath... Why speak?
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