Digno de un día como hoy

Para "celebrar" la "noche" de "brujas", les dejo lo más espeluznante que he visto en los últimos 21 años:



Gracias a JDLA por descubrirlo.

Experiencias Oníricas

No suelo contar mis sueños a la gente, a menos que sean muy extraordinarios. Como me quedó este rato libre antes de irme a la U, voy a contarle una selección de 3 sueños que he tenido en los últimos días, y no se porque quedaron en mi mente.

Si ud. sabe algo sobre interpretación de sueños, a lo mejor me puede aportar algo pese a que considero a los sueños no más que divagaciones de los clusters de memoria, que se ordenan y pueden causarnos experiencias y sentimientos diversos.

1er Sueño:

Por alguna razón, a mi madre le habían amputado la pierna izquierda. El sueño estaba ubicado en un espacio relativamente posterior a la amputación, porque parecía que ya todos lo habíamos aceptado y vivíamos tranquilos con eso, aunque me oriento a pensar que yo evitaba asimilarlo para no sufrir, ya que sabía que al ser un sueño, no tenía caso lamentar algo que cuando despertara desaparecería.

Estabamos en vacaciones en Vail, y mi madre, mi padre, mi hermana y yo ibamos a esquiar por la montaña. Yo me puse el snowboard y bajé por algunos tramos de la montaña, en los que había que hacer saltos o se caía a un precipicio. En uno de esos saltos la snowboard se me cayó de los pies y tuve que irme al inicio de la montaña a pedirle a alguien que estuviera ahi que me la buscara. Cuando estaba ahi, mi padre y mi madre se pusieron los esquís y mi madre se fue por abajo de la montaña, sin saber esquiar y con una sola pierna. Lo último que vi de ella fue que cayó en uno de los huecos y de ahi no supe más durante el sueño. Le pedí al a gente que la buscara porque muy posiblemente había fallecido y creo que mi padre bajó por la montaña y siguió esquiando.

2do Sueño:

Iba para algún lugar a hacer no se que, como una diligencia o buscar o preguntar algo. Era muy tarde en la noche y el lugar quedaba en La Uruca, como desde atrás de la Pozuelo, hasta llegado por la León XIII. Era una zona industrial y no había donde dejar el carro, recuerdo que iba en un apuro y entonces buscando el maldito parqueo, decidí dejar el carro (el Integra gris de mi hermana) en un lugar vacío y como en un pasillo, donde sabía que estaba mal parqueado pero era muy tarde en la noche y no iba a importar.

No recuerdo cual era la diligencia, es muy posible que nunca haya sucedido. Lo siguiente era yo buscando por todos lados el maldito carro que parecía haber desaparecido. Lo que buscaba era el pasillo en el que estaba y no aparecía, aparecían pasillos iguales pero el carro no estaba, lo busqué por horas. Recordaba el lugar donde lo habiá dejado pero parecía haber desaparecido. (Era un pasillo como los de RITEVE donde a uno le hacen los examenes, al fondo había una malla de cuadros y eso es lo que yo buscaba cuando buscaba el pasillo). Eventualmente, como un par de mecánicos del lugar, que parecían ser a la vez guardas (no había otra explicación para que estuvieran ahi a altas horas de la noche) me estaban ayudando a buscarlo, pero no estaba por ningún lado.

No se cuanto duró el sueño pero recuerdo que se sentía como una infinidad, eventualmente ya buscaba el carro como por inercia, si me hubieran dicho que llevaba 10 horas buscandolo, fácilmente lo habría creído. Eventualmente la malla de cuadros apareció, el pasillo y ahi estaba el carro. Era mucho más hacia el oeste que donde lo estaba buscando (es decir, como hacia la Pozuelo) y bueno, me monté y jalé.

3er Sueño:

Es muy relacionado con el segundo. Iba en el carro, en ese lugar ahi por la León XIII e iba como con unos maes jóvenes hacia el oeste, les pregunté que si por ahi estaba el Parque de Diversiones y me señalaron adonde quedaba. Muy extraño porque yo vivo por ahi y era totalmente diferente a las direcciones reales.

Al final no se que sucedió con ese viaje, pero lo que recuerdo después esque ibamos 4 compas en el carro (cuyos nombres no voy a mencionar, pero si recuerdo quienes eran, de hecho ibamos en el carro de uno de ellos y yo iba manejando) ibamos saliendo ahi por la Texaco de La Uruca por Burger King (como del extraño lugar ese donde había dejado el carro) y el compa que al parecer iba medio ebrio, salió por la ventana y le pidió al vendedor que había en la calle una Jaggermeister, recuerdo bien que eso fue lo que le pidió, pero me imagino que lo que quería era una Jaggerbomb. El vendedor le dio una Coca Cola Zero y el enojo que nos causó fue terrible. Empezamos a perseguir al mae pidiendole quenos cambiara la Coca por la Jagger que él había pedido, eventualmente nos bajamos del carro y empezamos a reclamarle de manera muy severa al señor al punto que su hijo llegó (el hijo extrañamente era un compañero mio en un curso de esos que uno nunca les habla, pero les reconoce la cara) y nos pidió casi llorando que por favor pararamos, nosotros le dijimos que lo único que queríamos era la Jagger y el nos dijo que si, que ya habían entendido y nos la iban a dar. Creo que fuimos bastante rudos con el pobre señor, y no estoy seguro pero creo que a la larga nos termino dando la maldita Jagger que mi compa quería.

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Esos fueron los 3 sueños. No se si tendrán algun significado particular, pero a diferencia de los sueños que usualmente tengo, estos me dieron ganas de compartirlos, no se porque.

Cambios al blog

Bueno, le cambié los colores al Blog porque los que tenía antes eran demasiado alegres.

Segundo, ya que soy un perdedor con Blog, no es mucha la diferencia de ser un perdedor con Blog Y Twitter. Así que ahora seguiré poniendo ahi algunas incidencias. Si desea comentar algún mensaje puesto por ahi, ponga un comment en el último post que haya y ya.

No se porque pero con el cambio de Twitter y la adición del Widget como que todo quedó más grande de lo que era antes, especialmente las fonts. Voy a ver si lo logro arreglar, si ud. sabe como hacerlo o cual es el problema le agradecería la ayuda.

Edit: Bien! Lo logré arreglar! Era una vara que había dejado mal en el template cuando me había puesto a jugar. Quien diría que un "/" es capaz de cambiarle mágicamente el tamaño a todo en el blog.

No me termina de llamar la atención

No soy un ecologista, aunque creo que ago de consciencia ambiental tengo.

No es que no me importen los temas ambientales ni los considere relevantes ni mucho menos, es más, me parece que la sostenibilidad ambiental es un elemento fundamental que no se puede ignorar cuando se cataloga a un país y su modelo como "desarrollado".

Me eché las declaraciones del Ministro Dobles en la Asamblea y realmente fue bastante contundente, aunque como pocas veces en la vida (y esperemos que no siga sucediendo) lo que decían los legisladores del PAC me parecía coherente.

Lo que sucede esque sencillamente no soy un experto, ni tengo la más mínima autoridad para hablar de esos temas. Desde siempre en el colegio no soporté las clases de biología y lo menos que conozco son datos y conceptos técnicos como para por lo menos darme una noción de que tan buena es la Minería de Cielo Abierto. Mis consideraciones al respecto son meramente intuitivas y de sentido común, y cuando escucho a una persona hablar con únicamente esos principios sobre un tema que realmente conozco, me molesta lo ridículo que se ven y los análisis tan simplistas que hacen. Para ahorrar las molestias y no dejarme en ridículo, es que no me pronunciaré sobre el fondo del tema de Crucitas.

*******

Ahora, algo he leído de política y sobre eso creo que si puedo hablar dejandome en ridículo apenas un poquito menos que sobre lo ambiental. En este tema debo decir que el manejo del gobierno sobre el tema ha sido relativamente desastroso.

El error que encuentro es en lo consecuente que se está haciendo con el modelo de desarrollo y con el proyecto "Paz con la Naturaleza" (sic). Puede que lo de Crucitas sea lo máximo y lo mejor para el país, pero no es consecuente de ninguna manera con una política pública de protección a la naturaleza como primera prioridad. ¿Entonces?. Mejor no mandan nada y no crean expectativas que después van a defraudar!. Recuerdo estar en el Teatro Nacional viendo el lanzamiento del proyecto y lo bien recibido que era, hoy día está siendo un lastre a la popularidad del gobierno y a la continuidad del partido en las próximas elecciones.

Puede haberse hecho todo a la perfección, con los estudios ambientales y los procesos burocráticos a la perfección como nunca; puede que el proyecto realmente ayude montones a la gente del pueblo (que no dudo que desearían haber tenido Lapas como hijos, para ver a tanta gente defenderlos con tanta pasión) pero sencillamente a nivel de percepción pública el impacto del proyecto es desastroso.

Aquí entraríamos en un tema complicado: Que es más importante, ¿lo que pueda ser impopular pero a la larga sumando beneficios y costos, bueno para el país? ¿O la continuidad del gobierno que quienes apoyamos estamos convencidos es lo mejor para el país? De ser lo primero, el actuar del gobierno es bueno, partiendo de la premisa de que todo haya sido hecho de manera correcta-, de no ser así, es malo. De ser lo segundo, es malo independientemente de la ideoneidad del proyecto.

Y ya, dejo el post hasta aquí porque no tengo nada más que decir.

Si, si es lo que creen.

Se aceptan donaciones.

No puedo ni quiero dejar de escuchar esta cancion

Ay lol

Paul Krugman Wins the Nobel Economics Prize

By JUSTIN LAHART

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel prize in economics to Paul Krugman, a Princeton University scholar whose groundbreaking study on trade is less known to the public than his withering assessment of the Bush administration.

In announcing the award Monday, the Nobel committee cited Mr. Krugman's work analyzing trade patterns and the location of economic activity.

• As a columnist and blogger for the New York Times, Mr. Krugman, 55 years old, has taken the Bush administration to task over its waging of the Iraq war and, more recently, its handling of the financial-system bailout. Mr. Krugman also has faulted Republican presidential candidate John McCain, writing earlier this month in his column, "the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I'm terrified."

With the committee's decision coming three weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the news sparked criticism that it was influenced by political considerations as well as academic achievements.

Many academic economists said it has always been a question of when Mr. Krugman would win a Nobel rather than if he would win it.

"Paul has in some sense had at least two distinct careers — one as a stellar and inventive academic economist and researcher and another as a journalist and political commentator," said National Bureau of Economic Research president and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist James Poterba. "This prize was awarded for the path breaking insights that emerged from his academic research."

2008 Nobel Prizes

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AFP/Getty Images

An undated handout photo shows top economist Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Economics Prize Monday.

Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of the Council Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush and now an economist at Harvard University said, "I see no evidence that the Nobel committee in economics has been politicized at all. It's been very evenhanded."

For centuries, the economic view on trade was that countries export items that they have a comparative advantage in producing, and import items that they don't. As put forth by English economist David Ricardo in 1817, if in Portugal it takes less labor to produce wine than to produce cloth, and in England the opposite is true, Portugal will export wine to England and import cloth—and it will do this even if it can produce cloth with less labor than England can.

In the modern world, trade hasn't followed the lines of specialization that Ricardo's theory suggests it should. Rather, a handful of countries dominate trade and in many cases both import and export similar goods. Starting in the 1970s, Mr. Krugman was among a number of economists, including Harvard University's Elhanan Helpman and Princeton's Avinash Dixit, who tried to find out why.

"Paul was the undisputed leader of the group," Mr. Dixit said. "He can take quite complex questions and reduce them to the simple essential insight."

In 1979, Mr. Krugman proposed a theory of trade that incorporated consumers' desire for diversity in their purchases. For example, some Americans will want European-made BMW motorcycles while some Europeans want American-made Harley-Davidsons; thus, the U.S. will import and export motorcycles. Both BMW and Harley-Davidson will then be able to take advantage of economies of scale in building their brand of motorcycle, lowering costs so that consumers in both Europe and America will enjoy many choices at lower prices.

Mr. Krugman applied his insights on trade and economies of scale to regional economics, considering how firms face tradeoffs between concentrating in specific locations and high transport costs. His work has piqued new interest in the economics of agglomeration, which studies where people and industries locate, and why.

Mr. Krugman earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. From 1982 to 1983 he worked for the Council of Economic Advisers. "It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan administration," Mr. Krugman later wrote. "I was then and still am an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which I regard as the most decent social arrangement yet devised."

In 1991, Mr. Krugman won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded every two years to the nation's most promising economist under the age of 40, which is often a precursor to an eventual Nobel. In 2000, Princeton economics department chairman Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve Chairman, recruited Mr. Krugman from MIT.

Mr. Krugman began writing books and articles for general readers during the 1990s. Much of his writing focused on politics in addition to economic and financial crises. A frequent subject was the "liquidity trap" Japan fell into in the late 1990s after its central bank's key interest rate essentially fell to zero.

In 1999, Mr. Krugman became a columnist for the New York Times, where his writing became more overtly political—particularly after President Bush's election in 2000. During the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he wrote: "The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts."

More recently, Mr. Krugman has been among many economists who criticized the Treasury's plan to buy toxic mortgages from banks, arguing that the government instead should inject capital into institutions.

The prize, which isn't technically a Nobel but the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, comes with a purse of 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million.

Esta foto me para los pelos

Odio ser un Geekonomist, pero para mi esa foto es como Super Smash Brothers version non plus ultra.

La falacia de la autoridad

Si Gary Becker lo dice, es muy muy muy probable que sea cierto.

We're Not Headed for a Depression

No, this isn't the crisis that kills global capitalism.

By GARY S. BECKER

In order to promote a much smoother functioning of the financial system, it is paramount to distinguish between the immediate steps needed to cope with the present crisis and the long-run reforms needed to reduce the likelihood of future crises. Let's start with the short-run fixes.

First of all, the magnitude of this financial disturbance should be placed in perspective. Although it is the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it is a far smaller crisis, especially in terms of the effects on output and employment. The United States had about 25% unemployment during most of the decade from 1931 until 1941, and sharp falls in GDP. Other countries experienced economic difficulties of a similar magnitude. So far, American GDP has not yet fallen, and unemployment has reached only a little over 6%. Both figures are likely to get quite a bit worse, but they will nowhere approach those of the 1930s.

The Treasury's announced insurance of all money-market funds, and the full insurance of bank deposits, carry considerable moral hazard risks, but they have not aroused much controversy. The main thrust of the new banking law allows the Treasury secretary to purchase bank assets up to $700 billion in order to increase the liquidity of the banking system. These assets are of uncertain worth since there is essentially no market for many of them, and hence they have no market price. The government hopes to create this market partly through using auctions, where banks would offer their assets at particular prices, and the government would decide whether to buy them. I would have preferred starting with a smaller dollar value of purchases, and up the amount if the situation deteriorates further.

Partly because many consumers are repelled by the intention to bail out companies and their executives who made decisions that got the companies into trouble, the new law includes income and severance pay limits for executives whose firms seek government help. Even though one cannot think much of executives who led their banks into such a mess, that is a bad precedent since it involves too much micromanagement of bank operations. Moreover, such salary controls can be evaded by very generous fringe benefits.

The moral-hazard consequences for banks receiving a bailout now is worrisome since they may expect to get rescued again by the government if their future investments turn sour. Yet while I find helping these banks highly distasteful, moral-hazard concerns should be temporarily relaxed when the whole short-term credit system is close to collapse. Still, the bank bill with its huge bailout does suggest that the $29 billion bailout of the bondholders of Bear Stearns in March was a mistake. It seemed to have a moral-hazard effect by encouraging Lehman Brothers and other investment banks to delay in raising more capital because they too might have expected the government to come to their rescue if times got much worse. Although the government was apparently concerned that foreign central banks were major holders of the bonds, it was unwise to give them and other bondholders such full protection.

One troubling provision is that the government can take an equity stake in banks it helps. Some economists have proposed a similar role for government equity in these banks. I believe it is unwise to give governments equity in private companies, even if the government does not have voting rights in company policies. Many examples in recent history, such as the current Alitalia fiasco, show that political interests outweigh economic ones when governments have some ownership of private companies. This is likely to happen in this bailout if some banks that are helped decide to sharply cut employment in the districts of some congressmen, or to transfer many jobs overseas.

Taxpayers may be stuck with hundreds of billions of dollars of losses from the various government insurance provisions and government purchases of assets. Although the media has made much of this possibility through headlines like "$700 Billion Bailout," such large losses are highly unlikely except in the low probability event that the economy falls into a sustained major depression. Indeed, with efficient auctions, the government may well make money on its actions, just as the Resolution Trust Corporation that took over many savings-and-loan banks during the 1980s crisis did not lose much, if any, money. By buying assets when they are depressed and waiting out the crisis, the government may have a profit on these assets when they are finally sold back to the private sector. Making money does not mean the government involvement is wise, but the likely losses to taxpayers are being greatly exaggerated.

The temporary banning of short sales is an example of a perennial approach to difficulties in financial markets and elsewhere; namely, "shoot the messenger." Short sales did not cause the crisis, but reflect beliefs about how long the slide will continue. Trying to prevent these beliefs from being expressed suppresses useful information, and also creates serious problems for many hedge funds that use short sales to hedge other risks. Their ban can also cause greater panic in other markets.

The main problem with the modern financial system based on widespread use of derivatives and securitization is that while financial specialists understand how individual assets function, even they have limited understanding of the aggregate risks created by the system. That is, insufficient appreciation of how the whole incredibly complex financial system operates when exposed to various types of stress. In light of such limitations, it is difficult to propose long-term reforms. Still, a few reforms seem reasonably likely to reduce the probability of future financial crises.

- Increase capital requirements. The capital requirements of banks relative to assets should be increased after the crisis is over in order to prevent the highly leveraged ratios of assets to capital in financial institutions during the past several years. Possibly a minimum ratio of capital to assets should be imposed by the Fed on investment banks and money funds. As much as possible, the measure of capital should not be its book value but its market value, such as the market value of publicly traded shares of banks. Book value measures, for example, apparently badly missed the plight of Japanese banks during their decade-long banking crisis of the 1990s.

- Sell Freddie and Fannie. The government should as quickly as possible sell Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to fully private companies that receive no government insurance or other help. These two giants did not cause the housing mess, but in recent years they surely greatly contributed to it, partly through congressional pressure on them to increase their purchases of subprime loans. They have owned or guaranteed almost half of the $12 trillion in outstanding mortgages while having a small capital base. The housing market already has excessive amounts of government subsidies, such as from the tax exemption of interest on mortgages, and should not have government sponsored enterprises that insure mortgage-backed securities.

- No more bailouts. The "too big to fail" approach to banks and other companies should be abandoned as new long-term financial policies are developed. Such an approach is inconsistent with a free-market economy. It also has caused dubious company bailouts in the past, such as the large government loan years ago to Chrysler, a company that remained weak and should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy. All the American auto companies have asked for and received handouts too since they cannot compete against Japanese, Korean and German car makers, partly because these American companies have been incredibly badly managed. A "too many institutions in trouble to fail principle," as in the present financial crisis, may still be necessary on rare occasions, but failure of badly run large financial and other companies is healthy and indeed necessary for the survival of a robust free-enterprise competitive system.

Is this a final "Crisis of Global Capitalism" -- to borrow the title of a book by George Soros written shortly after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98? The crisis that kills capitalism has been said to happen during every major recession and financial crisis ever since Karl Marx prophesized the collapse of capitalism in the middle of the 19th century. Although I admit to having greatly underestimated the severity of the current crisis, I am confident that sizable world economic growth will resume before very long under a mainly capitalist world economy.

Consider, for example, that in the decade after various predictions of the collapse of global capitalism following the Asian crisis, both world GDP and world trade experienced unprecedented growth thanks to the power of market competition on a global scale. The South Korean economy, for example, was pummeled during that crisis, but has had significant economic growth since. World economic growth will recover once we are over the present severe financial difficulties.

I'M MAD AS HELL

Exactamente así me siento

Y de paso queda relacionado con la crisis financiera, que en lo personal me ha dejado muy en claro cuan charlatana es mucha gente.

Vean que fácil se puede ganar uno un Oscar por 5 minutos de actuación:



Estoy gritando desde mi ventana, ud?

Creo que él se va a ganar el Nobel

Diay no hay mucho que decir, creo que Martin Feldstein se va a ganar el Nobel de Economía.