Yearly Archives: 2013

So You Want To Short The Student Loan Bubble? Now You Can

"SecondMarket Holdings, the private-market securities trading firm best known for allowing numerous overzealous fans to buy FaceBook at moronic valuations, on Monday 'will roll out a platform allowing lenders to issue securities backed by student loans directly to investors.' Why is SecondMarket doing this? The same reason Lloyd Blankfein was selling Abacus (and all those other synthetic MBS CDOs) to clueless yield chasers all across Europe and Asia: yield chasing and career risk. The justification is also the same: making a market." Continue reading →

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My life as a tyrant

"I became a police officer because I wanted to be a good guy. Even though we’ve all seen reports of police brutality and corruption, I still believe we cops are the good guys. I’ve seen cops perform brave, selfless acts for strangers on countless occasions. Even the worst cops I’ve ever known would risk their lives to defend the innocent. But I have to say this anyway. Before you start throwing shoes, hear me out. I have a good reason for saying it. If you think our police are no threat to your freedom, you’re living in a fantasy world." Continue reading →

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7-Year-Old Suspended, Teacher Says He Shaped Pastry Into Gun

"Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh's own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble. At Park Elementary school, Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. Josh's dad received a phone call from the school saying that Josh has been suspended for two days because he took his breakfast pastry and fashioned it into a gun. Josh's dad was astounded to learn the school chose such a harsh punishment, even after no one was hurt. Late Friday afternoon a letter went home with students explaining the incident saying, 'A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture.'" Continue reading →

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Why Is the Navy Building a Shiny Drone Base in Sunny Malibu?

"Don't you think of red Corvettes, sunglasses, coconut oil, and Hellfire missiles? It's perfect, right? The Navy is inclined to agree. All that, and you get to fly drones. But not just any drones—state-of-the-art drones. The Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton is at the fore of robotic surveillance, and the Navy wants their 131-foot wings and spiffy 360-degree sensors cruising around the Pacific Ocean in the name of American supremacy. The goal is 24/7 surveillance—an American eye over the water at all times, during wartime, during peacetime, and all the time." Continue reading →

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Cash airlift helped avert Greek bank run during debt crisis

"Greece's central bank had billions of euros of banknotes shipped in from other central banks to avert a bank run during the country's debt crisis as depositors withdrew their money. Fears the debt-laden country might ditch the euro and return to the drachma led Greeks to pull out billions of euros of savings in the last three years, stashing their cash under mattresses or in safe deposit boxes. To meet the high demand for cash, the Bank of Greece had loads of banknotes secretly airshipped from abroad, feeding it to banks throughout the country to avoid shortages that could have intensified worries and set off a bank run." Continue reading →

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Let’s Look a Little More Closely at What Bernanke Told Congress

"In Congressional testimony last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke slipped something in that no one much noticed. He said that the Fed might eventually choose to exit from its current monetary expansion binge, not by selling US government securities, but by letting them mature. So what happens if the Fed holds a bond to maturity? In that case, the Fed presumably receives the principal payment from the Treasury and then sends that back to the Treasury too. In effect, the government has simply canceled its own debt. Bernanke has in effect announced an intention to cancel US bonds, and it doesn’t cause a ripple." Continue reading →

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Sequester solved: Sell national parks, stop foreign aid, leave Germany

"Before you head for the bunker or put a down payment on a famous bridge, I’d like to offer some sensible alternatives to sequestration calamity. Here are three that would solve the sequestration problem with billions to spare. These are just a few alternatives to the disaster that will supposedly accompany giving the federal government a smaller raise this year. Tragically, most people would view these proposals as crazy but view borrowing money to give away to others as perfectly sane. That’s when you know the end is nigh." Continue reading →

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Nato commander apologises after troops shoot dead Afghan children

"The area, Lowar-e-Dowahom, was often patrolled by international troops, a spokesman said. 'They saw two young children who were apparently listening to a radio and they shot them – it is not yet clear why,' the spokesman said. Australian forces deployed in Uruzgan said earlier there had been an 'operational incident' in the province's northwest but gave no details except that no soldiers were harmed. On 13 February a Nato air strike requested by Afghan forces killed 10 people – including five children and four women – in the eastern province of Kunar, prompting Karzai to ban his troops from requesting foreign air strikes." Continue reading →

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Homeland Security built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show. The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police." Continue reading →

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