Jokes about Tim Geithner

One of the principles of modern macroeconomics (which just missed the cut in Greg Mankiw's textbook) is that all models of the economy should include jokes about Tim Geithner. Fortunately President Obama has been trained well by Larry Summers and has incorporated this concept into his policymaking.

The President has attended his first White House Correspondents' Dinner. The results:

Google Street View

Missmarketcrash has frittered a good part of the morning away looking at the just-launched London version of  Google Street View.  Here is Missmarketcrash's local high street and the line outside the local butcher shop.  A bit dull compared to the image of the puking man and his friend with reindeer antlers that has been making the rounds.  Most of Dulwich has been re-classified as Camberwell by Google street view.  I can hear the locals fainting.  Maybe it is just a reflection of where property prices are headed. 

I ought to be chatting about AIG, bonuses and retroactive taxes, but, it is a philosophical tangle on many levels.  I will say that anger is a weird thing.  If we are collectively in some kind of emotional process in digesting the current economic crisis, anger is one of those things to move forward and beyond.  Missmc has a bit of a plexiglass screen up on the emotional side and is trying to address things purely on an intellectual level.  With that, the examination of human reaction in the media is a topic I am willing to tackle.  After watching Obama on Jay Leno last night, I can say that what works well on the emotional side for people is good comedic timing.

With that, here is the puking man and his reindeer friend.

Obama, Jay Leno and Robot HRP-4C

Think about robots.  The old-fashioned image of robots conjures up squareness, flashing lights, perhaps an incomprehensible sound.  A mechanical automaton, moving on its own accord, perhaps a bit unpredictable.  A certain menace, or, a comedic aura surrounds the idea of robots-of-old.

Now.  Think about banks.  The old-fashioned image of banks brings forth a sturdy imposing building, men in suits, a kind of properness, reliability and authority.  This image is almost gone.  It is hard to recall because that kind of nostalgia has been erased by current events.

Robots have advanced tremendously since inception.  A new image of robots is evolving in the cultural psyche.  This re-mythologizing process is also underway with the concept of banks. Below is a robot design quite unanticipated by the collective imagination.  Even with consideration of all the models of robot-ness the culture has brought forth, the robot shown here on the BBC website catches one by surprise. And so, it is with Banks.  Expectations are changed.  With regard to the latest robot, known as HRP-4C , an unease and distrust is softened by its feminine features.

Reshaping the cultural palatability of banks and financial instututions is a very tough proposition.  Obama is soon stepping into the cultural myth-making world of television to give his best effort on the Jay Leno show, but, it is going to take much much more than that.  

Japan has produced an amazing array of humourous and odd cultural artifacts since their economic crisis.  The angst has transmogrified into a creativity unique to the country.  If America can do the same with its displeasure, it will be something to look forward to. 

The State of Zero

Missmarketcrash is still thinking about "Zero as a number does not make sense".  After Obama's inaugural speech yesterday, the whole world now knows the banks are at less than zero, and zero would be a rather welcome state to be in at the moment if one were a bank.  The stock markets took notice as well, and did a fantastic swan dive.  But, let's digress for a moment and ponder "Zero"...

In politics, the term "Year Zero" is a zinger.  If for any reason, after a significant event, a country would like to completely shed its past, its cultures and traditions, and, start afresh, well, it might change its calendar and start afresh with year 1, creating a new base in time.  The French revolution tried such a manuever, as did Cambodia.  So, conceptually, it has the capacity to contain more than a bit of an ominous element to it.  

So, onto plain old Zero.  "How can something be nothing" is what I think my son was getting to, centuries after the ancient Greeks pondered the same thing.  Of course, Ancient Greeks believed the world was orderly and intelligible, where as our current civilization is perceiving things within the age of chaos theory.  Quite appropriate at the moment.  Parmenides of Elea was a precurser to Hamlet with the question "Is it, or is it not?".  We've seen a surge of bankers and financiers on the "to be or not to be" topic decide not-to-be in recent months.

So, the idea of zero sometimes contains an innate element relating to "control" within it.  Zero divides us from the negative, standing as a gatekeeper to missing things.  Zero is a neutral territory, but not quite a null unknown, though it stands close to a philosophical world of indetermination.   Much like the neutral response of one of my more learned friends, it almost seems to say "I see..." in response to something.  If you've ever authored a DVD, you know zero is what one would assign as a "country" to let the DVD be enjoyed worldwide with no restrictions.

Much more could be written as there is a world of "Zero" in concept out there to ponder.  But, in regard to The-Banking-Thing, we finally have been told we are far far far less than zero.  I'm expecting my ex-beloved Bank of America stock to reach the state of zero in the next coming weeks.  Nationalization looms, and, that is basically a return to a state of Zero.  And that brings us neatly round back to the question as to whether Zero as a number makes sense.

Reframing the Probability Dimension

So, we are effectively in between presidents, the banks are toppling again, and a miraculous plane lands safely in the Hudson river to divert attention from the bank topic.  Thank goodness for excellent pilots, random events, and geese.  Miracles do happen.

Yesterday Missmarketcrash read "Global Risks 2009", a report issued by the World Economic Forum.  It did not contain much outside of Missmc's knowledge or expectations, but, it did have some rather nice charts with a kind of 1950's design flair.  The part I really enjoyed was the bit on presenting statistics, or, as they put it, "reframing the probability dimension" -

"Rather than specifying the chance of a disaster occurring next year is great than 1 in 100, experts could indicate that the chances of a disaster occurring in the next 25 years exceeds 1 in 5."

Missmc loves reframing the probability dimension with regard to The Bank Thing.  But in relation to the bank thing, everyone is under some kind of agreement that this is the month things are falling to bits.  The Obama uncertainty variable adds into this as we anticipate his inaugural ride into the presidency in his specially designed high-security limousine made by none other than General Motors.  Reframing the probability dimension on the bank thing pretty much gives the outcome that failure of banks is a certain thing.

Unless what?  Well - unless one can reframe the political dimension it seems certain.  The idea that has been floated about in Britain is of creating one Bad Bank.  That absolves the government in a certain way by taking the enormous pile of hard-to-value-and-hard-to-liquidate assets and putting it in another entity which gives  the illusion of being separate from the government.  

And I would just so enjoy designing the letterhead for the Bad Bank.  We could even get a public works project out of it and build a Bad Bank Building.  Gosh...it could almost become something fun....

Not just the Things...

Great Expectations...Americans have always had Great Expectations.  And now...whither thou goest is the question.  America is waiting with baited breath for Obama.  

"Well, God has arrived.  I met him on the 5:15 train" said John Maynard Keynes in 1929 as Wittgenstein arrived in Cambridge.  In the years before that, Wittgenstein had been sitting about sulking, feeling misunderstood for the Tractatus, and was immersed in the readings of Rabindranath Tagore.

Who Missmarketcrash had never read.  Until last night, when all of Wittenstein's later thoughts had some interesting influences revealed that were previously unknown to Missmc.  Reading on, much of the world began to look a bit shape-shifty as well.  Mystics can do that, though Missmarketcrash is usually immune to such things.

Here is a gem of an excerpt from "Creative Unity"...

"The name Shudra symbolises a man who has no margin around his bare utility.  The word denotes a classification which includes all naked machines which have lost their completeness of humanity, be their work manual or intellectual.  They are like walking stomachs or brains, and we feel, in pity, urged to call on God and cry, "Cover them up for mercy's sake with some veil of beauty and life!""

Ok...so perhaps one does not need to call on God or drift that way with the above paragraph though feel free if that is your thing.  I think he was more focused on the idea that the creativity of humankind is a reality shaper, one with a force to make life more.

This more part is what needs mending for Americans.  The American Dream has been demolished as of late, and, there is a spot for something else.  These empty spots can be dangerous if filled incorrectly.

Obama should not be expected to fill the shoes of Philosopher-King.   The task is to mend not just the things, but, more importantly, the relationship between things and how they are perceived.  That is really up to everyone as an individual.  With a little help from the media.

The road not taken...

After a full day with my children and a peek at the news, the theme of the day appears to be behavior prediction and its associated theories and models.  Whether mathematical, scientific, sociologic or with some other base, the methodology of behavior prediction is only questioned when one disagrees and has enough knowledge of the topic to dissent.

Generally, that leaves The-Man-In-The-Street with an article in the newspaper or a magazine which he reads as The Truth as it was ascertained by some important sounding technique, be it an analysis of market performance by assessing the long tails and short noses of a PanGaussian analysis, or, Gina Ford's monotone approach to understimulated child-rearing.  In short, we are assured by the opinions of experts.

So, when there is an Issue where one would like to predict or influence an outcome, whether it the markets, world economies, Gaza, my children -- most would rush to well-worn models, theories and and experts - rushing the past through the brains of todays experts. America is very very good at doing that --  "The Past" is a more important concept to a young nation and so it is held in high esteem.  More astute critical thinkers sit around doing the same, but, challenging the foundations of these theories, methodologies and, well, perhaps coming up with something new. And that innovation will more than likely dissent from the norm.

The situations currently under the worlds ponderances are very much off the norm.  Things may look familiar, but, that is the mistake - seeing markets, world economies, Gaza, anything really -  through the lense of the familiar puts a bit of a blinder on perceptions.  And so, to follow, look closely.  What is happening now with regard to economics and everything that swirls around that is a completely new situation that we have never experienced before.

So, drawing those two points together - looking closely, and, challenging the foundations-of-things-that-are-used-to-explain-things is not a terribly mind-shattering thing to say, but to listen and think off the norm might well be the helpful way - and as to behavior prediction with regard to humans, this kind of thinking requires bravery and is generally the road not taken.

Whither thou goest...

Whither goest thou America, in thy shiny car in the night?

Last night MissMarketcrash had a kind of Jack Kerouac dream - perhaps you know the type - vivid colors, a bit of a sweat, the works.  And, the dream took the form of a stageplay. The play featured a girl named Val who was sitting in a car, sunglasses on, mute.  The driver was a man who kept talking and talking whilst Val's face would suffer very imperceptible tremors, though she remained silent.  Her mouth was slightly open and, at times, her lip quivered.  Her silence was an all-knowing despair type of silence, and, the man was going on and on about life in a really interesting philosophical fashion with pauses in places so we could study Val's deadpan face and her silent answers.  As viewers, we knew he had it all wrong and we were all placed inside the head of Val, keeping a brave face, perhaps wearing the glasses to conceal a tear or two.  And they were not headed anywhere in particular and did not ever arrive anywhere, or, at least they were still driving when I woke up. There then.  We've got an endless destination, we've got cars, and we've got a Missmarketcrash type all wrapped up in a vivid theatre-based dream which was no doubt inspired by the trip to the theatre with the children yesterday twisted with a bit of the-happy-news-that-surrounds-us.

So - who is that man in the dream?  Is it the financial advisor of MissMarketcrash?  Is it her husband?  Is it her alter-ego?  Or maybe Obama?  Gordon Brown? In the play this mystery man driver represented "General Mankind of the Herd" that is, someone who thought like everybody and spoke entirely in cliches.  

The theatre yesterday was located near the London School of Economics.  My children, post-theatre, wandered  up to a penguin statue and an elephant statue at the school and played.  I stared in the window at the books on remainder sale at the economics bookshop with a kind of analytical irony.  Now, I cannot recall any copies of "On the Road" in that window to wrap this all up in a neat and tidy packet, but, I do remember the books were all of the pop-light economics sort.  And no one wanted them.