sidburgess says:

The pork in the bill today should be criminal. Great conversation.

Bo Nash says:

Thanks for the conversation John and Andrew. Excellent stuff!

There was an interesting breakdown of the House vote (and how little it had to do with party affiliation) on the Freakonomics blog yesterday morning that relates to part of your discussion:

“If you have any doubts about whether Congress’s rejection of the bailout was cold re-election politics, Nate Silver’s very careful analysis of the Congressional vote is well worth reading. Of the 38 congressmen in close re-election races, 30 voted against the rescue plan.

“Excluding these highly politicized representatives, the vote was basically even: 197 for to 198 against. And of the 26 congressmen who are retiring (and hence are unswayed by the electoral math), all but a handful voted for the bill.”

Jim says:

In reference to the cycles — I’ve always found it interesting how humanity can’t stand the thought of chaos. We try to make order and cycles whether there are any or not. And we will try to subvert the data if needed to support our “order”.

I see this a lot in my online game; they use a single RNG process to pop numbers for every action, interaction and roll that happens. As a consequence, there is NO dependence between each attempt to do ANYTHING. For example, you try to hit a monster — your chance is 50/50. You might get 10 hits in a row, or 10 misses, or any number in between.

However, people COME UP WITH examples of how they do X and Y, which leads to Z. However, there is no causative relation. But they still BELIEVE there HAS to be something going on, because they are human and their head desperately wants there to be links between what they see happen and what the see began.

It always annoys the hell out of me to have to explain, once again, why statistically you can still have a chance for something to happen 500 times in a row — because each individual chance is independent of the other chances. You’d be surprised how many people can’t ACCEPT that concept and that continue to argue that there are causes — no matter how many ways you show them there aren’t.

Good talk by the way, but something you might also want to think about: how much of the “new investment products” that have been brought out over the past 10,20,30 years are considered “shady” or “scammy” JUST because they are new and different?

Would that impression change if there were extensive regulations explaining what each product IS and what you can DO with it and HOW to trade it?

I mention this because, it seems to me, there are many folks in the banking side complaining they didn’t understand what they were buying (which I believe was a hedge explanation too) — would it make the investment industry more palatable if we all could fully understand every single product and thus determine what the risks of owning and selling it are?

soundwash says:

this bill is a disgrace.

found some of the bacon:

New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill
– Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
– Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
– 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)

Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
– Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
– American Samoa (Sec. 309)
– Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
– Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
– Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
– Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
– Railroads (Sec. 316)
– Auto Racing Tracks (317)
– District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
– Wool Research (Sec. 325)

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/01/senate-bailout-bill-hits-the-internet/

Mr. Fusion says:

Simple, the Stock Markets are going to continue to slide until the investors have received bailouts too.

huxbux says:

@jim

That’s what is commonly referred to as the narrative fallacy.

chuck says:

There’s also a 100,000 year ice age cycle.
It consists of 90,000 years of cold (ice age) and then 10,000 years of warm.

We are currently at the end of the 10,000 year period. Actually we’re about 1,000 years past the end of the period.

That doesn’t mean we’re overdue for an ice-age. The periods of time between the warm and cold periods can fluctuate + or – 1,000 years or so.

But maybe this global warming isn’t such a bad thing.

Benjamin Lee says:

Bailout can only temporary stop the bleeding but not curing the disease. Look at the deficit and mounting national debt.