Comments for We're Hosed

Comment on Parsing WXR In Ruby by Cecil

Cecil — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:25:02 +0000

Viv,

We can make it work. Shoes is undergoing some (ahem) ‘transitions’.
The older script you found was replaced by a latter version as mentioned
at http://mvmanila.com/2008/09/30/new-version-of-splitwxr-is-available/

Try downloading and installing Shoes from this link:

http://cloud.github.com/downloads/whymirror/shoes/shoes-0.r1134-novideo.exe

Then download and run my SplitWXR.rb (0.2) from
http://www.mvmanila.com/public/SplitWXR-0.2.exe

Comment on Parsing WXR In Ruby by Viv Smythe

Viv Smythe — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:55:27 +0000

I was recommended WXR splitter in order to import a monster blog, but I can’t get it to get past the shoes script to try the rest of the application – “The parameter was incorrect”.

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Operating System Version 5.1.2600

I really need to be able to do this.

Comment on Half a clue by gold coins

gold coins — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:48:57 +0000

Nice blog post, I just got out of the college of gold here and still keep track of our gold coins blog posts and found yours. Great post, I agree with most of the pros of the article, great research, well keep in touch. John Gold Coins ADMIN: I'm so glad they taught you to spam blogs.

Comment on The romance of gold by gold coins

gold coins — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:47:14 +0000

Comment on Breaking News: Capitalist (GS) fails Senate Purity Test by Cecil (admin)

Cecil (admin) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:46:31 +0000

All metaphors break down when describing a “synthetic” CDO. I didn’t know about those until the Senate beatdown. How many times have leveraged derivatives of derivatives failed and caused financial melt downs? 100% perhaps. What’s next, an ETF of the VIX? I think that might exist. Can I buy options on it?

Comment on Breaking News: Capitalist (GS) fails Senate Purity Test by The CLO

The CLO — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:42:19 +0000

Actually, it’s even more removed than in your example. Goldman Sachs in this instance isn’t really the seller of the car, they secure the used car and act as intermediary between someone who sells cars for a living and someone who wants to buy one. They collect a fee for doing so.

Actually, a better example (bettor example :-) ) would be that Goldman acts as bookmaker. They know a bunch of folks who want to bet on the upcoming game at MBS field between the Longhorns and the Shortstacks. They set the line at Longhorns giving three, know a bunch of folks who want to bet a lot of money on the Longhorns, and because they also know a lot of people who want to bet on the Shortstacks, they’re able to make the book for that bet. They collect the vig, of course.

Meanwhile, they also happen to think that anyone betting on the Longhorns is crazy, and also have a some dollars of their own on the Shortstacks taking the points. But bear in mind that they’re only dealing with professional gamblers.

Now, that system is rife for abuse, obviously, and even worse is the problem that a bunch of folks betting on the Longhorns and Shortstacks borrowed th funds to do so, so they may not be able to make good on their bets. The bookies try to avoid this problem by buying “bookmakers insurance”, but the only folks who sell that are…other bookmakers, who don’t need to keep any cash in reserve to cover the “bookmakers insurance” they’re selling. So if things were to go to hell in a handbasket, everybody might lose their money.

Which is, of course, what happened.

But those issues do not mean that a bookmaker who thinks someone betting on the Longhorns is crazy has committed fraud because they are accepting bets on the Longhorns.

Comment on Scottrade Booyah! by joe

joe — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:27:04 +0000

give me back the old scottrade

Comment on The romance of gold by The CLO

The CLO — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:13:08 +0000

You’ll be interested to know that both Glenn Beck (right wing nutjob) and Air America (left wing circle jerk radio station) have been running ads talking up why Gold is such a wonderful investment.

When the kooks on both sides of the spectrum are saying that something is really really great, that’s a flashing sign staying “keep as far away from this as possible”.

Comment on Scottrade Booyah! by Cecil

Cecil — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:37:26 +0000

Has anyone called Scottrade on the phone?

Comment on Scottrade Booyah! by What the bleep

What the bleep — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:46:56 +0000

I don’t understand and I’m furious. This new tax center has nothing but errors it’s calculating everything wrong.