K_A_A_A's Xanga

Ants Marching

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:08:15 GMT

http://music.aol.com/video/ants-marching-live-at-the-gorge/dave-matthews-band/sony:1847356137

Probably the best concert song of all time....

Dave Matthews Band — Ants Marching

He wakes up in the morning
Does his teeth bite to eat and he's rolling
Never changes a thing
The week ends the week begins
She thinks, we look at each other
Wondering what the other is thinking
But we never say a thing
These crimes between us grow deeper

Take these chances
Place them in a box until a quiter time
Lights down, you up and die

Goes to visit his mommy
She feeds him well his concerns
He forgets them
And remembers being small
Playing under the table and dreaming

Take these chances
Place them in a box until a quieter time
Lights down, you up and die
Driving in on this highway
All these cars and upon the sidewalk
People in every direction
No words exchanged
No time to exchange

When all the little ants are marching
Red and black antennas waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way

Candyman teasing the thoughts of a
Sweet tooth tortured by the weight loss
Programs cutting the corners
Loose end, loose end, cut, cut
On the fence, could not to offend
Cut, cut, cut, cut

Take these chances
Place them in a box until a quieter time
Lights down, you up and die

The real inconvenient truth / The kid issue

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:53:32 GMT

In light of the UN's Copenhagen climate change conference happening right now, tonight I blog about two articles with opposing views on an interesting topic: dealing with the world's overpopulation issue.

The first is from the National Post this weekend titled "The real inconvenient truth" promoting a thought that the world must adopt the Chinese one-child policy. The next is from a couple of months back from Forbes, titled "The Kid Issue" explaining the dangers of declining populations such as that advocated by environmentalists.

Please comment your opinions.

The real inconvenient truth: The whole world needs to adopt China’s one-child policy
National Post, 08 Dec 2009. Pages 34 - 35

The “inconvenient truth” overhanging the UN’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.

The world’s other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity’s soaring reproduction rate.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world’s leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

The intelligence behind this is the following:

If only one child per female was born as of now, the world’s population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.

By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world’s forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.

Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It’s dramatic. And yet the world’s leaders don’t even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i.e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.

China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.

For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.

The point is that Copenhagen’s talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures

The Kid Issue: Shrinking populations bode poorly for world economies
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/07/japan-elections-birthrates-opinions-columnists-joel-kotkin_print.html

Japan's recent election, which overthrew the decades-long hegemony of the Liberal Democratic Party, was remarkable in its own right. But perhaps its most intriguing aspect was not the dawning of a new era but the emergence of the country's low birthrate as a major political concern.

Many Japanese recognize that their birth dearth contributes to the country's long-standing economic torpor. The kid issue was prominent in the campaign of newly elected Democratic Party Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who promised to increase the current $100 a month subsidy per child to $280 and make public high school free. The Liberal Democrats also proposed their own pro-natalist program with a scheme for free child day care.

Japan's predicament seems obvious. Its fertility rate has dropped by a third since 1975. By 2015 a full quarter of the population will be over 65. Generally inhospitable to immigrants, Japan could see its population drop from a current 127 million to 95 million by 2050, with as much as 40% of the population over 65 years of age. By then, no matter how innovative the workforce, Dai Nippon will simply be too old to compete.

While Japan's demographic crisis is an extreme case, many countries throughout East Asia and Europe share a similar predicament. Even with its energy riches, Russia's low birth and high mortality rates suggest that its population will drop 30% by 2050 to less than one-third of that of the U.S. Even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has spoken of "the serious threat of turning into a decaying nation."

Russia's de facto tsar has cause for concern. Throughout history low fertility and socioeconomic decline have been inextricably linked, creating a vicious cycle that affected once-vibrant civilizations such as as ancient Rome and 17th-century Venice.

Persistently low birthrates and sagging population growth inevitably undermine the growth capacity of an economy. Children provide a large consumer market and push their parents to work harder. By having children, parents also make a commitment to the future for themselves, their communities and their country.

In contrast, a largely childless society produces other attitudes. It tends to place greater emphasis on leisure activities over work. It also shifts political pressure away from future growth and toward paying pensions for the aging. An aging society is likely to resist risky innovation or infrastructure investments meant to serve future generations.

Of course, on a global level, lower birthrates should be seen as a positive. Population growth projections made around the time of The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich's widely acclaimed 1968 Malthusian tract, which predicted global mass starvation, have turned out to be well off the mark. Global population growth rates of 2% in the 1960s have dropped to less than half that rate, and projections of the number of earth's human residents in 2000 overshot the mark by over 200 million.

This pattern is likely to continue: growth rates will drop further largely due to an unanticipated drop in birthrates in developing countries such as Mexico and Iran. These declines are in part the result of increased urbanization, the education of women and higher property prices. The world's population, according to some estimates, could peak as early as 2050 and begin to fall by the end of the century.

Yet in some places, like Japan, declining birthrates may already be too much of a good thing. The same is true elsewhere in East Asia, particularly in China, where the one-child policy has set the stage for a rapidly aging population by mid-century. Fertility is particularly low in highly crowded Asian cities like Tokyo, Shanghai, Tainjin, Beijing and Seoul.

Over the past few decades a rapid workforce expansion fueled the rise of the so-called East Asian tigers, the great economic success story of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. But within the next four decades most of the developed countries in East Asia, as well as Europe, will become veritable old-age homes: A third or more of their populations will be over 65, compared with one in five in the U.S.

Not that the U.S. doesn't also have to cope with an aging population and lower population growth. But comparatively speaking it maintains a relatively youthful, dynamic demographic. Its fertility rate is about 50% higher than Russia's, Germany's or Japan's and well above those of China, Italy, Singapore, Korea and virtually every country in the former eastern Europe.

The reasons for this divergence with other advanced countries likely includes such things as continuing immigration, more land, larger houses, a strong aspirational culture and a higher degree of religious affiliation. Whatever the cause, a younger demography could lead to a relatively brighter future for America than is now commonly assumed.

Additionally, in the next decade the U.S. will benefit from a millennial baby boomlet, as the children of the original boomers start having offspring. This next surge in population may be delayed if tough economic times continue, but over time it will translate into a growing workforce, sustained consumer spending and will likely spur a rash of new creative inputs.

On the surface, these trends should help America to maintain a growing economy while its main competitors fade. By 2050 Europe's economy could be half that of the U.S. But this is not inevitable. As in Japan, some leaders in European countries understand they cannot sustain prosperity with a steadily declining workforce.

Many European countries are boosting benefits for families. In some, a pro-natalist policy is also being driven by concerns about the preservation of national cultures. In contrast to America, a country defined by immigration, most European countries--as well as Japan, China and Korea--have been far more resistant to outside influences.

The rise of immigration in recent decades has led to growing European nativist movements. Many Europeans, including liberal ones, are less than sanguine about the long-term consequences of Muslim birth rates now three times higher than those of indigenous Europeans. If current trends continue, according to the Brookings Institution, the Muslim population of Europe could double by 2015 while the non-Muslims shrink by 3.5%. Without a sustained boost in baby-making among native Europeans, much of the continent may soon confront the prospect of an essentially Islamic future.

But even so, attempts to foster a revival in European birthrates will face strong opposition from environmental activists who have amassed enormous influence. Some consider procreation of carbon-belching E.U. citizens as something close to anathema. In Great Britain, Jonathan Porritt, chair of the U.K.'s Sustainable Development Commission has advocates cutting the island's population in half as a way to reduce global greenhouse gases.

For their part, some America greens have expressed concern over our country's relative fecundity. The president's science adviser, John Holdren, a longtime protégé of Malthusian prophet Ehrlich, has in the past spoken about the need to limit families to two children. On the right, nativists also fear that too much of our new population will be of Asian or Hispanic descent.

These pressures could lead to curbs on immigration, which would slow population growth. Other steps being considered by administration planners, such as cramming Americans into smaller houses in urban centers, would clearly discourage family formation. A persistently weak economy would do the same.

Yet those favoring strong steps to curb population here first should think of the consequences. As the Japanese increasingly recognize, it's better to experience some population growth than to become a giant nursing home. A somewhat youthful, gradually growing population certainly may create considerable environmental and social challenges, but a scenario of persistent decline and rapid aging seems far worse.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:04:42 GMT

"If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

- Thomas Friedman, Author of Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why we need a green revolution - and how it can renew America

Interviewing the tortured

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:07:13 GMT

Fareed Zakaria, columnist at Newsweek and host of GPS on CNN, interviews his fellow Newsweek columnist Maziar Bahari in London after his release from Evin Prison in Iran for charges that were never substantiated or filed - "a political fiction".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeg8iamawzI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WONlBpMxMHc

Congratz to all graduands!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:01:33 GMT

The Descent of Money

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:52:06 GMT

... the reason [for the inherent instability of the financial system is] human behaviour. As we have seen in recent months, all financial institutions are at the mercy of our innate tendency to veer from euphoria to despondency; our recurrent inability to protect ourselves against what the statisticians call “tail risk” (rare but high-impact events in the “tails” of the bell-shaped curve that plots events according to their frequency); above all, our perennial failure to learn from financial history.

In a famous article, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated with a series of experiments the tendency that people have to miscalculate probabilities when confronted with simple financial choices. First, they gave their sample group 1,000 Israeli pounds each. Then they offered them a choice between either a) a 50 per cent chance of winning an additional 1,000 pounds or b) a 100 per cent chance of winning an additional 500 pounds. Only 16 per cent of people chose a); everyone else (84 per cent) chose b). Next, they asked the same group to imagine having received 2,000 Israeli pounds each and confronted them with another choice between either a) a 50 per cent chance of losing 1,000 pounds or b) a 100 per cent chance of losing 500 pounds. This time the majority (69 per cent) chose a); only 31 per cent chose b). Yet, viewed in terms of their payoffs, the two problems are identical. In both cases you have a choice between a 50 per cent chance of ending up with I,OOO pounds and an equal chance of ending up with 2,000 pounds (a and c) or a certainty of ending up with I,500 pounds (b and d). In this and other experiments, Kahneman and T versky identify a striking asymmetry: risk aversion for positive prospects, but risk seeking for negative ones. A loss has about two and a half times the impact of a gain of the same magnitude.

This 'failure of invariance' is only one of many heuristic biases (skewed modes of thinking or learning) that distinguish real human beings from the homo oeconomus of neoclassical economic theory, who is supposed to make his decisions rationally, on the basis of all the available information and his expected utility. Other experiments show that we also succumb too readily to such cognitive traps as:

1. Availability bias, which causes us to base decisions on information that is more readily available in our memories, rather than the data we really need.

2. Hindsight bias, which causes us to attach higher probabilities to events after they have happened (ex post) than we did before they happened (ex ante).

3. The problem of induction, which leads us to formulate general rules on the basis of insufficient information.

4. The fallacy of conjunction (or disjunction), which means we tend to overestimate the probability that seven events of 90 per cent probability will all occur, while underestimating the probability that at least one of seven events of 10 per cent probability will occur.

5. Confirmation bias, which inclines us to look for confirming evidence of an initial hypothesis, rather than falsifying evidence that would disprove it.

6. Contamination effects, whereby we allow irrelevant but proximate information to influence a decision.

7. The affect heuristic, whereby preconceived value-judgements interfere with our assessment of costs and benefits.

8. Scope neglect, which prevents us from proportionately adjusting what we should be willing to sacrifice to avoid harms of different orders of magnitude.

9. Overconfidence in calibration, which leads us to underestimate the confidence intervals within which our estimates will be robust (e.g. to conflate the ‘best case’ scenario with the ‘most probable’).

10. Bystander apathy, which inclines us to abdicate individual responsibility when in a crowd.

If you still doubt the hard-wired fallibility of human beings, ask yourself the following question. A bat and ball, together, cost a total of £1.10 and the bat costs £1 more than the ball. How much is the ball? The wrong answer is the one that roughly one in every two people blurts out: 10 pence. The correct answer is 5 pence, since only with a bat worth £ 1.05 and a ball worth 5 pence are both conditions satisfied.

If any field has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the way financial markets work, it must surely be the burgeoning discipline of behavioural finance. It is far from clear how much of the body of work derived from the efficient markets hypothesis can survive this challenge. Those who put their faith in the 'wisdom of crowds' means no more than that a large group of people is more likely to make a correct assessment than a small group of supposed experts. But that is not saying much. The old joke that 'Macroeconomists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions' is not so much a joke as a dispiriting truth about the difficulty of economic forecasting. Meanwhile, serious students of human psychology will expect as much madness as wisdom from large groups of people. A case in point must be the near-universal delusion among investors in the first half of 2007 that a major liquidity crisis could not occur.
"

Excerpted from the Afterword of The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. Pg. 344-347. You can find it on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927

The Hardest Part and Postcards From Far Away

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:22:15 GMT

Here Chris Martin of Coldplay sings the latter part of the acoustic version of "The Hardest Part" followed by a fantastic piano piece titled "Postcards From Far Away".

http://tiny.cc/Z2amd

Track extracted from the live CD "Left Right Left Right Left".

Lyrics:

"... and everything I know is wrong
and everything I do ...
it just comes undone
and everything is torn apart

.. and thats the hardest part
thats the hardest part (x3)"

The Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto Plan

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:23:32 GMT

As I have told some people, I am heading out to the vicinity of Montreal for something related to work at the end of October (Oct 26-30) and since I have a company-paid flight there and back, I am also planning a short vacation in that general area at least till the first half of November.

I plan to go hostel/cheap-hotel-room hopping to at least Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto ...
and I might drop in to Quebec City, London and Windsor if I decide to get a VIA Rail Corridorpass (http://www.viarail.ca/en/fares/travel-passes/corridorpass).

This post is essentially to see if there is anyone out there on my friend list who happens to be vacationing out there around this time or wants to go vacationing around this area with me.

The very preliminary tentative plan is below ... Let me know if u wanna join in by Facebok PM or email.

October 30 - November 4 : Ottawa (might include excursion to Quebec City)
November 4 - November 9 - Montreal
November 9 - November 15: Toronto (might include excursion out to London, Windsor)

Regarding Canadian innovation and the sale of Nortel:

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:46:48 GMT

"Government has got a really important role in waxing the surf board, but you need to have the wave"

Do we have the wave?

... as featured on the CMA Update Magazine

Sun, 17 May 2009 15:42:50 GMT

Find the Magazine here: http://www.cmabc.com/index.cfm/ci_id/14129.htm