Mathew: The Time article I referred to had nothing to do with modeling; it described the reality of how the money was lost.
*Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history. * In essence, the large, institutional mortgage financial institutions used their mortgage assets as a stake against which they leveraged (bought on margin) to play in the volitile financial derivatives market. Everybody knows how cool it is to buy on margin when the market is going up. Now everybody also understands how uncool it is to be caught with your pants down after having bet the ranch, leveraged to the hilt, only see the market suddenly tank. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And now our political leaders want to bail out those reckless, foolish fund managers and their bosses. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:27 AM, Matthew Francisco < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Doug, > I think it's a poor move to use a model--did the Officers use a model > for their article in Time?--to fix blame with such confidence > especially when the thing to blame is a vague collective identity. > Granted, sometimes it seems that such fixing is needed because we need > to reaffirm our own group identifications especially if they are under > attack or ignored and more so if we are in political season. The > point of Buchanan's article, I think, is that models are good at > generating alternative narratives about causation in systems where no > single person or group of people can ever know 'the system' and the > experts and stakeholders all see the system in different ways, with > different stories about how the system works. I think a more > ambitious goal for modeling these systems is bringing together or > overlaying (integrating?) these local stories into a sort of > meta-narrative. > Matt > > On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 8:44 AM, Douglas Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > On another mailing list that I frequent, there is a small core of > > Republicans who *insist* that is was the DemoCRAPS[sic] who caused our > > current economic crisis. > > > > I sent the following message to them yesterday, after finding the nice, > > short informative article in Time (link below). I find that it is > sometime > > necessary to use small words when dealing with political zealots. > > > > Astonishingly, it was not the DemoCRAPS[sic] who were the cause of our > > current financial fuck-up. Read this short article to discover who is > > really to blame. > > > > Can you say, "Risky derivatives trading"? Can you say, "Irresponsible > > hedge fund management"? > > > > I knew you could. > > > > http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html?cnn=yes > > > > > > Me, I'm an independent. > > > > --Doug > > > > -- > > Doug Roberts, RTI International > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > 505-455-7333 - Office > > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > > > On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 9:29 AM, glen e. p. ropella < > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > >> > >> > >> > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/opinion/01buchanan.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin > >> > >> -- > >> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > >> > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
