tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80005612024-03-14T03:10:53.251-05:00Marginal Utility"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics." -FDRTom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.comBlogger2368125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-88764785189794953762009-08-03T23:21:00.002-05:002009-08-03T23:25:41.351-05:00RelocatingWe'll be moving the show over to the long-neglected WordPress version of Marginal Utility. For those of you still checking in, please point your links to <a href="http://atbozzo.wordpress.com/">New Marginal Utility</a> a/k/a http://atbozzo.wordpress.com/. To keep the forces of link-rot at bay, the archives here will remain.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-39960168082070742572009-08-03T15:45:00.005-05:002009-08-03T15:54:39.631-05:00Great Minds Think AlikeAnd I guess that applies to <a target="new" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/08/im-less-interested-in-the.html">James Wolcott</a> and I as well.<br /><br />Have Sarah Palin and George Jones ever been seen in the same place? And, collaterally, if 90% of life (or thereabouts) really is Just Showing Up, what does <a target="new" href="http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jul/31/palin-not-coming-to-reagan-library/">this</a> say about the GOP vetting process?? (h/t <a target="new" href="http://wonkette.com/410235/sarah-palin-pisses-on-ronald-reagans-grave">Wonkette</a>; headline NSFChildren). Or, as a certain NRO columnist would say:<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/27jzHHN97gI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/27jzHHN97gI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />For the rest of us, Ol' Possum got it closer with this one:<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KZ6CjUvrdl0&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KZ6CjUvrdl0&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-2758123181162597442009-07-23T19:53:00.003-05:002009-07-24T07:30:34.001-05:00Gresham's Law of Pizza Relaxing?One of those signs of a possible bottom of the Great Recession is that compared to (say) 9 months ago, a lot less of the time I spend worrying about the possible demise of beloved local small businesses is spent worrying about the one I work for.<br /><br />Tops on the list of the hope-they're-thriving list is <a href="http://www.pizzabrutta.com/index.php">Pizza Brutta</a>, our neighborhood outpost of the Madison Pizza Renaissance. Time was the city's pizza problem was that there was a lot of mediocre-to-bad pizza serving the large and quality-indifferent student and suburbanite-takeout markets. OK, there's still a lot of mediocre-to-bad pizza around. But with a Pizza Brutta around, making pies in the authentic Neapolitan style (with VPN certification) with market ingredients, the rest of them can be ignored.<br /><br />I have a hard time imagining their cost structure. The big "fixed" investment is the wood-fired pizza oven. Was the build-out cheap or expensive? What are rents like on that stretch of Monroe St.? What's the margin on the microbrews on tap?<br /><br />We recently hauled Nina Camic and the kids there for a one-of-us-is-still-blogging dinner.<br /><br />The Caprese salad, with tomatoes from the Westside Community Market and house-made mozzarela:<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3749435998/" title="Caprese by atbozzo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/3749435998_e45a26480d.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Caprese" /></a><br /><br />The Caprino pizza (prosciutto, mushrooms, red onions, goat cheese, and arugula):<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3749438236/" title="Caprino by atbozzo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2468/3749438236_d361fbf14d.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Caprino" /></a><br /><br />The Salsiccia pizza, my regular (house-made sausage, roasted onions, truffle oil):<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3748649265/" title="Salsiccia by atbozzo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3748649265_1a9e5d5b24.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Salsiccia" /></a><br /><br />Nina and Julia:<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3749439374/" title="Nina and Julia by atbozzo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2572/3749439374_66c2bed5b1.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Nina and Julia" /></a><br /><br /><br />For some lily-gilding, Cafe Porta Alba, another VPN outlet late of downtown, is reappearing at Hilldale Mall while the Pizza Hut across the street appears to have closed. Madison readers, support good pizza!Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-14072597303521590992009-07-13T12:07:00.003-05:002009-07-13T12:11:50.702-05:00Offered without (Much) CommentUnfortunate E-Mail Headline from The New Yorker's weekly update on items in their current issue:<br /><blockquote>Sarah Palin, the obesity epidemic.</blockquote><br />Place hasn't been the same since <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Lights-Big-City-McInerney/dp/0394726413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247504956&sr=1-1">Jay McInerney</a> stopped working there. Or at least <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Illumination-Terry-McGarry/dp/0812540034/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247505014&sr=1-1">Terry McGarry</a>.Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-81708616916566397582009-07-07T22:37:00.003-05:002009-07-07T22:50:02.512-05:00What Have You Been Doing Lately?So I'm watching the remake of <em><a target="new" href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0172396/">The End of the Affair</a></em>, and I recognize the priest.<br /><br />And, sure enough, <a target="new" href="http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0005042/">Jason Isaacs</a> was, indeed, one of the stars of <a target="new" href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0098760/">Capital City</a> (yet another show sadly missing from DVD release).<br /><br />And I discover he also has <a target="new" href="http://us.imdb.com/character/ch0000995/">another recurring role</a>, this one in film.<br /><br />But you knew that, didn't you?Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-21024126882080247692009-06-30T17:21:00.001-05:002009-06-30T17:22:04.361-05:00Answering the QuestionIn about 3.5 hours, Stevie Wonder will officially open the Montreal Jazz Festival with a free concert less than a klometer from where I am now sitting. Which brings us back to the question from <em><a href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/quotes">High Fidelity</a></em>: "top five musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s":<br /><br />If I had to pick, using YouTube presence as a guide:<br /><br />5. "Happy Birthday" as performed at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. (Starts around 4:22 in.)<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qvpwhoZt-XI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qvpwhoZt-XI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />Does almost everything wrong. The original is a tribute to Martin Luther King—who then isn't mentioned at all. Just one more reminder of how the Atlanta Olympic Committee lied to the shops on Martin Luther King about all of the business they would be seeing from the Olympic visitors—who were then discouraged from going anywhere near those shops, which spent several hundred thousand dollars on improvements in anticipation that they were not being lied to by the Organizing Committee.<br /><br />4. Part Time Lover<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ll6LLGePYwM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ll6LLGePYwM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />Almost musically interesting. And detectably a Stevie Wonder song, unlike what follows.<br /><br />3. I Just Called to Say I Love You<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PY45DkaP9Ls&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PY45DkaP9Ls&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />The proximate cause of the question from the movie, and truly a depressing song.<br /><br /><br /><br />2. That's What Friends are For<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EtGF2m102Wg&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EtGF2m102Wg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />Friends don't let friends make songs that don't highlight your skills at all. Even "We Own the World" was careful about that. This effort isn't.<br /><br />1. Used to Be (with Charlene)<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ll6LLGePYwM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ll6LLGePYwM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><br />Unlike the later "Gone Too Soon" with Babyface, there's virtually nothing to recommend here; rhyming is strained ("Have another Chivas Regal/Twelve years old and sex is legal") and the history is worthy of Billy Joel ("someone shot the Beatles's lead guitar").<br /><br />Which abominations am I missing?Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-50070644348535372512009-06-22T15:47:00.005-05:002009-06-22T16:42:29.110-05:00Random Notes, Night at the Museum II editionYes, Youngest Daughter got to pick the movie for Father's Day/her birthday. Her review: "It was boring." Even worse: that was as compared to her sixth or seventh viewing of <em>Hotel for Dogs</em>.<br /><br />So some random notes about it, and around the web:<br /><br />(1) <a target="new" href="http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2009/06/night-at-the-museum-battle-for-your-soul.html">Lance Mannion</a> did not warn me that the three cherubs are played by <a target="new" href="http://www.jonasbrothers.com/">The Three Antichrists</a>. Consider yourself so cautioned.*<br /><br />(2) Ezra <a target="new" href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/a_problem_unique_to_private_me.html">schools McMegan</a>. Not that it will do any good.<br /><br />(3) Did anyone else think Amy Adams at the end looks like a hennaed <a target="new" href="http://erin-obrien.blogspot.com/">Erin O'Brien</a>?<br /><br />(4) The Hunting of the Snark did a <a target="new" href="http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2009/06/hacks.html">two</a> <a target="new" href="http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2009/06/hacks-ii-overreaction.html">part</a> post weeks ago on McMegan, bankruptcy, and health care that I'm still trying to digest. Which I mean in a <strong>good</strong> way. If rdan is reading this, yes, I think you should recruit <a target="new" href="http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/">Susan of Texas</a> for <a target="new" href="http://angrybear.blogspot.com/">Angry Bear</a>; her latest post is a perfect summary of <a target="new" href="http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2009/06/nobody-can-do-anything-ever.html">What's Wrong with Contemporary Conservative Thought</a>. Though, as <a target="new" href="http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2009_06_14_archive.html#4233343823582204759#4233343823582204759">the Good Roger Ailes notes</a>, she's developing a strong following for good reason. <br /><br />(5) I assume it was the location of the theatre that got a laugh from the audience at the end of the film when Amelia Earhart leaves 77th Street and starts flying to "Canada." YMMV, but the film sorely needed laughs.<br /><br /><font size=2>*However, since my version of H*ll would feature the "JoBros" performing "More than a Woman" and "This Song Must Drone On," their first appearance does qualify as an Adult Moment in a movie that has more of those than kid jokes.</font>Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-70131410768580557062009-06-18T07:30:00.005-05:002009-06-18T17:42:20.092-05:00Tinfoil Hat Time!After reading <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html">this</a>, and weeping a bit, some Deep Thoughts:<br /><br />1. If the nice people at Fort Meade already have a bunch of quantum computers in the basement, then presumably public key cryptography isn't an obstacle to U.S. government access to the content of private communications. [*]<br /><br />2. If the nice people at Fort Meade already are directly tapped into (e.g.) the Googleborg and not just communication switches, then we already live in a surveillance state more intrusive in many ways than (e.g.) the UK's CCTV panopticon. [**]<br /><br />If neither 1 nor 2 is true, at least yet, then the general — versus privacy geek — appeal of encrypting one's personal communications has increased a lot. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Update:</span> How could I have forgotten about first-class mail?! The venerable postal product is sealed against inspection and impervious to electronic surveillance.<br /><br /><br />[*] Which is not to say that it's lawful for them to be scooping up even ciphertext of U.S. domestic communications in contravention of FISA.<br /><br />[**] Clearly some of Google's "free" services come at the price of letting its computers process one's communications and other online activities for the purpose of directing advertising, which is not without privacy considerations. Of course if Google decided to enter businesses such as blackmail, there would be legal remedies. Indeed, after posting this originally, Google served up a bunch of ads pertaining to commercial surveillance products and/or services.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-22573441691523059562009-05-18T13:38:00.007-05:002009-05-18T14:09:49.223-05:00Short SubjectsSusan of Texas has <a target=new href="http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2009/05/problem-what-problem.html">an immortal post</a> on the housing crisis, McMegan's ratiocination, and the persistence of ignorant memes.<br /><br /><s>The Onion</s>ESPN reports on a <a target=new href="http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=4175375">bodybuilding championship</a>.<br /><br />Brad DeLong says the problem isn't that Geithner isn't organized, it's that he doesn't organize, <a target=new href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/05/david-cho-is-unfair-to-tim-geithner-the-senate-is-the-problem.html">leaving that to his assistants</a>.<br /><br />Two things that, for some reason, made me think of <a target=new href="http://erin-obrien.blogspot.com/">Erin</a>: <a target=new href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0518091car1.html">this</a> today and <a target=new href="http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1241858052257280.xml&coll=2">this</a> (via <a target=new href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/05/in-the-news-38.html">The New Yorker's Book Bench</a>).<br /><br />Another <a target=new href="http://nancynall.com/2009/05/12/onward-don-quixote/">discussion of Harlan, from Nancy Nall</a>, probably via <a target=new href="http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/">Lance</a>.<br /><br />For all the complaining some SF(F)WAns do about Scribd, you would think the place was Pure Evil, not a <a target=new href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/technology/start-ups/18download.html">Marketplace for Sf/Fantasy writers</a> (see the screen shot) (also via <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/05/in-the-news-pamuk-probed-subscription-schemes.html">The Book Bench</a>).<br /><br />Apparently, not all men from Brussels are naturally "six foot four and full of muscles."<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DNT7uZf7lew&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DNT7uZf7lew&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-91002798681093480672009-05-04T07:08:00.002-05:002009-05-04T08:04:02.235-05:00News Flash: Turing Test Almost Passed!It's increasingly looking like the best explanation for <a href="http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/">Stanley Fish's "Think Again" column</a> is that its "author" is actually a Fish-O-Matic in a sub-basement of the Times' headquarters building, cranking away on maybe version 0.8 of a Wolfram Alpha engine. I mean, what other explanation could there be for validating a claim of the "bourgeois fallacy par excellence" of "self-authorship" with a reference to <span style="font-style: italic;">Milton</span>? [*] Surely the program's "imitate intellectual tics of source material" parameter overwhelmed the "deploy actual evidence in support of argument" parameter.<br /><br /><br />[*] I.e., those crazy sciento-religionists contend that there's no need for a god to serve as first cause let alone all causes (which theologians for centuries have said is neither necessary nor the same as the role of ineffable quality of being [**], [***]), and you know who else thinks he wasn't created? Milton's Satan. Ka-chow!<br /><br />[**] Though it would be fair to say haven't reached consensus on that.<br /><br />[***] It's funny how arguments in favor of god as ineffable quality of being almost trip over images ("father," "lord") or qualities (ability to love) that seem to my undertrained mind to be inherently effable. Cf. Aquinas: "God is what sustains all things in being by his love, and ... is the reason why there is something instead of nothing, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever." <a href="http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/04/28/terry_eagleton/">Salon review</a> of Terry Eagleton's <span style="font-style: italic;">Reason, Faith, and Revolution</span>, h/t <a href="http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/">Lance Mannion</a> on Facebook.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-21472329293541217952009-04-23T17:53:00.004-05:002009-04-23T17:56:56.820-05:00Just a QuestionHave <a target="blank" href="http://deadspin.com/5224796/the-myth-of-lenny-dykstra-completely-unravels">Lenny</a> <a target="blank" href="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4084962">Dykstra</a> and <a target="blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_Shaeffer">Beowulf Shaeffer</a> ever been seen together?<br /><br />Collateral question: Has Jim Cramer <em>ever</em> gotten <em>anything</em> correct?Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-52978487667182436212009-04-16T10:00:00.002-05:002009-04-16T10:19:00.659-05:00Three Times is Enemy ActionLast year, John's <a href="http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/kids/trailers/mttrain206/">chaser</a> broke (irreparably, as it happens) at a joint that allows the long neck that connects its frame to the hitch to fold for easier non-bike transport. A lifetime frame warranty being what it is, it was replaced with minimal grumbling from the company that put its trade dress on the frame — this being the roaring zilches, the actual manufacturer is some unnamed Chinese factory making the bikes under contract.<br /><br />Well lo, this morning I took a ride after dropping the boy at school and the new one broke in the same damn place! We may ride a lot, but this is getting ridiculous; chains and tires may be consumption items when one puts a couple thousand annual miles on one's bike, but frames?!1! This time, at least, it looks like it might be fixable.<br /><br />It was all worth it though when John announced, as he was buckling his helmet this morning, that going to school by bike was "better than driving" because it "saves electricity." Well, close enough.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-87970166190513906812009-04-15T14:25:00.006-05:002009-04-15T23:19:09.333-05:00Minicar Owner vs. the IIHSAs the so-far happy owner of a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3121540148/">2009 Honda Fit</a>, I read the results of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's <a href="http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr041409.html">minicar crash tests</a> with some dismay — as in, oh joy, there goes my already not-super-cheap car insurance premium. That's despite the headline being purely Dog Bites Man, as in we all know small cars will end up on the short end of head-on crashes with much larger cars. If anything, the whole exercise begs the question of why IIHS didn't just face the Fit, Yaris, and ForTwo off against the Honda Pilot, Toyota Sequoia, and Mercedes GL-class, respectively. Surely minicar drivers are impressively fucked in front-offset collisions with 2-1/2-ton SUVs.<br /><br />IIHS's prescription is that minicar intenders opt instead for high-MPG midsize cars. That's not totally objectionable (*), though in listing as alternatives the Camry and Ford Fusion hybrids plus the VW Jetta diesel IIHS effectively exhausts the current U.S. market in such vehicles. At least it makes them look more reasonable than if they had followed their logic to its conclusion that if we really wanted to be safe, we should all drive the largest possible vehicles. In fact, it's just as easy to interpret the IIHS results as favoring a shift to more light, small, slow cars with advanced safety features like my dear little Fit.<br /><br />This is a story of externalities (of course), and in a world that's stupidly been populated with oversized cars and light trucks, the minicar driver sacrifices his or her lower extremeties in a severe crash so that drivers of legacy vehicles can be more lightly injured. Stick us in a high-MPG tanks instead, and there's a good chance that the aggregate damage from crashes will be <span style="font-style: italic;">increased</span> — which on its face is socially undesirable if not obviously so from the insurance industry's perspective. Were small vehicles much more prevalent than they are now in the U.S., then the public could rely on the good performance of the better-engineered small cars on the usual crash tests (including IIHS's main efforts) in judging their safety.<br /><br />AIG scandal aside, I've long assumed that my insurance company (if not insurance companies in general) does a terrible job of disentangling vehicle and driver effects. When I gave up my 1998 BMW M3 for a 2001 Honda Prelude with 45 fewer horsepower and barely 55% of the sticker price, my insurance premiums increased — not unlikely because Preludes were favored among fast-driving youth whereas the venerable E36 M3 was (a few trust-fund babies aside) actually favored among low-risk guys going early-middle-age-crazy (like me). So I was not dinged when I traded-in the 'Lude on an E46 330Ci, and I found that the subsequent Lexus was treated as if I were the little old lady from Pasadena; the Fit, on the other hand, is taken to be a greater risk despite its comparative dirt-cheapness. It may not help that the insurance company calls the car a 2-door notwithstanding that there's no such thing as a 2-door Fit.<br /><br />So: insurance companies are stupid and their trade association doesn't know what's good for them. It perhaps goes without saying that some of the other statistics they deploy — high accident and fatality rates in minicars relative to the general automotive population — aren't worth a bucket of spit unless they've carefully controlled for driver effects (cheap cars are driven by the relatively young) and usage patterns (minicars are citycars and used in collision-rich environments). Screw them and I suppose I'll take my medicine in 5 months when the car insurance renewal comes in.<br /><br />-------------------<br /><br />(*) IIHS correctly observes that the minicars' mileage, at least with U.S.-spec drivetrains, is good but not spectacular. The Fit's main virtue is in the efficiency with which it encloses space given its exterior dimensions and its lack of the small SUV's excess poundage and middle finger waved in the face of aerodynamics.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-20248321328204507092009-04-15T07:29:00.002-05:002009-04-15T07:32:03.259-05:00Teabaggin'<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975925509119297.html">Thomas Frank</a>:<br /><blockquote>As the mad-as-hell come together to proclaim their outrage, all the well-known earmarks of right-wing populism will no doubt be present. Leadership, in certain instances, will probably be furnished by one of the many well-known, well-funded Washington pressure groups. The ideology will be strictly Manichean: "government" and "freedom" in a zero-sum cage match..<br /><br />Other than that, the tea partiers' stance on the issues is a little mysterious. But outrage is outrage, the party organizers probably figure; who will know the difference?<br /></blockquote>It's as if King George organized the Boston Tea Party, innit?Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-83583977591397273792009-04-03T21:35:00.002-05:002009-04-03T21:37:17.371-05:00Friday Preschooler Extra: Self-Portrait by Julia<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21392874@N00/3410142425/" title="Self-Portrait by Julia by atbozzo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3398/3410142425_a58a310774.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Self-Portrait by Julia" /></a>Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-14078854590646424132009-04-02T22:02:00.002-05:002009-04-02T22:16:37.853-05:00I Was Wondering When This Would Come DownA fund of fund(s) that funneled money — including a portion of the <a href="http://atbozzo.blogspot.com/2008/12/big-fraud-in-little-madison.html">late Madison Cultural Arts District trust fund</a> — into the Madoff scam is in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/02madoff.html?_r=1&ref=business">Big Trouble</a>:<br /><blockquote>Massachusetts regulators have sued the Fairfield Greenwich Group, one of the earliest of these so-called feeder fund managers, for fraud, saying it had repeatedly misled investors about how diligently it checked out Mr. Madoff’s operations over the years.<br /><br />“Fairfield’s complete disregard of its fiduciary duties to its investors and its flagrant and recurring misrepresentations to its investors rises to the level of fraud,” [said the complaint].<br /></blockquote>Henry Blodget had <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/fairfield-greenwich-our-amazing-systems-allow-us-to-monitor-client-money-every-day">nicely ripped</a> Fairfield Greenwich's marketing claims a while back (Fairfield Greenwich also apparently forgets that the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/fairfield-greenwich-experts-we-thought-bernie-madoff-was-the-best-money-manager-in-the-world">Internets remember all</a>). If the rap can be beaten with a claim that those were mere puffery rather than outright fraud, then the law surely is an ass: performing rigorous analysis of investment managers' strategies is one of the (few) ways a fund-of-funds can justify its fees-on-fees [*]. An interesting question is why this is being handled as a state matter; maybe now that the Ted Stevens debacle is over, some Justice Department resources can be liberated.<br /><br />One thing this points to is that the "accredited investor" concept — the "safe harbor" that allows hedge funds to escape much regulation by limiting their services to high-income, high-net-worth investors — deserves a place, however minor, on John Quiggin's growing rubbish heap of refuted ideas. Merely being rich (or at least upper-middle class) didn't make the Madoff suckers and suckers-of-suckers <span style="font-style: italic;">sophisticated</span>. [**] There's really little more (if not much less) reason to think the well-to-do can evaluate complicated investment strategies than that they can reliably complete their own taxes. The MCAD trust's case shows that moderately rich institutions with very rich benefactors are not exceptions. Ultimately there's a reliance, possibly at a couple degrees of separation (part of the Madoff fraud that I leave to the sociologists), on actual expertise. As we've seen, when that's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102202311.html">faked</a>, bad things happen.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Cross-posted at </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-was-wondering-when-this-would-come.html">Angry Bear</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.)</span><br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />[*] That is, substantively justify, as opposed to charging what convention and apparent market failure allows the market to bear.<br /><br />[**] In U.S. securities regulation, "sophisticated investors" is a more restrictive category such that few funds apparently use it, presumably to avoid too narrow an appeal for funds.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-58696552967619914152009-04-01T20:13:00.001-05:002009-04-01T21:50:40.111-05:00A Modest ProposalIf the Detroit automakers are, as it appears, to shrink their way into longer-range viability, why not exercise some planning muscles to match unemployed auto engineering and production resources with capacity-constrained domestic auto startups (e.g. <a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php">Tesla</a>, <a href="http://karma.fiskerautomotive.com/pages/company/stance">Fisker</a>, <a href="http://www.aptera.com/love.php">Aptera</a>) that would offer the sort of advanced, efficient, and baggage-free products Obama auto industry policy says it wants to promote? Sure, it's "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html?hp">industrial policy</a>," but let's face it: that cow is out of the barn, through the fence, and off grazing in the next county.<br /><br />Were this Larry Summers's blog, you'd have to watch out for the date.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-91985530787996357592009-04-01T12:51:00.006-05:002009-04-02T09:56:49.518-05:00The Moral of This Post Is...Sometimes things remind us just what our internet time-wasters are for.<br /><br />For example, over on Facebook, where many of my formerly blogging friends are busy not blogging, <a href="http://xtinpore.blogspot.com/">Xtin</a> (who promises to restart the estimable but intermittently-maintained <a href="http://xtinpore.blogspot.com/">Xtinpore</a> soon) proposes:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">terafuckit</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">n)</span>: Proposed SI unit for not giving a shit equal to one trillion "fuck it"s.<br /></blockquote>As of this writing:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4dRLzipa_MfQxwvT_LcpZ23U-xqtoHXBMuUvcDbQ9Ntvfl40O8EFB-tycmVp_U4yhkoep0tPuGmipJRXvXP5RwqgzY2jol2U4e9BVH18p0oz7rih8ZfTnhWRjiksDDNwwL4o1/s1600-h/Picture+7.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4dRLzipa_MfQxwvT_LcpZ23U-xqtoHXBMuUvcDbQ9Ntvfl40O8EFB-tycmVp_U4yhkoep0tPuGmipJRXvXP5RwqgzY2jol2U4e9BVH18p0oz7rih8ZfTnhWRjiksDDNwwL4o1/s400/Picture+7.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319786973829491762" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(click to embiggen)</span><br /></div><br />The only problem, such as it is, with going straight for the terafuckit is that it deprives us of the ability to reminisce about the good old days when megafuckits and gigafuckits represented astonishing levels of not giving a shit.<br /><br />Xtin's neologism just about perfectly captures the reasons for the relative silence of this blog over the last few months. So it's late 2000 and you're pulling up your Gore/Lieberman yard sign, thinking, "Hey, at least with this asshole Republican in office, I'll be crying my way to the bank," and the next thing you know, neoliberal financial capitalism is a smoking ruin! That tends to make ordinarily bloggable matters, say, the courtesy of SUV drivers towards urban cyclists, measurable in only in mega- if not gigafuckits unless serious bodily harm is involved; hence rather than expending the effort to express righteous indignation on the Internets, one instead builds LEGO Star Wars spaceships with one's kids.<br /><br />(The fuckit, I assume, is like the <a href="http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=util">util</a> in mainstream economics and not interpersonally comparable, so don't worry if you don't agree that initiating a nuclear war in <a href="http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/preview/nukes.php">Civilization IV</a> to be a terafuckit-scale activity — or maybe a hundred gigafuckits before building SDI.)<br /><br />In the morning, I may wish that I'd posted this to the already-R-rated <a href="http://totaldrek.blogspot.com/">Total Drek</a>, but well...Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-2245305625896323322009-04-01T12:02:00.001-05:002009-04-01T12:04:21.628-05:00What Day is it Again?Will someone please assure me that SFWA's "<a href="http://www.sfwa.org/news/2009/sfwamission.htm">new mission statement</a>" (via <a href="http://www.locusmag.com/News/">Locus</a>) is an April Fool's Joke?Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-67594067788102367812009-03-31T17:26:00.001-05:002009-03-31T17:26:00.465-05:00Why Wagoner?1. Well, duh.<br /><br />2. In the NYT, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/opinion/31holstein.html?_r=1">William J. Holstein's case</a> for Wagoner should be read as damnation by faint praise. Promoting efficiency and quality improvements is laudable enough, but hardly the sort of vision thing that merits a U.S. CEO salary. Bob Lutz's product-development record is <a href="http://atbozzo.blogspot.com/2005/01/executive-compensation-thread-goes-to.html">mixed</a> in part due to Lutz's <a href="http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/02/bob-lutz-global.html">contempt for greenery</a> and faulty assumptions that SUV demands were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/business/23fuel.html?pagewanted=2">not price-sensitive</a>, and in more significant part because GM's management was full of pound-foolishness as important product developments (e.g. marketable compact cars) were underfunded when the company more-or-less had money. The company can easily go bankrupt building bulletproof <a href="http://atbozzo.blogspot.com/2005/11/gm-you-call-that-good-management.html">Buick Lucernes</a>. And, troublingly, GM has persisted in <a href="http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/12/gm_volt_engine_plant_in_flint.html">future</a>-<a href="http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090310/CARNEWS/903109975">mortgaging</a> despite the availability of government aid.<br /><br />3. Nevertheless, my question is, why not the more obvious choice of Chrysler's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/business/30nardelli.html">Robert Nardelli</a>? If GM management has been years late and billions short, Chrysler's Cerberus-hired management has shown <a href="http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ptfoa-rips-chrysler-a-new-one-download-determination-of-viability-chrysler/">no public signs of elementary competence</a>. Where GM's product plans are questionable (Cadillac station wagon?), Chrysler's are an intergalactic void unless you're very optimistic about its ability to bring its electric showcars into production or eagerly anticipating Americanized Fiats. As a major net beneficiary of the housing bubble and poster-child for CEO excesses, Nardelli is perfectly cast for the scapegoat role, not least because he's substantively more deserving of sh*t-canning as Wagoner.<br /><br />The concern of course is that someone(s) on the Obama team think Nardelli is more deserving of forbearance than Wagoner because of his private equity bosses. I'm not saying that's true, but if it were, then I'd want to play poker against whomever can't see that Cerberus Capital Management has been exploding myths of the power of patient private capital and by most indications wants out.<br /><br />(Cross-posted at <a href="http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-wagoner.html">Angry Bear</a>, where in the comments Bruce Webb makes the very reasonable point that firing Nardelli would be needless piling-on. Indeed, a reasonable reading of the current situation [subject to revision in 30 days] is that a Chrysler failure has been determined not to pose 'systemic risk' and thus Chrysler LLC is toast if the Fiat deal falls through.)Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-35962379124634475312009-03-30T21:33:00.004-05:002009-03-30T23:25:59.207-05:00Flight to QualityFor a bit of an antidote to Bad News Fatigue, the Guardian has a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/26/lego-billund-denmark">pretty good article</a> (via <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/TheBrothersBrick/%7E3/50SPrj_ketw/">The Brothers Brick</a>) on the turnaround of the LEGO Group, which a few years ago was on the brink of bankruptcy and/or absorption into one of the toy megacorporations but now is enjoying double-digit sales growth even in basket-case markets. [1] It's a bit long on ancient company history, but the short version is that under their ex-McKinsey CEO, the company opted largely to stick to its knitting [2], divest various non-core assets [3], and also outsource a good chunk of their production — mostly to Eastern Europe — to cut costs. The über-nerd version from a couple years back, in the supply-chain management magazine <span style="font-style: italic;">Strategy + Business</span>, is <a href="http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=54152">here</a>. An interesting <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKL0137855520080701">additional detail</a> omitted in the former and post-dating the latter is that the company is re-insourcing the outsourced production, though not necessarily returning it to Denmark.<br /><br />I wouldn't be mentioning this if there weren't some lessons for the current Troubles herein.<br /><br />For Ed Montgomery (congrats on the quite possibly <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090330/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_autos">thankless new job</a> and Go Maryland College of Behavioral and Social Sciences!), there's a reminder that companies can run themselves out of business by efficiently producing products that cannot be sold for a compensatory price. LEGO's element production and set-packaging operations were famously efficient and automated in the crisis period. As the S+B article explains in detail, the rest of the operation was a disaster. If anything, reducing Danish labor costs was a sideshow for, if not a distraction from, the rest of the restructuring. Which is to say, there's only so much to take out of the hides of the UAW.<br /><br />A saving grace for the LEGO Group was that its failures mainly were behind-the-scenes; the things that were losing them DKr by the billions largely weren't erosive of their products' reputations, so:<br /><blockquote>Part of this recession-busting feat, Nipper concedes, is down to the fact that in times of trouble, consumers - in this case, parents - turn to "the well-known, the safe, the durable. Lego may not be the cheapest toy, but parents know it has stood the test of time, it will last years, provide hours of quality play, represent good value for their hard-earned money."</blockquote>Ceding reputations for "representing good value" in favor of "having the most cash on the hood" is an obvious failing of Detroit's legacy management, in hand with reactionary product planning.<br /><br />For observers of the Danish model of relatively open markets plus a strong social safety net, there's a warning that it's not necessarily an automatic producer of contentment under all economic conditions. From the Guardian:<br /><blockquote>"This town isn't just about Lego any more, you know," observes a woman who asked to be called just Birgita, perching her youngest son on the back of her bicycle outside the supermarket. "It hasn't been for a long time. We're proud of Lego, certainly, but there are lots of other companies, lots of other jobs here now. The good thing was that all that happened when the rest of the economy was still in quite good shape. Heaven knows what it would have been like today, with half the world collapsing."<br /></blockquote>This account is anecdote, sure, but the apparent success of the Danish model isn't its production of armies of the happily unemployed. On the contrary, by both <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/employment_analysis/quarterly/winter2008_en.pdf">EU</a> and US standards, Denmark has exceptionally high employment and low unemployment rates. At some level, there's no substitute for full employment, and the Invisible Hand does not promise to provide that.<br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />[1] This has very little to do with my recent birthday; official estimates are that there are about 250,000 serious adult fans out there.<br /><br />[2] I.e., selling <a href="http://guide.lugnet.com/set/10193">cool</a> <a href="http://guide.lugnet.com/set/10185">sets</a> to <a href="http://guide.lugnet.com/set/7628">build</a> from the little plastic bricks.<br /><br />[3] E.g., the LEGOLAND theme parks, which you know aren't a Company operation in part because an employee of the Schaumburg, Illinois <a href="http://www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com/chicago/us">indoor facility</a> was using the colloquialism "Legos" to refer to "LEGO bricks" or "LEGO elements" in orienting a new employee; such talk is supposed to be forbudt for trademark protection reasons.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-63957039635232145662009-03-30T17:42:00.002-05:002009-03-30T18:04:33.729-05:00And We're BackAmazingly enough, a couple people have told me that they miss the old Marginal Utility at least a little bit, and I haven't found the econopocalypse very conducive to econoblogging at Angry Bear. So for those of you who may still check in once in a while (or whose RSS readers do so), thanks for sticking with this site and rest assured that pictures of the kids and commentary on the Lego universe and elsewhere is forthcoming.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-51769702020140411792009-02-20T16:07:00.003-06:002009-02-20T16:19:02.575-06:00Noted with AmusementLeonard Cohen, who was born and raised just above Murray Hill Park (or, as Google calls it, Parc King George), has <a href="http://leonardcohen.com/tour.cgi">no Montreal dates</a> scheduled for his current tour.<br /><br />He is, however, appearing at the "WaMu Theatre at Qwest Field Events Centre" in Seattle. Hope it's more fun for him and them than it is for <a href="http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html">WaMu shareholders</a>.Ken Houghtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-14233661627945335452009-01-13T17:42:00.006-06:002009-01-13T20:25:48.114-06:00I Can't Believe Anyone Would Think It's PatentableA <a href="http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/01/13/apple.map.and.cal.patent/">MacNN news item</a> divines a possible merger of calendar and map functions on the iPhone from an Apple patent filing. My marginal propensity to consume Apple-branded electronics is at least as high as the next person's, but nevertheless if Apple is granted this patent then the <a href="http://www.uspto.gov/">USPTO</a> is fundamentally broken.<br /><br />At issue is how the hell can this pass muster for novelty and non-obviousness? Inter-application communication — sending data from application A to application B — is old hat, as is combining the functions of applications A and B into Application C. This post, for instance, is written with an application (Firefox 3) that combines functions of e.g. a Web browser and RSS reader. So there has to be something extra-special about the choice of applications A="calendar" and B="map program." If you tell me that someone with ordinary skill in the art wouldn't envision the combination, then I'd laugh at you and then you'd tell me I'll never make it in patent law.<br /><br />Regardless, Apple's application seems about as patentable as a Method and Apparatus for Text Entry and Editing on a Digital Computer would have been in recent prehistory. They deserve such copyright protection as is available for their code, and to be exposed to the rigors of competition otherwise.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8000561.post-28695842884190986632008-12-15T18:33:00.003-06:002008-12-15T21:08:17.025-06:00Big Fraud in Little MadisonEarlier in the year I <a href="http://atbozzo.blogspot.com/2008/04/overture-center-finances-fine-mess.html">reviewed</a> the investments held by the Madison Cultural Arts District's trust fund, which once had been intended to use stock market returns (and later alternative investment returns) to pay the Overture Center's construction debt and contribute to the Center's operations. I concluded that the fund was undercapitalized and needed to get cracking on fundraising. In <a href="http://www.madison.com/tct/news/305796">September</a>, the fund reached a point where it was to be liquidated to pay off the bulk of the construction debt, leaving the major donor and the city of Madison on the hook for the balance. We only recently, as lapsed Madison Symphony subscribers, received a fundraising letter.<br /><br />An interesting detail is that when I'd reviewed the MCAD trust's assets, it held $17.9 million — just under 18 percent of its $100M portfolio of the time, in the Fairfield Sentry fund. (In early '06, they had an even greater exposure.) At the time, Fairfield Sentry was among the trust's high-flying investments, relatively speaking. I said "who knows" with respect to how Fairfield found its alpha.<br /><br />Well now we know! Per <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a0TEG4yetMg4&refer=us">Bloomberg</a> (<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/bRuz/~3/_6A6_eFpKHk/2008_12_14_archive.html">via</a>), Fairfield Sentry was 100% invested in <a href="http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/12/12/its-a-mad-mad-mad-madoff-world?tid=true">Bernard Madoff's mega-swindle</a>! I hope they actually managed to liquidate their balance. If they did get out soon enough, then at least the MCAD trust may not have been the biggest of suckers in one respect. <br /><br />Otherwise, big potential losers are <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w13944">Andrew Ang, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, and Rui Zhao</a>, whose April '08 NBER working paper concluded that funds-of-funds "on average, deserve their fees-on-fees." At a minimum, they should delete the Madoff suckers and recalculate.Tom Bozzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853926747746938925noreply@blogger.com1