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Hillary Clinton a contender for secretary of state - FT.com

Around six months ago, when I was still supporting Hillary’s presidential bid, but conceding that it was falling short, I proposed that Obama would take the nomination.  Though many were riding high on the change they could believe in, my concession was based on the speculation that any presumptive Obama administration would likely not feature Ms. Clinton in the vice-presidency, but rather another high role.  Since she would not be vice-president, I envisioned her assuming one of two roles: 1) Secretary of State, or; 2) Senate Majority Leader.

Suffice to say, the emergence of Hillary as a contender for this position comes as little surprise to me, though I also see valid experience in gentlemen such as Bill Richardson and Chuck Hagel.  What I think I would find surprising, is the fact that nobody would have thought of Clinton as a potential pick for the position.  I mean, talk about rupture from current foreign policy; Ms. Clinton would make a phenomenal pick even just to engage in re-igniting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (which, if moved forward, could put a fundamental crimp in Iranian nuclear ambitions).

But here on this small blog that is read by probably five people every two months, my words go unheeded.  These are the same words that, in August 2007, predicted the financial crisis to become a house of cards, waiting to fall in on itself.  Failure to acknowledge that asset-backed securities trading on non-existing liquidity would cause a ripple effect through the financial markets has caused the current economic crisis, and placed me back on the job market.  When the issue of the $700bn “bailout package” arose in September, many believed that “Wall Street and Main Street don’t cross paths” (further fodder for a discussion on a potential bailout of the American automotive industry).  Now, my former company has had nearly 20% of its assets under management wiped out in one quarter alone.  It is no surprise they had to eliminate positions.

Now, I’m no Nouriel Roubini, with the economic modeling to make these types of predictions.  However I’d consider myself well-read enough to start looking at the world in an interdisciplinary fashion and start piecing pieces of the puzzle together.  This hasn’t yet bottomed out and on a near daily basis, re-invents its black swan tendencies.  Whether I’m John Paulson (also, n.b.– exhibit 1D) or not, the models don’t always work right.

In my opinion,  the only country to correctly take action on the crisis is China; its stimulus package acknowledges the slowdown’s domestic impact, and re-invests in domestic infrastructure.  It is exactly what America needs and what types of steps the next president should take once in office.

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Twitter: listening to habs postgame podcast… Wistful for a schwartz smoked meat sandwich. Montreal me manque

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“In theory, “preferences for broader knowledge, or even randomized information, can also be indulged.”  In reality though, our slight bias in favor of similarity over dissimiliarty is difficult, if not impossible to eradicate.  It’s part of human nature.  Not surprisingly, then, Brynjolfsson and Van Alstyne report that their model indicates, in a direct echo of Schelling’s findings, that “other factors being equal, all that is required to reduce integration in most cases is that preferred interactions are more focused than existing interactions.”  If, in othe words, we have even a small inclination to prefer like-minded views and people–to be more “focused” rather than more inclusive–we will tend to create ever more polarized communities online…

…Given how easy it is to find like-minded people and sympathetic ideas on the Internet and given our innate tendency to form homogeneous groups, we can see that “ideological amplification” is likely to be more pervasive online.  Here again, as Brynjolfsson and Van Alystne note in their article, filtering and personalization technologies are likely to magnify the effect.  “Individuals empowered to screen out material that does not conform to their existing preferences may form virtual cliques, insulate themselves from opposing points of view, and reinforce their biases,” they write.  “Indulging these preferences can have the perverse effect of intensifying and hardening pre-existing biases…. The effect is not merely a tendency for members to conform to the group average but a radicalization in which this average moves toward extremes.’”

~Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch, pp. 162-166, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

To read Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson’s paper “Global Village or Cyber-Balkans? Modeling and Measuring the Integration of Electronic Communities,” click here.

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This is a very wistful year for me and it likely won’t be the last post I write on this subject. This year marks the 100th season of existence of the Montreal Canadiens existence. My name is not being immortalized in Centennial Plaza. I’m not getting the opportunity to see the Bell Centre’s new “Ring of Honor.” And the man who first inspired me (albeit indirectly inspired me) to become a Habs fan 21 years ago, Patrick Roy, is having his jersey retired on November 22.

You see, my enthusiasm for the Habs was as cursory as could be for someone growing up in Hartford Whalers territory. But going to McGill changed all that. The ability for me to see my favourite team in home market changed how I perceived the game, changed how I perceived my team, and changed what I understood about the interlinked relationship between Les Habitants and the City of Montreal. In fact, I even wrote a term paper on the history of Hockey and its relationship to Canada.

If I’m lucky, I’ll even get to go see a game here in New York this year. But after getting to discover the depth of the game, it’s really going to be a sad season that I won’t be there to enjoy any of it. My best hope is that the Habs even get to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 16 seasons.

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The Key to Wedded Bliss? Money Matters, by Tara Siegel Bernard, NYTIMES, 9/10/2008

This article is totally true. All of it.

In my senior year of high school, I wrote my thesis on how the basis of humanity boils to two P’s: Procreation and Provision (I wish I was able to recover it from my first laptop). Everything we do in life boils down to its impact on either of these two subjects. And they’re cyclical. Because we work on ourselves to impress a mate (the social construct of the mating game) once we have children, we use the tools of a social construct to enable ourselves to provide for our children.

Unlike any other of the millions of animal species that revolves around Procreation and Provision, this social construct we employ is significantly more sophisticated, particularly when you throw irrationality and emotions into the mix. In addition, it is the socio-religious imposition of monogamy that makes the singular Procreation and Provision model reliant on the backing of an artificial financial system.

As a result, the complexity of the social construct imposed on Procreation and Provision means that “financial soul mates” are key to the upkeep of the cycle. The ability to be financially synchronous with one’s mate is what inhibits–and potentially prevents–the disintegration of marriage. It is the old adage that “money doesn’t by happiness,” which makes financial synchronicity an important element to maintaining one’s happiness.

Is it true that people can “fall out of love?” Perhaps, but as our society has increased its base of wealth and even increased its middle class, it becomes more obvious that financial pragmatism is will keep money from dividing couples and dividing families.

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