Open mike 08/05/2010

6 comments on “Open mike 08/05/2010 ”

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1. ianmac 1

   8 May 2010 at 11:03 am

   An interesting take from John Armstrong on the effect of John Key’s overseas trips.
   Key’s priorities are at home
   (And an attempt to tidy up links?)
2. Quoth the Raven 2

   8 May 2010 at 2:23 pm

   Carson on government’s role in the financial crisis.

   Just for starters, the market in mortgage-based securities is almost entirely a creation of the federal government. Before the feds created Freddie Mac to guarantee MBS’s, they were shunned as too risky by the vast majority of investors. Until then, derivatives were mainly stodgy investments in commodities futures used by farmers as a form of insurance against a catastrophic fall in prices.

   Under the terms of the Basel II Accord, which went into effect in 2004, a direct mortgage loan by a local bank to a customer with a satisfactory credit rating carries a risk weighting of 35%. A mortgage-based security, on the other hand, carries a risk weighting of only 20%. So the reserve requirements were set higher for mortgages held by the original issuing bank (which “entailed local knowledge,’ as Sheldon Richman points out) than for MBS’s purchased from other banks. The lower reserve requirement for MBS’s meant a larger amount of money was available to be lent against a given reserve, which created a strong incentive for banks to sell their own mortgages as quickly as possible and load up on MBS’s. In the words of Les Antman, “Basel II virtually mandated that banks sell their loans if they wanted to be competitive.’
3. outofbed 3

   8 May 2010 at 4:28 pm

   Chinese workers link sickness to n-hexane and Apple iPhone screens
   http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/07/chinese-workers-sickness-hexane-apple-iphone
4. Pascal's bookie 4

   8 May 2010 at 4:29 pm

   Check out the cojones on Ms Bennett’s nutty professor…

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3671883/Pay-per-view-says-professor

   The British-based Prof Saunders contacted The Dominion Post after stories about the mix-up, saying he wanted to explain his views on intelligence and class, given that he’d been “much derided” by commentators. But he sought payment to do so and upon hearing that would not happen, told the newspaper “I would expect to be paid. This is how I make my living.”

   You make a living by getting newspapers to pay you to explain yourself when the crazeee shit you sez sparks a controversy?

   Anti-spam – operators. No shit.
5. RedLogix 5

   8 May 2010 at 7:29 pm

   This thread on the TransOcean DEEPWATER HORIZON disaster has to be one of the definitive reads on the subject. It’s up to 30 pages long and it takes a lot of wading through, but for anyone with a technical bent it’s fascinating.
6. jcuknz 6

   8 May 2010 at 9:13 pm

   A fun pair of photos over at Kiwipolitico which might be a fore teller of the election result. Brown and the Lib guy controlling themselves while the Tory has lost it ….. Introducing MMP might make a LibLab government possible if the Torys fail to get the support from other parties and stick to FPP madness. Just a reaction from somebody who knows nothing about politics 🙂

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