Enoch

Yeah, I've read that RS article. It covers some of the basics well, but is a bit too conspiratorial in its conclusions for my taste, making too much of the unattributed cynical theories of a few 'insiders.' For my money, the best reporting on the current issues are the WaPo's "What Went Wrong" series, Michael Lewis' piece in Portfolio, and the Atlantic article I linked above.

Nah, that's an equip-able disguise. That mission begins with Thorton infiltrating a concert by posing as the bass player in a gypsy-rock trio.

Well, if you're making a stat-based argument, I'll toss in my favorite player stats. According to Football Outsiders' formulae, which adjust stats for down, distance, opponent, and game situation, Cutler was the 7th-best QB in the league on a per-play basis (DVOA), and 5th-best on a total value basis (DYAR). Those numbers will certainly fall based on the difference in surrounding offensive talent between Denver and Chicago, but it's still nothing to sneeze at.

You could just as easily single out Denver's comeback wins against CLE, ATL, and KC last season as "squarely on [Cutler's] shoulders." Oh, and to go with their new QB, the Bears have signed a new OLT: Orlando Pace. The question on this one, of course, is Pace's health. He's 33 and hasn't played a full season in three years. But if he can stay on the field, 33 isn't excessively old for an offensive lineman, so it could be a decent signing.

I'm hesitant to further sidetrack the conversation, as although I am unqualified to comment extensively on the British government, I think I learn things by reading what more knowledgeable folks think. So I'll keep my reply to taks brief: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Even if taks' underlying theoretical positions are entirely true, the absence of government influence on the economy is unattainable (indeed, unless one posits a populace that is predominantly virtuous and educated in the "right" kind of economics (good luck with that!), it is inconsistent with non-authoritarian government), and in the presence of some of it, the 'next best' solution to a problem is not always less government intervention. Also, sunnier long-term outlook does not always compensate for a harsh short-term one when one considers the negative external factors like social instability, crime, loss of international prestige, and loss of respect for public institutions that truly terrible times bring.

... And the winner of the Jay Cutler bidding war is... The Chicago Bears! Kyle Orton, a 2009 1st & 3rd round pick, a 2010 1st round pick, for Cutler and a 2009 5th round pick.

IIRC, it was uploaded under a SEGA account. (I think it was SEGA Europe.)

As I said, different ideal economic policies. I think that your thinking on these banks is missing two points. One, the degree to which the internal structure of the banks pressures decision-makers to disregard a lot of risks. Say, for example, that one of the I-Banks starts using David X. Li's simple methodology for modeling complicated risks to price their Credit Default Swaps more cheaply that your company can under its current methodology. Now, that first I-Bank may be ignorant of the flaws in the model, or it may be taking a calculated risk that it has hedged elsewhere, or it may just be reckless, but the fact remains that, if your company doesn't follow along with its pricing, the VP responsible for your CDS business is going to lose all of his revenue in very short order. The smart long-term move is to let the other company sell their underpriced insurance and take all the business. But that requires that VP to go to the upper brass and tell them that his division isn't going to be making any profits and should probably be cut altogether. Given the ultra-competitive machismo that is the norm in the big financial companies, it's hardly surprising that risky models with just enough objective 'truthiness' to pass a smell test quickly become the industry standard. The fallback position isn't that "if it turns out to be wrong, the government will fix it"; it's "if it turns out wrong, Merrill and Citi and Goldman and everybody else is just as screwed as we are." (Or, more troublingly, "all those other century-old, established firms can't possibly all be wrong at the same time!") Second, I called nationalization courageous because it would involve standing up to the Wall Streeters, wiping out their equity holders, and tossing their management teams. Letting them fail would also be courageous, but (to bring us back to the Red Dawn reference) more the kind of courage associated with single-handedly charging a helicopter gunship with a rifle. You're underestimating the degree to which all these firms are tied both to each other and to most of the other big companies (and a lot of the little ones) in the world. Letting, say, Citi and BofA go down (Lehman was a relatively small player compared to these guys) would almost certainly bring Morgan, Goldman, and everybody else with them. It would be years (of complete economic stagnation) before the more conservative mid-sized and regional players scaled up their operations enough and acquired sufficient concentrations of expertise to even begin to fill the important investing and lending footprint that these firms would leave behind. You could be right that this would be a better result than a decade of gov't-supported zombie banks. But I'll take a quick FDIC-style nationalization followed by a return of the non-toxic portions to private hands before I would either of those results.

Yeah, I was living in downtown DC during the IMF meeting protests in April of 2000. I took a stroll around the barricades for fun. It was a seductive social environment-- a street-fair setting fueled by righteous anger. I can see how a certain type of person could be caught up in it. Also, a good place to pick up hippie chicks, if you're into that sort of thing. The most entertaining part to me, though, was the frathouse on the GWU campus (which is right near the IMF building and along the area the police cordoned off) that was charging a hefty fee for all the anti-capitalist protesters who wanted to use its bathroom. I never had so much respect for frat boys as I did that day.

Of course it is-- it's a film about the Iraq War from the insurgents' point of view. I actually agree with taks' point about the poor economic understanding of American elites on both sides of the aisle (although we're almost certainly thinking about different ideal economic policies). Simon Johnson, a former chief economist with the IMF, has a fantastic article in The Atlantic on this point-- both sides have become far too beholden to the finance industry over the last 20 years, which is stifling any attempt at real reform. An excerpt:

$5400 for Brass Knuckles???!!

The self-parody on Whole Foods' website (a pretentious chain of yuppie-food grocery stores, for you non-US/CAN/UK people) is pretty funny. Organic Air; recipe for "Indian Amazonian Guatemalan Honduran Balinese Rice"; etc.

The problem with that logic, Volo, is that Cutler had already asked to be traded when their OC left for USC, which was before the team started discussing swapping him for Cassel.

Winning and losing is the most important stat for measuring overall team success looking backward. For measuring an individual player, though, it's a terrible metric for reasons which should be blindingly obvious. If you switch the Colts defense with a unit from a Division III college team, and they finish the season 2-14, does that mean that Peyton Manning is any less good a quarterback? I don't have anything against fans. I simply recognize that the NFL is by far the sport with the biggest gap between a fan's understanding of the game and a professional's (e.g., a coach) understanding of the game. (And sports media generally is not particularly interested in improving this when they can just get ratings by showing a guy get 'jacked up' repeatedly.) Pull a fan out of the stands to coach the Celtics or the Red Sox for a game or two, and they'd probably do a reasonably OK job. Pull a fan out of the stands to coach the Patriots, and they'd be so lost they wouldn't be able to find their own ass with two hands in their back pockets.

As someone who recently bought a 70+ year-old home (with a 15-year-old renovation) on a 50' X 100' lot for a bit north of $600K, I'm getting a kick out of this exchange. In our case, the "15-minute walk to a DC Metro station" feature means that it will likely hold its value reasonably well.

Ugh. Volo's always-stick-up-for-the-players attitude is pretty laughable. But Kelv's retort that all quarterbacks should be judged only by wins and losses and that some mythical "clutchness" is anything more than fans (encouraged by ignorant sportswriters) oversimplifying a very complex game is equally laughable. Both Broncs management and Cutler (and his agents) have a pretty large amount of egg on their face right now. The Broncos look worse because Cutler is getting what he wants-- a trade away to a team that will give him an enormous contract extension-- but the hissy fit he threw to get it doesn't exactly endear him to the public.

Yeah, it's pretty sad when a player gets to the level that makes Phil Rivers look professional... @Volo, we all know where you come from-- the players are always virtuous and the teams are always stupid. While it's true that the Broncos have little leverage, that isn't going to matter much. Teams trying to get Cutler aren't bidding against Denver-- they're bidding against each other. And it only takes 2 of them to get the offers up into stratospheric levels. I'd say that the Eli Manning trade in '04 sets the floor on Cutler's value. Similar situation in that the player and the team are at complete odds, but Cutler has 3 years of proven quality play, which Eli didn't. Anyhow, I've got to find out where Belichick keeps getting these great voodoo dolls of all his former assistants/coordinators.

Ho-lee crap. The Broncos have announced that they plan to trade starting QB Jay Cutler: Two thoughts: 1) Mike Shanahan is smiling wider now than he did when he won back-to-back Super Bowls. 2) Roughly 2/3rds of the league should be falling over themselves to offer their staring QB plus most of their draft picks for the guy. So where does Cutler end up? Tampa? The Jets? Chicago? Cleveland? Minnesota?

Ordered Chinese takeout for dinner this evening. The following is the exact text of the fortune cookie:

There's nothing wrong with a well-executed full beard. It's the attempted full beard on someone whose follicles simply aren't up to the task that seems problematic.

Che is another one-- led violent uprisings, had terrible beard. On the other hand, this guy's beard is pretty cool.

I think Wals may have something here. He's not the first violent political instigator to sport a terrible beard.

I suppose today and yesterday have been my experiments in what it's like to be a big-law associate-- get up, go to the office, work a 12 hour day, come home, drink scotch, and sleep. The scotch part is nice. (I overpoured a bit this evening, not realizing that the bottle I picked was a "cask strength" selection with a 57% alc content rather than the more typical 40%.) I normally take it neat, which is why I have 4 partially empty bottles of the stuff-- you appreciate the flavor more, but it's too potent to drink straight in any quantity. Lately, though I've been going over the rocks, which leads to drinking more. (By the way, the deadline-overworking is a result of my own procrastination more than it is a result of my job giving me too much work to do. I'm just paying for all the time last week I spend leisurely flipping through treatises in the library when I should've been getting started on the drafting.)

I am currently working late again, and they are testing the freaking fire alarm system in the building. This is not helping my deadline-dread.