Debt Ceiling VI: Mohamed El-Erian

Posted by epsilon on August 3, 2011
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I highly recommend the words of Mohamed El-Erian on the debt ceiling debacle (DCB). He makes sense to me. I wish our political class was half as reasonable.

See video of interview with Pimco CEO

See also

El-Erian added in an interview with Bloomberg, “When you look at the debt burden, there is a numerator and a denominator. We may end up creating so much damage to the denominator, which is growth of GDP, that what we do in the numerator, reducing the debt, may end up being insufficient.” This conclusion was also made by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who noted today that the deal “will damage an already depressed economy“:

OK! Let’s work on both the numerator and the denominator!! Is there any way we can agree on that?

For further political comment, see What Would Eisenwhower Do?

Debt ceiling V

Posted by epsilon on July 30, 2011
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From the Boston Globe:

Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is not, as some Tea Party leaders present it, like declining to take out a new credit card; it’s more like taking a pair of scissors to the credit card you already have and ignoring the unpaid balance. This doesn’t just fail to solve the problem; it makes it vastly worse by destroying your credit rating and ensuring higher interest rates for existing bills.

For further political comment, see What Would Eisenwhower Do?

Debt Ceiling IV

Posted by epsilon on July 28, 2011
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family-to-government comparison

The family-to-government comparison is appealing. But in practice, there are huge differences between the federal government and the average nuclear family. “If you want to compare the government to anything, compare it to a business. Typical businesses borrow money and they never pay it off,” argues Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Baker says a corporate board would think a CEO was out of his mind if he came to them and announced that while the company lost money, it had paid off its debt. “Maybe the government is more like AT&T than like me and Joey.”

— Mother Jones

For further political comment, see What Would Eisenwhower Do?

Debt Ceiling II

Posted by epsilon on July 20, 2011
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Rulings of the US Supreme Court relevant to the current debate on whether the US will default on its debt:

“In authorizing the Congress to borrow money, the Constitution empowers the Congress to fix the amount to be borrowed and the terms of payment. By virtue of the power to borrow money “on the credit of the United States,” the Congress is authorized to pledge that credit as an assurance of payment as stipulated, as the highest assurance the government can give — its plighted faith. To say that the Congress may withdraw or ignore that pledge is to assume that the Constitution contemplates a vain promise, a pledge having no other sanction than the pleasure and convenience of the pledgor. This Court has given no sanction to such a conception of the obligations of our government.”

Also,

“Punctilious fulfillment of contractual obligations is essential to the maintenance of the credit of public, as well as private, debtors. No doubt there was in March, 1933, great need of economy. In the administration of all government business, economy had become urgent because of lessened revenues and the heavy obligations to be issued in the hope of relieving widespread distress. Congress was free to reduce gratuities deemed excessive. But Congress was without power to reduce expenditures by abrogating contractual obligations of the United States. To abrogate contracts in the attempt to lessen government expenditure would
be not the practice of economy, but an act of repudiation.”

And finaly,

The Constitution gives to the Congress the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, an unqualified power, a power vital to the government, upon which in an extremity its very life may depend. The binding quality of the promise of the United States is of the essence of the credit which is so pledged. Having this power to authorize the issue of definite obligations for the payment of money borrowed, the Congress has not been vested with authority to alter or destroy those obligations.:

source

For further political comment, see What Would Eisenwhower Do?

Debt Ceiling I

Posted by epsilon on July 18, 2011
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I have been following with great interest the negotiations on the debt ceiling. Senator McConnell’s three-stage proposal seems to be both meritorious and promising, unlike some of the others. However, I would like to present my own plan, which I believe has a superior theoretical basis. It has the advantage of tuning policy to political and economic conditions on a monthly basis. Just follow the algorithm below. All financial, horoscopical, and other relevant parameters are reflected in a readily computed score that ranges from 0 to 5. This gives, at last, a rational, equitable means of dealing with one of today’s most serious problems.

Algorithm. At 6 PM on the evening of the full moon, obtain the current debt figure from the Secretary of the Treasury. Take the square root of this number. Subtract pi times the number of Democratic Congressman. Flip a coin. If it is “heads”, subtract 22/7 times the number of Republican Congressmen. If it is “tails,” subtract 3 times the number of Republican Congressman — the approximation is good enough for government work. Take the square root again. Now add one if the President is a Republican, two if he or she is a Democrat, three if neither of the preceding is a true statement. Find the first digit to the right of the decimal place of the resulting number, divide by six, and write down the remainder. If the remainder is zero, do nothing, although you are permitted one beer from the fridge. If the result is 1, raise the income tax by 1%. If the result is 2, decrease the income tax by 1%. If the result is 4, decrease expenditures for the coming fiscal year by 10% of the annual deficit. If the result is 5, refuse to raise the debt ceiling, call for passage of balanced budget amendment, and insist on full payment of the national debt by the following Thursday. Do not negotiate unless the second digit to the right of the decimal point is zero. Negotiation is for sissies, socialists, and Democrats. In any case, the game begins anew in one lunar month, so who cares?

Notes: (1) If you compute a score not in the range 0-5, then you must pay the national debt yourself by April 15. (2) It is possible, though unlikely, that in carrying out the above algorithm, you will take the square root of a negative number, thus producing, so to speak, an imaginary number. While imaginary numbers do exist, current government policy on the subject is “compute but don’t tell.” We do not agree. If you should find an imaginary answer, call your local newspaper and discuss this potentially sensational news with their staff mathematician. (3) Any connection between the lunar calendar and allegations that a certain set of policians are lunatics is fortuitous and is not an opinion expressed by the author of this blog.

NB. In case alternative (5) results in default, the above algorithm may no longer apply.

For further political comment, see What Would Eisenwhower Do? ,

Extreme Real Estate

Posted by epsilon on June 8, 2011
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Hello, hello, anybody there?

Two miles beneath the surface, in this South African gold mine, bacteria of the firmicutes clan have taken up residence. The advantages of this extreme real estate? The tight space, heat, and high pressure are not appealing to most species. Since it is dark, you can’t see the gold, so that selling point is pretty weak. But where you live is a personal choice, and has to be respected. Different strokes for different folks.

That said, taking up permanent residence two miles down takes some getting used to. Every living thing needs a source of chemical energy to run all those cellular processes. Photosynthesis? No sun. No way. Oxygen for respiration? There isn’t any. Gasp! What is their secret? Use hydrogen liberated from underground water by the decay of uranium. OK! That should last a while! Use the same heat source that keeps the depths hot so that our earth can maintain its lively geology with volcanoes, earthquakes, plate tectonics, etc. What an idea! The big question: what else is down there? Who is down there?

Related: Eyjafjallajokull, Beneath the floor …

Voronoi Decomposition

Posted by epsilon on May 24, 2011
Posted in: Art, Mathematics. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Voronoi Decomposition

From Wikipedia: “In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a special kind of decomposition of a metric space determined by distances to a specified discrete set of objects in the space, e.g., by a discrete set of points.”

Well, we all got that, didn’t we? It will be on next week’s quiz, for sure. Seriously though, the Voronoi decomposition on the left is an object of beauty. Minus the little dots, of course, which you will definitely notice if you click to enlarge. These points determine the decomposition. The artistic effect is better when they are eliminated. But here is the deal. Focus on one of those dots. Focus next on the “cell” containing the dot. How is it defined? Well, it is the set of points that is closer to that dot than to any other dot. Folks, that’s math! We snuck it in under the radar!! Fun wasn’t it?

For more info see the Wikipedia articles: Voronoi Diagrams, Delaunay Triangulations. See also: Image Credits. In the credits you will find a C program used to create the image, and in the program you will find an unusual Biblical reference of the numerological kind.

zipTimer: an iPod/iPhone app for pacing piano practice, workouts, you name it.

Baked potatoes a la Grad School

Posted by epsilon on May 21, 2011
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The following recipe is useful for those living a grad student existence, whether they be in grad school or not. The recipe is inexpensive, requires little equipment, and is simple to execute. Even a math or physics grad student of the male gender can follow it successfully. I have used it many times myself, and have taught it to others in a variety of academic fields, from comparative literature to computer science. The instructions should be detailed enough for a PhD candidate with no cooking experience to follow, gain confidence in the culinary arts, and ensure sufficient caloric intake to complete a thesis.

Materials and equipment
One or more potatoes, depending on hunger level and ability. A fork, butter, salt, pepper, plate, and a microwave oven.

Procedure
(1) Wash potato (recommend but not required). Don’t bother to peel it. Stick fork in potato several times. (2) Place potato in microwave device for as long as you think it needs to be there. (3) Remove, split open. If it is not sufficiently cooked, go to 2. If the potato is burned, get a new one and go to 1. (4) Put the potato on a plate. Then mash in some butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Eat potato. (5) Put used plate on top of the other plates in the sink. If you wish, you may run some water over them. (6) Go back to doing whatever you were doing before step 1. Repeat entire process until 2 am as needed, then go to bed.

Notes

1. A tip from mom: to tell if the potato is cooked, look at the center. If it is sort of transparentish and hard by comparison with the part near the skin, the potato is not sufficiently cooked.

2. Acquire a timer and lab notebook. Keep careful records of oven settings, cooking times and result, e.g. “burned”, “raw”, “just right,” “yummy.” From the data you collect, you will quickly find the optimum cooking time, regardless of altitude, microwave power and frequency, type of potato, etc. After all, you are a grad student! At this point, you will be ready to invite friends over for a potato dinner. Your cooking skill will amaze your friends, particularly those of the opposite sex.