(Reuters) New York: Having inoculated its employees with H1N1 vaccine dosages usurped from pregnant women and children, Goldman Sachs has increased its vigilance against the contagious virus by banning employee contact with spare change.
An internal memo outlines steps staff should take to avoid becoming ill, starting with the eradication of the potentially infected currency that may have lodged itself under the seats of their automobiles. The hazardous materials are being collected and sent to Small Business for disposal.
The memo also advised employees to “resist the urge to open your own car door ; let your driver do it.”
I really hope that this is just a spoof. There is no direct link to the Reuter item. But it is so good that it should be on the Onion. I’m sure this could go viral without any problem, it is so unbelievably believable. Goldman really could be that stupid!
It does not matter what your political affiliations are, Goldman should simply be broken up until it is actually run by people who give a crap.
DeCode Genetics, a genome sequencing and drug development company, found out the hard way that predicting disease risk simply by reading someone’s genes isn’t so straightforward. On Tuesday, deCode filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware. The company’s financial problems have also raised some troubling questions about genetic privacy.
I don’t worry so much about privacy. I think there are legal ways to deal with hits. I’m more concerned with what happens to our digital medical data. As we enter the digital age for medicine and as our genome gets put into large databases, who will be responsible for maintaining those databases?
If it is a commercial entity, what happens if they go bankrupt? Will there be an effective monopoly or will there be many such digital providers? Will it be more like a utility than a for-profit corporation? Who will regulate them?
These are somer really important questions that should be answered very carefully. Because even if privacy is maintained, it does no good if the company goes dark.
Economic statistics don’t measure science or training well. Our fields are being hurt inordinately, but the damage isn’t being measured. What will it mean long-term?
Anyone who thinks things are getting better needs to read this. Because it is often the best trained, most intelligent ones who are being forced to leave. We are beginning to provide much fewer rationales for people to spend so much time becoming well trained and very educated.
Especially if those people are let go because their expertise costs too much money. We already treat airline pilots as bus drivers with some working at regional carriers making $22,000 a year, the poverty line for a family of four.
Because our current system does do really want to pay for expertise.
I love the last paragraphs:
So, the next time you hear that perhaps the recession is lifting, that halcyon days are on the horizon, remember that the numbers being used for those rosy projections are based on items that are easy to measure, slower to grow, of decreasing value, and not vital for future growth.
This could be a lesson in how intangibles become tangible, I’m afraid.
It will be a long time before employment levels are back up to what they were, especially for those with the most training.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lawsuit challenging patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer can move forward, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday.
This is where health and business clash. Myriad holds the important patents that permit a test to be done. hey do not license the test to anyone else, doing it themselves. They can charge whatever they want, as there is no possible competition, on a test that is absolutely critical for the prognosis of many women.
The ACLU filed suit. The basis is that the patents are based on natural products, that already occur in the world:
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted thousands of patents on human genes – in fact, about 20 percent of our genes are patented. A gene patent holder has the right to prevent anyone from studying, testing or even looking at a gene. As a result, scientific research and genetic testing has been delayed, limited or even shut down due to concerns about gene patents.
As a result of the PTO granting patents on the BRCA genes to Myriad Genetics, Myriad’s lab is the only place in the country where diagnostic testing can be performed. Because only Myriad can test for the BRCA gene mutations, others are prevented from testing these genes or developing alternative tests. Myriad’s monopoly on the BRCA genes makes it impossible for women to access other tests or get a second opinion about their results, and allows Myriad to charge a high rate for their tests – over $3,000, which is too expensive for some women to afford.
That’s right. Since no other test is allowed, there is no way to get a second opinion. You just have to hope that Myriad does the tests rights and has the right process. And no one can look for a different or better test because myriad holds the patent on the genes themselves, and on anything those genes could be used for.
I am all for the use of IP to provide funds to recoup development costs. BUt the ability to patent the gene sequences themselves is actually hampering the progress of research. Patents are part of a contract between innovators and society. But some cases, such as this one, show the imbalance that has occurred with these sorts of patents.
The only pricing pressure on Myriad is… well nothing. They could charge $10,000 for the test. No one could stop them. In some cases, the monopoly of a patent hurts society, particularly something that is of critical need but which can be obtained elsewhere.
Most other companies who hold similar patents license their technology to multiple companies, each who do their own test. So only a fraction of the money from each test goes to the patent holder. Myriad, on the other hand, can grab ALL the revenue from the tests. Their greed is what brought this lawsuit. The fact that it can proceed is hopeful.
I don’t expect this case to be the one that changes things but it can be one of the stepping stones. IP provides important benefits, both to the innovators and to society. But it gets out of whack every so often, usually because the IP holders over reach (Simply look at how long copyrights are for now compared to the previous century.)
We fill figure this all out eventually. Perhaps creating monopolies from some health products is not the best approach.
Calvin Trillin explains explains that the cause of the great crash of 2008 was all the smart people who went to Wall Street. Once upon a time, the big jobs on Wall Street were filed with third-raters, the guys who slept through Rocks for Jocks at Ivy U. They got their jobs through their parents or their friends or people they charmed at homecoming. Their dreams were modest, a house in Greenwich and a sailboat.
Of course, Trillin makes this banal insight a joke, claiming that the old boys were only mildly greedy, but then Wall Street started importing really smart people, and making mountains of money. The third-raters weren’t able to comprehend the risks, but loved the buttloads of moolah (you gotta love Margaret and Helen) they were making. The smart people didn’t understand the risks either, but they pretended to, and uncontrolled greed led to the crash.
The humor masks the ugly reality. The standing joke in law school is that the A students become professors, the Bs become judges, and the Cs become millionaires, or as we used to say in college, the business guys hired the engineers, and the science guys become professors.
The most obvious bad thing about smart people going to Wall Street is that it means we don’t have productive jobs for them in the fields they are trained for. If a bunch of physicists are working for Goldman Sachs, it means they aren’t doing physics. It means we don’t have work requiring physicists or their training. It means we are falling behind the countries that do have work for physicists. How many chemists do you think China has working in finance?
The second bad thing is the way financial elites make money. Floyd Norris gives a good picture in this column. They charge high fees, and hidden fees. To justify those fees, they have to produce huge returns, which they do by leverage. They rely on complexity and deception, particularly in swaps and derivatives. Wall Street has become more concentrated. All of these things are dangerous to the rest of society, which has to bail those incompetents out when they fail.
The third bad thing is that they aren’t doing the one thing we need for them to do: allocate capital to its best use. As Norris points out, dumping money into asset bubbles is a giant fail.
Many of the financial innovations of recent years were not designed to increase operating profits for customers. Instead, they sought to avoid taxes, or make accounting statements look prettier, or get around regulations seeking financial safety. At their worst, they boiled down to an offer to charge a customer a dime for letting him evade 20 cents in taxes. Such transfers do nothing for the larger society.
Both parties are corrupted by the large sums of money being pumped into Washington. It is so easy to see who is doing the bidding of their corporate masters. Thus, nothing will be done over the next few years to really change the dynamic. In fact, I expect things to get worse and that the thing people really care about, jobs, will continue to be secondary to bolstering Wall Street.
I expect this to be the real realignment divide between those who want corporations to continue to have all the rights that citizens have with none of the responsibilities and those who want actual living human beings to come first.. Either a Republican Party that can foster another Roosevelt or a Democratic Party that can foster another Roosevelt.
I just hope the corruption of corporations can be reduced to a molehill instead of a mountain. And soon.
If not, America will not be much of a leader in much of anything.
Last January, when Obama was President-elect, the CBO came out with an estimate for the 2009 budget year. Based on Bush’s policies, such as TARP (which added almost $700 billion), they projected the deficit to be $1.2 trillion. And this does not include the $800 billion stimulus package, which is spread out over two years.
So, the expected amount would be around $1.6 trillion. The current $1.4 trillion is a pretty close to that projection, but indicates that Obama’s policies may actually have saved the US a couple of trillion, based on the January CBO numbers.
By whatever token, the budget deficit is lower than most projections. Assuming the deficit really matters since people in each party keep changing their minds depending who is in the White House.
After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,”life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash – $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize”these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return – though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.
It is time for everyone to start learning how to garden, hunt, and can food.
Great. Let’s create a new, unregulated derivative market based on how long we live. They did such a nice job with derivatives based on where we live. How about some based on what we eat?
To paraphrase Shakespeare, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. Then we go after the bankers.” These guys need to have so much red tape piled on them that they can never screw with us again,
UPDATE: And, of course, the financial guys would hate for a cure to cancer to come along. That would make their wonderful new financial scam worth less money. In fact, health care reform could have substantial effects on these sorts of devices. So there would actually be an open market reason to help people die sooner. It would make these things worth more.
Here’s the conclusion of “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” a long, brilliant piece in the forthcoming NYT magazine by the leading progressive economist:
VIII. RE-EMBRACING KEYNES
So here’s what I think economists have to do. First, they have to face up to the inconvenient reality that financial markets fall far short of perfection, that they are subject to extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds. Second, they have to admit — and this will be very hard for the people who giggled and whispered over Keynes — that Keynesian economics remains the best framework we have for making sense of recessions and depressions. Third, they’ll have to do their best to incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.
Many economists will find these changes deeply disturbing. It will be a long time, if ever, before the new, more realistic approaches to finance and macroeconomics offer the same kind of clarity, completeness and sheer beauty that characterizes the full neoclassical approach. To some economists that will be a reason to cling to neoclassicism, despite its utter failure to make sense of the greatest economic crisis in three generations. This seems, however, like a good time to recall the words of H. L. Mencken: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”
When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.
Read the whole damn indictment. Any politician, journalist or opinion maker who worships at the feet of the false gods of neo-classical economics is no better than Bernie Madoff (see “Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme?“).
Here, not only was the Earth at the center of the Universe, but every object orbited the Earth in perfect circles. Perfection of the model was more important than reality. So, as more data became available, the orbits had to remain circular, requiring some very complex adaptions to make the model continue to fit.
Even Copernicus did not fully correct the model. He still thought that all the orbits were perfect circles. He still felt that epicycles were important. In fact, the only really advantage he proposed for his system was soe simple math to explain how perfect circles could still provide a model for the data.
It took Brahe, Kepler, and finally Galileo to kill the geocentric model for good. Galileo’s identification of the phases of Venus was the killing blow for the Ptolemaic view and it happened 100 years after Copernicus.
People hate to change a model, even when it no longer works. Many economists need to realize that the orbits are not circular, that the world is not perfect and assuming anything involving humans can be reduced to simple equations may be a recipe for disaster.
Fixing our health care system is critical for the United States, not only because it might be the humane thing to do but also in order to maintain a competitive economy. 15% of our GDP pays for healthcare and this is projected to raise to about 20% by 2017. Our health insurance premiums have more than doubled in 10 years. We pay more than any other developed country while insuring a smaller portion of the population. Over 50% of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses, something that is not even possible in most developed countries.
Health care costs to businesses are increasing much faster than profits, resulting in the mathematical certainty that either total health insurance costs to businesses will become greater than total profits or even more people will be without health care. Businesses in most other countries do not have the burden of paying healthcare out of their profits, making it easier for them to be profitable.
Finally, health insurance costs raise each year but at an unknown rate. It is quite difficult for most businesses, especially small ones, to forecast just what their health care costs will be each year. This adds another problematic layer for the financial health of small companies.
These should all be part of any debate on health care reform in this country. But we are not seeing that. What we are seeing are the same sorts of bullying, astroturf tactics that have been used before by vested interests to stop debate and to stop the democratic process.
They do not have any interest in our real health concerns. They are concerned solely about maintaining their profits.
Astroturf may be fraud. But it is used constantly by lobbying groups, and others with vested interests.
Rachel Maddow has been doing a great job reporting on the history of this fraudulent approach and who is behind its current usage against health care reform.
Here is some history – the Brooks Brothers riots:
These supposed average citizens were actually operatives hired to be provocative. It worked in 2000 and has only become more sophisticated with online approaches.
These same tactics are now being used across the country in a way that is again designed to shut down debate. In fact, the use of these tactics was delineated in a leaked memo. There is no attempt to carry on any discussion. It is purely to intimidate through the use of violent, angry mobs that can only be called hooligans.
More on orchestrated outrage, with some discussion of the leaked memo describing just what to do to rattle the speaker:
I am sure there are many people who are really angry and acting on their own. But much of their anger is being whipped up by lies spread by groups who want no changes to be made at all in health care, by groups that are quite happy with the bankrupting of our economy, by groups that exist to take money in order to stop debate. It does not happen in a vacuum.
It happens because specific people are spreading known lies in order to provoke others to act out their anger. Although it started with busing of people around to town halls, this meme has spread far enough that it no longer strictly needs constant nourishing. Just like any marketing scheme that takes a life of its own, this deliberate spread of lies to stop debate now needs little care. Just some added lies to keep things going.
“This is professional, corporate-funded, Republican-staffed PR and should be reported as such.”
Liberals have had their own recent incidents where they shamefully tried to stop someone from speaking but I have not seen anyone demonstrate that this was part of a nationwide plan put together by left-wing vested interests and political operatives.
That is what we seem to have here using corporate lobbying groups and political operatives. Normally, most people are not really interested in what happens at the national level. They care about their day to day life and local issues. It takes some real effort to rile them up. Spreading lies works quite well. It always has.
I’ve seen this same approach, this same reliance on generating anger, used by creationists. I personally have been yelled at and talked over in the same intimidating way by people riled up by their minister with lies. It was at a debate on creationism and evolution where I was a member of the audience. I had a question for the speakers. Turns out several Baptist churches had bused over their parishioners to fill the hall.The goal was not to convince me that evolution did not happen. The goal was to shut me up and intimidate anyone else who might agree with me. The feeling that I might now be recognized by crazies who would beat the crap out of me in the parking lot very much made me wish I had not stood up.
I know how easy it would be for any organized effort to rile up a large group of people. And what a negative impact it really has on actual discussion of ideas.
It may be average people doing a lot of this now but the marketing plan has been put together by lobbying organizations paid for by the healthcare industry and insurance companies.
So now we have a group of angry, scared people that no longer wants to actually debate and find a solution. The discussion has degraded to the worst kind of democracy – people yelling at each other. On something we have to solve.
We cannot keep going on the path we are on now. But many vested interests are happy to see America fail as long as their profits continue.
Vienna, Austria: New light has been thrown on how humans choose their partners, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday May 25). Professor Maria da Graça Bicalho, head of the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil, says that her research had shown that people with diverse major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar, and that this was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction.
So, let’s include MHC analysis for all the online compatibility checking services online. If their MHCs are too close, that is a big red ‘X’. Far enough apart and they get to be a couple.
Of course, if humans normally detect this by smell, then couldn’t someone figure out what the sources are and include them in the latest version of Axe anti-perspirant? Someone could surreptitiously find out what a potential partner’s MHCs are and then use the appropriate deodorant to attract them. This opens up so many business opportunities.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is set to emerge from recession in the second half of this year as consumer spending and the housing sector recover, but unemployment will rise well into 2010, according to a survey.
I saw this and immediately thought “Who did they survey?” Turns out they asked 52 economists. What to they really know about this?
They are talking about cyclical peaks for unemployment and that people will start buying houses again, even though unemployment will reach 9.8% next year.
Even though this is the longest running recession since the Great Depression, as quoted in the article, it will turn around due to increased consumer spending from tax cuts!
Now, even if a lot of people get tax breaks, why in the world are they going to spend it rather than save it, since who knows how long they might still have a job.
People do not spend if they are scared of losing a job. This just sounds like wishful thinking from the same guys who show up at places like CNBC to tell us all to buy now.
I think I will wait a little bit longer before the hosannas over the end of the downturn.
by Kevin
Green Microfinancing (42%), with Getting Off the Grid a close second (at 32%).Thanks to everyone for voting and helping us choose a topic.
Since these were the two most popular topics by far, so we will not let all the votes go to waste. On April 27, the topic will be Green Microfinancing.
Because of the Memorial Day holiday, we will not have an Idea Club in May but will return again on June 22. The topic that night will be Getting Off the Grid. If anyone would like to volunteer to lead this discussion, please contact Sustainable Path Foundation at info @ sustainablepath.org.
Nora Burton has volunteered to lead the discussion on Green Microfinancing while I will help facilitate. It should be a very interesting discussion.
To help start things off, take a look at Green Microfinance, a non-profit organization whose mission is: “to address climate change and environmental justice by providing education and sharing knowledge on ‘microfinance and climate change’ and ‘clean energy for the poor.”
This should be a great place to start learning about Green Microfinancing so we can have a strong discussion on April 27, not only about what it is but perhaps what sorts of actions we can take to help.
by ktylerconk
Remember the next Idea Club is in a short time. We will focus how to convert knowledge into action and on how sustainable communities may be created. You can RSVP by clicking the orange Sign Up! at the top of the page.
Idea club has been getting more popular each month. I expect that this will be a very wide ranging discussion since the tops are somewhat intangible. What type of knowledge are we talking about? What sorts of actions are best? What does sustainable really mean?
I was alerted to this Media Matters post, revealing that people still don’t get why the current slump is different from the early 1980s, and why fiscal policy is necessary this time. Yes, I know, it’s Joe Scarborough; but still …
[More]
Krugman provides a wonderful graph showing just why this is not like any other recession since the 30s. The problem now, as it was only back in the Depression, is that interest rates are about zero.
Normally, monetary policy could be used and the Fed could lower interest rates to allow the economy to pick up from the money that is loosened up. That is what has happened in other recessions and it usually works just fine to inject a trillion dollars or so into the economy.
But there is no where for the Fed to go now. It has hit the bottom so it can not really influence the economy with monetary policies. Just as in the Depression, the only other place for an injection of funds has to come from fiscal policy by the government.
Without an injection of money into the system, the economy will remain frozen for some time. Japan was in a similar boat in the 90s and failed to get capital moving with fiscal policy. They spent over a decade in a slump. This slump is now global. We can not afford that. long a slump.
To do nothing will not rapidly solve the problem. Monetary policy will not work. All that is left is fiscal policy. The last time this was the only choice, Roosevelt took it and got the economy back on track.
One of the big changes between this horrible market and previous ones is the very rapid visualization of some very interesting data. Seeing is believing and there are so many eyes looking at the information that some really nice ways of presenting it can be seen.
by dandeluca
