Idle thought while vacuuming

OK all you finance and legal professionals who read this (you know who you are):

Listening to an interesting piece on credit derivatives from The Economist. The suggestion, which I think I agree with, is that there's nothing inherently wrong with credit default swaps and other forms of derivatives, but that people have radically underestimated the counterparty risk (a la AIG) and that causes the dangers that we're experiencing now. The fix is to require a central clearing house, similar to a stock market, which spreads that risk - this all makes sense to me.

But if that works, why do we not extend that concept to every form of contract? That is, if there's an inherent problem with bilateral or multilateral risks arising from contracts, then why don't we force all contracts to be pooled? Examples: if I'm afraid to buy a GM car because I don't think GM's going to be around to honour the warranty, isn't the answer that warranty contracts only be issued through a central clearing house of all automobile suppliers and spread that risk? Similar arguments could be made for things like multi-year cellphone contracts. Why do we think credit derivatives (or securities generally) are special in this regard?

Juxtaposition

Just sayin'.

Case 1:

Justice Harry LaForme broke his silence on Thursday over his sudden resignation last month from the commission into Indian Residential School abuse, saying his "moral code" gave him no choice but to leave after his authority was undermined.
LaForme, who is aboriginal, resigned as the chairman of the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Oct. 20 in a letter to Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, less than six months into his mandate.
The Ontario Court of Appeal judge has not granted any interviews since his resignation, but he spoke about the decision for the first time in a speech that was part of a series of ethics lectures in Toronto's Ryerson University.
In his resignation letter, LaForme said the commission was on the verge of paralysis and doomed to failure. He cited an "incurable problem" with the other two commissioners, Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley, whom he said refused to accept his authority as chair and were disrespectful.
Speaking Thursday, LaForme said:
"I could not abdicate or surrender my dreams and visions about the truth and reconciliation commission to the two others — indeed, to two others who are relative strangers to me and to the historical and complex relationship that exists between aboriginal people and other peoples of Canada."
LaForme outlined how he and the two commissioners were given a framework for the commission that detailed their mandates.
"Assurances were given to me that it would be me and my vision that would chart, lead and direct the course of this very important and much-needed commission," he said.
"Thus, everyone knew, or certainly ought to have known, what the respective roles were to be."
Other commissioners disagreed
Laforme said that within months, however, that understanding changed. The two other commissioners felt that Laforme should not be above them and that all three should have equal authority. Laforme said Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, also shared that view.
"Indeed, the two commissioners believed this with such sincerity that they retained a lawyer, who, in turn, presumably on their instructions, wanted me to execute a document that acknowledged my agreement with their position," he said. "My moral code dictated that I could not agree."
His voice often breaking, LaForme then spent the next half hour describing his moral code. He talked about tough times as a youngster on an Ontario reserve, overcoming violence and his father's alcoholism.
LaForme went on to complete an engineering degree and finish law school. He was appointed to the bench in 1994, but even there, he said, he faced racism and allegations that his was a token appointment.
"My moral code includes that I must be always mindful of what it means to be marginalized and ignored, to have despair and no hope," he said.
"I must remember how deafening the forced silence by another on another can be."
He left the stage with tears in his eyes and was embraced by his wife, who was crying.

Case 2:

Let me tell ya something. Nowadays, everybody's gotta go to shrinks, and counselors, and go on "Sally Jessy Raphael" and talk about their problems. What happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn't in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do. See, what they didn't know was once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings that they wouldn't be able to shut him up! And then it's dysfunction this, and dysfunction that, and dysfunction ma fangul!

More band names that ought to be

Hey everybody it's time for the newest addition of Band Names! As always they are strange and our family came up with them. So here they are without further adieu Band Names. First up Everlasting Flush, next up is Everyone Seems American, thirdly is Rhymes with Feces. The next ones are 4on (fouron), Ants on the Phone, Cake in a Biblical Sense, Methamphetadad, Puffy Unders, Ashley+the LB's, Pukin' Banana Bread, Squeetastic Funk Band and last but not least is the Big Black Underwear. Hope you like these band names, 'cause there's more to come soon so don't go away!

Scientific Breakthrough

This humble blog has the honour to introduce an entirely new unit of measure - the Jeffrey.

The Jeffrey is defined as the distance one is at any given time from a Jeffrey-Tambor-in-"And Justice For All"-style meltdown in which one shaves one's head and becomes a saffron-robed Hare Krishna, with one Jeffery being defined as the equilibrium position in the normal population, so that one is twice as far from that meltdown at two Jefferys.

It is great fun to place people into this system. Of course, each of us may be at a different place on this scale on any given day. But a list of the rating in Jeffreys of selected persons will appear (for a while at least) over there on the right side of this page. Feel free, by comment, to suggest others and their Jeffrey ratings or to take issue with the ratings given. Decisions of the judges are final, and manifestly right.

Oh, and by the way - the Jeffrey is copyright of this author, and may only be reproduced with reference to this page. Keep your mitts off, SI!

No, it is not cliched to blog about your cats. It's Blog Classic.

I have to take a small break from the politics of Canada's health care system (don't ask) to comment on another small outbreak here. I'm talking Desk Cats. I have a plague of 'em. It all started with this one, who lives on my desk. Why, one might ask, does a cat live on my desk? Well, this is our little Special Needs Kitty. Her meow sounds like something between a throaty goat and Silence of the Lambs. She once typed "67ukill" when left alone with my keyboard. We think she's secretly operating a telemarketing business and shuffling her money around various off-shore accounts. She launches Windows Media Player at every opportunity. She requires me to complete the same feeding routine in the same order every day in order to be able to eat. She is roundly thrashed by all other cats in the house. No wonder we called her Sybil. Actually, she was named for this Sybil instead.


Nevertheless, attracted by the bowl of cat food constantly on display, I have inherited a variety of other feline disasters. This one is famous for constantly walking across my keyboard. He once typed "loki", causing us to momentarily consider re-naming. However, he remains Otto.

This one is a cat version of Miss Piggy. She flirts outrageously, especially with men, but has a hair trigger and a wicked right hook. Here's a picture of her engaging in her favourite activity.

Finally, the Big Orange Man - aka Franktastic Wonkylegs. He's tall enough and demanding enough to stand on his hind legs and tap my shoulder while I'm working on the computer. Most of the time, though, he prefers to sleep. Needing a little stint in boxhab perhaps... Well, at least they don't spend hours on personal calls at the office....LAWL

Congrats to Nephew/Cousin Michael

OK, I couldn't wait for the official game report so I went here to see the 0-1 result for Ontario Power Generation.  While you'd always rather win, that's a great result against a team that was 10-0 with 58 goals for and 7 against!  You guys should be very proud!  As are the Red Boys, whose league clearly uses the same ISP...

One question for coach/guest blogger Darren.  Why are the scores so low in that league?  I'm really struck by the fact that OPG's average game score was a 2-1 win, while the Red Boys on average won their games 5-4 or maybe even 6-5 (we don't post as many stats for some reason).  Shorter games?  Better defence?  Or do they make you guys play on skates?

Vote for Tom Cheek

You should vote for long-time Blue Jay broadcaster Tom Cheek for the Ford Frick award.  You can do so here.  More info about Tom is available through that link or here.

This will be annoying in a couple of ways.  First, the Baseball Hall of Fame requires an insane amount of information to let you vote, so uncheck all the follow-up spam that you don't want.  Second, this is not a direct election but rather a pre-screen - the top candidates in the online voting are assured only of being in the group of ten that get final consideration by a 20-person committee, mostly made up of past winners.

The award is to recognize service by baseball broadcasters (it's not to actually put them "in the Hall of Fame" - though since they do get a display area of their own it's kind of a moot point).  However, it's hard to think of anyone more deserving and Tom's been a finalist four straight years now and should finally win.  Current broadcaster Mike Wilner has reasons why here.

Honey, let's order dinner tonight....

On the other hand though, fast food isn't all that healthy for you and the portions are getting so big....

Got a hoard of small change?

If so, you might want to check out this site. It's quite fascinating. (Note that the link is for Canadian coins, but the site covers coins of the United States too.)

** Disclaimer: I don't think it's legal to melt Her Majesty's coinage. Obtain competent legal advice before proceeding. **

Credit for the link to Francois Velde's page, which proves again that "economist" need not be a synonym for "boring". Another proof is here.

One comment only

And this will be it for this topic, I promise.

John McCain got the wrong Palin.

Baseball updates

Further updates to this post:

- no, they weren't for real;

- Burnett and Halladay (and almost all the other pitchers) continue to be great;

- the DPs continued to abate in the Cito Restoration: 127 after 136 games, a full-season rate of a mere 151;

- Roy Halladay as of today: 17-9, 2.69 ERA, average run support 4.37 runs/game
- Matt Cain as of today: 8-11, 3.69 ERA, average run support 3.26 runs/game.

Before the Big Game

On Saturday September 6th the U9 Boys North Bay Soccer Youth Soccer League will hold its final game. My team, Ontario Power Generation (and yes, we've got the power), will play the undefeated Kia of North Bay.

Our season was great...we ended the season in second place. While I have had many chances in front of the net, I have been only been able to score once. However, in the final game I am looking for a hat-trick.

The worst word in the world

Strong title, I know, but this word deserves it.

It may be an occupational thing, but this word manages to be insulting, misdescriptive, and misused by most people who employ it, all at the same time.

The word in question is "verbiage". If you mean to be dismissive or disparaging of somebody's prose style, by all means use it. It's pejorative, and that's what it's for. But for heaven's sake, don't use "verbiage" as an equivalent to "language" or "words". I even take issue with Merriam-Webster's definition to an extent - the first definition is fine, but contrary to the second definition "verbiage" shouldn't be just a synonym for "diction", as the etymology makes clear. It's not just expression, it's "chattering" or "trilling" pointlessly or confusingly.

As usual, Bryan Garner's book (the only reference book I use regularly) gets this right. The M-W second definition apparently also shows up in the Shorter OED but Garner calls it an "unneeded sense" (page 676 for those of you who want to look stuff like this up). So if you mean to criticize writing, or speech, that is prolix or redundant, use the word in good health. (Don't say "verbage", though. Geez.)

On the other hand, if you mean to dismiss something in writing because you don't think it's important, or you can't be bothered to read it, or you don't understand it and think it's irrelevant whether or not you do, then say those things and leave this word alone. In particular, if you want to apply it to some or all of a legal document, don't! If it's poorly written, opaque, redundant or jargon-filled, say so - you've got an excellent chance of being right. But dismissing large blocks of text because you've decided only lawyers would care about them just means the lawyers continue to win. Mwah hah hah hah!

Soccer

Hey everybody. What I am about to say is like a modern Cinderella story. My team in Clarkson Sheridan Soccer, the Red Spartans, were last place only four games into the season. But then we started a five game winning streak. And now just last week we went to the championship game. Although we lost the game it was a valiant effort. As I was in goal I played pretty well and the rest of the team played brilliantly even though we were playing against a team who was 13-1-0. The final score was 5-2.

Like a stats textbook

The scatterplot below shows (from the Lahman Baseball Database) the numbers of career stolen bases for all of the 16,500+ players in the database, which tracks statistics for seasons through 2006. The career totals are sorted in descending order.

Two points: (i) the beauty of that curve is why people study sabermetrics in the first place; (ii) do you suppose Rickey Henderson is an outlier? He's that first dot.

Exciting News! Exotic New Breed

As some of you may know, our family adopted a dog from the North Bay Humane Society back in April of 2007. Happy as we were with our new friend, we quickly became tired of the constant demands to know his breed. Here in Southern Ontario, purebreds are a household requirement and "mixed breeds" treated with suspicion at the local dog parks. We tried the standard "He's a German Shepherd mix"; but that was nearly always followed with the next question: "Mixed with what?". "Idiot" didn't seem to satisfy most inquirers.

Happily, we heard about a way to determine the ancestry of our dear Jack. Sparing no expense, we quickly rushed out and had the test done.

Shock and delight soon followed when we learned that indeed, we had one of the world's only specimens of an extremely rare breed. The rare Icelandic Pukalikan (pronounced puke -a-leakin') combines a hardy love of cold weather with an endearingly neurotic personality that makes walking this Kennel Club star an exercise routine like no other.

We regret to announce, however, that we must disappoint all of you new Pukalikan fans in your quest for puppies since we had our friend "fixed" before we knew the potential value of this glorious breed. However, we invite you to stay tuned for updates as we uncover the hidden assets of the fabulous Pukalikan!

Pollution

It was a "road" day today, as it will be tomorrow, and it's been one of "those" weeks for the past two or three now. So, of interest was the claim on the back of a van advertising a local cleaning service. The service claimed it was capable of "cleaning the fabric of life". Obligatory plug. I had to giggle in the car. Although interestingly that claim doesn't seem to have made it to the website.

What a claim! A company that can clean the actual fabric of life. This one? Or this one? Or maybe this one?

Does this mean no more going to confession (for those Catholics among us)? No more going to the doctor? No further need for written codes of ethics, criminal codes or Kyoto accords? Just the all-in-one cleaning service.

Unfortunately, as someone working in the "social service industry", my experience would tell me that no matter how hard we try, human action and interaction, to say nothing of human inaction, tends to fall far short of the standard of perfection. Witness the previous post on the legal fall-out of the Toronto propane explosion. Witness the multi-faceted fallout of the Beijing Olympics . Witness the new mandate of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Maybe it's the multiplicity of catdom shedding into my keyboard, or just a bad couple of weeks, but I'm thinking that the best we can do is to learn to live gracefully with the stains in the "fabric of life". Save the bleach, pass the tie-dye. Sorry for the bummer post!

Propane and lawsuits

I was just listening to Prof. Garry Watson on CBC Radio very gently trying to explain that it might be a bit early to start talking about how class action lawsuits would proceed relating to the recent Toronto propane explosion.
The whole situation, obviously, is bad. It's tragic for the employee who was (apparently) killed in the explosion, and for the Toronto firefighter who died at the scene, albeit (apparently) of natural causes.
Isn't it amazing it wasn't worse? No other fatalities, no serious injuries, and what would appear to be full coverage by insurance with no resulting rate changes. And we don't yet know and may never know what exactly was the cause.
By the way, it turns out that there might be, oh, 337 propane facilities in the City of Toronto alone. Which arises from our demand for convenience of service - like nineteenth-century railroads, or natural gas piped to our houses, or power generating stations that nobody wants located close to their homes.
On the radio, the gentleman who is gathering signatures for the proposed class action suit said that "it was up to the lawyers" when asked who the defendants were going to be. That kind of sums it up, doesn't it? Since this must be someone's fault, a lawsuit is the obvious way to go, and questions of cause, who might be at fault for that cause, or whether there are in fact any uncompensated damages go by the boards.
The news cycle now is such that this aspect must get thrown in the hopper. It's long been the case that the litigation outlasts the attention to the thing that prompted it - but now I bet that the media will be done with this story before there's even any kind of report that should prompt someone to start thinking about a lawsuit.
Why do we want to rely on private legal remedies when (fairly obviously) the problem, if there is one, is public regulation or the lack of it? For convenience reasons, we ignore both the way facilities like this insinuate themselves everywhere and how (or if) they're regulated and inspected - until something like this happens and the handwringing commences.

The Judges Have Spoken....

And the winner is.....

Iron Chef Flay.

However, I understand that SOMEONE may have stacked the ballot box. Tsk Tsk. Is that the way democracy works?

Summer baseball reading

My vacation reading this summer included two baseball books (and some others which I hope to write on later).

The first (and the one I'd most strongly recommend) is Henry Thomas's biography of Walter Johnson, Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train. This is the work of Johnson's grandson, written in 1998. It is thorough, very well-researched, and exceptionally well-written. Imagine a current sports figure whose biography features no scandals, and essentially no one ready to say a bad thing about the subject! The story of the famous 1924 season (in which the Washington Senators, a miserable team for nearly Johnson's whole career, finally won the World Series) is very affecting. I also discovered that, unlike most successful baseball players, he was probably a better manager than generally given credit for. Anybody who's interested in the early era of professional baseball and particularly the transition to the Babe Ruth years will enjoy this book.

More of a historical curiosity, but a book I'd always meant to read, is Pitching in a Pinch. This 1912 book was purportedly written by New York Giant great Christy Mathewson but really ghostwritten by sportswriter John N. Wheeler, and the latter's introduction to the book doesn't show much of an effort to deviate from "Christy's" style in the rest of the book. It's still interesting but mostly now for students of baseball history or those very keen on the era. Three things about the book jumped out at me as unusual:
- how many contemporary books of the type will include a whole section on umpires?
- where else are you going to find out the proper use of the term "bullyragging"?
- imagine a book whose point (other than to merchandise the nominal author, but in a gentle early 20th century kind of way) is to suggest that pitching success might flow from strength of character!
All in all, very enjoyable, but not profound and not rigorous - think of it as high-class advertising.