Is chess non-violent war?

Does the player who doesn’t make the last mistake usually win?

After the game

the king and pawn go into the same box

Italian proverb

The more captured opposing pieces the less risk

and vice versa

Do some football running backs fake left and go right

to mislead the defense to commit in the wrong direction?

All warfare is based on deception

…when able to attack we must seem unable

when using our forces we must seem inactive

when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far…

when far away, we must make him believe we are near

Sun Tzu

On Oil Production, Consumption and Light Sweet and Heavy Sour Crude

Before we started using it, there was about 76 cubic miles of oil on Earth,
or a sphere with a diameter of 5.26 miles, about as tall as the tallest mountain on Earth,
of which since 1859, we have consumed about half.

If Earth’s diameter is about 7,960 miles and the diameter of all the oil is about 5.26 miles,
and about half of it is gone, is less than ½ of 1% of Earth is made of oil?

In 2000, the difference between non-OPEC light sweet and sour crude oil production of 66 mb/d
was 41% light sweet and 59% sour.

mb/d = million barrels per day

From 2000 to 2004, non-OPEC light sweet production fell 3.26 mb/d, from 27.06 mb/d to 23.8 mb/d.

34% to 67%, light sweet to sour.
3. Oil producing nations export petroleum products only after domestic needs are met.

A ‘2000’ nation producing 5 mb/d, consuming 1.0 mb/d of light sweet can export 1.05 mb/d of light sweet. (41% light sweet production)

If a ‘2004’ nation’s total oil production increased 6% to 5.3 mb/d, like non-OPEC production above,
and total light sweet production dropped to 34% while domestic consumption rose to 1.1 mb/d,
then light sweet exports fell about 33.3%, to 0.7 mb/d.

If between 2000 and 2004, non-OPEC lost 3.26 mb/d as OPEC added 1 mb/d of light sweet,
did total global light sweet production fall to about 2.26 mb/d?
If total oil production rises or stays the same
while light sweet production falls while consumption rises in oil producing nations
and China and India…?

Monte Carlo

… a "Monte Carlo" simulation, commonly used in financial planning

estimates the odds of reaching retirement financial goals.

 

Though these tools typically run through hundreds or thousands of potential market scenarios,

they often assign minuscule odds to extreme market events.

 

Yet these extreme events seem to be happening more often.

 

If causes, actions or winners have effects, reactions or losers

and A is caused, allowed, accelerated, held back or prevented

is it better to pre-think what could happen to B, C and D

than not?

 

The questions about Monte Carlo tools

reflect broader concerns about mathematical models

for gauging portfolio risks

 

These models were supposed to help quantify and manage the risks

of...complex instruments

 

If achievement takes less time with a rational plan

can you get farther faster than those without

and vice versa?

 

But given the events of the past couple of years

it appears that the models often gave big institutions

as well as small investors, a false sense of security

 

Critics emphasize that the problem isn't Monte Carlo itself

but the assumptions that go into it

 

If some financial estimates and hypothetical illustrations

assume perpetual levels of varying data

can probability be manipulated?

 

Is the present you the only who

who’s going to care for the future you?

 

 

Since no standard approach exists

one user might plug in a range of assumptions on interest rates

inflation or volatility that is different from another user

 

Some industry participants and academics

are pushing for Monte Carlo tools to more clearly illustrate

the scarier scenarios

 

Eleanor Laise

The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2009

 

If there are at least 15,000 professional American Economists

and less than 1% foresaw the financial crisis

and many mathematical based financial prognostications

were relatively useless

which if left in place

could negatively affecting the future

should some try to fix what’s probably broken?

If 2008 was the first year the billions of people in China, India, Russia and the Middle East consumed more oil than the millions in the US, what should happen when demand exceeds supply?

The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered.

 

…is this something you should be worried about?

 

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Via The Oil Drum

If credit peaksdoes employment, globalization and peace?

 We have lent a huge amount of money to the US

so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets

 

Frankly speaking, I do have some worries

 

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

 

US Insists China Fears Over Debt Unfounded

The Wall Street Journal

 

If Executive Order 6102, signed on April 5, 1933

let the Federal Reserve confiscate gold for $20.67 per troy ounce

and the government raised the price to $35 not long after

 

did the US government devalue the dollar by 41%?

 

The Gold Reserve Act of 1934…

changed the value of the dollar in gold

from $20.67 to $35 per ounce

 

This price remained until August 15, 1971

when President Richard Nixon

announced that the United States

 would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value

thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange

 

Wikipedia

Have the leaders of most emerging economies

essentially been stealing their citizens’ savings

by lending money to developed economies

to keep currency exchange rates relatively low

to encourage more sales of manufactured goods?

 

If global central bank foreign exchange reserves more than tripled

as the US dollar fell by ~50% since 2000

did Americans buy manufactured goods from foreign nations

with IOUs that are now worth about half as much?

 

Who is the largest holder of US Treasury debt?

 

What could happen

if a generation of underemployed, underpaid

educated and indebted young adults

become disillusioned by their elders’ financial mismanagement

and seek to identify and punish those responsible?

If borrowing to pay for tax cuts helps an economy in the short run, do unpaid for tax cuts retard growth in the long run?

The Laffer Curve, anyone know what this says?

 

It says that at this point on the revenue curve

you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point…

 

Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980, anyone?

 

Something-d-o-o economics, voodoo economics.

 

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

 

Should higher interest rates and inflation

correlated to tax cuts and increased borrowing

eventually reduce tax revenue

following short term economic growth?

What does spending more than you make look like?

 Chart Via Business Insider

Are rising financial markets in the best interests of the financial news industry?

 

Sales of new homes rose in February

for the first time in seven months

…another sign that the housing market is thawing

 

New-Home Sales Rise 4.7%

The Wall Street Journal

March 26, 2009

Why would a mainstream news story entitled

New-Home Sales Rise 4.7%

not mention year over year sales were down 41%

or that January 2009 new home sales fell 10%

to the lowest level since reporting began in 1963

48.2% below January 2008 estimates?

 

Who controls the past controls the future

 

Who controls the present controls the past

 

George Orwell

If $100 loses 50% and then rises 5%

how should most feel about having $52.50 instead of $100

after enduring conjured platitudes?

 

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed

 

 If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed

 

Mark Twain

If capitalism is dependent on creative destruction, what is it without destruction?

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter
popularized and used the term to describe the process of transformation that accompanies radical innovation

 

…innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies

that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power

 

Creative Destruction

Wikipedia

 

If most economists still believe in the concepts that discounted the possibilities of the financial crisis, should economic policy rely on the same prognosticators who helped enable the worst financial distress since the Great Depression for economic tactics and forecasting?

 

The process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within,  incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one ...

 

[The process] must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction, it cannot be understood on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull

 

Joseph Schumpeter

The Process of Creative Destruction, 1942

 

If the natural cycle of laissez faire capitalism revolves between risk and aversion, what should happen if government intervention perverts the process

to forestall short term economic pain?

 

What should the electorate expect

from leadership dependent on the status quo?

 

Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act

 

George Orwell

Don’t make bets you can’t afford to lose when confronting an opponent with unlimited resources who can arbitrarily change the rules.

I don't care if I follow your rules, if you can cheat, so can I.

 

 I won't let you beat me unfairly, I'll beat you unfairly first.

 

Ender Wiggin

Fictional Military Strategist

Geo-Politics and business is Zugzwang

Zugzwang…describes a situation where one player is put at a disadvantage because he has to make a move – the player would prefer to pass and make no move. The fact that the player must make a move means that his position will be significantly weaker than the hypothetical one in which it is his opponent's turn to move.

A player whose turn it is to move who has no move that does not worsen their position is said to be in zugzwang.

In a chess endgame, being in zugzwang usually means going from a drawn position to a loss or a won position to a draw, but it can be from a win to a loss, or a substantial loss of material which probably affects the outcome of the game.

Zugzwang
Wikipedia

I have studied the enemy all my life
 
I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders

I have even read his philosophers…

I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles

I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances
and he hasn’t the slightest idea of what I’m going to do

So when the time comes, I’m going to whip the hell out of him

George S Patton

If the Fed is printing enough to cover what the Treasury borrows, should unemployment benefits be extended, and if there's no such thing as a free lunch, who ends up with the bill?

…the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course,
fully and in its own right.

The second generation receives it clear
of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on.

For if the first could charge it with a debt,
then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation.

Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid
during the course of its own existence.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789

"With millions of Americans still looking for work, now is not the time to cut key safety net programs like Unemployment Insurance. The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program is set to expire at the end of November. If that happens, 2 million people will lose benefits in December and 6 million by the end of next year."

Hilda Solia
Derpatment of Labor
Via Tyler

Was it justifiable for the baby boom and their elders, to promise themselves tens of trillions of unfunded benefits, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, for future generations to pay for?

Why would some of one generation

want to covertly confiscate another’s wealth?

 

It is grossly irresponsible for the baby boom generation

 to expect Generations X and Y

 to be saddled with our national debt,

 our trade debt, and our infrastructure debt,

and the retirement debt created by baby boomers

enjoying long retirements supported by future tax increases

on their children.

 

Rob Atkinson

The Atlantic

If workers earn, pay taxes, spend, save and invest,

while retirees divest, downsize, budget

and draw income and healthcare benefits, 

what’s going to happen when more retirees want

what fewer workers may not be able to deliver?

 

Are Baby Boomers going to get more or less than they think

if the supply of what they want to sell exceeds demand,

as they exchange assets for needed goods and services

at relatively the same time?

 

Loss is nothing else but change,

 and change is Nature's delight.

 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Roman Emperor

Why isn't the the government testing for Mercury etc..., from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

FDA Not Testing Gulf Seafood for Mercury, Arsenic or Other Heavy Metals Because "We Do Not Expect to See an Increase Based on this Spill"

Congressman Markey's subcomittee...got the Food and Drug Administration to admit that fish are not being tested from oiled areas...

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for mercury, arsenic or other toxic heavy metals, because - wait for it - the FDA doesn't expect to see an increase of these toxins from the oil spill...

The FDA's statement is similar to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco's recent assertion that oil doesn't bioaccumulate in fish, and that fish naturally "degrade and process" the oil.

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for the most toxic bioaccumulating metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

George Washington
via Tyler

Do erased mistakes replicate faster?

If…the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus
and in reality the result was grossly less,
Winston’s job was to change previous versions,
so the old version would agree with the new one.

George Orwell

Can some come to irrational conclusions to justify erroneous assumptions?

The economics profession appears to have been unaware of the long build-up to the current worldwide financial crisis and to have significantly underestimated its dimensions once it started to unfold.

…We trace the deeper roots of this failure to the profession’s insistence on constructing models, that…disregard the key elements driving outcomes in real-world markets.

The economics profession has failed in communicating the limitations, weaknesses and even dangers of its preferred models to the public.

This state of affairs makes clear the need for a major reorientation of focus in the research economists undertake as well as for the establishment of an ethical code that would ask economists to understand and communicate the limitations and potential misuses of their models.

The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics

Israel, America, Saudi Arabia and Iran: Why do survivors survive?

Are there times when compromise isn’t appropriate?

US battleships cross Suez Canal

According to Al-Quds al-Arabi report, 11 American warships, one Israeli vessel, crossed Suez Canal into Red Sea

Eleven American battleships and an Israeli one crossed the Suez Canal Friday en route to the Red Sea, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported.

According to the report, traffic in the canal was halted for several hours in order to allow US Navy vessels, which included an aircraft carrier and carried infantry troops, armored vehicles and ammunition, to pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.

 It was further reported that eyewitnesses detected an Israeli warship among the vessels. No confirmation has been received from Egyptian authorities.

 The report also noted that fishing activities in the area were stopped during the ships' passage as well as traffic on the bridges above the canal…

Roee Nahmias
Ynetnews.com, June 19, 2010

Should you do what you need to whether you like it or not
sooner than later?

Saudis test clearing skies for Israel to bomb Iran: report

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defenses to allow Israeli warplanes to use its airspace in any bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Times newspaper reported Saturday.

"The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way," a US defense source in the region told the paper.

"They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the (US) State Department."

Riyadh denied the British report on Saturday, calling it "false" and "slanderous," the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

…The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran.

It said that a source in Saudi Arabia said the arrangement was common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom.

AFP, June 12, 2010

Are there correlations
between currency, debt, natural resources, peace and war?

Oil Spill Questions of Risk and Return

In many cases what looks like risk-taking is not courage at all
it’s just unrealistic optimism

Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds

Unrealistic optimism means you are taking the risk
because you don’t know the odds

Daniel Kahneman
Nobel Laureate, Economics

Could the difference between something that “may” malfunction
and something that “shouldn’t”,
be that when something that shouldn’t malfunction does,
it’s a lot harder to fix?

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change…
…so, in a month's time
a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen
or maybe one that wasn't going to happen does

Ian Stewart
The Mathematics of Chaos

Can greed and fear lead some to believe
some things are less or more risky than they actually are?

Can non-random events cause random effects?

What do you do
if you possess a brief case that may contain either $0 or $1,000,000
and are offered $200,000 for the case?

What if the majority of a civilization collectively chose the case and lost
but don’t know?

Can overreaction to fear of future unhappiness
reduce appetite for present risk?

Are fear and greed stronger than resolve?

"What would happen if a tropical storm hit the oil floating in the Gulf?"

Hurricane vs. Oil Slick

...the annual hurricane season begins on June 1, and some scientists are predicting an above-average year with 15 named storms and eight hurricanes. It sounds like a deadly combination—but what would actually happen if a storm like Katrina tracked across the spill in the Gulf?

It could make things even worse. At least one forecast team puts the chance of a strong hurricane hammering some part of the Gulf Coast this year at 44 percent...

...In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes rotate counterclockwise, with the largest storm surge occurring where the winds blow in the direction the storm as a whole is traveling—that's in front of the eye and off to the right. 

...So if a powerful storm approached the slick from the southwest, say, its most potent winds would push the oil forward, instead of sweeping it off to the side and out of the storm's path. If the storm then plowed into the Gulf Coast, you'd expect an oily landfall.

...It's even possible that an oil slick could make a powerful hurricane a little stronger. Oil is darker than water, and so it absorbs more sunlight while also blocking evaporation from the sea surface. That means the spill could be trapping heat in one part of the ocean. If a storm passed over and churned up the surface of the water, that potential hurricane energy might then be released.

Chris Mooney
Slate, May 21, 2010

If the US population was 230 million in 1982, and about 305 million in 2010, and Capacity Utilization fell by more, even with massive government intervention, could the economic downturn be relatively worse than it looks?