mdda

51 ms·

451.
by mdda 15y ago
Maybe long-term the interest rates don't go up much. But the main impact is a huge rocking-the-boat in the banking system : one of the bedrock ideas has just changed. You wouldn't want to do this if the banking system were strong. Now is
452.
by mdda 15y ago
You're making the assumption that the dollar remains the world reserve currency. Now there's a huge additional argument for moving to a trade-weighted basket of currencies. Besides, there are EUR issuers that are still AAA.
453.
by mdda 15y ago
But the people who do the Times cryptic everyday during their commute know they're in a different class... (e.g.: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/731666.html ). I certainly can't make much of a dent in a cryptic crossword, though
454.
by mdda 15y ago
Front-running is a loaded term (I'm sure you know that), and isn't what is going on in HFT - since front-running is illegal, and these programmers are paid to be on exactly the right side of the law.
455.
by mdda 15y ago
The consequences of a downgrade are TERRIBLE : So much of modern finance relies on Treasuries being AAA to act as some kind of bed-rock. Just like your idea of 'precisely no risk' of default, what would happen if the programming constant ZE
456.
by mdda 15y ago
Or buy a currency-linked ETF ('FXF' for instance).
457.
by mdda 15y ago
The treasury selling CDS on its own debt makes no sense, because the credit-worthiness of your insurer is completely correlated to the underlying credit. So people would pay zero for the credit protection. Quite why people away from the fi
458.
by mdda 15y ago
If his Mum had lusted after an iPhone, that's what they would have bought. Instead, she lusted after an HTC Incredible, so they bought a Samsung Charge... In some ways, it was her son that distorted the picture, assuming that all Android ph
459.
by mdda 15y ago
The problem for a potential competitor to AT&T that could offer a 'REALLY unlimited' contract is that the people who would switch would be all the really high bandwidth consumers. All the 'juicy' decently paying, (in reality) low bandw
460.
by mdda 15y ago
Actually, Goldman repeatedly claimed in their defense of their actions on the Fab CDO that they had no fiduciary responsibility to their clients. Also as a market maker, it's difficult to ignore what's going on if all the smart money is sel
461.
by mdda 15y ago
One of the key things that Goldman has (as a hedge fund) is the ability to see what all their clients are doing. Because they really are a sell-side shop. Hedge Funds, OTOH, are used to being spokes, rather than hubs, and so don't expect
462.
by mdda 15y ago
But getting emotionally attached to particular positions (ideas/trades/etc) is a hallmark of the kind of money-losing paradoxes that humans get themselves into. Being able to step back and be self-critical is extremely important to tradin
463.
by mdda 15y ago
Only if buying the insurance was cheaper than the carry from owning the bonds. There's no reason that this should be a 'free lunch'. Indeed, CDS, the bonds, and the market for short-selling the bonds, form a no-arbitrage kind of thing : S
464.
by mdda 15y ago
I actually stated the opposite : People might use this as an example of how amoral hedgefunds are, but it turns out that they are just more clearsighted. Ditto shorting, HFT, etc.
465.
by mdda 15y ago
Then people with an interest in Greece defaulting will buy a small amount of all the short-term debt they can find, and play hardball as it comes due.
466.
by mdda 15y ago
Yes, though the ISDA docs have standardized most of it. But there are also a couple of major types of contract. (a) if there's a Credit Event, the protection seller pays 100 for the distressed debt (essentially taking a loss equal to howev
467.
by mdda 15y ago
Funnily enough, this occurs much less in UK politics.
468.
by mdda 15y ago
But the contents of each CDO and CDS was/is completely transparent to the buyer and seller. Maybe the buyers were less sophisticated than the sellers, but that's really too convenient an excuse. The whole CDO construction process was open
469.
by mdda 15y ago
But... If I'm a hedge fund, why even own Greek debt plus the insurance? Just buy the insurance, and burn Greece. I'd also be buying (CDS) on other tipping-point countries, and watching the knock-on effect. Ah : But that demonstrates how
470.
by mdda 15y ago
Could be. But I wanted to have a period of time in which it was entirely plausible that the US may no longer have the largest empire. After all, England's empire came and went within the last 500 years.
471.
by mdda 15y ago
If I were worried about this point (and a holder of a lot on CDS 'insured' bonds), I'd get a friend that was immune to 'arm twisting' to buy 1MM of a particular issue, and play extremely hardball with the ECB. Eventually, a payment would n
472.
by mdda 15y ago
Typically (for a company at least), debt has 'cross-default' provisions in it. So that failure to pay any particular creditor causes legal triggers to trip on every piece of debt. This is prevent the company persecuting particular sets of
473.
by mdda 15y ago
The important piece of this is that something has had an 'Event of Default' : That will cause all the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) written against Greek debt to trigger. Banks (mostly European banks, as I understand it) that held Greek debt,
474.
by mdda 15y ago
Please look forward to discovering what it feels like : These things come and go in phases. China & India will most likely have their time in the sun within the next 500 years.
475.
by mdda 15y ago
And you lose everything if it was aimed in the wrong direction.
476.
by mdda 15y ago
I read it as saying that throughout his life, he continued to experience child-like wonder at the richness of the world, and is trying to be humble about the size of his contribution to history. YMMV.
477.
by mdda 15y ago
Has anyone else moved over to Pyramid (next iteration for Pylons - particularly with the Akhet suite : mako, beaker, SQLalchemy)? I'm surprised it isn't mentioned on HN more.
478.
by mdda 15y ago
Just as a test, ticking all the boxes scores 45,000 words. Which seems to indicate that they haven't seeded the quiz with fake words to weed out cheaters : Pity, since there was an opportunity to unbias it in at least one dimension. (I al
479.
by mdda 15y ago
But to remove some of the bias, we'd need approximately equal numbers of above and below average people to be going to the trouble of answering the quiz. And in the back of my mind, I thought that the bulk of quiz magazines were sold to wom
480.
by mdda 15y ago
Obvious point : The only people interested in finding out their scores will be the kind of people who think their vocab is something worth competing on. There's no way this is a fair sample across all English-speakers.

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