Two more shoes

Earlier, 7oops7 asked if there would be another shoe to drop. Well, there have been a couple: Madoff (made off, with the money) and the Fed Fund rate drop to 0.25%.

Now, the former is pure crap; the WSJ opinion that this type of thing cannot be avoided (Editorial, 12/15/2008) is other than smart (yes, you guys are showing your biases). The WSJ said that cops cannot prevent buglary. Well, true in a sense. But, we sure in hell can reduce to a very low level the likelihood that a buglar can work his trade (security, being smart, ...).

The second shoe brings up another bit of silliness supported by the Fed and Chicago. It's the Fed's Funds Rate futures market from which many spend valuable hours trying to discern Fed movements. Hah! Talk about reading tea-leaves. And, we think that the western culture is so smart with its mathematics. This will be important due to the emphasis in this blog on the issues of quasi-empiricism. It's bad enough that we have the gab standard, now we have gaming (ah yes, derivatives) on top of that.

The blogger has to admit that some of the rantings about malfeasance due to computation and mathematics were based upon a set that did not include these two; yet, having these two as examples strengthens the set and provides a better case for discussing solutions.

As, both of these shoes deal more closely with the motivations of truth engineering than did things like those related to the golden boys (ah, count 'em: GS, BS, ..., almost interminable list).

Remarks:

08/27/2009 -- Madoff exemplifies (albeit somewhat indirectly) systemic risk.

08/24/2009 -- Last year, Ben blinked and panicked. He frantically pulled out all stops as if with no thought for tomorrow. Now, he has no use for 'mea culpa' big daddy that he is. Ben, start to unwind now. The Vienna School's view that these things are undecidable (which is a computational issue) is right on.

01/27/2009 -- Now a new day and way to consider these matters.

Modified: 08/27/2009