Letters from London

Reading Code

2012-02-10T23:11:00.000+01:00

Code Readability is maybe the most important part of producing reproducible research. If it's impossible (i.e. very costly) for somebody else to read/understand the computer code that underlies your results, then the odds are that they will never be able or willing to reproduce and check your results. This is a big problem if we want to produce credible results. (Credible in the sense that not only you by yourself believe in what you found, just because you are the only person on earth who understands what you have done.)
If you don't think that this is important for you, think about the possibility of collaboration with somebody else: The quality of collaboration will depend critically on your team understanding what everybody is doing.

What do we want?

We want an easy way to document computer code. Ideally, we write our documentation right into the code, as comments. This way, whenever you change your code, you change the comment and everything's up to date.

What do we have?

There are some tools out there that help you documenting your code. R is predestined for this, as it integrates seamlessly with latex (see for example knitr or sweave). But there's hope for everybody else out there. A nifty python script by the name of pycco does the following:

You write your comments as usual into your source code, for example in file "src.code"
you run "pycco src.code" and obtain a folder ./docs containing a html file with two columns, left the comments, right the code
it comes with mathjax support, i.e. your browser will display latex formulae.

How can I get it?

You need git. (you really do. whygitisbetterthanx.)
then get it with
git clone https://github.com/tlamadon/pycco

Example

See an example here (OS Lion: rendering looks best with firefox)

Illustrating the Deferred Acceptance Algorithm with R

2012-01-17T21:21:00.003+01:00

The Deferred Acceptance Algorithm (DAA) goes back to Gale and Shapley (1962). They introduce a rather simple algorithm that finds a stable matching for example for college admissions or in a marriage market. In a marriage market where M men have preferences over W women, and men take the role of the proposing party, the DAA produces what is called the M-stable matching: each man strictly prefers the M-stable matching to any other potential matching. "Stable" means that no couple of a man and a woman could break the matching by choosing another mate. This is quite a strong result.
Variations of this algoritm are used in Hospital assignments in the USA, whereby recently graduated doctors submit preferences over hospitals, and hospitals submit preferences over graduates. Another application is the kidney exchange, where the algorithm is used to find the best match between a set of donors and a set of receivers. If you're interested in this, check out Al Roth's website.

Here I'm going to use R to make a little simulation of this. It's not a spectacular movie, but it shows you how the algorithm works. So here goes: We have M men and W women in a marriage market, and each participant has a complete set of preferences (a ranking) over all participants of the other sex. In the demonstration I assumed strict preferences (no indifference between any 2 members) and that nobody wants to be single, but the algorithm can handle this.

in round one all men are single. They propose to their highest preference-woman.
Each woman who receives at least one proposal picks her highest preference from the set of proposers. Otherwise she stays single. Men who were rejected, go back to the set of singles.
in Round two, all remaining singles propose to their second preference. All women who receive proposals accept the best mate. If there was a mate "deferentially accepted", i.e. some man from round one, he is released back into the set of singles.
the algorithm stops once we cycled over all W preferences, or if there are no more male singles left. At that point the current match is the one that gets implemented.

For this demonstration I used the animation package, which is a very nice way to just record multiple plots and wrap them into some output file of your choice. The code is below.

Demonstration:

Code on gist: https://gist.github.com/1628636

Quality of Life in the UK

2011-11-25T11:39:00.001+01:00

This is according to the latest study by uswitch.com. 46% of Britons have thought about emigrating.

US income inequality: Census 2010

2011-09-16T11:04:00.000+02:00

The latest census data are out, and they don't look very good. Median household income has fallen for the third year in a row. It stands now at levels of 1996, adjusted for inflation. Have a look at this picture, in particular the development of the income distribution, which tells a story of its own. The US is getting more and more unequal.
Graphs put together by the Wall Street Journal.

click for full size

As Raghuram Rajan writes in his book "Fault Lines", stagnating (or declining) levels of living standards are a problem for a democratic system. The median earner is not happy if his standard of living goes down. To make up for non-rising pay, politicians resort to a different strategy: extend credit. Instead of trying to create a system where people have more equal opportunities to become wealthy (i.e. investing in education, housing etc), which is of course costly in the short run, they encourage and facilitate cheap credit for consumers. This is easy to do, and for the time we are on the upturn of a cycle, there's no problems.
We know the consequences. "Fault Lines" is an astonishing book, great examples, great academic authority. It's much better than what you'd gauge from my short description here.

Sunday Night Frustration or A Proper Rant

2011-09-12T12:21:00.001+02:00

I just finished reading "the big short", a rather vivid account of the events surrounding the 2008 financial crisis, as told by Michael Lewis, who is a former employee of a big - deceased - Wall Street bank called Salomon Brothers. I'll have to say more about the book. It's nothing like an academic paper, but a story about real people, and real events. I am mentioning this because there is people out there who dismiss a story because it's "anectodal evidence", and not "data". I think that's plain wrong. The matter is how representative that particular anectode is (the same applies to data, by the way). I trust this one to be fairly representative.

My frustration arises from the insight that there is a deep-rooted problem in the way modern finance works, and how this relates to the lives of us all. In a word, incentives are grossly misaligned. Very few fundmanagers wer held accountable for the risk they took on. How, further, I find it ever more difficult to answer people's questions about what went wrong and how this could be a functioning system, and why in the end everybody would get what they deserved. It's not that I'm being interviewed on a daily basis, but you know, it happens - sometimes.

I think that facts are now sufficiently out for me to make the following assertion without stirring too much controversy. The 2008 crash was mainly a result of big investment banks taking on very large risks which they evaluated under very "special" assumptions, or not at all. Of course everything is much more complicated than that, but the take away is that they took on a gamble of enormous size - and they lost their bet. So far so good. As far as I am concerned, they should be able take any bet they like, if they feel happy about it, but this should be isolated from the wider economy. They should be accountable for the downside. Somehow. I hear people saying it's impossible or very costly to separate traditional banking from high risk investment banking, like for example this gentleman here. I am not really getting his point.

What drives me crazy is hearing people (important people. mighty people. bankers, yes.) going on with this story about "from the age of Hammurabi, you will find no society without a banking system." what about this one here:

“Go back and pick any period in time,” John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, said to me recently. “Let’s go back to the tech boom. I guess it got on its feet in the late eighties, with Apple Computer and Microsoft, and really started to blossom in the nineteen-nineties, with Cisco, Netscape, Amazon.com, and others. These are companies that created a lot of jobs, a lot of intellectual capital, and Wall Street helped finance that. The first investors were angel investors, then venture capitalists, and to really grow and build they needed Wall Street.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/29/101129fa_fact_cassidy#ixzz1XjSCcdm1

Come on, give me a break! If you can't find a better justification for the existence of Wall Street than trying to dress it up as a good old bank (which is obviously NOT what Wall Street is), then you might as well shut the place down. Who on earth is supposed to buy that? They talk about the importance of allocating capital to the most productive entrepreneur, of matching savers and borrowers, of working like the brain of an economy, yeah?

I am having a hard time mapping actual behaviour to that stated goal. If you care to look where Wall Street revenues actually come from, this should be clear. CDOs. I think it is a bit over-ambitious to try to defend this whole CDO edifice as something that allocates capital.

One big R-esource

2011-09-11T16:15:00.002+02:00

I've started to fork out the R-related entries to www.r-bloggers.com. It's a great place to learn R and see what others are up to. The blog has a very nice mixture of topics ranging from extremely simple (stuff that I would post) to extremely advanced, to the very vanguard of R development.

Polynomial Interpolation with R

2011-09-10T20:52:00.006+02:00

As a first step to produce some useable code for spline interpolation/approximation in R, I set out to first do polynomial interpolation to see how I get along. It's not that there is no spline interpolation software for R, but I find it a bit limited. splinefun, for example, can do only 1-dimensional interpolation. interp{akima} can do bicubic splines - i.e. it can fit a spline surface to a set of points over gridded data as for example (x,y,f(x,y)). However, x and y need to have the same length. There's no apparent reason for this, and it might be inefficient to have to do this at times, so I'll be looking at changing that.

As a first step, I'll implement a polynomial approximation algorithm. The basic principle is that of a convex hull of points in a given space. By repeatedly taking convex combinations of points one builds up the approximating curve. The theoretical background for this can be looked up here. The algorithm I implement here is a variant of the DeBoor triangular calculation. I am not claiming this to be the most efficient calculation, this is just a first try. Way too many loops.

So: I sample different number of points on a half circle and construct an interpolating polynomial. you can see the result in the graph below. the red line is the polynomial approximation. the code is added below the graph.

here is the code:

# test polynomial interpolation code by interpolating points on a semi-circle 
# using a different number of points each time.
 
# contents:
# 1) make.circle(degree) is a function that generates 
#    n=degree+1 data points (x,y) on a semicircle. this is the "data" we 
#    want to interpolate.
# 2) pinterp() makes polynomial interpolation on "data" of degree "degree" 
#    using degree+1 parameters 
# 3) run() is a wrapper that runs the interpolation
 
# note: polynomial interpolation uses n=degree+1 points and T=degree+1 parameters.
#
# output:
# plot of the interpolation overlaid by the used data points
 
rm(list=ls(all=TRUE))
setwd("~/dropbox/Rstuff/splines")
 
require(plotrix)
# this package contains a function to draw a circle. 
# you could generate any other data as well.
 
# task: run this approximation for 3,7,11 and 15 sample points.
degrees <- c(2,6,10,14)
 
 
##################
# define functions
##################
make.circle <- function(degree){
# makes a vector of degree+1 points on a semi-circle
    plot(-2:2,-2:2,type="n",xlab="",ylab="",main="make.circle output. disregard.")
    vals <- draw.circle(0,0,radius=1,nv=2*(degree)+1)
    data <- array(unlist(vals),dim=c(2*degree+1,2))
    data <- data[data[ ,2]>=0, ]    # take only upper half of circle§
    return(data)
}
 
pinterp <- function(degree,params,data,t){
# polynomial interpolation on data at point t
 
# has a list "x" whose entries are each a 
# matrix for points at t at approximation of degree
# deg. x gets shorter with increasing degree. at final entry
# degree+1, x is (1,2)
    x <- vector("list",degree+1)
    x[[1]] <- data  # matrix 1 holds data for degree zero
                    # each row of x[[j]] 
                    # represents (x,y) coords of a point
    n <- degree+1   # number of points we're interpolating on
    for (ideg in 2:n){  # recursively build interpolations of increasing degree
        nn <- n-ideg+1
        x[[ideg]] <- array(data=NA,dim=c(nn,2))
        for (i in 1:nn){
            x[[ideg]][i, ] <- 
            (params[i+ideg-1] - t)/(params[i+ideg-1] - params[i])*x[[ideg-1]][i, ] + 
            (t - params[i])/(params[i+ideg-1] - params[i])*x[[ideg-1]][i+1, ]
        }
    }
    return(x[[degree+1]])   # return only final degree values,i.e. result
}
 
run <- function(degrees,t){
    nd <- length(degrees)
    rval <- vector("list",nd)
    origdata <- vector("list",nd)
    for (j in 1:nd){
        degree <- degrees[j]
        params <- seq(0,5,length=degree+1)
        nt <- length(t)
        rval[[j]] <- array(data=NA,dim=c(nt,2))
        data <- make.circle(degree)
        origdata[[j]] <- data
        for (it in 1:nt) rval[[j]][it, ] <- pinterp(degree,params,data,t[it])
    }
    return(list(interpol=rval,orig=origdata))
}
 
###################
# produce output
###################
 
outrun <- run(degrees,t=seq(1,5,length=20))
rval <- outrun$interpol
orig <- outrun$orig
png(file="graphs/ex1.png")
par(mfrow=c(2,2))
for (j in 1:length(degrees)){
    plot(x=orig[[j]][ ,1],y=orig[[j]][ ,2],type="o",
    main=paste("degree: ",degrees[j],", points: ",
    degrees[j]+1),xlab="x",ylab="y",ylim=c(0,1.5))
    lines(x=rval[[j]][ ,1],y=rval[[j]][ ,2],col="red")    
}
dev.off()
par(mfrow=c(1,1))

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org

Fix missing dates with R

2011-09-02T11:05:00.010+02:00

I have data on user access to a website. This log file (helpdesk log.csv) just contains the date of access, and how many accesses were counted. It would look like this:

Date hits

13-07-2011 2

14-07-2011 1

16-07-2011 3

17-07-2011 4

...

As you can see, for days with no access (like 15-07-2011 for example), there is no entry.

I wanted to draw a graph showing the number of hits over time. plotting this shows the graph below, but it's conditional on there having been at least one hit. So it's a bit misleading. We don't know if there was zero hits or one.

What I plot looks like this:

2011-06-28 1

2011-06-29 2

2011-06-30 3

2011-07-01 1

2011-07-04 3

2011-07-05 3

Obviously, no data for 2011-07-02 and 2011-07-03, when I would want an entry 2011-07-02 = 0. In other words, I want this

2011-06-28 1

2011-06-29 2

2011-06-30 3

2011-07-01 1

2011-07-02 0

2011-07-03 0

2011-07-04 3

2011-07-05 3

So, I need to insert date and a value of zero for each date with no activity. There's an easy way to do this in R.

so actind is an index vector. the first seven entries are

2011-06-28 1

2011-06-29 2

2011-06-30 3

2011-07-01 4

2011-07-02 0

2011-07-03 0

2011-07-04 5

where each row corresponds to a consecutive date, zero means no activity on that date, and a positive number is the INDEX of the element in "daycount" (the short vector) corresponding to that date.

The correct graph is this one:

How much is a TRILLION dollars?

2009-07-25T18:51:00.002+02:00

Have a look at this video, trying to explain how much a trillion dollars are. The sum has been in the media for some time now, as experts debate whether there should be spent more or less than that on bailing out marode banks. Interesting question, but not today. Let's start with the basics: how much is a trillion dollars?

(note: I was most surprised at how much the US have spent on war since 9/11)

great graphical illustration

2009-06-03T22:30:00.001+02:00

have a look at this, nicely done by the NYTimes.

the big picture Q&A

2009-03-18T22:01:00.008+01:00

Following the last post, a couple of questions came up:

How could it be that bad quality mortgages in the US could have such an effect on the global economy? Is it because we are so tightly connected to the US economy or is it because something similar happened everywhere?

I would say it's a mixture of both. As is explained in the video, bad quality mortgages were repacked and - above all - revalued, and sold all over the place. So any financial institution you might think of - pension funds, commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds, even governments - could have bought that stuff. And yes, something similar happened elsewhere, since credits were relatively cheap more or less everywhere, and were given away with too little scrutiny. We were all on a happy spending spree over the past decade.

[At the end of the movie] it is actually astonishing that we didn't explode all along with our financial assets [as in the movie], but would is going to happen now? And what did you mean by "regulations"?

To be honest, I have no idea whatsoever what is going to happen now. However, this is not so bad, since pretty prominent thinkers don't know either. They just try out all sorts of policies and hope something is going to nail it. Take "quantitative easing", for example, this weird policy were the central bank starts buying real assets from people like you and me for (just printed) cash. I heard an economist from the Bank of England the other day (unofficially, obviously) admitting that they had no clue if that was going to work or not. But given that traditional policy instruments have been exhausted (lowering the interest rate, say), it might be a good moment to try something else.

What did I mean by "regulations"? Well, one cornerstone of stricter regulations - among many other measures - would be to simply require banks to hold more capital. There is such a regulative body in place actually, called by the well-sounding name of "Basel II", but let's face it: given our current experience we should rather bin that and find something better. As far as I understand it, it is just about assessing the riskiness of the portfolio of loans of a given bank and relating this to a certain amount of capital (money you and I would deposit in the bank) the bank must hold permanently. Think of this as a simple table, where in one column you have a number which tells you how risky the loans of the bank are, say from 0 to 100, and in the column next to it we have the amount of money, the bank must have in the safe.

Basically, what has to be done, among lots of other things, is to redo this table, because it's wrong. That is not as simple as it sounds - you want to get the risk-numbers right, which is quite tricky - but it is absolutely doable. What it's going to do, however, is to slice off a chunk of bank profits, because they have to back up loans with more cash than before. So bankers are never happy about regulations like that. But, as before, now might be a good moment to try out all sorts of new things.

the big picture

2009-02-26T23:29:00.003+01:00

Hi guys.

this week we have some "light entertainment". I found this little film about how all the strings (could) get together to fabricate what we call "the credit crunch". Needless to say that in a 10 minute animation one can hardly explain anything in great detail. Nevertheless I have found it quite interesting and very entertaining. The creator raises some interesting issues; on the other hand it seems that he draws a lot of conclusions about causality, in other words, whose "fault" this whole mess is.
I want to emphasize, before you watch the clip, that people respond to INCENTIVES. Suppose there is an action which a person could take: it is known to be very risky and even dangerous to the entire system, but it promises enormous profits if successful. Now imagine that it is legal to take this action. Some people will take the risk and take the action. You bet they will. It is a simple as that to explain what happens if you let regulation on financial markets loose. Now have fun with the movie!

(note that you can make it full screen by clicking the outward pointing arrows next to the time bar)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

LFL 4: Why give money to Carmakers?

2009-02-21T22:45:00.009+01:00

An interested reader asks:

And what about the government? Does it make sense to pump billions of dollars into the auto industry - as is happening in the US at the moment? In the end this is money that is taken away from taxpayers, because sooner or later they will have to pay it back - regardless if they want a car or not! Is this economically efficient? And why are there no calls for governemnt help from Asian carmakers, do they solve their problems differently? [my translation]

Excellent question! Let's step back a moment and gather some thoughts about this. On the one hand we have the carmakers, who design new cars, produce them, and hope to sell them (for a profit). On the other hand, there are consumers, who choose the model they best like, given the amount of money they are willing to spend.
What we see at the moment, is that consumers stop buying things like cars. "Things like cars" include all the items a consumer might want to replace for a newer model, even if the old one is still working: a car, a refridgerator, a DVD player, a portable computer, etc. The list of "things like cars" is long, and the more expensive the new model would be, the less likely our consumer is to buy it at the moment. Our consumer is as scared as everybody else, and probably even more so. "Let's just wait another couple of months and see, I can still buy my car then."

Should we give money to failing carmakers? We bailed out the banking system, so what about manufacturing? As the economist newspaper puts it in its lead article of this week, "next to scheming bankers, factory workers look positively deserving". And it goes on to say that letting down a huge company such as US carmaker General Motors (GM) would do no good to the confidence of our scared consumer. They employ, what, 30.000 people in the US alone? So this is obviously a big issue. It is a big issue for politicians, who are confronted with cries of help from GM.
In times like these, you have to make tough decisions as a government. Sending 30.000 to the streets is not an easy thing to do. But there are some important things one must not forget when considering giving money to manufacturing right now:

a) If anything, those firms need loads of money, and better today than tomorrow. Government programmes, however, are slow and cannot keep pace with the fast-changing environment of industry. That's why governments don't produce cars - they don't know anything about it, so they are not good at it, and the money would be given in a wasteful way.
b) Giving aid to carmakers would help keep them afloat for another while, but doesn't solve the problem: Our consumer, remember, is still scared of making such a big investment as buying a car.

The carmaking industry is obviously over-sized, has too much capacity. So however much money we give to firms, some will inevitably have to go out of business. So which are the firms we want to receive any money? What are the conditions that are attached to this aid (if any)? If the government could require a car-manufacturer to down-size capacity, which capacity would be the right one?
The take-away from this is that consumers, once they get back to buying stuff, can decide over those things much better than any government could. Their choices will reveal which firms are the right ones, and which size is the best.

But then the natural quesiton to ask is, "why, then, did we give money to the bankers?" They don't seem to deserve our help any more than carmakers, given their profits in the last couple of years. Still, the problem is that we need the banks to work. We need them, because THEY must give money to firms, find out which ones are most productive and lend to them. The argument from above, that state money is not going to create an efficient industry, holds true for carmakers as well as for bankers. There are probably some banks which got government help, and are not efficient at all; We'll have to live with that for the moment.

Unfortunately I don't know much about the situation of Asian carmakers, but I suspect they have similar problems.

LfL 3: Banks

2009-02-21T13:26:00.004+01:00

I hope you are doing fine. The snow is gone and London is as grey/green as ever - everything back to normal.
As normal as it can get those days, that is. And apart from the weather, there are few things you would label "normal" around here. (it's raining, obviously.) Just consider the Bank of England (BoE), whose monetary policy committee last week in a historic motion slashed the interbank lending rate - what we commonly call "the interest rate" - to 1%. Unheard of.

But what does that mean? And why would they do something like that? In order to get a grip on that, we first have to talk a bit about banks in general. Please notice that this is all stripped down to a very very simplified level; My hope is to get the main points without getting lost in the nitty-gritty.

What is the purpose of a bank?

A bank takes money from people who earn more than they want to spend at the moment (it stores savings from savers), and gives it to people who want to spend more than they earn at the moment (it gives loans to borrowers).

Is this a difficult task?

It is not trivial, because it involves making sure that loans are given only to persons who will be able to pay back the loan; This depends on what they propose to be doing with the loan, often it depends on whether their project, which is financed through the loan, is a success of a failure. The problem: We don't know if a project is going to be successful with certainty.

Why would anybody open a bank? (What is the incentive to run a bank?)

It is a lucrative business. Very lucrative, until recently.

What is the problem with banks' incentives?

On the one hand, in order to attract customers, banks must promise to savers that their savings are absolutely secure with them: "At any point in time, and under all circumstances, do we promise by the Queen's head that your savings are secure and that you can withdraw them whenever you want."
On the other hand, banks must keep up with competitors who offer to pay high interest rates on savings. They must at least offer the same, or even more.

The Problem?

The problem is that in order to be able to pay high interest rates on savings, a bank must make a lot of profits.

How does a bank make profits?

It charges fees for its services. Most importantly, it charges a fee for lending money. In order to generate the profits needed to stay in business, any bank will have to embark on projects that become riskier and riskier, because it is the risky projects that generate the biggest profits. And the biggest losses.

If this is so straightforward, why do we see so many bank failures? Aren't bankers supposed to be smart people?

This is a good question. But complicated, we'll have to think about that another time. And yes, they are supposed to be smart people. Until recently they were, that is.

Why has the BoE lowered the interest rate so much?

Banks can lend money from the BoE and from one another at a rate which is set (roughly speaking) by the BoE. The BoE, then, wants to get banks to lend again to people and businesses by making it very cheap for them to get money.

Why is lending so important?

A lot of businesses need credit at some point in their life-cycle. Most need it to get started, others need it to pay wages in a month with poor sales, and still others need it to buy new equipment and plant in order to be able to compete with other firms. If there is no way to get this credit - and currently there is no way - those firms go out of business.

So, does it work?

No. Bankers are being too afraid to lend to businesses. Most banks have accumulated a sizeable load of "toxic assets", basically loans, which they should never have made, or other investments which failed. In other words, they are in a pretty bad situation, and giving money to people doesn't seem a good idea to most of them right now.

And where do they put all the cheap money they are getting now?

They invest it in government bonds, which have practically zero risk. Their low level of risk comes at the cost of a low rate of return, currently a 10-year US treasury bill yields 2%. Compared to that, they could make loans to businesses at any rate from 5% up to 10% - but they are afraid to do that, because everything seems to go down.

Is this the end?

It's not the end. In England at least, we still have the Premier League (Football) and the Kenton Arms (the Pub around the corner). Apart from that, the central bank has resorted to a practice called "quantitative easing", basically buying all those bad assets and failed projects from banks for newly, shiny banknotes; At the same time, the BoE goes out and starts to buy back government bonds from the market. This increases the demand for bonds, which increases the price of bonds. But given that bonds pay out a fixed amount after a fixed period of time (which is what defined them as being "safe"), paying a higher price now means that bonds become less profitable! And if bonds loose their profitability, the hope is that bankers might take a closer look at those ordinary businesses and get back to what they came for: make loans to businesses.

Are we finally done?

Yes, we are.

LFL 2

2009-02-21T13:24:00.004+01:00

this week has seen some spectacular action in the UK. We started off with heavy snowfalls in sunday night, covering London and the southeast of the country by as much as 20 cm of snow. In a country where the transport infrastructure is prone to failure caused by gusts of fallen leafs, it is not hard to imagine the consequences: In fact, London was down by monday morning. For the first time in living memory the London Buses network was suspended from service. It is curious to note that snow would deal a fatal blow to the transport system, when German aerial bombs would not (buses were running during the "Blitz" 1940). The rarity of such heavy snowfalls, however, means that big investments into snow-clearing kit are without much sense. Accusations and "guesstimates" (half guess, half estimate) about costs of the two-day inactivity of the capital were abundant, but none is worth mentioning; on a personal note, it was the first time that people on the street wore a smile and actually greeted me. More snow would be good for Britain.

There was some intense strike action going on throughout the country this week. French oil firm Total had subcontracted extension works at their plant in Lindsey (somewhere in England) to an Italian firm (IREM), which would bring it's specialist workforce, composed of Italians and Portuguese, with it to England. A fatal promise made by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2007, going along the lines of "British Jobs for British Workers", was the cause for some 6.000 workers across the country to lay down work for several days.
This is by far not the most significant incidence of union action in the UK, but it is significant under the current circumstances: when the economic climate turns rough, protectionist calls from the far-left and nationalistic ones from the far-right find wider resonance in the population.
Under EU legislation, any EU citizen is entitled to work in each member state. Furthermore, firms are entitled to use their own staff on temporary projects elsewhere in the EU. At the moment, there are by far more British citizens working in the EU than are citizens from other EU countries in Britain. But who said that EU laws are a good thing?
This topic is obviously highly controversial in the public. Citizens of a certain country are keen on getting jobs in their country before anyone else does. Most of the time this will be the case, because foreigners, by definition, life abroad and would have to travel farther than any resident, which is a deterrent. But if foreigners take the burden of travel, enter the local labour market and - on top of that - get a job because they are more suitable than a competing resident (as judged by some employer), all hell breaks loose. I do not pretend to offer any type of solution here. However, and as a small aside on that, the economic case for the issue is quite clear: economists tend to strongly advocate a free labour market, based on the rationale that, the greater the competitive forces in a market, the higher it's level of efficiency. Efficiency means in this context that

job vacancies can be filled faster
job seekers can find jobs faster
those who get the job are the ones that can do it best among all those workers who can do it for the lowest wage.
The last sentence was tricky - read it again.

So much for that. I attached the economist's wrap-up of the story for the interested reader.

I am working on a short explainer on banks, why everybody is so concerned about them these days, why unstable banks threaten "the system", what an "unstable bank" is, what "the system" is, and what it means for the British Central Bank to lower the interest rate to 1%, as it did yesterday. For the sake of brevity and continuing high attention among the readers, I'll postpone that to another letter.

Letters from London 1

2009-02-21T13:24:00.002+01:00

I hope this message finds you well.

For all those of you who

want to brush up their English,
wonder about what the heck is happening these days with the world, related to events headlined by "global financial crisis",
have recurring spells of boredom during a typical day,

I present the first email of a potentially to be continued series named "Letters from London (LfL)", where I will try to provide the reader with digested and selected information (i.e. I have the work, you have the pleasure) on the current crisis as experienced in the British capital.

We start out with an easy piece from this week's edition of the economist newspaper (attached). It talks about the evolution of nicknames of London over the past 20 years, quite instructive.

Figures of the day:

Unemployment rates
US: 7.2% (Dec 08)
UK: 6.1% (Nov)
Austria: 3.8% (Nov)
Spain: 13.4% (Nov)
Italy: 6.7% (Q3)
France: 7.9% (Nov)
Argentina: 7.8% (Q3)

% change in GDP on year ago
US: +0.7
UK: -1.8
Austria: +1.5
Spain: +0.9
Italy: -0.9
France: +0.5
Argentina: +6.2

Yesterday on a party 3 out of 3 architects were unemployed (my girlfriend was not there).

[It is important to distinguish between "evidence" and "anectode". Which is which?]

Summer in London & little Italia

2008-07-20T20:48:00.003+02:00

Hi guys!
Look at what I see on my desktop today! July 20, 18 degrees is quite a shame, yes, but look at the next couple of days. Seems impossible, but it must be that somebody up there is finally feeling pity for us...thanks, Peter.

Oh, by the way Saint Peter: Today I was watching the annual parade of the St. Peter's church here in London, very entertaining. And quite as kitschy as in that little Italian village from your favourite mafia movie. A colleague of mine was actually posing as Jesus Christ himself, on top of truck displaying some worshipping scene; another friend of mine was taking part as pretorian (a kind of guard from Jesus' times); there were all sorts of angels and virgins, all played by most devotional (looking) young girls, they as well on the roof of a truck. I have a weakness for traditions and parades. There was even a little marching-band playing pipes and drums.

Exams are over

2008-05-30T03:37:00.001+02:00

I am leaving for 10 days of vacation. Exams were horrible. Tell you more about it soon. Will get sun-burned first.

Prose from Argentina

2008-05-30T03:31:00.004+02:00

If you are interested in prose, find a lot of it (and other stories) in Pablo's blog. He is based in Buenos Aires. This link goes to one of my favourite stories:

pablejacio

British people like butter

2008-05-20T15:53:00.005+02:00

I bet you knew that (and thank heavens, I like it as well, which makes survival here much easier). Some clever people took notice of this fact and subsequently turned it into an amazing marketing strategy. Below you can see just one example I came across recently.

I can assure you that the salad you see on this picture doesn't taste AT ALL buttery. Buttery: "resembling or containing or spread with butter"; wordreference.com

Obviously it doesn't matter if the lettuce resembles butter or not. As long you can suggest to buyers that this salad is "buttery", whatever they make of this attribute, chances are good that they connect "I like butter" with "buttery" and come up with "I like this lettuce as well".

Really clever, these people.

Moral Hazard?

2008-05-14T14:46:00.001+02:00

Credit Crunch explained. Hillarious. Outstanding.

via: http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/

Now it's on

2008-05-11T13:38:00.003+02:00

exams:

12/05: microeconometrics
15/05: economics & psychology
19/05: industrial organisation
21/05: microeconomics
23/05: econometrics
27/05: game theory
29/05: macroeconomics

And then I'll go on holiday. Some island in the sun. No money.

More money on the island

2008-05-07T11:11:00.003+02:00

Despite the apparent danger that this blog is slowly degrading into a "lonely island in the pacific"-blog, here is yet another story. I have to cite Russell Roberts on econtalk, where I first heard the following story, which I find quite interesting (I think I remember him mentioning it was on one of his exams while at U Chicago):

Here we are again, back on our decent island in the sun. It is completely isolated from the rest of the world. Imagine one day there arrives a visitor. He comes to the island and consumes beach, sun and accomodation in the hut of the only inhabitant who is willing to accomodate a stranger. The visitor enjoys lying on the beach and painting pictures. He asks his landlord if he would agree to trade accomodation for his recently drawn picture, and the landlord, after carefully examining the work or art, says yes.

A year later, the visitor comes back. He draws another picture for the landlord and is also able to trade a second picture for some artesanal souvenirs with one of the inhabitants. There is also a picture in exchange for a dinner at the beach, carefully prepared by a couple who enjoys cooking for others.

Now imagine that the visitor comes back every year, constantly producing pictures and trading them for goods and services. After a while the population of the island picks up on the habit and starts using the pictures as a means for exchange.

Question: Are the vacations of the visitor for free? If not, who is paying for them? What are the welfare implications in the long run?

Endowment Economy for dummies

2008-05-04T10:51:00.005+02:00

Let's think about an "endowment economy", i.e. a very simple (hypothetical) economy where people are "given" some endowment of non-storable consumption good in each period of their life. We can analyse this fairly simple. Then we can go on and ask the silly question: "why is there no role for money in this economy?"

In an endowment economy, as the name indicates, people are endowed with a certain amount of a perishable (or non-storable) good. What follows immediately from this is that there is no production sector in this economy: the source of the endowment is not specified, but rather taken as given, paramount to stating that the endowment fell from heaven. (Or so.)

Notice also that the non-storability of the consumption good is crucial here. If it were possible to store the good, we would convert our problem into one of optimal saving, where people have to decide on the fraction of good they want to consume and which amount to save. But not here.

Well, to cut a long story short, people receive their endowment each period, and, believe it or not, the best thing to do is to consume the entire endowment each period. We didn't explicitly assume so, but let's say that people always like more of the good (and don't get fed up at some point). What is not consumed, perishes and goes to the bin, there is no market where to sell the good, nothing, so really this is the only possibility.

So why is there no money here? What would happen if there were any money? To get a feel for that, consider the following (quite stupid) example I cooked up:

Consider an economy on an island somewhere in the Pacific, completely isolated from the rest of the world, where people happily life their lives, consuming the fruit which grows on the local tree. The fruit is perishable, thus it can't be stored.

In fact, each inhabitant has his favourite tree, and all the fruit it bears is just enough to feed him for one year. One day, a big ship arrives and drops a suitcase full of dollar bills (10.000.000 $). The inhabitants wonder what to do with all that colored sheets of paper and decide to distribute it equally among all of them. Then comes the next year. Trees are loaded, and one of the guys has the glorious idea to actually give some of his fruit away in exchange for the colored paper. "Why would want to do that?" the others say. "Well, you know, I can exchange back colored paper for fruit later on." The others happily hand him all of their money and drown the extra fruit right away. Great deal.

On comes the next year. The seller from last period (who already didn't have enough to eat last year, because he gave away his fruit) grabs 1.000 $ and wants to buy a decent load of fruit. The problem is: nobody wants to exchange any fruit for paper. "What should I do with the colored paper? The fruit I have is just enough to survive the current year, my friend. I will stay hungry despite all of that fancy paper in my hand" the others say, when asked.

The same night they burned 10.000.000 dollars and had some fruit watching it.

Fascist Rome

2008-04-29T09:25:00.003+02:00

The fascist candidate Alemanno (what a coincidential name) has won the mayor's election in Rome. This picture shows some of his supporters celebrating. Make what you want of the way they salute, I for my part know what to think of it.

Italy's going down. What a pity.

(I would wish that I have to revise that post in a year or so and have to admit that it all turned out well. I am extremely pessimistic in this respect.)

just great

2008-04-23T14:45:00.002+02:00

have a look at this video from the economist's Kal.

Pareto improvement: London special constables

2008-04-19T19:42:00.004+02:00

Policing a city is a costly issue. Full time officers have to be paid decently, firstly in order to attract enough recruits and secondly in order to forestall corruption. So, maintaining a working police force costs a lot of money. In London, you can sign up for a voluntary police unit, policing the city as a support officer ("special constable") for two 8-hour shifts a month. That's 16 hours of free policing-time per volunteer per month. Volunteers are trained and have the same powers as professional officers - note that in the UK "normal" police are not equipped with firearms. Only special police units carry these (and they don't have volunteers).
As the scheme is voluntary, you can argue that people who sign up were just looking for an activity of the kind. And as the authority has an additional officer on the streets for free, it is better off as well. This is a pareto improvement.
Critics might think that this is actually an exploiting scheme, taking advantage of these people. First of all, they are not obliged to sign up. And secondly, we know that payment can actually "crowd out" intrinsic motivation (think of blood donations, or charitable work in your local church: would you donate more blood or volunteer more if they paid you? would you stop doing so altogether?)

check out what economic research tells you about that question:
intrinsic motivation, Tirole and Benabou
Frey and Oberholzer: crowding out of volunteering (empirical evidence)
cool experiment on blood donations coming up from Lorenz Götte (couldn't find any paper online)

6 months in london - first shopping

2008-04-19T19:27:00.003+02:00

yes, after more than half a year of living hear, I finally could not avoid it any longer. Had to buy a decent outfit for an upcoming ocassion. I went to Oxford Circus, today, which is Saturday, so there were quite a few people there. I don't overly enjoy shopping, I'm not really interested in fashion, but rather complying with social norms, if you know what I mean. And I would freeze if I'd go naked. Anyway, I got something quite wearable and not too expensive, so we might as well call my first shopping tour in London a success. But hang on, I haven't got any shoes yet - and all the stuff I saw till now (which was the really dreadful part of today's tour) were pretty ugly. I don't understand anything about fashion, as already mentioned, I just know that any of those men's shoes I saw today are compatible with my taste. Why do they have to make them so ugly, either in the form of rectangles or cowboy-boots cut above the ankle? In the end I will have to back down, I know. Or find a better store - but that would mean to spend more effort on search, and I am reluctant to do so.

elezioni politiche: foodstock vs grillo

2008-04-18T00:57:00.002+02:00

Have you ever thought that in order to make your point in a political debate, it is a good idea NOT to cast your vote in an election? If you know a bit Italian, find out here or there (there the quality is better):

via: foodstock

personal hero

2008-04-18T00:49:00.003+02:00

Markus Rogan (AUT) starting to win the 200 m backstroke in the swimming world championship last week in Manchester. I didn't know they start like this. Anyway, pretty impressive - I came to know how hard swimming can be.

Graninger rettet Leben

2008-04-18T00:36:00.002+02:00

Das Rettungsteam von Graninger Fleischkonserven (Firmensitz: Hittisau) war gestern in Ostlondon, im Stadtteil Tower Hamlets im Einsatz. Die Einsatskräfte wurde zu einem schwer unterfutterten jungen Mann gerufen, der beim Öffnen seines Kühlschranks in Ohnmacht gefallen war. Grund dafür dürfte die grosse Lehre im inneren des Gerätes gewesen sein. Die Firma Graninger denkt über die Eröffnung einer Filiale in der Englischen Hauptstadt nach.

pretty damn rough

2008-04-13T16:15:00.003+02:00

19 year old man from Baghdad, telling his life as an interpreter for the multinational forces. Note that an "interpreter" is not working behind a desk (maybe on a computer) but has the function of going with armed forces for missions in the city, raiding houses, being shot at and you know what else. Sounds like a real thriller.

interpreter's life

my entertainer

2008-04-13T00:49:00.002+02:00

forcing breaks upon me, taking me out for walks, gently snoring along to the sound of my ballpoint pen, Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce the one and only:

Zooey.

Buy me a house, anyone?

2008-04-10T15:14:00.004+02:00

Dear investor,

the world is likely facing a severe economic crisis. Housing prices are collapsing around the globe, putting homeowners with mortgages on their houses in a bad situation. Mortgages are being re-evaluated by mortgage lenders and banks, because the value of the house is less than the market thought.

Despite this sinister outlook, I can offer a valuable piece of advice to you. The above chart shows by how much the market has over-valued the price of homes in different countries, as compared to a price that can be explained by underlying economic forces such as household income, economics growth etc. Look at it, and do the only sensible thing: buy a house in Austria!
(And while we're at it, buy one for me too)

via: economist.com

Scandal no.2

2008-04-10T00:39:00.003+02:00

-> The olympic torch relay in London, Paris and - climax - San Francisco. Just seen some pictures of the torch disappearing in a warehouse for half an hour or so, completely ridiculing the whole idea of "torch relay".

On a political dimension I am really looking forward to the Games in China, they provide an excellent platform for all parties. China can present itself from its best side (and only the best side), and all the others can make pressure on human rights issues. I have a certain feeling (which you might call "hope") that some important things could happen. But then again, seeing the Chinese governor of Tibet on TV, grimfuly menacing to crack down "without mercy" on any protesters when the torch will be displayed in Tibet reduces any hopes. I don't know much about China, just that it is pretty remarkable how the regime is able to continually redefine itself and withstand global and local pressures.

I reckon there is the occasional member of the Chinese national party board regretting the whole Olympia thing, as is the occiasional member of the IOC. What's done is done guys.

Scandal no.1

2008-04-10T00:25:00.004+02:00

good one from absolut vodka. Worth a major diplomatic incident. What does your absolut world look like?

People are wondering if sales of absolut are going up or down after this, hard to tell. There was an outcry in the US against it, and the company actually apologized for the ad.

To insiders of the profession (economics, not drinking [in the limit: both]) the question to ask is: how elastic is absolut vodka demand to shocks like these? Would you change your favorite spirit if you came across an ad that displays your country in a different geopolitical setting while suggesting it as an "absolut world"?
Some people surely would, but then with drugs things get more complicated. Look at smoking, where a price-shock has almost no effect on demand.

check out the blog where I got that from (in Italian):
cronache americane, L'Espresso

IFS interview. Scary?

2008-04-10T00:15:00.004+02:00

Been invited to an interview for a scholarship at IFS, a large independent UK think-tank (and by the way one of the coolest employers you could think of). The interview will last for one hour, and on the panel are "likely to be Richard Blundell, Costas Meghir, Rachel Griffith, James Banks, Orazio Attanasio and Pedro Carneiro." To non-economists these names will probably say not too much, to economists, well...six high-profile economists from your department on one panel. That's a pretty intensive interviewer-interviewee-ratio, I would say.

this is a macro disaster

2008-04-10T00:07:00.003+02:00

yeah, been studying the material for the macroeconomics exam. pretty bad, I must say. We were all expecting it to be one of the most difficult exams, but I was caught by surprise (I hoped something different for myself). I know it's like the most typical remark you will ever hear of somebody having a hard time understanding something, but I must say that the nonexistence of proper lecture notes or some other coherent material (like a textbook) don't make it easier. The course gets the lowest grade in the entire course from me (out of seven). Let's see what grade I get, then.

taking logs upside down

2008-04-04T01:26:00.006+02:00

I am preparing for exams. Great topic for blogging, I know. And so interesting.

I was doing an econometrics exercise on count data models. If you don't know what that means don't worry, it's not important for the understanding of the story. Apart from that, I think everybody should know a bit about econometric count data models. :)
Anyway, I had done the exercise before. As I started off, I vaguely remembered that there was something disturbing about it in my memory, like an embarrassing detail or a really silly mistake . And indeed, I got stuck at exactly the same line as the time before, at exactly the same expression (it's all about maths and formulas and stuff). It was like a deja-vu. "Cool", I thought, "no problem, I've been here before and therefore I know the exit". But I couldn't find it. I couldn't even remember what shape the door was.
The problem was of the sort that happen to me once in a while (I am constantly reconsidering my career options, if that is what you wanted to say right now). I look at an expression and conclude that "according to the stated rules, this is not possible". And then I start feeling like a physicist who observes a brick that is actually falling upwards instead of downwards when released. What? That's impossible, let's do it again. And again, it goes up instead of down. If I do it again, maybe? Upwards, ok. I'm screwed.
The solution then often involves abondoning the piece for a some time. When I come back I realize that, besides having been in exactly the same situation already, I have been standing on my head - again - upside down, when I saw that brick going up instead of down. Heureka.

I'd better get back to the books, in that case? You know what, maybe you're right.

good work guys

2008-03-26T22:57:00.002+01:00

ok, lost 3:4, but still. first 60 minutes were great. now back to work!

[me too]

48 hours in Austria

2008-03-25T22:22:00.003+01:00

Relaunch

2008-03-23T22:34:00.001+01:00

Of course, and only in case you haven't noticed:

this is a relaunch.

happy easter

2008-03-23T22:22:00.002+01:00

what I am looking forward to: the return of my girlfriend with my old playmate zooey (her dog), and a carload full of salami and parmiggiano.

what I am not looking forward to: preparing for the exams [assume that for posts during the next two months]

pan-european news

2008-03-22T19:07:00.003+01:00

hello everyone!
my friend from iraq asked me to post something about life in the UK. Lots of stuff to tell, that's for sure. I don't know where to start, for a beginning, and I am not the person best capable of writing such descriptions. I am doing a rather time-consuming Master programme and haven't really seen a lot of London (my fault, I know) - I will make up for it. I don't know if I can scratch together some time once every while to put up something here, but then again, just some minutes should be possible. The main problem I envision is that my brains will not be able to tell you anything interesting and just spit out some crazy economics stuff. Blogging at your own risk (as always).

In the meanwhile, I am in Austria for 4 days. Today incredible day in the mountains, watch out for some unbelievable pictures. I am not feeling ready to board that plane back tomorrow to London by any means...I will have to deal with it. And: "I will be back", as one of Austria's most famous sons uttered in one of his most famous roles as a movie star (he's uttering stuff right now as well in his appearance as governor of California and I am sure you know the guy. I liked his acting better).

wish you a nice sunday tomorrow. next post coming out of big bad muddy London, stay tuned

Going Argentina

2007-07-10T18:29:00.000+02:00

Friends!

I'm gone to south america for some time. Argentina and Brazil are on the schedule. Hope to be able to report some nice stories when I'm back.

In the meantime all the best to you. See you around!

Sex Crimes and the Vatican

2007-05-27T15:35:00.000+02:00

Caution: This is not fun. If you are looking for a relaxing minute on somebody's blog, this is not the occasion.

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (F65.4) defines pedophilia as "a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age.
According some studies, the proportion of male adults classifiable as pedophiles is as high as 25% of the overall population (source).

From a statistical point of view, there is no reason to believe that the proportion of pedophiles among priests should be any different than the one observed (estimated) in the overall population.
Commen wisdom, however, would tell you that the proportion should be lower. In the end, priests serve in an organization which claims to be the custodian of morale, purity and spirituality. Let's face it: the catholic church claims to be descending from and acting by the will of God. Common wisdom would therefore conclude that priests are of a moral standard (="good persons") well above the average.

Common wisdom has never been a strong predictor, though. The world turned out to be a globe rather than a plate, believe it or not.

The reason of this post is a documentary produced by the BBC. I will post the link below. As I observed some strange irregularities concerning the availability of the service, I recommend you to download the video via emule or bit torrent if the link turns out not to work any more. It really looks like youtube and google video are being forced to take it offline every once in a while. You may ask who on earth should have the power to achieve this...maybe the question should go more like "who in heaven has the power to achieve this".

The content of this documentary is deeply concerning. It gives rise to allegations of a church-wide policy which protects perpetrators (priests) rather than victims (children) of child abuse. The catholic church and it's leader pope Benedict XVI don't look very good on this.

Ready? (duration: approx. 30 min)

Go.
(If not available, search for: "sex crimes and the vatican"; take care of fakes: real version begins with with a golden globe on blue background and the word "panorama")

P.S.: I checked the blogger site for possibilities of having this blog shut down by some higher force and didn't find any. If I am mistaken, however, and online inquisitors terminate this site, we shall see each other in...well, in another life.

dismal phenomena: dismal science

2007-05-08T23:45:00.000+02:00

The question, if the right to carry guns fosters or reduces crime is a hard one. It is particularly hard to satisfactorily test and prove any one of the hypothesis, for the causality in the phenomenon cannot identified.

Were there so many crimes committed in a certain city, because there were so many guns available? Or was it just the other way around, because the crime rate was very high, so many people wanted to own guns ?

You know what I think - read it below. The problem is, that the case of empirically showing a causal relationship in either direction is really tricky.

Some economists tried it. The results: it depends. On what? Read it here (economist, 2001).

Shame, part 2

2007-04-20T21:49:00.000+02:00

If you want more on the gun issue: read the pro-guns here.

And the contra-guns there.

Just a remark to the pro-guns guy: His point is based on some stories, where "upright citizens made a tactical move" (sic!) and could avoid a massacre with their own guns. According to him, if you do not carry a gun, you are just a silly victim to the clever bad guys, who obviously do carry guns. In his world there exists an equilibrium where every person owns a gun, because you never know - if a madman comes around the corner, you can take him down.

In the world of the contra-guns guy, there exists another equilibrium. Very few people own guns, and under tight supervision: think of police. Yes, pro-guns guy, it IS possible to control who owns a gun and who does not. Come on over (talking from Europe), we can show you how it works.

Then lets do a little exercise. Tell me in which of the two worlds you would expect more deaths by guns, in the one where every persons carries one or in the one where very few carry one.

Virginia Tech or "putting shame in your game"

2007-04-19T22:02:00.000+02:00

I found this on the homepage of the National Rifle Association a moment ago. Listen up:

The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

We will not have further comment until all the facts are known.

What facts do you want to learn? "It was just another crazy asian who went gaga?" "An international conspiracy against American interests" (very specific interests)?

Oh you are just so disgusting.

Actually I don't know who I find more disgusting. The NRA, which is what it is, or the democratic party, which, out of fear of loosing votes in traditional pro-gun states in the presidential elections, does not say anything. I think I detest them in equal measures, the NRA for what it is, and the democratic party for what it is not. What a shame. To all of you who remain silent after that, WHAT A SHAME!

President Bush, of course, also has a "heart full of sorrow" (see here). A good dose of mourning is surely warranted under this circumstances. BUT. What America is in desperate need of, is an honest debate about gun control and not one about "campus security", as is going on.

In other civilized countries it is NOT possible to buy a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol in a gun-shop. In civilized countries at most police carry such a highly destructive weapon. Think about it. If this person would not have had such a weapon readily available, the damage very likely would have been much much smaller. He might have killed much fewer people, if any at all.

Psychologically disturbed persons exist in any society. To equip them with a hyper-effective killing device is a weird perception of the so often referred to argument of "personal freedom". I would say it is outright crazy.
Liberalism is ok with me (you can scrap all those farm-subsidies right away), but freedom to carry machines especially designed to kill men is not. Because the freedom to carry guns curtails other freedoms, and very fundamental ones, too. The freedom to go to university and not be shot, for example.

Cuba-bashing worldwide: BAWAG joins the club

2007-04-14T13:08:00.000+02:00

Today I read in the newspaper, that Austria's BAWAG bank cancelled the deposits of roughly 100 cuban customers.
----------
Background:
The BAWAG bank is still owned by Austria's largest union (ÖGB) and has slid into one of the greatest banking scandals just recently, caused mainly by speculative activities offshore. To secure the survival of the union, the bank is being sold to US fund "cerberus".
----------
BAWAG management justifies the throwing out of Cuban customers by legal requirements, according to which under US law it is forbidden for US residents to engage in business and financial activities with Cuban residents (Helms-Burton-Act). The new owner of the bank (cerberus) could effectively be sued in the US for owning a bank in Austria which hosts cuban deposits. By the way, Iranian deposit holders are going to face equal measures soon. A legal dispute is going on, because according to Austrian law it is strictly forbidden to disriminate amongst people in such a manner.

The main point in this story, however, is the extent of ridiculousness. What aim is the US pursuing with this policy? True, no country would want a dangerous, hostile, well-armed potential of invasion in front of its nose. The question is if Cuba still has the strategic importance for the US it had when this embargo was originally imposed (in 1968 during one of the severest crises of the cold war).

I would say that the answer is no. Lift that damn blockade for Christ's sake. The only thing it accomplishes nowadays is to wreck the Cuban economy, tie up millions of Cubans in poverty and foster populistic antiamericanism in Latin America. In Austria, at least, it causes great incomprehension.

Madrid, 11 of March 2004

2007-03-11T21:10:00.001+01:00

plaza colón, originally uploaded by leisuretronic.

This post is inspired (like some others as well) by my friend Fosco. On his blog, he recalls what happened exactly 3 years ago, March 11 of 2004 in Madrid, Spain. This day early in the morning, various bombs ripped apart commuter trains loaded with workers and students. 200 people died in the event. It was the fiercest manifestation of terror in Europe so far.
I was living in Madrid during this period. In fact, a text message from Fosco saying "Atocha's been bombed" woke me up the very morning.
The great confusion in the aftermath of the attacks ("who did it? why?"), the crazy news-reporting and the impression that the then government had a certain preference on whom to blame for the attacks, created a weird situation. The city was drooping with sadness and helplessness, despair and fear was in the air. I had to take the metro to go to university the next day - I was alone in the train. And I was afraid.

What have we learned since then? We have improved on police strategies, we promoted the cooperation of national security agencies, we put tight restrictions on the movement of persons (visas, airport security etc) and we froze bank accounts of supposed terrorists in offshore banks.

Unfortunately, that is not the lesson we should have learned. I read a nice example of what we should have learned in the economist today, in an interview with Jim Cliffton, chief executive of Gallup (a pollster), who says: "Most political leaders believe a war about religion is going on, when we know it's a war about politics and poverty."

Fight poverty and terrorism will literally starve.
Fight shady wars in middle-east and terrorism will flourish.

Choose.

Helpdesk

2007-02-28T21:37:00.000+01:00

It can be so hard to adapt to a new system sometimes. Sometimes your only way out of the mess is to call:

THE HELPDESK

Invitation to Second Life: Come to the museum

2007-02-20T19:56:00.000+01:00

As already mentioned some time ago, the inauguration of the first Italian museum in Second Life is about to happen. Doors open the 26th of February 2007.

Instructions: Follow the coordinates on the poster above (click to view full size). Make use of public transport. Be punctual. No tricks. No police.

"Coordinates? Second Life? What's a museum?" --> learn more here.

Haven

2007-02-10T13:35:00.001+01:00

I've been asked to review the movie "Haven". Yesterday I confronted myself with the piece: From the cover of the DVD I was not expecting too much.
But then I was positively surprised. Sure, it's not gonna win Cannes, but I think it is quite appropriate for a movie at home (considering the alternative crap on TV). Ok, so what's it all about:
The movie is set (and shot) on the Cayman Islands. You know how this translates into movie language, namely "international offshore finance center", "money laundering", "terror financing", "tax evading", "luxury", "drugs", "party". What you get from this movie is a illustrative description of how things work on this carribean paradise island. For some (the rich, as always), they work astonishingly well, for others (the poor, as always) they do not so well. And, at least in my view, one main goal of the movie is to underline that this order is being kept in place by force (corrupt police and the rich, once again).

The plot is one of these where interrelating stories add up to one big picture in the end, crossing one another various times before the great finish and flashing back and forth in time - best regards from Quentin. The main threads are:

The Rich Man from Miami, who is about to be sacked by the Feds for some tax-magic and who flees to the Caymans with his daughter to rescue at least the one million dollar he carries around in cash and
The poor fisherman who is desperately in love with the beautiful daughter of a very influential Cayman family

I like the story with the Rich Man. It gives you a hint what it must feel like being very wealthy (not too happy, though) and at the same time at the brink of illegality and arrest.

Supplementary information:
Offshore financial centers such as the Caymans are very attractive for individuals with a lot of money, because they don't pay taxes on that money (most importantly, there is no capital gains tax), because there is comparatively weak regulation of financial markets and because there is absolut anonymity of banking accounts (so that a foreign jurisdiction [e.g. a US court] would have a hard time checking your Bank of Cayman-account for dirty money).

So what you see is how all that money of the Rich Man changes the owner in very short time and not very noble manner. If the stakes are high enough, the incentives are sufficiently strong to induce any form of "not-noble" behavior. And stakes are high in this world.
This part of the story contains my favourite scene: The Rich Man is knocking on the door of his shut-down Cayman bank with a bag full of money in his hand, while next to the bank there is an old Caymanian woman squatting on the pavement and singing a reggae song that goes something like: "give me back my money...". Good Riddim.

The other main story is a standard love story. Poor boy loves rich girl (each other, maybe?), can't be together because of social pressures, go nuts, everything falls into pieces. Romeo and Juliette is several hundred years old already. Furthermore, I do not fancy this Juliette's behavior - but maybe I am too old-fashioned for her, you decide.

The one stunning thing is that the script was written and the movie directed by a 24 year old named Frank E. Flowers, indigenous Cayman himself. Seems like a very talented story-teller who brings the message across.

Epilogue
There has been quite some initiative on behalf of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the issue of offshore financial centers. As one can imagine, these tax-havens introduce a considerable amount of uncertainty (you don't know anything about what's going on) into the global financial system. According to a report of the Fund, however, security in these centers is catching up. The EU has started an initiative which allows European courts to force disclosure of offshore banking accounts, if warranted. If you are interested in this stuff, start from there.

Wir wissen nicht wohin wir gehen

2007-02-07T21:31:00.000+01:00

I take the opportunity to introduce another Austrian musician. Rainer "Binder & Krieglstein" is one of our greatest. The video below is unfortunately uploaded in low quality, sorry for that. What you should recognize, though, is the "terminator" running through Graz, which is the capital of Styria, which is where Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger is originally from.

There was quite some controversy a while ago, because members of the environmentalist party fraction on the city council wanted to take away his name of the city's sports stadium (called "Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium"), because of his decision not to spare the life of a criminal convict on death row in California. In response to this suggestion, Schwarzenegger said he would not want to be mentioned in connection with Graz ever again, which caused a desperate outcry from the governing parties. "All the tourists will stay away from Graz!"
Well, terminator and death row, it just seems that you can't have one without the other. I don't know how the story ended, then. Was slowly buried in oblivion, I suppose. Terminated.
This song, by the way, is called "Wir wissen nicht wohin wir gehen", which translates more or less as "we don't know where we are heading to". enjoy.

A life, a song, a cigarette

2007-02-07T21:08:00.000+01:00

Nice band from Austria. Just heard them on the radio, check out the video. I really like the chorus, where they sing in two voices.
As I read on their myspace, they entered the Austrian indie-charts quite successfully. I didn't know the Austrian indie-charts either, two minutes ago.
Austria back on its way to international glory (music-wise)?

Well. Rather not. Not yet.

Just listen to the song, will you? (title of song: love)

Second Life: At the museum

2007-02-06T13:54:00.001+01:00

Gallery_012, originally uploaded by gridgallery.

I am sure that most of you have heard of "second life". Second life is virtual reality at work. People create so-called "avatars" which represent them in the computer environment. These avatars are then guided by "players" at home, in front of their computer.

At difference to so many other online applications, only very few parts of what you see happening on your screen is actually dictated by a computer program. Most of the activity that you see and take part, is generated by humans who sit in front of their computers and tell their avatars what to do. If you go to the disco in on of second life's cities, you know that there is one human for each avatar you see on your screen, and all of them are "at the disco" in that very moment.

This environment is developing extremely fast. Apart from economic activity (entire marketing departments of multinational companies engage in finding the right marketing mix for second life), one novelty is a museum you can visit. I am not sure whether it is the first ever museum in second life (which I doubt), but if I am not wrong, it is the first Italian museum there. Anyway, you can go there and have a look at Italian artists' works. Learn more about the project on gridgallery. There is also a link to a flickr-site with a lot more views of the "building". Enjoy your visit.

Chrome Children Vol.2

2007-02-01T23:19:00.000+01:00

Stones Throw Records has done it again: the underground hiphop label put out their wonderful compilation Chrome children for the second time.

Volume 2 is up for grabs at their website: FOR FREE.

16 finest hiphop tracks for free. Good thing to do, distribute it on the web for free. Or is it?
Critics of this habit say that if you distribute "good" music for "very low" a price (= zero), people will not valuate the "good music" correspondingly. In other words, the next time they face the decision of buying a record or not, they would rather not. "I can have it for free as well, so why buy it in the first place?"

On the other hand, Stones Throw Records has had an enormous response to their first compilation, which was also for free (more than a million downloads). Their strategy is obviously to diffuse their music massively over the net and after some time shut down the free download and sell the stuff. And it seems as if they are doing fine.

Addendum
With reference to the last post, and a big shout-out to Donnie Davis, saviour of ours: This is incredibly "gay" music - you'd better put that on your list.

Curing the world from homosexuality: Donnie Davis

2007-01-31T20:49:00.000+01:00

Today I heard something quite unbelievable on the radio. It was so unbelievable that it sounded grotesque and even a bit funny in the beginning. After some time it stopped being funny, though.

The radio man (Radio FM4, Stuart Freeman) was reading aloud a list of "gay bands" he had found on the internet. "Gay", of course in the meaning of "homosexual" with a negative connotation and not in the sense of the old English word "gay" for "merry" or "happily excited". The list contained bands who are homosexuals themselves or - now listen to that carefully - whose music causes other people to become homosexuals.

One of the most dangerous ways homosexuality invades family life is through popular music. Parents should keep careful watch over their children's listening habits, especially in this Internet Age of MP3 piracy.
http://lovegodsway.org/GayBands

Word up, Donnie. Have a look a his website if you have some time left, it is worthwile. Among the bands which you should protect your children from are names like

The Scissor Sisters (sure?)
Ghostface Killah
Eagles of Death Metal
Interpol
The Doors
Marylin Manson
Metallica
The Rolling Stones
David Bowie
Jay-Z
Madonna
Nirvana
Aracade Fire
Elton John
Lou Reed
Frank Sinatra
Bright Eyes

and many many more. Go and have a look at it, I'm sure your favourite band is there as well.
If I look at that list, I must admit that it comes very near to my personal all-time greatest hits selection. Oh my god, I am lost.

Leaving bullshit aside, I think this is a very dangerous development. I am talking of people like Donnie Davis who preach hate in the name of somebody (god?) and who are becoming increasingly aggressive and influential. Their influence in politics is giving me the creeps, honestly.

It is true that there is some progress towards full civil rights for homosexuals in certain countries. This gives a little hope, although the impact which populism a la Donnie has, is devastating.

Ok, so what's up next? We could listen to some "gay music" for a start. From what I can see, "gay music" rocks.

Said something, Donnie?

Note: I am not an English native speaker. I am not sure if I used the terms "homosexuals", "homosexual" or "homosexual couples" in a way that is politcally correct. Any transgressions are not intended and purely based on my mistake.

It's Evolution Baby

2007-01-27T12:14:00.000+01:00

The winner of the lion d'or at Cannes: Best ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t4sdgvy-pk

Kick-starting an Industry: David Beckham

2007-01-21T17:18:00.000+01:00

Soccer isn't amoung the most popular sports activities in the United States. The teams of the Major League Soccer are hardly known overseas, and matches are often played in half-empty stadiums. US Americans love Baseball, go crazy about American Football and adore Basketball. National Basketball Association (NBA) matches are not played in empty stadiums.

L.A. Galaxy signed David Beckham for what seems to be an enormous amount of money. In an article I read that his salary is likely to exceed that of all the other players in the league taken together.
The idea is to prop up your club/league/company/industry with a star and hope for improvement. While in some areas this idea surely is of merit, I don't see David Beckham converting US Soccer into anything nearly as vibrant as any major european soccer league. Apart from the fact the he has been in declining form for a long time period now (and that he's of age 30), I don't think it's done with one star. I do not even think that it could be accomplished with the entire Real Madrid competing in the Major League Soccer.

What you need, in order to squeeze these astronomic revenues out of soccer as is practized in Europe, is soccer culture. And it is very difficult to "import" culture. It takes time for culture to emerge, and without repressive force this emergence is not dirigible. If people like soccer, they will go to the soccer stadium. If they like baseball better, they will go to the baseball stadium.
I take any bet that if you imported the best cricket players in the world to mount a national cricket league in Spain, you would fail tremendously. Spaniards would die anytime to see their soccer teams competing in Spain's "primera división". It is therefore no coincidence that Spain's is one of the finest soccer leagues in the world. And in spite of any cricket star you could name, they would probably not even know the rules of the game.

European Union Pathologies: Update

2007-01-15T21:18:00.000+01:00

News is coming in of the formation of a new fraction in the European Parliament, called ITS ("Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty"). "A declared anti-imigration group, which, however, does not want to be seen as extreme right-wing party". Well, don't tell me. With LePen, Mussolini and Mölzer (FPÖ) on its payroll you definitely have to declare that you are not extreme right-wing. It's always good to know who you are and what you stand for, right?

It is an instance of irony that right-wing EU-opposers (or any other group who manages to get into the European Parliament, for that matter) get EU party-funding.

"Will you bite the hand that feeds?"

"You bet we will."

European Union Pathologies

2007-01-14T20:11:00.000+01:00

There are of course plenty of them. Pathologies. The severest of all, however, could be that people simply don't care about the EU. People don't know what it is, why it is good or why it is bad, what it does for them etc. If "EU" comes to peoples minds, it is in a strictly negative context. Unfortunately the international institution serves the purpose of "problem- dumping" for populist national politicians only too well. If something does not work, blame it on the EU, you have nothing to loose.

What is thus missing in Europe is a sentiment, a feeling of toghetherness amongst the peoples. The emergence of a pan european patriotism is obviously a lenghty process, but it can be made more or less lenghty. Amongst the strongest symbols of patriotism ranges doubtlessly a nation's flag. Just recall the power and the feelings conveyed by the US star-spangled banner. Anywhere in the world people will be able to tell you something about that, either positive or negative, but still. If people see the blue European flag, a resounding yawn is a common reaction. The EU is boring.

Politicians, meanwhile, are racking their brains (some of them) about how they could get the EU nearer to the people. There was a bus touring through Europe, with nice posters and pins inside. Great success.

Suppose, for example, I would want to have a t-shirt with the stylish barcode-flag designed by dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (see above), because I find it gorgeous. Do you think it would be feasible, both politically and technically, to create a link on the official website of the EU to a EU-merchandise store? Where you buy t-shirts, coffee mugs and umbrellas with cool EU-flags on it?
Well...

What you can find, on the other hand, are sites where one can find Anti-european flags. I'm pretty sure there is a well going merchandise for these flags, as well.

Funky Grandma

2007-01-14T20:00:00.000+01:00

This is a link to a video with Sue Teller. I've never seen or heard anything of this Sue Teller before, but I think that I will do so in the future. I nearly went banana, she is too funny. Pay attention to the changing of camera perspectives, which she is following. And that green can of softdrink.

"Mi fa tagliare", as my roman friends would put it.

Thanks to Fosco for the pointer.

End of the world

2007-01-03T22:24:00.000+01:00

See this very placative flash animation on the end of the world as we know it by klicking on the link.

http://lglan.net/endoftheworld.swf

War is over

2006-12-23T15:48:00.000+01:00

Please listen to the good christmas song as well, not only to those kitschy sticky gluey ones. The good one is called "War is over" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

By the way, I just came across a new movie featuring John Lennon. It is called "The U.S. vs. John Lennon". I don't know if it's any good. Have a look at it here.

Happy x-mas everybody!

Peace!

No. Snow.

2006-12-17T15:26:00.000+01:00

Howdie, Folks.

Hard times for wintersports-dependent regions like the one I am living in. Sport stores opened, cablecars constructed, hotels enlarged, foreign workforce for the kitchen hired, everything is set.

"Something is still missing, isn't it? Something is not right, right?"

"Yeah. I can't get rid of that feeling that the newly constructed wing of my hotel might be too small in the end. I'll have to tackle that next summer."

There is a study of the OECD, analyzing the economic impact of climate change on regions like Austria, which are heavily depending on winter tourism. It pronounces what environmentalists around here have been proclaiming for decades: that investing in a future project that is "melting" might have some severe consequences. Wet feet are the least amongst them.

The OECD report will, like so many other reports on climate change, have no effect whatsoever. It lies in the nature of politics, that problems which are scheduled to take effect in 20 years are put at the end of the list. It is mandatory to solve immediate problems. How many fighter jets (not) to buy, for example. With whom (not) to form a coalition government, for example. How many special forces to allocate for the protection of the finance minister's wife.

tu felix austria...

Read the OECD pieces here:
country summary on Austria and Germany
full article

Weltstadt

2006-12-09T18:58:00.000+01:00

The proper description of the city I life in lies somewhere between "middle size" and "provincial". It depends, like so much else, on your point of reference.

What has been kind of ridiculous, though, was a campaign by the city council some time ago. They started to announce that Innsbruck (that is the city's name) would convert into a cosmopolitan city. I didn't even get the point of why they came up with that slogan, it does not feel that incredibly more cosmopolitan than it did before. Anyway, everybody laughed at that.

Now, imagine what I read today. It seems that this city is going to be cosmopolitan after all, thank god.

There is going to be an Apple store.

Babel

2006-11-28T22:40:00.000+01:00

The movie focus continues. The new film of Alejandro Gonzalez Inárritu is going to be out in a few days. Inárritu is a personal hero of mine. The coming movie "Babel" is the third and last piece in a trilogy, which unites some important stories of our times: "Amores Perros", "21 gramms" and as mentioned before, "Babel". He has become a great master of the intertwined story-telling, often employing numerous strands of plot which stray seemingly lost through the movie, to be resolved only in a great final solution.

What gives Babel additional attractiveness is the impressive list of actors. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal etc. From what I read it is a story about globalization, where one event in a specific part of the world triggers a series of other events in remote countries. Somebody once called that the "butterfly effect", as you surely remember. Considering "Amores Perros" and "21 gramms" as a benchmark, this thing seems very promising to me (so I am going to watch the movie). As a bonus, the soundtracks of Inárritu's movies are simply amazing.

Introducing: Blower

2006-11-20T21:12:00.000+01:00

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am sorry for not having posted for such a long time. I've had quite some stuff to do. Let me just briefly introduce the ski which is going to be my vehicle through this year's winter. I could imagine that this is not very interesting for some of you - again I have to apologize. But I am just feeling like a kid with glowing eyes, standing in front of the christmas tree, waiting for the chorals to end so that it finally can unwrap the presents. I am waiting for the snow. (I've come up with better metaphors in my writing-life, I know)

So there you go: Nordica Blower 2007, Length 193 cm, 110 mm woodcore, sidecut 139-110-129. Take me down mama.

Your values, my beer

2006-11-12T12:02:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I saw the new movie of Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." I liked parts of it, although it shows a very strange kind of humour - if you can call it "humour"anyway. It's rather a good dose of regime critique. The Kazakhis are portrayed in an impressive way, impolite, sexist, antisemitic, violent and undereducated. It is satire, 100%. I wonder if anybody from Kazakhstan can laugh about it, though.
The real target of Cohen, however, is "the greatest nation in the world, US and A". He shows some incredible pictures, you would not believe it. Anyway, the reason for this post is something I read late yesterday after returning from the movies. CNN reports that 3 fraternity (dt.: Studentenverbindung, Anm.) boys from a California University filed a lawsuit against "Borat", because "they engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in." The three frats appear drunk in the movie, making racist and sexist comments. Following the CNN report, the three were given alcohol and were made the offer of participating in that scene. As you can see in the movie, they were having a party, saying some things that they now regret having said before the camera. Of course, this was the objective of Cohen. The lawsuit against 20th century fox (the production company) is "without merit", as the company's spokesman points out. Maybe some thinking before uttering strong slogans would be with merit, especially if you are being recorded.
People from Austrian fraternities often talk to me about "values", values and principles they stand in for and defend. These are high and brazen principles. The next movie of Cohen is going to be about a gay fashion designer from Austria. Let's see if he picks up some frat boys and applies the Cohen-pattented "reveal yourself test". Would be interesting.

terminate this

2006-11-03T18:46:00.001+01:00

and again an amazing video, this time a video about the carneval in rio de janeiro.
main character in this film is noone else but mr universe and gouverneur of california mr. arnold schwarzenegger!
enjoy!
video

Exile Family Movie

2006-10-20T23:34:00.000+02:00

I've been to the movies. The film was called "Exile Family Movie" by a Irani-Austrian named "Arash". The film was just recently awarded the "Diagonale Award for the best Austrian documentary movie". And that jury sure did a great job.

It's all about the story of Arash's big Iranian family which is ripped apart during the Schah's regime. Family members have to flee the country, are thrwon into jail or are executed. The family members are dispersed all over the planet (Austria, Sweden, USA and Iran) and keep in contact via video tapes, where they inform each other about news (who married and who died, for example). 20 years after they fled the country they can arrange a meeting in Mekka, Saudi Arabia, covered as muslim pilgrims. Arash bans it all on video tape for his father who stays back in Austria because he is afraid of backlashes by the Irani regime, as for himself as for Iranian family members. He has been in an Irani jail for five years. He read the wrong books.

So it's a very good movie. Go and see it if you got the chance (which I doubt, given that it's an Austrian hand-camera production, but you never know). Take a look a the trailer at the movie's website at http://www.exilefamilymovie.com/
The main reason for this post, however, is not to recommend a movie to you. It's just that during all these scenes where people cry and weep and talk about all the unjustice that is happening in their country, during all that mourning of killed and sequestrated friends and family members, I got really really angry. It's not that I am unaware of all the unjustice that rages amongst us. On the other hand there is so much unjustice that one runs the risk of losing orientation. Be that as it may, I have got something to say.

This goes out to all you dictators, warlords, demagogues, fanatics, terrorists, greedy politicians, greedy managers, hate preachers, censorship systems, patronizers and short-sighted political campaign designers: One day you will fall. And the harder the landing, the better. If you think that in order to maintain your empires you will be able to exploit and force your will upon and torture and kill the people for all eternity, you are mistaken. I guess you know that anyway. So in the meantime, let me devote a decent "fuck you" to all of you.

P.S.: It is against my conviction to generalize matters and simplify complicated stories. Of course, behind everything - behind every atrocity - there is a reason (economists would say "an incentive"). This was clearly an emotional eruption. But given that this is my personal weblog, I simply took the liberty of erupting emotionally. Drop me a note if you find it superficial and/or naive. I'll have something to devote to you as well. ;)

Mallory Rocks

2006-10-10T19:59:00.000+02:00

Her name is Juliette Lewis and a she is by now a renowned actress, appearing in movies like "Natural born killers" (as Mallory Knocks) or "From Dusk Till Dawn" to name just the most famous ones. Now she has got her third album as a musician out, called "Four on the floor". Listen to pieces of it here.

To all the german readers I must recommend the wikipedia article containing her absolutely movie-like biography, the english wikipedia article is not so good, unfortunately. I can tell you only that she leaves her parents with 14, drops out of high-school 3 weeks before graduation day, starts an incredible acting career, is a member of Scientology (who is not?), has to enter a rehabilitation-clinic to get down from cocain (who doesn't have to?), gets married to professional skateboarder Steve Berra in 1999 and gets divorced from the same in 2003.
Thinking about it again, maybe her biography is not so untypical for an actress after all. I am not a capacity on this field.
What I feel up to, though, is to recommend her energetic rock music to you.
Comes with the Dave-Grohl-satisfaction-seal. Put that man behind a drumset and see what happens....

Dottore(ssa) in Architettura

2006-10-03T22:06:00.000+02:00

mattatoio, U Roma 3, originally uploaded by leisuretronic.

I was in Rome for a couple of days. Had the luck to be able to participate in the defence of the final thesis of two of my friends there. Fosco and Mariabruna are architects now - Congratulations! Their thesis was about urban voids in Philadelphia, where an incredibly great part of the city center is effectively deserted. They were presenting possibilities of dealing with the problem, from an architectonic perspectic of course. Urban voids seem to be a common phenomenon in the US, Detroit is another example. But I am not a specialist in the subject, Fosco is the man if you want to know more.
I was impressed by the presented works during this day. In fact, for me as an outsider it was quite exhausting. It was like an entire day in a museum, trying to interpret all these nice-looking pictures. The architecture campus of University Roma 3 is also quite impressive. It is an old slaughterhouse.

Impeach him now

2006-09-25T15:28:00.000+02:00

Another good one from celebrity-economist Brad DeLong. He asks if it is time to end the republican party in the US as we know it. The usage of torture has got some obvious drawbacks, not only for the tortured but also for liberal society. Read his post following this link .

Iraq feat. Austria

2006-09-25T10:09:00.000+02:00

I would like to recommend a post about "the arabic Austria" by Nicole. It's very touching. Read it here.

Spam or "On Bullshit 2"

2006-09-21T23:38:00.000+02:00

The attempts of defrauders to squeeze some money out of ingenuous people are becoming ever more sofisticated.

Fake ATM (=cash-mashine) interfaces scan bankcards and codes and give criminals access to bank accounts (that's what folks say),

investment funds maneuver the future, hopes and dreams of investors into the gutter while the fund's managers bail out from the top of the headquarter's skyscraper with a golden parachute (fictitious example)

and greedy Italian barkeepers sell watered and bad coffee at the three-fold price to tourists (all Italian barkeepers are greedy, of course).

But why go through all the trouble and not just ask people to give you their money? email-lists and cheap communication technology obviously facilitate these practices. The other day I received an email asking for my bank-account details, because they ("the microsoft lottery corporation") wanted to transfer 1.2 million dollar which I allegedly had won in a lottery. "We messed up some numbers, so if you please indicate your bank details we can initiate transactions."
Below is an email I got yesterday. Although it is not very inventive I post it here for the interested reader. This links to a server which lists all the 761 different appearances of the story. Bad weeds grow tall.

Dear Beloved,
Due to the sudden death of my husband General Abacha the former head of state of Nigeria in June 1998, I have been thrown into a state of hopelessness by the present administration.I have lost confidence with anybody within my country. I got your contacts through personal research, and had to reach you through this medium. I will give you more details when you reply.
Due to security network placed on my daily affairs I cant visit the embassy so that is why I have contacted you.My Husband deposited $12.6million dollars with a security firm abroad whose name is witheld for now till we communicate. I will be happy if you can receive this funds and keep it safe I assure you 20% of this fund. I will need your telephone/mobile numbers so that we can commence communication.
Yours truly,
Hajia Mariam

Austria on a (first) sight

2006-09-19T20:36:00.000+02:00

innsbruck pitoresque, originally uploaded by leisuretronic.

Upon request from our friend Nicole, I have the great pleasure to show you some snapshots of Austria. Of course the selection is far from being representative, in fact most of the pictures were taken during winter and in a rather limited geographical area of the country. Sadly enough, I have got no useful fotos which show "Austrian life". I will grab my camera and hunt some "Austrian moments" for all you interested people. For those of you who can't wait I assembled a small survey of what I've got. See it here.

Jazz

2006-09-17T18:30:00.000+02:00

JOV feat Peter Madsen, originally uploaded by leisuretronic.

I was at home for the weekend. Saw a wonderful concert there, the first show of the "Jazz orchestra Vorarlberg", an ensemble consisting of young musicians from the region. For their first show they could count on the support of one of the world's most outstanding contemporary jazz pianists: Peter Madsen (on the photo at the left, in white). I hope that the project continues.

culticon

2006-09-15T20:35:00.000+02:00

dear fellow readers.

here is an amazing link to the new video of my and hopefully also your youth icon mr. david "knight rider" hasselhoff.

after amazing songs like "i've been looking for freedom" or "crazy for you" he covered a '70 hit "jump in my car" by whoever.
have fun.
video

Elections or "On Bullshit"

2006-09-06T23:53:00.000+02:00

It's campaigning time in Austria. General elections are scheduled for October 1 2006. Even though political campaigns in Austria are quite moderate compared to other countries (e.g. Italy, USA) it is the only time during the 4 year legislative period that Austrians wake up from political hibernation and force themselves to show some interest.
At least some do, for voter turnout is cronically low. To put you into the right frame, we are talking about the seventh most rich country in the world, with little geostrategical say and therefore only minor, if any, troubles. I don't want to say that there are no critical issues to think about (there are always), it just seems to me that people are too well off to really care about politics the way they should.
Nevertheless political parties are battling for votes. One very nice campaign-poster comes from the "BZÖ"-party, which was the latest creation of Austria's infamous politics-hazard, Mr Jörg Haider. Anyway, the really entertaining thing about that poster is that the candidate's main slogan is to lower the price of gasoline to 1 euro/liter. I think the liter is at around 1.30 euro now. I would find it somewhat risky to mention this as my only point, there might be someone coming around asking just how you want to do that. I wonder what the answer would be. I vaguely remember that this price is determined by some people very far away who possibly never heard of Austria, BZÖ and...nevermind.
In the end the answer does not matter. The one who bullshits people better than the others wins the game. I read a book relating to that just recently which I hereby recommend to the interested reader: Harry G. Frankfurt, "On Bullshit", Princeton University Press, 2005.

Non-hibernating Austrians (and everybody who is interested, of course) are invited to cast a virtual ballot at www.wahlkabine.at

Saving Greenpeace

2006-09-02T16:56:00.000+02:00

Let me say some words on a comment made by a friend of mine on the ever-growing aggressiveness of fundraisers of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We are talking about mostly young people who work for NGOs during the summer months. Their activity consists mainly in talking to people on the street and gaining them for membership or "convinving" them to contribute to the cause. Caution: This is not a post pro/contra any of the mentioned organizations.

The object of study is Greenpeace and the way its fundraisers behave. Why do the Greenpeace-people insist so rudly and aggressively that you contribute? Why do they follow you for half a kilometer, talking inceasingly to you, making you feel like an idiot? How come that of all the people in the world, the one's who are supposed to save that planet are the most unpleasant ones?
First of all, saving the world costs a lot of money. Second, the fundraisers should not be representating Greenpeace as an organization - but more on that later. Well, to answer the above questions, one just has to know that Greenpeace-fundraisers are paid on a percentage-basis of their "sales". So, the more people they convince, the more they will earn. Being aggressive while talking to potential contributers (e.g. making the potential member feel bad about not contributing) is yielding higher and more contributions than otherwise. The image of Greenpeace, on the other hand, greatly suffers from a behavior as such. People are scared away from consciously (=voluntarily) participating in the cause.

Get that incentive straight

This should make responsibles think. Obviously NGOs face increasing competition from their likes and therefore engage in more aggressive marketing strategies. By paying their fundraisers on a percentage-basis, however, these organizations appear to the public like saying "we have got to squeeze some dollars out of you, folks, but you know, it's for your own good and all that". In my opinion they face the risk of compromising their "good" cause by appearing as "bad" boys. In one word, Greenpeace should think about the incentives the provide to their fundraisers. Maybe they should give the newly recruited contributer the possibility of evaluating the fundraiser (e.g. by a questionnaire) and pay the fundraiser for being "friendly and informative"?

Co-author

2006-08-30T20:18:00.000+02:00

I would like to introduce my co-author. His most recent post can be found just below. His name is Dani. Unfortunately for my international friends, he's writting in German (at least for now). Don't get discouraged, I'll keep posting in English.
Stay tuned

kafka lässt grüßen

2006-08-30T19:42:00.000+02:00

hallo zusammen.

hier eine kurze (lange) beschreibung meines heutigen kafkaesken tages. Wenn jeder tag so verlaufen würde, müsste man sich gedanken machen.

vorne weg: ich musste nach dornbirn, da ich einen kleinen eingriff am auge hatte( netzhautablösung und mit laser wieder verkleben). hierzu musste ich um 05:15 aufstehen! schlimm genug, dachte ich. dann regen. Im regen zum bahnhof stapfen. o.k. kann passieren. dann im zug kein ticket. Der schaffner scheisst mich zusammen, was mir denn einfällt mit dem sommerticket, das ja erst ab 8 gilt schon um 6:40 in seinen zug zu steigen. ticket kaufen und mich herzlich bei diesem arschloch bedanken, dass er mir ein ticket ausstellt. dann folgende durchsage im zug: "wegen eines personenschadens ist die strecke zwischen bludenz und feldkirch derzeit für züge unpassierbar. scheisse, schienenersatzverkehr. naja, aber wenigstens das funktioniert normalerweise bei der öbb. denkste. nach einer elendslangen busfahrt (stehend) über sämtliche dörfer (habe mich wie im heimatunterricht in der volksschule gefühlt)irgendwo in der pampa (frastanz?!) abgesetzt und zu 40 minuten warten verdammt. Aber zuerst noch auf einen früheren zug vertröstet, der nonaned auch nicht bei dem überrollten köper vorbeikommt. dann bummelzugfahrt bis dornbirn, inzwischen im

krankenhaus den termin verpasst, ganz hinten anstellen und statt um fünf nach zehn um 12:38 aus dem krankenhaus spaziert. der eingriff ist dann extrem schnell vorbei, fünf minuten das gefühl, als würden einem stecknadeln ins auge gesteckt (wer's mag...) und durch die prämedikation extreme lichtscheu und akkomodationsschwäche. und die schmerzen von diesen blöden stecknadeln lassen nur langsam nach. dann schnell zum bahnhof gehetzt, der zug geht ja um 12:57.dann am bahnhof, zug weg, warten bis 14:36, zug bis feldkirch, dort wieder umsteigen in den autoreisezug. dann platz bezogen, und gedacht alles wird gut.

haha, zwei pubertierende mädchen um die 15 setzen sich im gang genau gegenüber. nichts dabei gedacht, aber der teufel schläft bekanntlich nie. die mädels müssen unbedingt mit einem handy der neueren generation radio hören!! und wer schon mal mit dem zug von vorarlberg nach innsbruck gefahren weiss wie die landschaft aussieht. auf jeden fall nicht für einen guten radioempfang geschaffen. aber das stört meine zwei netten begleiterinnen keineswegs. beherzt

wird nach jedwelchen radioprogrammen gesucht, bei voller lautstärke, man könnte ja einen sender überhören. nach geschlagenen zehn und gefühlten 100 minuten stellen sie das telefon leiser, geben sich aber keineswegs geschlagen. Alle fünf minuten muss von neuem nach programmen geforscht werden. abgesehen von einigen kurzen musikunterbrechungen ist das rauschen aber klar und deutlich. bis der rauschempfang ab telfs zusehens von knisterndem musikgedudel unterbrochen wird. aus der traum von einer fiedvollen zugfahrt. aber der

heimathafen ist ja nicht mehr weit. und seit dort überraschend unspektakuläre heimreise. und die schmerzen werden auch langsam weniger.

jetzt hab ich mir aber ein bier verdient.

Late Summer in Austria

2006-08-30T19:26:00.000+02:00

I took that picture today. I adore snow, don't get me wrong, but...

You're at home, baby

2006-08-30T19:20:00.000+02:00

Being reunited with that thing up there is like meeting a good old friend again. It's really great.

shock

2006-08-23T19:04:00.000+02:00

I've just finished the GRE practice test from the official ETS-software ("powerprep") for the first time. The maths section is really some orders of magnitude harder than in any preperation book I have seen so far. I must admit that I was kind of shocked.

People: take the official ETS practice test, that's the real benchmark I would say.

I've got ten days to go. That will be nice ten days then, don't you tell me...

To all the rest of my distinguished readers: sorry for the nerdish posting (GRE-POWERPREP-ETS-WHATSYOURPROBLEM?).
I will ameliorate, I swear (I hope).

Roma deserta

2006-08-18T09:49:00.000+02:00

I've spent some nice days in Croacia, on Rab Island. Beautiful landscape there, and with the boat of a friend one reaches even the best hidden bay. People are friendly and the water is incredibly clean, all in all a perfect spot for some decent holidays.
Rab Island, Croacia

After that I went to Rome. Rome in August (around "ferragosta") is nothing less incredible than one of these bays around Rab island: in either place there is noone. Only few tourists, still fewer Romans, for anyone who can afford it flees from the city. The positive externality which materializes if everybody leaves the city, because everybody finds the city too crowded, is that the city remains empty. Which is very nice because you can make from point A to B in less than one hour.
I think it is one of the best periods to visit Rome.

Oh sweet nothing

2006-08-04T21:09:00.000+02:00

Hello Folks!
Today I took my TOEFL-exam. If you can avoid taking it, I would urgently recommend to do so. There are surely more useful things one can waste one's time on. But nevermind, the mighty ETS dictates the lives of us prospective graduate students, so there is nothing you can do about it.

Now I'm off for some holidays.

After which I will take the next ETS exam. This time it's called GRE, from the "nastiness-viewpoint" it is three categories worse than TOEFL, so...hip hip hurra.

Have some wonderful days, hope to see you around

Auguri!

2006-07-29T09:43:00.000+02:00

Happy Birthday Zooey!

9 Jahre ungezwungene Heiterkeit und Bloedelei.

9 years old and still on the mountains (sometimes...).

Hello Sweden!

2006-07-25T14:27:00.000+02:00

It seems that people who search for a certain image on http://images.google.se are being directed to this blog. I'm having quite some hits from Sweden these days. No problem folks, just wanted to inform that there is not a single image on this site named "bill300.jpg". I'm sorry, google's got it messed up a bit.

http://images.google.se/imgres?imgurl=
http://www.textfantomen.se/bilder/Bill300.JPG&
imgrefurl=http://plausibel.blogspot.com/&amp;
amp;amp;amp;h=300&w=300&sz=31&hl=sv

Nevertheless is it my pleasure to host you. Welcome!

Hack Attack

2006-07-21T19:30:00.000+02:00

The following is a skype IM conversation from this afternoon I had with a friend of mine:

"Hey, what happened to your name, mate?"

"My name? what do mean?"

"Well, you are called "xy"!
(note: I altered this name to xy because of privacy-concerns. It is the name of an ex-girlfriend of my brother. She is not one of my skype-contacts.)

"What?! What the f***?"

I am a bit puzzled, to say the least. My name in my skype profile had been changed to "xy", just as simple as that. All I know is that I did not change it.
So who the hell did?

flashback:
some weeks ago I was looking for a book in the library. I had seen it on amazon.com, but once in the library I'd forgotten the name - as usual. So I went to one of the computers and logged onto amazon.com to find the name again. I found it, and then "tried" to logg off again. "tried", because there is no such thing as a "sign out" button on amazon.com. After five minutes of messing around with the stupid website, I decided to simply shut down the computer and hope that its cache and cookies would be erased.

That was kind of a naive wish, though. The next person who opened the site was in my account. Actually you cannot change or see the password, but I bet there are ways to do.

So, thinking about that crazy name-story, I recognized that the amazon password was the password I use in almost every occasion. Great. I spent the whole afternoon changing passwords, messing up all the network-access in my workplace. The administrator threw me out of the net because I tried the wrong password to often. I had to erase my workstation-profile.

My whole outlook-calendar (lots of information) melted down to a useless cloud of electrons, to a bit of nothing somewhere between my computer's harddisk and ventilation.

Paranoid? Maybe. But that name?

It was high time to change passwords anyway...

Reif

2006-07-18T13:25:00.000+02:00

No non-smoking please

2006-07-14T18:24:00.000+02:00

The other day I was travelling with the Austrian federal railways. It was a veeeery nice hot summer day, the platform was packed with huge backpacks and their perspiring owners. The train was fifteen minutes late - which is not the theme of today's post, though. Analyzing the reasons and ridiculing the responsibles of a 15 min. delay would be too much. Even for me.

Well, I had to sit in a smokers' compartment in the train, because all the backpacks (and also their owners, yes) had gotten on the train and it was therefore full. In the smokers' compartment there was - surprise - somebody smoking. This was when I began to think...

Just recently I heard an interview with Austria's minister of health and women, honorable Maria Rauch-Kallat. In this interview, she spoke out against a law banning smoking from restaurants and bars. "The Italian solution is no role model for Austria". Aha.
Sure, there are lots of reasons why common people like you and me and everybody we know would not understand such a statement. Maybe it's too complex. Maybe we are too common after all.
Just to remind you, Italy in march 2003 introduced legislation banning smoking in all official buildings, restaurants, trains and wherever else smokers could clash with non-smokers (outside the smokers apartment, of course). Quite tough a measure.

Although some folks attribute to Italian laws a mere homeopathic effectiveness (works only, when you truly believe in it), it seems as if this measure was not homeopathics at all. Look at that (source: ISTAT):

This chart shows smokers as a percentage of total Italian population from 1995 to 2004. What you inmediately see, is that this does not look like a lot of action whatsoever. The number of smokers usually does not fluctuate, and if so, very little. This is because people get addicted to nicotine (didn't know that?) and find it hard to quit. And the number of people entering (14 year-olds) the smokers' population is just offset by those leaving it (they quit smoking or died).
So what, then, is this funny little kink in the chart, just after 2003?

Tobacco price increase? No.
A sudden increase of women in Italy, which would have decreased the smokers-percentage (if non-smokers)? No.
Did would-be quitters find it easier to quit because of a law, which prevents them from smoking in restaurants and bars? Well, yes.

My dear minister of health and women, please explain me your struggle. I want to understand how a minister of health can oppose herself to a prohibition of smoking in restaurants and bars, when positive effects are so obvious. To put it into the still present soccer-jargon: this issue is a free penalty for every politician, with no goalkeeper.
You just have to kick.

Some still miss.

Out of order

2006-07-13T19:33:00.000+02:00

We Announce: Hit of the year

2006-07-08T12:36:00.000+02:00

The profession of soothsaying is very prestigious, today more so than ever before. People hire professional soothsayers to get advice on the most profitable stocks (and biggest bubbles) to invest, others specialize in providing information on when it's sensible to go to war and still another type of soothsayer convinces you, that as the president of your country, all you need to do is lower the taxes for the rich, because it is them who "move" the economy, that it's them who invest and create new jobs for "the poor". If you happen to be president and your friends are rich, bingo.
If you are president and your friends are not rich, get yourself another soothsayer.
If you are not president, get yourself three of them.

I am going to be your soothsayer for a moment, if you don't mind. This works as follows:
"A thoughtful revision of our data leads us to the confirmation that Don't feel right by the roots is going to be the most successful song in the club in a year from now. It continues in the tradition of The Seed 2.0 (Hit of the year 2003, guest-vocals by Cody Chestnutt) with charismatic guest-vocals over one of the rawest beats of recent hiphop history. There is one part in the second half of the song which will pull your socks of: rhythm dropping to half-beat, piano out and a heavy synthie melody jumping up and down. This is definitely the song of the year 2006/2007."
Please confirm your soothsayer's prophecy at myspace.com/theroots. By the way, the new roots album is called "game theory". I'll have to say something about that - watch out.

For further advice on any topic (love, money, job, etc) just drop me a note.
Fees apply.

Summer here kids

2006-07-08T11:50:00.000+02:00

Well yes, summer is here.
In a provincial university town like Innsbruck, this means that as of July 1st all live is vacuumed out of the city. All the students go home, peace reigns. Most common last words are "...and have a nice summer", or "see you in autumn".
So if you happen not to be one of these fortunate creatures who are off for a three month vacation, what can you do? Participate in the "Innsbrucker Sommersporttag" (summer sports convention organized by the city council)? Ah, missed already.

One thing you can do is go to a music festival. You have the chance to spend some money and time there, listening to your favourite rock band while having a beer. You will have to cut back on hygene and comfort, but some say it's worth it. For all you city-dwellers (real cities) out there, it might seem crazy to sleep in the mud for 3 days just to see a good concert. But living in the country, you don't have much of a choice. And some might say that it's even great fun: it is, at least to a certain extent. I would not be willing to hold out on the Danube-island of Budapest for 10 hard-rocking days, but I know people who do.
The 2-3 day dose is just enough for me. Ranking high in the list this year is the frequency festival near Salzburg. It is not too huge and presents a nice lineup.

Something quite different is going on in Austria's most western province of Vorarlberg every summer from Juli to August: It is called the "poolbar festival" and in an almost ten-year lifetime established itself as a main pillar of central european alternative culture. Architecture, music, film, poetry in an extremely stimulating ambiente. Check it out.

How many?

2006-07-06T19:18:00.000+02:00

John runs from his home to his school at an average speed of 6 miles per hour, and then walks home along the same route at an average speed of 3 miles per hour. If his whole journey took one hour, how many miles is his home from his school?

I am currently preparing for the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). Why do people associate "intelligence" or "productivity" of a person with this person's capability of solving problems like the one above?
You cannot infer the intelligence of a person from a standardized test result. But you can consider his/her test result a signal of his/her willpower. "How much would you humiliate yourself studying basic algebra and geometry all over again in order to enter a good Graduate School?" Well, depending on the Graduate School, quite a lot...

European Worldcup

2006-07-02T13:53:00.000+02:00

So the Europeans are amongst themselves: There is no non-European team left in the worldcup. Some might say that after the dissapointing performance of the great European football nations in the last worldcup, this is only fair enough. True, but still it's kind of a pity that so many great teams were sent home (while others were not).
I would say that everything is possible. I don't believe in Portugal, but who knows, you can never tell. The Germans, meanwhile, are so damn wanton that anything less than "Worldchampion" would be a desaster. That's one of their main defects, they are suffering from a sort of bipolar disorder: They seem to be manic-depressive, either they are hopelessly pessimistic (about their history, their economy, their weather and pretty much everything else) or they trip out and wander around in the nights of Austrian cities chanting "Austria is in Germany's tight grip!"
What about some balancing of extremes, folks? Would be better for all of us...

Apart from these "collateral effects" of the worldcup, there is one thing that makes me extremely happy. I would have felt utterly sorry, if things wouldn't have turned out they way they did. Luckily, they did.

Welcome back, General.