Top Lobbying Banks Got Biggest Bailouts
May 28th, 2011Mmm hmm.
Via: Reuters:
The more aggressively a bank lobbied before the financial crisis, the worse its loans performed during the economic downturn — and the more bailout dollars it received, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week.
The report, titled “A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis,” said that banks’ lobbying efforts may be motivated by short-term profit gains, which can have devastating effects on the economy.
“Overall, our findings suggest that the political influence of the financial industry played a role in the accumulation of risks, and hence, contributed to the financial crisis,” said the report, written by three economists from the International Monetary Fund.
Data collected by the three authors — Deniz Igan, Prachi Mishra and Thierry Tressel — show that the most aggressive lobbiers in the financial industry from 2000 to 2007 also made the most toxic mortgage loans. They securitized a greater portion of debt to pass the home loans onto investors and their stock prices correlated more closely to the downturn and ensuing bailout.
Terrorist ‘Pre-Crime’ Detector Field Tested in United States
May 28th, 2011This is the most hilariously unworkable Magic 8 Ball boondoggle that I’ve ever heard about. In the annals of grant swindling, this one has to take the cake.
Via: Nature:
Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly ‘sense’ whether you are planning to commit a crime.
Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.
Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.
The tactic has drawn comparisons with the science-fiction concept of ‘pre-crime’, popularized by the film Minority Report, in which security services can detect someone’s intention to commit a crime. Unlike the system in the film, FAST does not rely on a trio of human mutants who can see the future. But the programme has attracted copious criticism from researchers who question the science behind it (see Airport security: Intent to deceive?).
…
Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a think-tank based in Washington DC that promotes the use of science in policy-making, is pessimistic about the FAST tests. He thinks that they will produce a large proportion of false positives, frequently tagging innocent people as potential terrorists and making the system unworkable in a busy airport. “I believe that the premise of this approach — that there is an identifiable physiological signature uniquely associated with malicious intent — is mistaken. To my knowledge, it has not been demonstrated,” he says. “Without it, the whole thing seems like a charade.”
Dangerous Debris, Evidence, Left in Abandoned Detroit Police Crime Lab
May 28th, 2011Via: Detroit Free Press:
Thousands of rounds of live ammunition, sealed evidence kits and case files — some containing Social Security numbers of rape and assault victims — lay amid rubble in a crime lab abandoned by Detroit police two years ago.
The Free Press discovered the ruins this week. Judicial experts expressed shock that evidence would be handled so recklessly.
“It’s incomprehensible that any law enforcement agency would not be mindful to preserve evidence,” Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny said.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr., told about the crime lab Thursday, launched an immediate investigation. “I will make sure that this never happens again,” he said.
The lab, housed in a former elementary school in Brush Park, was ordered closed in 2008 because of sloppy investigations. It’s now littered with tools, computers, TVs, cameras and microscopes, in addition to the other items.
The lab was open to trespassers for at least the past week. Parts of a fence around the perimeter have collapsed, and a window was broken. As recently as Monday, the front door was ajar.
After Free Press inquiries, police arrived Thursday to scan the building, and a private security detail was on duty in the evening.
Research Credit: swampy
Is Berlin the Ultimate Urban Pig Growing Area?
May 27th, 2011Why not embrace the bounty and designate areas for the raising and slaughter of pigs for local consumption? This sounds like more of a blessing than a problem to me.
Update: Radioactive Boars on the Rise in Germany
Reader DP sends cautionary information about wild pigs in Germany.
Via: AP:
Almost a quarter century after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, its fallout is still a hot topic in some German regions, where thousands of boars shot by hunters still turn up with excessive levels of radioactivity. In fact, the numbers are higher than ever before.
—End Update—
Via: Deutsche Welle:
Wild boars with hearty appetites are proving problematic in Berlin, where food is plentiful.
Priest in Archdiocese of Pope’s Adviser On Pedophilia Scandals Arrested on Pedophilia and Drug Charges
May 27th, 2011Via: Time:
The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests.
Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.
PayPal Co-Founder Hands Out $100,000 Fellowships for Students to Drop Out of College and Start Businesses
May 26th, 2011Oh man. I can hear the squealing from the Student Loan Industrial Complex already.
Via: NPR:
Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and one of the first investors in Facebook, is proposing a controversial path toward more rapid innovation. Today his Thiel Foundation announced that it was giving 24 people under 20 $100,000 fellowships to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies.
Some of the recipients are leaving first-rate institutions like Harvard and Stanford to take the fellowship. In a press release, the foundation’s head, James O’Neill, said that in taking the fellowship they were “challenging the authority of the present and the familiar.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Thiel thinks ideas can develop in a start-up environment much faster than at a university. And the project is also intended to question the idea of higher education. Thiel told TechCrunch in April that the United Sates was in a higher education bubble.
“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he told Techcrunch. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
Fed’s Secret Loans to Big Banks
May 26th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
Credit Suisse Group AG (CS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public.
The $80 billion initiative, called single-tranche open- market operations, or ST OMO, made 28-day loans from March through December 2008, a period in which confidence in global credit markets collapsed after the Sept. 15 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Units of 20 banks were required to bid at auctions for the cash. They paid interest rates as low as 0.01 percent that December, when the Fed’s main lending facility charged 0.5 percent.
“This was a pure subsidy,” said Robert A. Eisenbeis, former head of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and now chief monetary economist at Sarasota, Florida-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. “The Fed hasn’t been forthcoming with disclosures overall. Why should this be any different?”
Why Are Spy Researchers Building a ‘Metaphor Program’?
May 26th, 2011
Via: The Atlantic:
A small research arm of the U.S. government’s intelligence establishment wants to understand how speakers of Farsi, Russian, English, and Spanish see the world by building software that automatically evaluates their use of metaphors.
That’s right, metaphors, like Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” or more subtly, “The darkness pressed in on all sides.” Every speaker in every language in the world uses them effortlessly, and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity wants know how what we say reflects our worldviews. They call it The Metaphor Program, and it is a unique effort within the government to probe how a people’s language reveals their mindset.
“The Metaphor Program will exploit the fact that metaphors are pervasive in everyday talk and reveal the underlying beliefs and worldviews of members of a culture,” declared an open solicitation for researchers released last week. A spokesperson for IARPA declined to comment at the time.
Three Chinese Government Buildings Bombed
May 26th, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Three Chinese government buildings have been bombed in the southern city of Fuzhou, in Jiangxi province, killing two and injuring six.
The first blast went off in the car park of the Fuzhou public prosecutor’s office just after nine o’clock this morning, as workers were arriving for the day.
Two other bombs went off in the following 30 minutes, one at the Linchuan district government building and another at the local pharmaceutical drug administration bureau.
The three buildings were within walking distance of each other and two of the bombs were left inside cars parked outside.
According to Xinhua, the state news agency, three of the six injured are critical. The bombings were initially blamed on a local farmer who was said to be upset at the progress of a court case, but Xinhua later said the cause of the attacks was still under investigation.
Groups Sue FDA to Stop Addition of Antibiotics in Livestock Feed
May 26th, 2011Via: Washington Post:
Several environmental and public health groups filed suit against the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday to try to force the government to stop farmers from routinely adding antibiotics to livestock feed to help animals grow faster.
The groups say widespread agricultural antibiotic use and the FDA’s allowance of the practice are compounding a public health crisis: the increasing prevalence of “superbugs” that infect people and do not respond to antibiotics.
