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July 29, 2011
topic
The Economist has been particularly aggressive in their articles concerning the recovery, stating that chaotic spending cuts or a nominal default would hurt the economy. Their attitude worries me more than their statements. Are they ringing the warning bells too quickly or soothsayers?
Posted by azileretsis at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2011
loans
For those graduate students with loans who haven't been watching the budget talks closely:
Members of Congress are preparing to vote on a pair of bills—offered by the House speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid—that would end the in-school interest subsidy on federal loans made to graduate students and provide $17-billion to $18-billion in additional money for the Pell program. - With Debt Deal Elusive, Obama Speaks With Concerned College Students
A little more information on the news. It looks like it's going to only affect any loans taken out after 2012.
Posted by azileretsis at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
currency
The Economist argues that yuan valuation is on par with dollar. Or, I say it is good to be paid in American dollars in China and even better in Euros.
Posted by azileretsis at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2011
leadership
This week, my school started to repave parking lots used by employees and students. This event has displaced about three hundred parking spots where we barely started with enough parking spaces. To add to the parking space frustrations, there isn't enough police coordinators or buses. This means that people are parking wherever they want and having to wait outside in the heat (>90F) for more than 30min for a bus. Then, in two weeks, the students come back, additional 200-300 people. This morning, I was contemplating if this issue would be more on the school leadership's mind if they were the ones having to park further away and riding the bus or if the faculty's and executive staff's parking was infringed upon.
The correlation to the current debt crisis is the same. I am resigned to the fact that politics is more important than the good of the country. Leaders can be ignorant to the problems that they can cause for others. Instead, in both my school and country, I will wait for the swelling of anger and frustration that will sweep inevitably.
I would guess the Treasury to which we write our tax checks would keep a good account of what is coming in.
“Tax receipts were as expected for June and July,” Treasury spokeswoman Colleen Murray said in a statement to POLITICO on Wednesday afternoon. “The fact remains the U.S. will exhaust borrowing authority on August 2nd and after that date there is no way to guarantee we will be able to meet all of the nation’s obligations.” - Treasury Department: Tuesday's debt ceiling deadline is real
Posted by azileretsis at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2011
academics
More on academic life. I love this quote:
One administrator noted that "Wal-Mart is a more honest employer of part-time employees than are most colleges and universities" and admitted that adjunct teachers are a "highly educated working poor."
Posted by azileretsis at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2011
significance
Wired blogger rips apart statistical analysis of the new sequencing technology, Ion Torrent. Just goes to show how words are used is important.
Two surprising features of this room that aren’t apparent in this photo: firstly, it’s small, amazingly so given the machines in this room currently have the capacity to churn out 400 complete human genomes every month. - Genomics in Mountain View: A Visit to 23andMe and Complete Genomics
Wow or Crap! We have so much data and so little of it we understand.
Did you know you can have your genome scanned for as little as $207 with an one year subscription? Fair warning is how much do you really want to know about your health risks and what would you do about it. Also, if you won't buy a car that isn't 6 sigma quality, why would you buy results that is less than that? Think of it as buying a Model T.
Grace in academics? I didn't say aliens, I said grace.
MIT press oversells their research. At understanding, a letdown is felt. They can now cut and paste using essentially a biological macro.
Posted by azileretsis at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2011
power
If any other developed country's leaders asked their people to reduce their power usage by 15% in a middle of a heat wave, could they do it?
Consumption on that day dropped 19 percent from a year earlier, exceeding the target of 15 percent, the government said.
Maybe, the Japanese could be an example.
Bill Clinton's ideas on employment.
Posted by azileretsis at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2011
china
Here is a western-biased viewpoint of the Chinese economy. It is the dewy-eyed hope that capitalism drives political change. It also is a reflection of lack of understanding of Asian 20th century history. To say that China will follow Singapore is to misunderstand these two cultures. China will be shaped by the perspective of the lower classes to the indulgences of upper class, skewed or not as it was in the middle of the 20th Century.
My conversations with Chinese students have made me understand better my own biases concerning capitalism in a merit-driven society and democratic government. It has also helped me to understand for some Chinese, their communistic biases are hard-core and deep entrenched. Communism is as powerful of an idea as a republic or a democracy and if we don't understand that, it is to our detriment.
Women's World Cup is shaping to be a good game b/w US and Japan on Sunday.
Posted by azileretsis at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2011
tech
What tech boom? Cisco cuts at least 5K jobs.
On a topic I was thinking about on my drive home yesterday, why is it that as adults, we are immune to our desires that we had as a child? Who hasn't gone past checkout stand filled with candy and wondered why the attraction held us so intently as a child? And, why aren't we researching that and finding ways to immunize our kids to this phenomena?
The previous article about Gen X's ideas about marriage and divorce made me think about our core issue of selfishness. As adults, I think we disguise our selfishness much better. Unlike a child, we know enough to not demand for our own instant gratification. However, selfishness is still there lurking right underneath. Our relationships reflect this and our society is just getting better in hiding it.
An article about the secret to self-control.
Government jobs and well-being.
Hmm..after looking at this, I think I should just pull this section out of the Economist article:
Some market participants argue such a default would be quickly “cured” and be therefore merely technical. Yet history suggests that even a technical default can be costly. America’s only known instance of outright default (other than refusing to repay debts in gold in 1933) occurred in 1979 when the Treasury failed to redeem $122m of Treasury bills on time. It blamed unprecedentedly high interest from small investors, a delay in raising the debt ceiling and a word-processing-equipment failure. Although it repaid the money and a penalty to boot, a later study by Terry Zivney, now of Ball State University, and Richard Marcus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found it caused a 60-basis-point interest-rate premium on some federal debt. Today that would cost $86 billion a year or 0.6% of GDP, a hefty penalty for something so avoidable.
Posted by azileretsis at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2011
domination
A critique of Google+'s negatives. So far, I do like the more integrated approach. It is simpler which appeases my Whitman leanings.
A critique on marriage and divorce in Generation X.
Posted by azileretsis at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2011
news
Jobless data put into perspective.
Isn't everybody watching the last shuttle launch? End of US's reign in space? With it, our hopes and disappointments.
Posted by azileretsis at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2011
back to school
I get this question alot. How did you decide to leave your career and go back to school? The answer is a long personal one. However, I will provide the negatives here that I had sent a friend contemplating the idea:
For me, it was a good choice. I'm not sure if the move would benefit others. Your return on investment may not be high. School can be really boring at times. You will miss that paycheck and the perks that come with it. You will feel old compared to your fellow students. Yet, you won't feel socially accepted by the professors who are more similar in age.
However, one of my justifications for going back to school is that my working career has been a very long one and pretty diverse.
Posted by azileretsis at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)
debt
The reason why everybody thinks the debt ceiling will be raised by Aug 2. It would be the act of a child in a full tantrum to not raise the debt ceiling. However, it's interesting to see what it takes (doomsday economic scenario) to make congressmen work together. It has been a long winter and no hope for spring (or why the effects of the Great Recession or we can call it the snail-paced economic growth will continue for a couple more years).
Posted by azileretsis at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)