pdmunro

I would appreciate an amalgamation of the information re MB$ and BB$. This is what happened to me just now: I thought I was near the end of my BB$ so I clicked the BB$ button and checked my account activity. There was a mysterious entry "MB$ to BB$". I wasn't sure what it meant. And what was my MB$ amount anyway? After searching through BBO help, I found that I had to go into the Money Bridge section of BBO to find my MB$ activity. And sure enough it showed that my MB$ were being eroded and converted to BB$. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for this. Having lost a few MB$ at one time, I am now mainly playing Robot Tourneys and so require BB$. Having my MB$ automatically converted to BB$ suits me. It's just that I feel that all information for BB$ and MB$ could be better organised to be available from one central location. It took me perhaps 20 to 30 mins to find the help files and the activity files that I needed in order to know what was happening to my money. Also, I would appreciate: 1) A better placement of the "Awards BB$ MB$" box when I log in. Because it is at the bottom of the screen, the MB$ amount is hidden beneath my task bar at the bottom of the screen; and 2) Could we have a button that we could click to redisplay that box? Or could it be permanently displayed?

Heartache; TopThat; Supremo

Bridge Rage; Bridge Warriors; Fourtune; Ten Trix; Brooklyn; Kingdom; Target; 100; Winners and Losers; GameOn; CardCraft

Aerial photos of the Brisbane flood, 14 Jan 2011: http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm using images taken by nearmap.com: http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.490761,153.038692&z=13&t=k&nmd=20110113 You can zoom in and out, and move around. And compare different dates. Their images come from Cessna aircraft with cameras attached. The definition is excellent. "The HyperPod generates about 1Gigabyte of raw image data every second. To process the individual photos into seamless photomaps, nearmap.com's HyperVision PhotoMap processing solution runs on super-computer clusters of hardware and can produce a complete city-wide PhotoMap within a few days (compared to several months with alternative solutions)." http://www.ipernica.com/IRM/content/nearmap_technicaloverview.html

Julian Assange, of Wikileaks, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, answer questions from the audience at the Frontline Club, October 25, 2010. Chaired by Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News correspondent. http://fora.tv/2010/10/25/Daniel_Ellsberg_and_Julian_Assange_Talk_WikiLeaks

Was it http://bridgecomposer.com/ ? Do I win a prize?

It's a good read. I'm half-way through. Plenty of wry humor. I bought if for a nephew, but he'll just have to wait.

I think spell checker in MS Word is changing the way I type. I now type with gay abandon, then right-click on mispelled words and choose from the alternatives offered. It's somewhat akin to the effect the calculator had on my mental arithmetic capabilities. But perhaps I'm gaining elsewhere.

ACBL videos of players http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ACBLvideo#g/u

http://www.bridgeunion.com/

and those who play alot of tournament bridge, have you figured out how much you spend there :) The sad part is that I have neither the time nor the energy for f-2-f bridge these days. I teach Chemistry and act as coordinator for the subject. Colleagues with similar roles agree that our jobs are getting more demanding. Two years ago, I was working 9 am to 6 pm 5 days a week and Sunday evenings. Now I rarely have time to eat lunch in the staffroom on weekdays, plus I work all day Sunday.

Bridge player with damaged psyche heads for the Queensland Supreme Court: "denied natural justice"

Perhaps full employment is a product of (false) expectations that lure investors to open their wallets: e.g. late 1990's IT boom and 2005-2007 escalation in house prices. What sector might be centre stage in the next boom? Biotech, as the baby boomers chase medical miracles?

One thing I recall from when I lived in the US for a few years was the competitiveness between the cities. I lived in St Louis. It seemed that regularly in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, there was some some story about how Mastercard, or Anheuser Busch or McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing) was being lured by other cities to transplant their operations to that city. I personally thought that that was part of what made US businesses so strong: the intense rivalry between cities. I guess that is still operating and will help to lift the US out of its doldrums.

I have just read the news report below from the WSJ. I'm interested to know from your anecdotal evidence, what is the cause of the high US jobless figures? WSJ ECONOMY SEPTEMBER 4, 2010. Behind Stimulus Argument, Debate on Causes of Joblessness Grows By JON HILSENRATH Washington's response to the country's stubbornly high unemployment will depend in part on who wins an increasingly intense debate over its causes. One side says more government spending to stimulate the economy can reduce joblessness. The other says it can't. At the root of the debate is an argument over whether the fundamental structure of the economy has changed. Doubters say unemployment is high because of structural problems, such as people who can't move to take new jobs because they are tied down to burdensome mortgages or firms that can't find workers with the requisite skills to fill job openings. Thus, they say, the administration's fiscal stimulus and low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve have had muted effects. "Firms have jobs, but can't find appropriate workers. The workers want to work, but can't find appropriate jobs," Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said in a recent speech. "Whatever the source, though, it is hard to see how the Fed can do much to cure this problem." For the most part, those like Mr. Kocherlakota who believe structural factors are causing high unemployment are less inclined to use government programs to address the problem. One idea Mr. Kocherlakota does advocate would be to create an unemployment-insurance program in which benefits don't run out after a set number of weeks, as they do now, to help people weather the gaps between jobs. The payments would be set low enough so that they wouldn't provide an incentive to stay out of the labor force longer than necessary. Those urging more government action say the problem is more straightforward: There just isn't enough spending or investment in the economy to entice firms to hire workers. With more demand, this side argues, unemployment will come down. Obama administration officials largely share this view. "Real [gross domestic product] is growing, but not fast enough to create the hundreds of thousands of jobs each month needed to return employment to its pre-crisis level," Christina Romer, until Friday the chairwoman of the White House Council Economic Advisers, said in a speech. "This shortfall in demand, rather than structural changes in the composition of our output or a mismatch between worker skills and jobs, is the fundamental cause of our continued high unemployment. Firms aren't producing and hiring at normal levels simply because there isn't demand for a normal level of output." Each side cites economic evidence for its view, though the truth likely resides somewhere in between. Mr. Kocherlakota has been watching the unusual relationship between unemployment and the speed at which firms fill open positions. In normal times, as unemployment rises, firms are able to fill open positions quickly because they have more people to choose from. In the past 18 months, however, that hasn't happened. Instead, the number of job openings climbed as unemployment rose and lingered at high levels. The job-opening rate, a measure of the number of available jobs as a percentage of total positions in the economy—both filled and vacant—has drifted up to 2.2% from 1.8% a year ago, rather than falling further as expected. It suggests a breakdown in the hiring process. There are different theories for why this is occurring, and whether more fiscal or monetary stimulus would be unhelpful. One is that the industries that did so much hiring during the expansion of the past decade—such as construction and finance—are now down and out. Workers can't shuffle easily from those industries to ones with openings, such as manufacturing or health care, because they don't have the right skills. Another theory is that people aren't moving to where the jobs are, perhaps because some are tied to homes they can't sell without taking big losses or because employed spouses can't find work elsewhere. The lack of mobility contributes to large disparities among state unemployment rates. In North Dakota, unemployment is 3.6%. In Nevada, it is more than 10 percentage points higher. Before the recession, by contrast, the gap between the states with the highest and lowest unemployment rates was 4.4 percentage points. Without these structural impediments, the national unemployment rate might be as low as 6.5% today, Mr. Kocherlakota estimates. Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, disagrees. "The increase in structural unemployment still looks pretty moderate to me," he says. Goldman estimates structural problems account for no more than three-quarters of a percentage point of the unemployment rate. The real problem, Mr. Hatzius, Ms. Romer and like-minded economists argue, is a lack of overall spending in the economy—from consumers, business and government alike—which leads to a shortfall in jobs. Even if all 2.9 million open jobs were filled immediately, that still wouldn't replace all 7.7 million jobs lost during the recession. Government spending or tax breaks that bolster demand will cause firms to create jobs, this camp argues. On one point, both sides largely agree: The longer that unemployment stays high, the harder it could be to reduce, because workers' skills degrade. That's a particular concern since 6.2 million workers have been without jobs for six months or more, the Labor Department said Friday. http://tiny.cc/1dmdh

I got a shock the other day when I sat down to try and work out where my money goes. It goes on food. B'fast + lunch = $15/day = $75/wk = $3500/yr (bought at cafes near work) Dinner + wkends = $240/mthy = $3000/yr (bought weekly by my wife at shopping centre) Restaurants = $30/wk = $1500/yr Wine $20/wk = $1000/yr Total = $10000/yr approx Compare this with my contribution to fixed expenses (City Council Rates, Water, Electricity, Gas, Insurance) which equals $5000/yr. My wife contributes an equal amount. I think the key reasons for eating the food that others cook for me are: taste and convenience. I find the food in the eateries tastier than the food I can cook. And at lunchtime I can slip out to buy lunch and be back in 7 minutes eating at my desk. Now that's convenience. It seems that I am part of a general trend: Retailers hit by slowdown in consumer spending Blair Speedy From: The Australian, September 06, 2010 12:00AM RETAILERS are puzzling over a change in consumer spending habits, with shoppers increasingly choosing experiences rather than merchandise. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed a 6 per cent rise in consumer spending during the June quarter, but a rise of just 1 per cent in retail expenditure. In what Citigroup analysts Craig Woolford and Andy Bowley described as a worrying trend for retailers, consumers chose to spend more of their disposable income in cafes and restaurants, where sales were up 9 per cent in the June quarter, and on sporting and recreational events*, which were up by 20 per cent. At the same time, spending on appliances was down by 1 per cent and sales of clothing and footwear fell by 5 per cent. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/r...x-1225914507954 *Another news report said this expenditure was mainly gambling. Two questions: Do we seek out tastier foods as some kind of stress relief? Are these eating habits simply a reaction to how busy (time-poor, productive) our working lives have become.

What if you had a club that you could drop into for an hour, or so, 24/7? Electronic screens took the place of cards. Haven't got a 4th? No worries, the 4th player was someone on BBO.

I like it. Nice and simple and captures the spirit of the game. Will try it, if the staff at work want me to host a bridge night.

Do you know of any good audio stories? Comedy preferred. I got a laugh out of listening to "Clare in the Community" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qprs I downloaded these previous episodes http://www.cippico.com/clarecomm/index.htm and listened to about 8 hours worth last Saturday! Now I'm listening to O. Henry stories http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:O._Henry from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Audio_recordings (Are there any others in this collection that are similarly captivating?)

I learnt to read at about 7. Didn't go to school till I was 6: I didn't want to go to preschool when I was 5 - I much preferred going shopping with mum in our small country town store. Once I learnt to read, my parents had the pleasure of my presence early in the morning, balanced on the side of their bed and reading to them. Of course, I also learnt to read in Latin about that time: I was the altar boy and the Irish immigrant priest need someone to holler out the Latin responses.

A spectacular success: This bid reaped 11 IMPS for the Italian Team. http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer...ch.php?id=14519 Hand 1 -- Open Room 1C - P - 2D Below is the 2D hand. Annotation says 5+♠ & 4♥. Does anyone have any more info? Point range? Splinter? Is this a standard bid in some systems? [hv=d=n&v=n&s=s76432hqt54d9cqt9]133|100|Scoring: IMP South[/hv]

Charles Munger (Warren Buffett's Vice Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway) argues the case for financial reform (March 3, 2010, Bloomberg). Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?N=vid...17qyNcGVG0s.asf Transcript from before half-way point (7:50/19:13) of interview. "Interviewer: You said in the press conference earlier that the investment banking system needs to be foolproof. Charles Munger: Yes. We approve of that. I: How do you do that though? CM: Well we do it the way we did it last time. We just take away a lot of the activities that are permitted to the business. If you are going to directly, or indirectly, use the government's credit, you shouldn't have the right to use any amount of credit you please to do any gambling you want with the assets. And that is in effect the system that we've had. At Lehman they just did anything they want(ed) with any amount of leverage and they just assumed that the repo (overnight loans) system, or some other system would enable them to balloon the balance sheet to any size. And of course the derivatives had made things so confusing that people could hardly notice the ridiculous changes that were occurring in terms of the risks being undertaken. So the system was all wrong. You can see this in terms what happened to Salomon. When we (Berkshire Hathaway executives Warreen Buffett and Charles Munger) were at Salomon. Perfectly decent place with much more good than bad about it. And decent smart leaders too, by in large. And they had a proprietary trading group and they got more and more successful and made more and more money. And finally the whole retained earnings of Salomon came from proprietary trading. Anything else they made, the executives took out as compensation. Or the other employees. And because they were making so much money, no one wanted to tell them they couldn't expand. And so they kept using more and more leverage, and more and more discretion, and so forth. Now that same group left Salomon, the (John) Meriwether group. But we know now what would have happened if they had stayed: Salomon would have gone broke at the same time Long Term Capital Management went broke because they would have had the same trades on, and they would have had the same high leverage. And Salomon would have gone broke. Those people had very high IQ's and were honest people and they still would have caused Salomon to go broke and Salomon would have allowed it to happen because no one would have wanted to rein in the proprietary trading. Those dynamics are present all through Wall Street. And, of course, one after another they will go "blue ear" (broke) if they keep having these perogatives to use the government's credit while they do any damn thing they want with massive leverages, which is exactly what they want to do. The envy effects are so (pervasive). If Jo Schmo gets $4 billion dollars to gamble with in Italian hotels, then Pete Silly, over here, he wants $5 billion to do something else with. It just balloons and balloons and balloons. And the theory (that) it could all be managed with a bunch of risk control officers who believe the value at risk. Well Warren and I always knew that their system was perfectly silly and wouldn't really control risk. And, of course, that's exactly what happened. It didn't really control risk, and it was a silly system. The very fundamentals of their system in terms of theory were wrong. They thought that outcomes in finance had to fall on a Gaussian (bell-shaped) curve. That's a wrong assumption. So you had total craziness in the system. And with virtually nobody at the SEC understanding what was going on. And most of the people in the investment banks didn't understand what was going on. And you have massive envy triggered as these people make these vast fortunes quickly. And that is not a responsible system for people to in effect use the government's credit to do any damn thing they please and so the whole thing should be reined in. We should just take (it) away. If you want to use the government's credit, including its implicit credit when you're "too big to fail", then you have to be willing to run a pretty boring business that a pretty stupid person if he followed the rules wouldn't go broke." Other interviews with Charles Munger: http://www.valuestockplus.net/charlie-munger

Any of this sound familiar? "The Senate committee hearings that Pecora led probed the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ... Pecora's investigation unearthed evidence of irregular practices in the financial markets that benefited the rich at the expense of ordinary investors, including exposure of Morgan’s “preferred list” by which the bank’s influential friends (including Calvin Coolidge, the former president, and Owen J. Roberts, a justice of Supreme Court of the United States) participated in stock offerings at steeply discounted rates. He also revealed that National City sold off bad loans to Latin American countries by packing them into securities and selling them to unsuspecting investors, that Wiggin had shorted Chase shares during the crash, profiting from falling prices, and that Mitchell and top officers at National City had helped themselves to $2.4 million in interest-free loans from the bank’s coffers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Pecora

I am aware that both Town and City Councils in Australia invested their funds in "toxic assts" in the US on the advice of investment advisors. According to press reports, court cases have commenced. If they go after the investment advisors, will the investment advisors then go after the investment banks who packaged and sold the "toxic products"? How will the SEC's prosecution of Goldman Sachs for fraud impact other court cases? We had a major insurance company (HIH) fail here in Australia about 10 years ago. Court cases alleging fraud and mismanagement by senior executives from this failure still appear at intervals in the press. It seems that major financial fraud can take many years to untangle. Obviously, GS with its unlimited source of funds can drag the case on for years. (Till the protagonists are dead and buried?) But the fact that the one of the parties who lost money is the Royal Bank of Scotland, now majority-owned by the British Government, suggests that a few home truths are being expressed in the corridors of power. ********************** Article from MSNBC: Goldman case is likely tip of the legal iceberg Among the legal action expected in the coming months: Class-action suits by Goldman shareholders who believe Goldman alleged misconduct made their stakes less valuable ... Suits by investors who believe Goldman sold them on deals that were doomed to fail ... Possible criminal charges ... Charges by regulators about other mortgage investments at Goldman and elsewhere ... Several legal experts suggested Goldman and the SEC had reached an impasse over a settlement before the charges were announced. They speculated that Goldman was unwilling to admit that it allowed the hedge fund to create a portfolio of securities that was designed to fail because that admission could do irreparable harm to Goldman's reputation. "Goldman could've easily paid a fine already," said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University. "So I don't think it's money they're fighting over." The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones of New York. Jones is the federal judge who five years ago presided over the $11 billion criminal fraud case that toppled WorldCom Corp. and sent its former CEO Bernard Ebbers to prison for 25 years. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36628044/ns/bu...s-us_business//

As I see it, this actually a key part of the problem. My natural instinct is to save for a rainy day. Why throw all that money away? Surely it creates a bigger boom-bust cycle, Isn't the world trying to work through the following scenario? Following the lead of the US, we saw governments around the world implement policies to encourage lower-middle income earners to buy their own home. Under government pressure, central banks set their interest rates at low levels. Entities such as Freddie Mac et al. lent to all comers. Under these stimulii, economies boomed. So should Freddie Mac et al.'s chief executives be allowed to put their hands into this multi-billion doallar till? I don't see how this can be prudent. If the authorities judge that the situation is truly sustainable, then the excess money should surely be used to ensure that home loan rates remain at levels that lower middle-income earners can afford. Instead, the industry entered a phase where home loan rates were merely held low for an initial two years, then set to double - an event guaranteed to trigger a high level of defaults. Surely it was the financiers' job to know that the whole appearence that the economy, and in particular the finance industry, was doing well was illusionary. Unfortunately, this seems beyond their capabilities. As one of our senior banking officials put it here in Australia, "A lifetime in the industry has taught me one thing: bankers have no memory." I find that a terrible, yet understandable, indictment of the industry. Obviously people get so caught up in their excitement (Did I hear you say "hubris"?) that they believe that the party will never end. In times of irrational exuberance, it becomes the duty of cooler heads in central banks to pour cold water on the financiers:- To examine the credit risks that banks are taking. To impose conditions on banks that will force them to tighten lending. To forcefully remind the bankers that the economy is merely experiencing another credit boom. So can the bonus culture - surely, a root cause of irrational exuberance - be regulated? As the lender of last resort, central banks must have influence over bank bonuses. Can't they insist that share options are "marked to market" and put on the banks' books as an expense? Don't the share holders deserve to know what the true profits are after the bankers have taken their bonuses? Also, the governement as guarantor to Freddie Mac's operations, should have mandated control over the bonuses in that operation. How can a "no-doc" loan be regarded with anything but suspicion? Why should bonuses be paid to executives who encourage such reckless lending? I guess the whole "bonus culture" is a hot topic in government circles. But as far as I can tell, it is all taking place behind closed doors. When will it be brought out into the open?