Re: Mo Money

1

Certainly one need only look at North Carolina to see the essentially harmless foibles of the ultra-rich pouring essentially limitless amounts of money into backing their pet causes on a smaller stage than the Romney campaign. I'm sure Apo would love to sit back and have a beer and a jolly laugh with Art Pope.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 1:30 PM
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Glib? That's a bit -- oh, Michael Lewis. Yeah, screw that guy. NewMoneySidePokerThing this, pal!*

* Also, please stop writing about your New Orleans private high school. I don't care.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:00 PM
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Did he go to Newman? Christ, what an asshole.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:10 PM
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I was wondering if the OP would provoke something like 2.1.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:18 PM
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"... it's so hard to find one rich man in a hundred with a satisfied mind"


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:21 PM
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That was me.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:22 PM
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I believe the original was "one rich man in ten", but the gap between rich and poor has grown since the song was written.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:27 PM
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I did indeed expect 2, but waddayagonnado?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:38 PM
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Wishful thinking.


Elsewhere, he draws from his experience on Wall Street in rejecting the widely held liberal belief that there's no limit on how high you can tax the rich since they'll never miss their last million. "The affluent clients with whom I worked largely share the view that they sincerely loved money, that money was attracted to them because it sensed their love, that they knew how to take care of money and give it a good home, and that other less affluent individuals would horribly mistreat that money. . . . If there is such a thing as the declining marginal utility of income, someone forgot to tell these folks."


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:40 PM
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Especially glib is the bit on taxes. California and New York might be high-tax by state standards, but their top marginal rates on income are 12.3% and 8.82% respectively.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:41 PM
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9: And I thought petting and burping was hyperbole.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:42 PM
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I believe the original was "one rich man in ten", but the gap between rich and poor has grown since the song was written.

Nice catch.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 2:58 PM
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|| Well this sucks. They wanted me to do a 15FQ+ test which I did yesterday and then a IRT3 ability test which I just did because I wanted to get it the hell over with and I barely finished the math and couldn't finish the stupid fucking spatial test - one of those guess which is the next sequence kind of things. So stupid and so frustrating. How much is this shit likely to matter?

|>


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 3:43 PM
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It's also been pointed out that one reason the super-rich believe inflation is rampant, despite record low levels of inflation, is that the things that only super-rich people buy are indeed getting more expensive. Because super-rich people are indeed seeing their incomes increase in the seemingly uncontrollable and unsustainable pattern that would make you worry about inflation if it was happening to normal people.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 4:07 PM
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13: I would bet it doesn't meter matter at all but I have never experienced anything like it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 4:10 PM
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9: I should open Dalriata's Home for Wayward Dollars. Won't you donate? For just two dollars a day, I will take that money. (Then I found five dollars, which needed me to treat it well.)


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 4:17 PM
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14: Krugman column on a specific example of that thinking. And a an appropriate response, "The Uses of Ridicule."


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 5:01 PM
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13: No specific answer to your question, but I suspect that non-genius performance in not-your-field areas is no big deal. It's probably just a thing they give everybody and don't ever look at again.
I have to take a really odd annual personality test thingy that is supposed to predict which employees are more likely to have on-the-job accidents. It consists of questions with minor variations in wording designed to assess an employee's views about risk reduction, eg (ranking strongly agree to strongly disagree) "I think it's OK not to follow rules that are unfair" vs "I think it's OK not to follow rules that are unnecessary" and "I think it's OK not to follow rules that are unjust." It's a nonnative speaker's nightmare. It also asks lots of questions about driving. I asked the staffer administering why there were so many seemingly inapt questions, and she explained that it was designed for truckers and warehouse workers. Oh good, I'm certainly the target audience.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 5:13 PM
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10: NYC has an income tax too which probably makes it closer to the California rate.

Taxachusetts is a flat rate with some exemptions and dedutions (rent for instance) which make it slightly less regressive. Much lower than either of those.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 5:25 PM
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18: I once filled out a CVS job application which asked whether you had ever taken an anger management class. That didn't seem fair, since, presumably, somebody took one (at least once) and actually learned how to control their anger. But if you lie on the application, they'll get you for that.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 5:29 PM
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From the link in 9: They also chide their fellow liberals, and liberal economists, for allowing the political debate to become so cramped by misguided fixations on deficits, moochers and "job-killing" taxes that much-needed regulation, redistribution and public investments are no longer seriously discussed.

As we've learned from Michael Lewis, this is surely the fault of liberal economists and in no way related to the literal ten-figure sum spent by Blackstone Group billionaire Pete Peterson whose sole goal is to convince pundits, politicians, and the American people that deficits are an imminent crisis that can be solved only by serving a 40-ounce porterhouse of entitlement spending with a tasty soupcon of raising taxes.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 5:42 PM
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I wonder if there's anything unique about the rich and super-rich thinking they'd be happy if they made 3x their current income (or had 3x the wealth -- whatever). When I look at how much money I make and how much wealth I have, I think some relatively small multiplier (maybe 3x) would make me "happy," as in "Confident I could live without any money worries for a long time."

Is this wired in to people's perceptions of money? If you have more you have more expenses and maybe they'll take your yacht if something goes wrong... (Sure, less sympathy from everyone, but people typically think their experience/situation is "normal.")

What multiplier of money would make you happy (as above)? (Or maybe you are happy now!)

The super-rich aren't really that psychologically different from the rest of us, I think. They just have more money.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 6:06 PM
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22: We have a decent amount of free time so assuming that remained the same I think we'd pretty quickly hit steep diminishing returns at 2-3x.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 6:29 PM
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This is an interesting stunt: some Harvard students are suing the university to try to force it to divest from fossil fuels. I assume this has no chance in court, but would be curious what lawyers think.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 8:14 PM
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24:

Our second count is a novel tort claim

IANAL but that seems...unlikely.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 8:25 PM
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A truly novel tort claim?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 8:28 PM
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Yeah, "intentional investment in abnormally dangerous activities" makes me wonder if the whole thing isn't a put-on. It's definitely a joke in one sense or another. Maybe even sanctionably frivolous?


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 8:33 PM
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Oh, Michael Lewis.

(That comment is followed by an RTFA link to a whole thread about the referenced article, but my comment is a good precis.)


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 11-19-14 10:06 PM
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13: cheer up. Tomorrow is the high-G centrifuge test, right? You'll ace that.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 3:05 AM
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re: 22

About 25 - 30% more than I have now. 50% would be lovely. I certainly wouldn't have to multiple it by whole numbers. In fact, before we had a kid, and fucked ourselves with maternity leave debt and nursery fees, I could live reasonably OK on what I/we already earn.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 3:17 AM
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What multiplier of money would make you happy (as above)? (Or maybe you are happy now!)

I'm happy now. I mean, there's always retire-immediately-happy to aspire to, but short of that I can't see an increase in income making me materially happier. Though bear in mind I don't have kids and don't plan to.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 3:48 AM
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What multiplier of money would make you happy (as above)? (Or maybe you are happy now!)

What lump sum would yield £50K p.a.? That would be Mrs y's walk away, what are you going to do, fire me? target. Which is really our financial ambition these days.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:34 AM
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What lump sum would yield £50K p.a.? That would be Mrs y's walk away, what are you going to do, fire me? target.

Depends how long you want to keep getting £50k pa for. Annuity pricing assumes that you are depleting the capital at a certain rate. Assuming 20 years, and a reasonable growth rate of 3%, you'll need £766,189.96.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:40 AM
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And of course that's not linked to inflation. £50k a year sounds nice now. £50k a year in 2034 would be less nice. 20 years ago, £30k a year was the equivalent of £50k a year now.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:43 AM
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33/34. More like 30 years - she's a bit younger than me. Let's say a million. Our current assets are less than half that and most of them is the roof over our hear which we can't liquidate easily - this applies to most people, to the extent that they have any assets at all.

So quite a high multiplier to meet a not terribly ambitious target*.

[The realisation that a person who hadn't yet stacked up any pension or property equity could no longer really afford to retire in much comfort with a million pounds was quite shocking to me.]


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 6:36 AM
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|| Stupid question I can't seem to find the answer to by googling, probably because I'm panicking at finding yet another layer of requirements for getting all my documents certified for this job:

I am in NY and need to get a diploma from a Connecticut university notarized by a Connecticut notary. Can I do that in NY? If so how do I locate a CT notary in NYC or LI?

This is making me ill

|>


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:32 AM
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29 I probably would at that.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:33 AM
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Worst case scenario, CT is pretty close, it's not like you need something from Montana. Spend an afternoon, take Metro North to New Haven, and get it done.

Deep breaths.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:37 AM
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I would ask whoever is supplying the diploma if they could notarize it. University registrar's offices surely have a notary or two on hand. I can't imagine why you'd need to be present, presumably you're not attesting to anything that needs notarizing.


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:40 AM
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Also, WTF? They want your diploma notarized (I don't even know what that means, really. Notarized usually means "I, the notary, saw this document signed in front of me by the person whose name is on it on the given date." For a diploma from years ago, what are they talking about?) and they care what state the notary is from? It's an overseas job -- are they using the word 'notarized' in an idiosyncratic way, and they just want an official copy from the college?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:41 AM
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Yeah, right after I posted 39 I had the same question as 40.


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:42 AM
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I never heard of anybody wanting a diploma. They want transcripts sometimes. I always tell the registrars office when I need the kind with the bumps on the paper.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:44 AM
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40 gets it right. Surely they mean an official diploma/transcript. If they really want something notarized, wtf indeed?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:45 AM
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Notarized and certified by CT secretary of state then sent to US State Dept for their certification then sent to the embassy of the country in question for their certification.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:46 AM
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I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of my diploma in Braille.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:46 AM
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If it doesn't have to be certified, probably not very hard.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:48 AM
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I think all "official" copies of diplomas issued by university registrars are notarized. All of them that I've ever seen are. I would assume that's what they mean?? I don't think taking the diplomas to a random CT notary will do you any good. The notary is certifying that the signature of the university official on the diploma is authentic.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:49 AM
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44: that's impressively baroque.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:49 AM
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47 before seeing 44. Apparently you are applying for a job with the CIA or something. No idea what those requirements are.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:50 AM
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Notarized and certified by CT secretary of state then sent to US State Dept for their certification then sent to the embassy of the country in question for their certification.

Seriously? The actual Connecticut secretary of state is going to have to take time out of her day to help you get a job? Good grief. Just short circuit the whole process and get John Kerry to give them a call, that's obviously where this is going to end up.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:50 AM
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No, many employers want to see an actual physical diploma. There are whole countries with a reputation for forgery of acedemic credentials, and employers want to screen against being conned.

If they are foreign, they are using "state" to mean "country". Any US notary who will attest that the diploma has no white out or other signs of forgery will suit them, I would think. I believe that the contect is hiring officials who can't interpret documents or titles like "registrar's office", so they want to deal with titles they can understand.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:50 AM
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I was going to drive, it hadn't occurred to me to take Metro North, thanks for the suggestion.

The CT notarization is for both the appears to be both for the CT secretary of state to certify and for the US State Department:

From the US state dept website:
1.Acknowledged by a notary public;
2.Certified by the clerk of court from the county in which the notary is commissioned; and
3.Certified by the Secretary of State from the state in which the document was executed.

Note: Item #2 may be omitted if the authority in item 3 will certify directly to the notary.

--

I'm pretty bad at figuring this kind of stuff out. It's like I have to make a workflow chart just to get this shit done.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:52 AM
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Apparently you are applying for a job with the CIA or something. No idea what those requirements are.

Having read "Legacy of Ashes", Barry is way overqualified for the CIA, not least because he is as far as I can tell not nuts. At least not yet.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:52 AM
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I don't even know what that means, really. Notarized usually means "I, the notary, saw this document signed in front of me by the person whose name is on it on the given date." For a diploma from years ago, what are they talking about?

I had a request like this once, asking for a "notarized copy" of my diploma. The notary had me hand write "This is a true copy" on my photocopied diploma and sign it, and then he notarized that.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:52 AM
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44. Or they enjoy recreational bureaucracy. Possibly provide them with the diploma and receipts indicating that you've made the other psychotic requests? Good luck in any case.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:53 AM
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50, not the actual CT Sec of State but presumably someone in her office.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:54 AM
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The actual Connecticut secretary of state is going to have to take time out of her day to help you get a job?

Maybe helping people get jobs is her job. I have no idea what the actual duties of a secretaries of state for a state are.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:54 AM
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54 That's more or less the procedure described. I was all set to FedEx the documents to the US State Dept when I saw that drop down menu saying more here:

http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/judicial/authentication-of-documents/authentication-certificate-requirements.html#General

I think my January 1st start date is looking increasingly unrealistic.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:56 AM
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The Commonwealth wanted a copy of my diploma. They wouldn't accept just a transcript showing that I had graduated. So, I sent that in and took a photo of my framed diploma.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:57 AM
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I never actually got a diploma. Where I went, I think they just expect people to be able to tell by looking at you.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:59 AM
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Or from the diamond tattoo on the forehead.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 7:59 AM
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I don't have any of my diplomas, which seems odd. I wonder where they are.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:00 AM
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I've had to provide copies of my degree certificates for things before, but I don't remember it being that hard to do. 99% of the time people take it on faith that you aren't bullshitting them.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:01 AM
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62: For a long time I had it hidden away, so I guess it's good that my fiance, then boyfriend, made me take it out.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:02 AM
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60: The School of Hard Knocks? They check you out -- yeah, his nose has definitely been broken a few times, he graduated.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:02 AM
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I have no idea what the actual duties of a secretaries of state for a state are.

Taking minutes? Keeping the Governor's calendar up to date? Going through that cupboard in the corner that nobody's cleared out since 1980, looking for old college diplomas?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:03 AM
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Based on 52/link in 58, I would call the sec of state's office--presumably they have a notary on staff, and can directly certify to the notary. I'm sure they're called upon to deal with this from time to time and will know the drill, and they may even be friendly and helpful. (I don't quite understand how the sec of state can certify something issued by another entity, but who knows.)


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:03 AM
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"It is by a quality education alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become certified proof of my university graduation. It is by a quality education alone I set my mind in motion."


Posted by: Opinionated Mentat | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:03 AM
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Michael Lewis, without a trace of irony, from the link in the OP:

The grotesque inequality between the haves and the have-nots is seldom framed as a problem that the haves might privately help to resolve.

I think ogged masterfully understates the insipid nature of the article when he describes the parts on wealth and politics as "glib." There might be a sentence in there that isn't irredeemably stupid, but I couldn't find it.

And apparently, we're supposed to feel bad for the evil rich because their villainy creates so much bad karma for them! Boo fucking hoo!


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:04 AM
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I couldn't find my BA. But they want both master's degrees. Now I wish I hadn't asked if they wanted both of them but I didn't want any surprises down the road.

Too bad I just can't take out a few mid-level bureaucrats for a night of many drinks and karaoke.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:05 AM
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Oops. I see the thread has moved on ...


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:08 AM
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I'm glad I've never had to provide a copy of my PhD diploma, because I'm not sure where I'd find paper that large. The diploma is absurdly huge.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:09 AM
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71 Because I hijacked it, but don't worry, I always have time for hating on the evil rich.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:10 AM
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Wait, 44, is what the US secretary of state has posted in order to tell people to go away. Has the prospective employer absolutely required that the US secretary of state certify the notarized diploma?


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:13 AM
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I have no idea what the actual duties of a secretaries of state for a state are.

Based on news stories the only things they ever do is try to make it hard to vote, or throw people off the voter rolls, if Republican. And... nothing, if Democratic. But that is also the department in charge of licensing businesses and nonprofit organizations, and professional licenses for people, and generally keeping records, like property records.

That's what it is in Pennsylvania, anyway.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:18 AM
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66: I've always sort of wondered what they actually do myself. They're most visible for running elections, but that can't take up all their time.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:20 AM
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I think we should send them to the Middle East. The more secretaries of state we have working on that, the sooner it gets fixed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:21 AM
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74 State Dept certification requirements are here:

http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/judicial/authentication-of-documents/authentication-certificate-requirements.html#General

And Connecticut is here:

http://www.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?a=3177&q=392130

I haven't even looked at NY yet for my other master's but that should be much easier to deal with since I'm in NYC.

And yes, it's an overseas employer so they want everything
authenticated.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:22 AM
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I'm glad I've never had to provide a copy of my PhD diploma, because I'm not sure where I'd find paper that large. The diploma is absurdly huge.

Go AP Herbert on them, and get a notarised copy painted on to the side of a cow.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:22 AM
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66: In IL, the secretary of state oversees things like the Deartment of Motor Vehicles. It's a fairly powerful position in state government. (A former governor, George Ryan, went to jail partly for offerring commercial trucking licenses in exchange for bribe money.)


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:26 AM
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Speaking of universities, I have just been asked to complete a survey for Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Is this spam or an actual thing? It looks real, but they call me a "senior academic with outstanding credentials" and that always means spam.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:27 AM
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Presumably this is a requirement to be able to get a work permit in said country?


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:33 AM
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I have actual (sort of informed) opinions about many universities and I would like to share them. But not if I'm going to get a virus and 300 messages a week for fake conferences and open access journals with the life span of a vole.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:34 AM
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82 Yes, work visa.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 8:38 AM
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BOGF's beloved great aunt passed a few months before BOGF finally* graduated from our alma mater, so for a graduation present I had her g-aunt's (IIRC) HS diploma framed. Beautiful old thing from the '20s, something like 15" x 20".

*her parents sort of gradually stopped contributing to her tuition, so she ended up paying a lot of her own way; took 7 years


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:07 AM
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Beautiful old thing from the '20s, something like 15" x 20".

Official certificate-type things must have just been bigger back in the day. My great-grandparents' marriage licenses are also around that size.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:11 AM
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Maybe that's why divorce has increased so much since then. Smaller paper.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:12 AM
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Banknotes too. At least in the UK, they used to be enormous.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:26 AM
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I think regular money has been the same size since the 20s. Same look too, except for the very recent, modest changes to make counterfeiters buy fancier printers.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:33 AM
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I wonder if photocopiers, and then later printers, put a lot of pressure on people to standardize documents at letter-paper size unless there was a very good reason not to -- it got annoying dealing with off-sized documents that couldn't be copied.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:34 AM
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90 - I reckon that would have happened earlier with envelopes and box files and folders and things.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:36 AM
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I wonder if photocopiers, and then later printers, put a lot of pressure on people to standardize documents at letter-paper size unless there was a very good reason not to -- it got annoying dealing with off-sized documents that couldn't be copied.

It doesn't seem to have put pressure on the US to adopt A4 like the rest of the world.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:42 AM
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I'm going to pretend this is an economics thread and ask about this DeLong post. Two immediate reactions:
His first "deep-seated ailment" seems to suggest that, in his view, the problem with inequality and demand is not that high inequality can yield insufficient demand, but that it may be volatile due to periodic credit crises. It was an article of faith amongst economists that diverting money to the high-saving wealthy couldn't possibly effect demand in the real economy, but I'd hoped people like DeLong had gotten beyond that.
A complementary effect to the inequality-driven consumer demand drop is the savings glut, which he describes as an "extraordinary rise in global demand for assets perceived to be safe". His typical prescription, repeated here, is the "issuing [of] high-quality debt to resolve the safe asset shortage". But I'm always mystified by this wording. The usual justification for this debt issuance is to drive the returns down on safe assets so capital starts investing in riskier projects in a search for returns. This justification makes obvious the problems encountered at the zero bound, where returns are already miniscule so further drops are unlikely to change investment behavior.. It seems to me that DeLong's choice of wording serves to obfuscate. Who has a shortage of safe assets? How will their behavior change if the supply is increased? I get the impression he's drawn some theoretical equivalence that elides real world considerations.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:43 AM
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Who has a shortage of safe assets?

People in the waiting room of a vasectomy clinic.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:45 AM
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92: Also, still not metric. USA! USA!


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:48 AM
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89. Since 1929, as it happens. One of my HS teachers told us they were shrunk down because the US went off the gold standard, which, umm, obviously isn't true.

92. A4 isn't that different, though.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:52 AM
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Right, you copy an A4 document onto letter-sized paper and it maybe screws up the margins, but you probably have all the information. I do find the principle of the varying A1, A2 and so on paper sizes very satisfying -- I actually just made Newt and Sally sit through an explanation ("See! If you just cut the paper in half, each of the halves has the same proportions as the original! Check out how neat the math is!"). They were underwhelmed.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:55 AM
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A4 is the perfect size because you can cut it in half and get two bits of paper exactly the same shape but half the size. Can't do that with legal paper.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:57 AM
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pwned, dammit.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:57 AM
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As far as I can tell, legal paper is disappearing.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 9:58 AM
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As far as I can tell, legal paper is disappearing.

Stolen?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:06 AM
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No. Everybody steals the letter size.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:08 AM
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There used to be a separate suite of paper sizes for government work in the US, and I think also for accounting. My string-saving engineer grandfather left us some of all of them, and ring binders to match. When I was a kid some paper came with five holes to fit either of two standards of ring binder.

I think the Munsell color guide, and some related field guides, are one of the government sizes.

The A? System is more delightful, though nothing will ever be quite as happy-making as the bookbinding descriptions.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:18 AM
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There used to be a separate suite of paper sizes for government work in the US, and I think also for accounting. My string-saving engineer grandfather left us some of all of them, and ring binders to match. When I was a kid some paper came with five holes to fit either of two standards of ring binder.

I think the Munsell color guide, and some related field guides, are one of the government sizes.

The A? System is more delightful, though nothing will ever be quite as happy-making as the bookbinding descriptions.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:18 AM
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There used to be a separate suite of paper sizes for government work in the US, and I think also for accounting. My string-saving engineer grandfather left us some of all of them, and ring binders to match. When I was a kid some paper came with five holes to fit either of two standards of ring binder.

I think the Munsell color guide, and some related field guides, are one of the government sizes.

The A? System is more delightful, though nothing will ever be quite as happy-making as the bookbinding descriptions.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:19 AM
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And everything had to be submitted in triplicate.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:20 AM
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There used to be a separate suite of paper sizes for government work in the US, and I think also for accounting. My string-saving engineer grandfather left us some of all of them, and ring binders to match. When I was a kid some paper came with five holes to fit either of two standards of ring binder.

I think the Munsell color guide, and some related field guides, are one of the government sizes.

The A? System is more delightful, though nothing will ever be quite as happy-making as the bookbinding descriptions.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:23 AM
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Great. Make me a liar.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:24 AM
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One of my HS teachers told us they were shrunk down because the US went off the gold standard, which, umm, obviously isn't true.

Before Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1979, dollars were printed with minute, invisible amounts of gold dust making them worth the right amount. True story.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:29 AM
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Sorry, Moby. The last one got delayed in the secretary of state's office.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:40 AM
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103.last-105.last, 107.last: I was pleased to recently learn the word twelvemo via online boggle. Until I looked it up I thought it might be the stupidest ever way of saying a "year"


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:11 AM
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103.last-105.last, 107.last: I was pleased to recently learn the word twelvemo via online boggle. Until I looked it up I thought it might be the stupidest ever way of saying a "year"


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:11 AM
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Apparently A4 paper is available in the U.S. (Staples and Office Depot sell it, at least via their websites.) Maybe what we need is a grass-roots movement to start using A4 instead of 8.5" x 11" whenever possible. Will you take the A4 pledge?

(Hashtag #A4)

[Of course, nobody uses actual paper anymore anyway . . . .]


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:24 AM
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I'm not buying new filing cabinets and binders.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:28 AM
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Up against the wall, you counter-revolutionary!


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:31 AM
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54 is funny.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:46 AM
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Architectural drawings are commonly made on 11x17, 18x24, 24x36, and 30x42, none of which are the same proportionally, so if you want to scale a sheet, you're going to end up with tons of white space. Very inelegant system.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:51 AM
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81: I got one of those two! I was kind of taken aback by the "senior academic" part.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:58 AM
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-two+too


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 11:58 AM
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Maybe we should conspire to rig the rankings somehow.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 12:04 PM
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In favor of the University of North Florida, maybe?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 12:05 PM
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Just not anybody ahead of Ohio State in football.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 12:08 PM
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OT: Just had a McRib. Not as good as I remember but still good.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 12:10 PM
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117: That was a bane in my drawing producing days--if the architect resized and the engineers followed, you could lose portions of a column forcing you to repaginate the details--then you had to track down all of the cross references and update them.

As a reviewer, I'm even more annoyed by applicants who submit a mismash of sizes, so you think an entire discipline is missing, then hunt and find that it disappeared between the E sheets of the architect and mechanical engineer.


Posted by: Mooseking | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 12:39 PM
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Huh. I had no idea you were a reviewer. Yours are a mystifying and mercurial people.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 3:12 PM
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93.2: I'm not an economist, but I think I may get the idea that DeLong is going for there, and I think it has to do with the differing roles of the Treasury and the Fed. If there's a worldwide shortage of safe assets compared to the demand, then that tends to push the price of those assets up, which means yields go down (since yields and prices move in opposite directions in the bond markets). If the Treasury were to flood the market with safe government bonds, that would push the price down and the yields up. That would also tend to pull up the natural short-term rate, due to various forms of short-term/long-term arbitrage, which would then give the Fed more room to push the short term interest rates back down in pursuit of full employment before hitting the ZLB.

Or something like that - I might be talking through my hat here, since I don't really know that much about how Treasury and the Fed interact. But I think there's a tension between two different market forces - the supply&demand for safe assets (which is affecting the overall level of interest rates) and the mismatch between desired savings and desired investment, which is driven by interest rates.


Posted by: Dave W. | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:10 PM
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Is there a devastating critique of The Big Short somewhere here (or elsewhere, I guess) that I should know about? That (and John Lanchester's book) is the source of such feeble understanding as I have of The Crisis -- if it's basically accurate, I reckon Lewis has at least one major public service to his credit, glib or not.


Posted by: millicent friendly | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:48 PM
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I learned a fair amount about football from The Blind Side, but recommend just reading Michael Oher's memoir or Lewis's shorter piece for the NY Times if you're interested in his story.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 5:52 PM
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So the Treasury flooding the market could drive up interest rates, but that would presumably hurt growth if everything else remained the same. But the money lent to the government would be put back into circulation, possibly pushing up inflation? That the Fed could counteract?* I've never heard of increasing government borrowing costs described as helping the Fed avoid the ZLB, but then I've never heard anyone but DeLong describe an insufficient supply of safe financial assets as a problem in and of itself.
*Instead of including my usual disclaimers advertising my ignorance of economics I've decided to use a lot of question marks.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 6:44 PM
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129: I dunno - as I said, I could be totally wrong here. With a more reasonable Congress, we could use all that borrowed money to invest in infrastructure, which would probably get the money off the sidelines into actual investment. If they just sit on the money instead, I don't know if that sequence I described really works, but it seemed at least superficially plausible to me.

I'm just guessing at what DeLong might have meant, and I'm probably way out of my depth here.


Posted by: Dave W. | Link to this comment | 11-20-14 10:16 PM
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I could have sworn I already posted a response to the safe assets question, but apprarently not.

Who has a shortage of safe assets? How will their behavior change if the supply is increased?

Lots of people, but especially banks, derivatives counterparties and secured financing counterparties. Between the general post-crisis risk aversion, much stricter liquidity regulation, margin requirements and higher haircuts, there's been an enormous increase in institutional demand for what are pecrceived to be the highest quality assets, especially government bonds. And at the same time, the Fed and other central banks have been buying them from the market, greatly reducing the supply (from what it would otherwise have been - government borrowing has of course gone up with deficit spending). The net effect has been to drive yields on these products to record lows, indeed sometimes even negative. Beyond that Dave W has the shape of the story pretty much right.

That the Fed could counteract?* I've never heard of increasing government borrowing costs described as helping the Fed avoid the ZLB, but then I've never heard anyone but DeLong describe an insufficient supply of safe financial assets as a problem in and of itself.

It's a much talked about issue in finance (and presumably economics, though I don't follow the literature very closely). A simple search of Alphaville brings up 482 results.



Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 2:54 AM
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Update: So the woman I called at the Connecticut university was very helpful and nice and has dealt with this before. They offer a certified copy of the diploma and she offered to send it along to the CT secretary of state along with my form and check for them. So I sent it next day and it should get there by noon, also paid extra to rush it at the CT sec of state's office. Let's hope that works. The Connecticut university also offer a translation service for their diplomas since they are not written in English but rather in some dead language and the US State Department requires all documents in foreign languages to be accompanied by a certified and notarized translation. So I think I'll send for that as well just be on the safe side. (Nothing about the circles and arrows on the back of each one though.)

Next week I need to return to the Queens campus where I did my MLS and get my diploma certified (which I only just picked up about 2 weeks ago), then notarized, and then the notary's signature certified by the clerk of the Queens County courts and then take it down to the NY Dept of State Div. of Licensing Services for them to authenticate it.

Then whenever I get all of this back the whole shebang gets sent off to the US State Dept. And then their embassy.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 6:34 AM
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And then you get the womenz.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 6:41 AM
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Fair enough, a shortage is a problem for people who would like to receive money from owning safe assets. I should've been more specific with my question. Why is it a macroeconomic problem? Is lending by financial institutions currently limited by these reserve requirements and their inability to turn a profit on them, or by a lack of creditworthy borrowers and opportunities?


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 6:45 AM
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(Nothing about the circles and arrows on the back of each one though.)

Ah, I know about those. If you get a BA, an MA and a PhD from the same institution, you put all three diplomas together, hold the stack up to the light, and it tells you where the treasure is located.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 6:57 AM
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Garbage.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 7:03 AM
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Fair enough, a shortage is a problem for people who would like to receive money from owning safe assets. I should've been more specific with my question. Why is it a macroeconomic problem? Is lending by financial institutions currently limited by these reserve requirements and their inability to turn a profit on them, or by a lack of creditworthy borrowers and opportunities?

Both. To be fair, the lending would still be constrained (though slightly less) if there more safe assets available, at least on the liquidity side of things. But in a very big picture sense, the more constrained safe assets are, the harder and less cost-effective it is to increase your balance sheet.

Though I'm not the best person to ask about the macro-economics - I'm coming at it from the finance side.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 7:17 AM
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134: Let's say there's a limited supply of something, so that demand exceeds supply. Then there are two things you can do -- you can make more, or you can increase the price. When you're against the ZLB, you can't increase the price of safe assets. So you can either increase the supply by government borrowing, or you can increase the inflation rate so that you're no longer against the ZLB.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 7:56 AM
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When you're against the ZLB, you can't increase the price of safe assets. So you can either increase the supply by government borrowing, or you can increase the inflation rate so that you're no longer against the ZLB.

Although note that this is kind of putting the cart in front of the horse, at least from the central bank perspective. The whole point is that they can't affect inflation (conventionally) because they're up against the ZLB. That's the (main) problem they're trying to address.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 11-21-14 9:10 AM
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