Once again I'm out of town this weekend. Spending some quality time in Vegas ... bachelor/bachelorette parties ....
Long time friend and reader "Karen" sent me this file/link: Benford's Law and the Decreasing Reliability of Accounting Data for US Firms. Unlike other fatheads who blog, I don't pretend to be a "Quant" of any kind, but I've had my share of math and statistics in college and I found this paper extremely interesting.
The article deals with "Benford's Law"....from the piece:
"A second earth-shattering fact is that there are more numbers in the universe that begin with the digit 1 than 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7, or 8, or 9. And more numbers that begin with 2 than 3, or 4, and so on. This relationship holds for the lengths of rivers, the populations of cities, molecular weights of chemicals, and any number of other categories. What a blow to any of us who purport to have mastered the basic facts of the world around us! "It turns out the relationship can be statistically modeled and anytime a set of results falls too far outside of the relationship, there's probably something "funny" or artificial about the numbers:
"In fact, Benford's law has been used in legal cases to detect corporate fraud, because deviations from the law can indicate that a company's books have been manipulated."The "a ha" moment of the article comes when the author demonstrates, mathematically, that US Accounting Data has gotten progressively worse over the years despite various regulatory "schemes" to improve transparency.
It's not that long of an article and it's worth your time. Thanks Karen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New "trend" of which I was unaware until recently:
Anyway...the marriage date is set for 11/11/11 in Napa Valley and my future bro-in-law called me last month and asked:
"Will you officiate our wedding?"
I had no idea anything like that was even possible, but it turns out this is a "trend" in marriages now--having friends or family conduct the Marriage Ceremony instead of a "real minister."
It's ridiculously easy to become an online minister. Just Google "Universal Life Church"....there are literally MILLIONS of ministers at this Seattle-based online Church.
For the record, I'm now an ordained minister with the ULC, a church whose main tenant is to "Do that Which is Right." So, I can now baptize your kids, bless your home, marry you, or forgive your sins.... for whatever that might worth.
32 comments:
Karen is still alive? *relief*
:D
Karen is certainly alive and well....
Back Houston now. Need to "dry out" for several days now....give the ol' liver a break.
The whole OWS spreading? I dig it. I still think they're focused on the wrong city/street....they anger should be more focused on DC and past horrible decisions.
If the GOP were smart, they would co-opt some of the themes and embrace a little civil unrest.
Not holding breath....
Andy, Thanks for posting the article for Karen, if you get a chance can you let her know it was a good read and thanks for sharing.
Mutt
Andy - Now that you are an ordained minister does that mean I can just go ahead and give you 10% of my income directly?
And no offense, but if my father can become an ordained minister, it can't be THAT difficult :)
It is great that you will doing your sister wedding though. I hope everything turns out great.
And take care of that liver as it is the only one you have.
Mutt
AT - it's funny. It seems like the OWS thing is part of the same undercurrent as the Tea Party, only coming from the other end of the "accepted" political spectrum. Where you protest depends on what party you identify with. It will be interesting to see if either group realizes what they have in common. Too many vested interests in either party to really embrace the unrest. Neither group really fits into the party they most identify with, although I'm not sure anyone in either OWS or TP thinks this way. In my mind, there is a natural coalition that could be formed between the two to get behind a third party type candidate. That sort of campaign could shock the powers that be into some sort of change - if people from both groups got behind the right kind of third party candidate...Lot of ideological prejudices/blindness to break through on both sides for that to happen though.
Also glad to hear Karen is alive...
hmmm, so 9's (or 18's) could turn out to be a turning point, now my head is spinning more than normal.
more 1's than 2's, more 2's than 3's, etc...
9
8-8
7-7-7
6-6-6-6
5-5-5-5-5
4-4-4-4-4-4
3-3-3-3-3-3-3
2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2
1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1
#9, such a lonely number
Just trying to get ahead of you in the fone book...
cv
Dan Weldon killed in Vegas...crying shame...what an awful crash.
Wheldon...dammit.
Thanks for the comments Mutt...wedding should be great.
The whole "get ordained in one minute online" really makes me wonder what the fuss is about gay marriage, etc.... I mean c'mon...if some jackass like me can "marry" people....what does "marriage" really mean in an official way?
Dan wheldon...that's pretty sad stuff there...they had shut down Las Vegas Blvd for Indy cars to parade down it....in honor of the event.
Spoonman....
Half the OWS crowd are hard core Libertarians....if they stick to libertarian themes, then the movement will have "legs"....
If they keep talking about a "living wage" for everyone whether they work or not....then I'm afraid that movement will end with a wimped.
Andy,
"Father, I've sinned!".
Can you re-write my karma?
Special Team Rule #1
DO NOT kick the ball to Hester.
AT,
re: 20:28
you know, it has nothing to do with "Religous"-sense of 'Marriage'..
remember, the 'Marriage License' is a Tri-partite -- Three Party -- Contract..
The "State" is, intimately, Involved..
also, remember, yoyr IRC -- Internal Revenue Code -- 'Marriage', depending on circumstance is, esp. when 'Fruitful', is Subsidized....
AAIP
yoyr, above = "your" ..
Speeeling Error*
Citi beats expectations {sarc}
EPS $1.23
Revenues 19.23 billion
but did it with accounting voodoo:
CVA 1.9 billion
Loan Loss Reserves 1.4 billion
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/citi-earnings-bloodbath-38-billion-123share-reported-earnings-really-05-billion-or-016share
WFC used the same voodoo.
Here's some "randomness"....
http://www.wimp.com/buildingstonehenge/
How they probably built stonehenge
That was kind of awesome. What a weird hobby, though. How do you get into something like that?
Andy
That blows my "aliens did it theory" all to hell. As for "randomness"...Malcolm Gladwell's books...Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink, and What the Dog Saw are all well worth a read.
Eg. Rimm currently down around another -6%. Your take on Lazaridis at the ball game was spot on. In neuroscience cirlces...it's called "thin slicing"...and potentially (was), a short side set-up for a trade of the year.
For those currently putting 10k or more hours into their gig...those books are gold.
@Mel.
Once I finish off these Ken Follet books, I'll be onto some Malcolm Gladwell. I'm overdue to read his stuff...nothing but positive reviews.
Bretty bearish S&P500 Candle on the futures.
Europe: Just Getting Warmed Up
At present, the S&P 500 is again just 10% below the high it set before the recent market downturn began. In my view, the likelihood is very thin that the economy will avoid a recession, that Greece will avoid default, or that Europe will deal seamlessly with the financial strains of a banking system that is more than twice as leveraged as the U.S. banking system was before the 2008-2009 crisis.
...Our boy Hussman, reading today's tea leaves...
Just got in from a funeral. I see there is one happening in the markets also.
Herman Cain smear job begins....
http://news.yahoo.com/long-ties-koch-brothers-key-cains-campaign-110518961.html
He gets policy ideas from billionaires and libertarian think tanks...
Therefore, he's got some agenda or ulterior motives.
Because, the kind of business/economic ideas from Koch are of a lesser quality to guys like Paul Krugman.
Funny stuff...the natural "bias" out there...
Wonder if any these f-cktards have ever really read any of things Charles Koch has put out? you know, he publised a friggin' book detailing his ideas.
The guy's actually got a pretty "sharp" mind when it comes to economic policies, etc.
AT,
I saw that guy on Nat Geo sometime last summer maybe, they did a whole show about him, couldn't watch that whole video but in the thing I saw he could move an entire house with the tools he had built
lately I've been into the most dangerous roads show, usually sweat my ass off watching that, I'm more nervous than the drivers seem to be
it's also pretty crazy it's that easy to become a minister, I had no idea
Was that a Karen sighting earlier?
eh....damn, not sure what happened, good ole' blogger
anyway, re: cain
was saying, as I'm sure you all already thought about:
isn't it hilarious how so many media pundits are demanding more details from Cain "now that he's taken a more prominent role in the debate" and that he'll need far more economic details than this simple 999 plan if he's to be elected or even if he wants to be taken seriously
you know, b/c that was the standard we all held Obama to in 2008 right? I mean, that's what we did, despite literally being in the middle of the worst economic crisis in 70 some odd years, that "hope and change" wasn't perfectly alright in terms of a policy message, we demanded more details and we got em, and thats how we elected this great man.
Oh wait, nope, that's exactly the opposite of what happened....but sure, lets all hold Cain to that standard, despite the fact that 999, regardless of whether or not it even workds, is already three more words of detail on economic planning than either Bush or Obama have given us in nearly 12 years.....
Wow. WFC -8.3%. Bet they didn't see that coming after "meeting" expectations.
In re: the 9-9-9 concept...
I like it. One of the things that has 'ailed' un in terms of economic policy is that we incentivize consumption over investment.
A flat tax system that kills the tax accountants/lawyers coupled with a national sales tax that causes people to save/invest versus spend...is not a bad concept.
as I'm to understand it the sales tax would not apply to used goods
CV has talked a lot in the past about "underground markets" in Europe.....one could actually envision more good than bad coming out of a system like that, for starters, I'd bet you'd be seeing a lot less electronic equipment in the dump that still works....
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