Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

When I checked into my American Airlines flight on Monday, it offered me the chance to mail the boarding pass to a bunch of different places.

But what was interesting was that there was an additional field that was shown but disabled. This was the option to mail the boarding pass to my mobile device.

And this morning, I checked in for another flight (yes, I spend more time at airports than anywhere else — welcome to the story of my life). However, I now noticed the ability to mail the boarding pass to my mobile device. Of course, being the geek that I am, I had to give it a go.

The TSA checkpoint was a breeze — they have a little reader that goes green when you run it through. And the agent at the other end of the metal detector didn’t even want to see it — he just asked me to put it through the x-ray screener. Of course, I’ve heard all kinds of stories — some TSA agents step through, see the phone, then ask you to run the phone through x-ray; others just ask you to hand the phone over to them, and then let you walk through.

And the American boarding gates also have readers, similar to the ones that the TSA have.

It is almost surreal, and I for one welcome the paperless tickets. Welcome to the future — there may not be any flying cars, but there certainly is an easier way to go around in flying planes.

Reality Update

So, at the boarding gate, the person looks at my phone and goes, “Uh oh… oh no!” And then, of course, she asks me to scan the phone, and it doesn’t work. She asks me if I have a paper ticket (which I didn’t). At which point, she sighs and asks me for my name and searches for my reservation, and manually lets me in. Well, nobody said the future is perfect.

Hell freezes over. Dr. Pepper offers a free drink to every one in America. The Chinese government bans it. And you too can reminisce about the golden age of rock with Guns N Roses’ new album, Chinese Democracy.

My favorites include This I Love, Streets of Dreams and Catcher in the Rye.

While there is some synth that disappoints me, the album as a whole is quite good. There are some piano-rich songs, such as This I Love. There are some typically great Axl Rose vocals. And while unfortunately there is no Slash, Buckethead plays 12 of the 14 tracks — and it is a rather kickass performance.

To be fair, there are also some mediocre songs, and some that I find to be attempts at being a bit “prog rock”-ish.

But would I spend money on it? Hell yeah.

There is some interesting research being done on the relationship between human behavior and the markets.

The idea is that steroid and cortisol levels may be indicators of how people interact with the markets, and consequently, how this could be affecting the economy as a whole. In this interview with the Naked Scientist, John Coates talks about some of the work his team is doing.

Meera – How did you go about actually testing this in City traders?

John – I got access to the floor in the City and we took salivery steroids from a group of traders over a two week period to test that steroids were in fact responding to the money they were making and losing in the market and whether this, in turn, was affecting their trading performance.

Meera – What did you find?

John – We found that the traders, if they had high testosterone in the morning relative the the median levels, they made a lot more money for the rest of the day than they did on the days when they had low testosterone.

Now, what I’m particularly curious about is when this research was conducted. Because if this was indeed done during a bullish market, then there is a much higher chance that risk takers were rewarded, rather than punished.

Meera – When most people think of testosterone they obviously associate it largely with males. Does this then mean that females are relatively unaffected?

John – Women have about 10% of the testosterone that men do. It’s entirely possible that they’re not subject to this kind of overconfidence.

Meera – But you’re also looking into levels of cortisol, as well.

John – That’s right. In the current environment that may be the more interesting steroid. When the market turns around it turns into a crash what can happen is that cortisol, which is a stress hormone, can become elevated in the bodies of traders. Cortisol, if you’re exposed to it chronically at high levels for a long period of time, it can have a devastating effect on both the mind and the body. In terms of affecting traders decisions what it can do is affect the memories you recall. You tend to recall bad memories, negative precedents. You tend to see risk where maybe there is none. You become fearful, you feel anxiety. I think that decreases a trader’s appetite for risk. While testosterone is causing people to take too much risk cortisol is causing people to take too little risk in the crash.

Meera – What do you think the current situation is now? Do you think there are going to be higher levels or cortisol in the traders at the moment?

John – It’s not only how far the market has fallen. It’s how long it’s been falling. These traders have been under stress for almost a year and a half now. Their cortisol levels must be elevated. I’m sure there’s a very good chance it’s affecting their decisions.

You can also download the MP3 of the interview, or listen to it on the website.

From the NYT -

Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.

For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.

And for the first time, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan have each asked to lease space from the port for these orphan vehicles. They are turning dozens of acres of the nation’s second-largest container port into a parking lot, creating a vivid picture of a paralyzed auto business and an economy in peril.

Well, shouldn’t the increased demand translate into lower prices for these vehicles? Cars are one of the worst depreciating assets around, and yet, the markups on cars is quite insane and rather staggering.

Perhaps this will encourage auto makers to reconsider their pricing models in these troubled times.

One of the most important things that the Indian culture (like most Asian cultures) insists upon is a good education. Growing up, the value of education is drilled into you, time and again.

And when it comes to education — and this is important — it is not just any education that is valued. It is education that serves a practical purpose that is considered “good”. You either get into engineering or medicine. If you are looking for variety, you do accounting, finance or law.

Even those that get into the sciences do so as a springboard for doing their graduate studies in something “practical” — like an MCA. If you’re studying something like fashion, art, economics or journalism, you must either be rich or just plain nuts (or just plain dumb, of course).

And of course, there is always that good old fashioned MBA. Do your penance of four years of engineering, either work for a short while (or not), and get into a B-school — any B-school. And Viola! You now have the perfect combination and all Indian parents will point to you as the perfect little example of how wonderful a son (or daughter) you are.

The really adventurous ones, of course, apply to graduate schools and come to the US (or go to Europe) to pursue an education (in the sciences — what else?!). The radicals come here and do *gasp* business.

But doing a PhD in Pure Math? Or studying History or the Classics? Or Philosophy? Music Theory? PLEASE!

You’d be insulting the Indian intellect by suggesting these subjects, because they have no practical value. You see, most of India’s educational system is not based on what you like, but rather what your family and friends deem you capable of.

Competition is rampant from the very beginning of your high school years, and if you still want to do Art History, you must not be very smart. Hell, I don’t even know if any school in India offers a degree in Art History.

Now, this is understandable since India is a relatively young nation, and a developing one at that. Therefore, the luxury of an impractical education is not one that is offered to most people. You get out of high school, and you study a subject that has the maximum earning potential (choice translates into what branch of engineering or medicine you want to do).  And once you graduate, you take up a job and earn money.

But what does this mean for India, as a nation? There is a rich intellectual tradition in India, and we’ve had our share of Chanakyas and Aryabhattas.

However, by implicitly attaching a lower value to subjects such as the Pure Sciences, Classics, History, Art, Economics etc., we are destroying that intellectual tradition. How many Ramanujans are lost because they do engineering and take up an IT job, rather than do pure math? How many Raja Ravi Varmas are slogging away at a call center? How many people study Sanskrit? For some reason, all the Sanskrit scholars I’ve met seem to live in either Cambridge, UK or Cambridge, Mass. And let’s just say that none of them are Indian. You would think that a Nobel-winning economist would inspire people to study economics, but no. Hell, the Indian Prime Minister is one himself, but that does not seem to matter. Because you see, India may need to open more engineering colleges because they can’t keep up with the demand.

There is a very significant downside to this. There is a reason that undergraduate degrees in Classics or Philosophy are valued before you do business, law, medicine or just about anything. It is because it broadens your perspective. It gives you critical thinking ability. You get skilled at abstractions, and at conceptualizations.

Indians are excellent at details. Given the emphasis on pragmatism, this is obviously to be expected. However, Indians are not good at looking at the big picture, simply because over the years, they have not been trained to do so. If anything, if you want plebes, looking at the big picture is probably not a good thing because you do not want your measly programmer to get delusions of grandeur.

But long term vision, long term planning and strategic thinking ability only comes from looking at the big picture. Intellectual traditions are very, very vital to the soul of a nation. And I am afraid that India as a nation is sacrificing its vision for tomorrow in its short term pursuit of practicality for today.

It was bound to eventually happen, given the hue and cry over bonuses. And so it did.

Today, UBS announced what they call “Maluses” where previously earned bonuses will be forfeited if they underperform.

Just as bonuses (Latin for “good”) are paid out for good performance, maluses (“bad”) will be meted out if the bank subsequently makes losses or if the employee misses performance targets, UBS said. The maluses could wipe out all previously agreed share bonuses and two thirds of all cash bonuses under stringent new rules designed to align the interests of executives and traders with those of shareholders.

So, can we also extend this to the salaries of people, as well? After all, if you have to give up your bonuses when you underperform, why not give up your salaries and promotions when you underperform, as well?

Something tells me that this is not a good precedent — nevertheless, I see a lot of cheering from the sidelines for this move, unfortunately.

Paul Kedrosky talked about a blog post on Tired Fools, which talks about how in The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus describes the credit crunch in ancient Rome, complete with property slump and government bailout –

Accusers were now intesely active. Their present targets were men who enriched themselves by usury, infringing laws by which the dictator Julius Ceasar had controlled loans and land-ownership in Italy. Since patriotism comes second to private profits, this law had long been ignored. Money-lending is an ancient problem in Rome, and a frequent cause of disharmony and disorder. Even in an earlier, less currupt society steps had been taken against it. At first, interest had been determined arbitrarily by the rich, but then the Twelve Tables had fixed the maximum at 10 per cent. Next, a tribune’s law had halved the rate. Finally loans on compound interest were forbidden completely. Fraudulence, attacked by repeated legislation, was ingeniously revived after each successive counter-measure.

Now, however, the praetor Sempronius Gracchus, responsible for the investigation, was compelled by the numbers of potential defendants to refer the matter to the senate. That body – being implicated to a man – nervously entreated the emporer’s indulgence. It was granted. Eighteen months were allowed in which all private finances had to be brought into line with the law. The result was a shortage of money. For all debts were called in simultaneously, and the numerous convictions and sales of confiscated property had concentrated currency in the Treasury and its imperially controlled branches. To meet this situation the senate had instructed that creditors should invest two-thirds of their capital in Italy, and debtors immediately pay the same proportion of their debts.

However, creditors demanded payment in full, and debtors were morally bound to respond. The first results were importunate appeals to money-lenders. Next, the praetors’s court resounded with activity. The decree requiring land purchase and sales, envisaged as relief, had the opposite effect since when the capitalists received payment they hoarded it, to buy land at their convenience. These extensive transactions reduced prices. but large-scale debtors found it difficult to sell; so many of them were ejected from their properties, and lost not only their estates but their rank and reputation.

Then Tiberius came to the rescue. He distributed a hundred million sesterces among specially established banks, for interest-free three year state loans, against security of double the value in landed property. Credit was thus restored; and gradually private lenders, too, reappeared. However, land transactions failed to adhere to the provisions of the senatorial decree. As usual, the beginning was strict, the sequel slack.

On that note, it is rather interesting to look at the fall of the Medici bankers. Forbes recently had an article on the Medici meltdown, which talked about how the Medician crash was caused by warfare and misappropriation of funds, resulting in a rather large credit crunch -

“The fear of being annihilated by foreign powers, combined with the lack of transparency, allowed the ruler of the Republic to turn it into an effective tyranny. With the declared purpose of defending Florentine freedom and its way of life, Lorenzo raised taxes for the war and embezzled banking funds with the result (does this sound familiar, anyone?) of creating a huge credit crunch.

“The Medici Bank… had tenuous cash reserves that were usually well below 10% of total assets. Lack of liquidity was an issue for banking since its origins. Of course, in the Renaissance they dealt with thousands or millions of florins–billions were yet unthinkable. But would a bailout have been thinkable at the time? Lorenzo certainly bailed himself and his family out of a political and financial mess with public funds. He eventually gained for himself the superlative epithet of “The Magnificent” by obtaining fforeign military support and by compromising his city’s liberty.”

It is amazing how some things never change; they only get amplified, for better or worse. Perhaps, it would be worth a reminder that history doth repeat itself.

The MIT Classics Archive has the Annals of Tacitus, and the Gutenberg project has The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus; With His Account of Germany, and Life of Agricola.

Good old Skippy – just a tad smaller, while you pay the same.

As the continuation of Casino Royale, I was hoping for Quantum of Solace to be an improvement. At least with the former, one could forgive the puppy-Bond since he was a rookie. But the Bond in Quantum of Solace? He is just as bad and nothing like the original Bond.

For one, the villains were almost a joke, and not very memorable. Most Bond movies boast of villains that are quite spectacular, and quite evil, thank you very much.

And then the women. James Bond is a seducer. A man who has his way with women, and a lot of them at that. But Mr. Rookie Bond? Oh no. In the entire course of a 2 hour movie, he has sex with one woman. And he kisses just one other. Oh quite the seducer, that one.

Of course, there then is the violence. The QOS Bond was not a charmer, but rather a shoot-at-everything character. He was neither particularly suave, nor smooth.

He. Just. Kept. On. SHOOTING. Because that is so hard.

And then, of course, the question about his clothes and style. In an attempt to make him more “global”, the designers (I’m looking at you, Mr. Tom Ford), tried making him as generic as possible. The result? We have a bond who looks neither very English, nor very classy.

Now, to be quite fair, he was dressed quite well, of course, but there is more to class and elegance than just looking good. That said, I must admit that his ties had quite nice dimples — but makes one wonder if they were indeed the Four In Hand knots. After all, Mr. Bond always thought that the Windsor was the mark of a cad.

Then, there is the question of gadgets. Other than a snazzy phone, Mr. Bond had no gadgets on him. Who needs gadgets when you can shoot at everything, right?

No, this was not the James Bond that I grew up on. This was just a Jason Bourne with a better dress sense and an English accent. With a lot of product placements of course.

Vin Diesel could have played Bond and pulled it off. I was willing to let go the first time because it was the rookie Bond at play. This one? Not so much.

It was half decent entertainment, but nothing more. What a let down.

Posted without comment…

Interesting word cloud from Obama’s acceptance speech tonight.

(Tool used: Wordle)

History is in the making, and it is wonderful to be a part of it. Barack Hussein Obama II today became the 44th President-elect of the United States of America, and it is a day that we’ll always remember.

It is unbelievable and there is a feeling of celebration that’s in the air everywhere. After a Presidency that divided this nation, Barack Obama seems to have brought us closer together.

While Senator McCain gave a very gracious and very moving speech, Obama’s speech was the stuff of legends.

A friend of mine remarked that Barack Obama looked like a Vulcan, tall and with big ears. Let us all hope that he is just as logical when thinking about the issues that face us.

Here’s to our future — hopefully one filled with change for the better.

Paul Kedrosky often talks about Jeremy Grantham, and I recently got hold of GMO’s Quarterly Letter dated April 200, The Canary in the Coal Mine II (courtesy PD).

It’s almost prophetic to hear Jeremy look at the housing data and predict that it’s a bubble, and a rather scary one at that.

Even better is his take on the bull market (6 Kinds of Bull) reproduced here for your benefit –

 Sloppy and therefore dangerous bull market approaches can, I believe, be divided into six types:

1. Dow 36,000: the purely ‘PR’ driven nonsense
2. Jeremy Siegel: price doesn’t matter, 7% real returns by divine right
3. Sloppy or no earnings adjustments to market P/E
4. Sloppy growth forecasts
5. The Abby Cohen and Alan Greenspan Show: the economy is great and therefore the market will do fine
6. The ‘Fed Model Effect’: yes P/E ratios are quite high but the market is still cheap because interest rates are so low.

Simply priceless.

Excellent talk by Juan Enriquez on the current economic crisis. A very insightful and refreshing take on the current state of affairs, and how we got here.

Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.

(Courtesy Paul Kedrosky)