It’s Mardi Gras Baby

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As usual, I’m the only person at work wearing Mardi Gras beads today.  The day is bitter sweet. Some of the worst, the most savage, thrashing, hurling hangovers I’ve ever had have been in New Orleans.  My memories are filled with the sights and smells of Bourbon Street and the rowdy throngs standing in the street begging for revelers on the balconies to throw some beads or flash the crowd.

Last year in a blues bar a waitress wearing a Daisy Duke outfit and carring a rack of test tubes came up to me and said … something. Obviously I had “Chump” written all over me. I couldn’t understand what she said because the band was so loud, so through the beer fog I just nodded. Next thing I knew she took my money and grabbed my head and plunged it towards the test tubes planted in various locations in her outfit. I grabbed the tubes with my mouth and tipped back the sweet, flammable contents. There was more, but I won’t elaborate on it further.

After less than a minute, I had consumed unknown alcoholic liquids from dubious test tubes and walked away $30 lighter. I left the bar dazed and confused at what happened, feeling incredibly stupid for having been duped like a common tourista. Oh! The shame and degradation, sort of.

Brain Draino

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The Obama administration famously put restructions on executive pay, capping at US$500k for institutions receiving TARP money. Naturally, there has been some shameless howling from the Masters of the Universe. Who? You know, the geniuses who were instrumental in birthing this finance mess.

There has been some wagging of tongues and tut tutting in regard to the problems of living on $500k per year on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Mathematically, this may in fact be true.  But I would offer that this is the market supplying pushback towards equilibrium. If the swanky life in Manhattan is not feasible on the meager sum of $500k, then the banks need to relocate. Banks should consider the kind of lifestyle an executive could have in Manhattan, Kansas, or Little Rock on $500k. Or York, NE. We got yer swank right here!

I love this description of financiers by David Gillen at the NYT-

Banking executives and recruiters say talented financiers — the driven, hyper-numerate, slightly ruthless ones with a preternatural knack for making money in bull markets and bear — are always in high demand. NY Times, Feb 21, 2009.

It sounds to me like the finance industry needs a therapeutic brain drain or a cerebral colonic.

Indignation of the Self-Righteous Self-Made

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There is an undercurrent of disatisfaction that is surfacing regarding the rescue of homeowners who got themselves into bad mortgage arrangements. Talking heads like the guy on CNBC are going off about how wrong it is that citizens who were more clever about their spending habits should have to pay for the mistakes of those who made bad choices.

As a first order approximation, it is hard to argue that we should line up to provide this payout.  If you make bad judgments based on greed, ignorance, or simple miscalculation, the theory is that in an ideal free market you should be free to suffer the consequences as well as the benefits.

That’s fine. Except that we do not have an ideal free market.  In this particular bust, the risks of mortgage trading were not accurately communicated to investors or even particularly well understood by anyone. The macro effect of a large number of mortgagees who are suddenly unable to deal with a large interest rate uptick in their adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) was under appreciated by most.

Adjustable rate mortgages and the subsequent investment instruments that followed were dreamed up by somebody- but probably not by hourly workers or anyone outside real estate and finance. There was a kind of wink-of-the-eye understanding between banks, mortgage brokers, builders, and the real estate business. Not only was there the invention of the ARM and the degradation of qualification standards, there was a nationwide marketing campaign aimed at marginal buyers. This real estate boom was financed in part by mortgage instruments designed to capture marginal borrowers.

The previous owner of the home that I presently occupy was a mortagage broker who had hit the big time at the start of this bubble.  After the signatures were on paper, he told his wife that she could have the BMW that she had wanted from the equity.  Mortgage brokering was practically a cottage industry and many people were making money.

Real estate agents knew this of course. They knew that easy qualification was available and they continued to do what they always do:  push buyers into the most home they could afford.  It was a sellers market and real estate speculation was rampant. Builders were routinely putting up spec homes and selling them like hotcakes.

This is not just a problem limited to greedy buyers. A whole business phenomenon grew into being around the housing boom. Lending institutions, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, title companies, builders, and buyers all bought into a dream built upon sand. Buyers may have been guilty of bad judgement, but it was facilitated by entire industry ready and willing to make it happen.  

So, are the angry men we see on television justified in their assertion that they should not be forced to help bail out those facing foreclosure? I suppose the position you take depends on your vision of what civilization should look like. I think  if you investigate the self-righteous self-made, you’ll find that many of them benefitted in part by the distribution of wealth at some scale. Inheritance money, Pell grants, scholarships, good mentoring, good fortune, talented parenting, and many other forms of benefit that are not necessarily distributed by bank deposit. Simple hard work is rarely enough.

The parties involved in this fiasco should bear the brunt of it themselves to a large extent. That means that lending institutions should not be entitled to the profits they were anticipating and the borrowers should not be entitled to large equity on overvalued homes. There should be suffering on the part of all participants.

Edsel, Studebaker, and Saturn

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As that grand Zepplin of Corporations, General Motors, sinks like a deflating airship, it has begun to pitch everything overboard in a vain effort to stay afloat. It was inevitable then than underperforming assets would be unceremoniously dropped from service like a lame mule or an Oldsmobile.

Back in 1993 while living in South Bend, Indiana, I struck up a conversation with an elderly neighbor in my apartment complex. Turns out she was one of the last two employees of the Studebaker company. She and a coworker managed retirement benefits for Studebaker employees in a small office in South Bend for 17 years after the plant closed. On the last day, as she told the story, she and her colleague simultaneously walked out of the office and that was it for Studebaker.

And so it goes with Saturn. If the dealers cannot find a buyer for the manufacturing operation, they too will one day sell the last Saturn and close up the shop.  Parts manufacturers will continue to make parts for many years, but the Saturn will become synonymous with the dinosaur and the Dodo bird.

Djerassi-v-Trost. Clash of the Titans.

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The January 26, 2009 C&EN has an interesting letter to the editor. Carl Djerassi sent a letter critical of the manner in which Professor Trost cites authors in his references. According to Djerassi, Trost didn’t cite the discoverer of a natural product for which the Trost group had just reported a total synthesis. He took Trost to task in diluting the accomplishment of the workers who had isolated, characterized, and tested the compounds for biological activity by not citing the original work.

Trost’s treatment of Pettit is particularly egregious given the well-known fact in the chemical community that the spectacularly laborious decade-long efforts of one of the heroes of marine natural products chemistry—the person who personally collected the bryozoan, isolated the bryostatins, established their constitution, and pursued their anticancer activity against all odds—were terminated through a draconian closure of his laboratory by the new administrators of Arizona State University. [C&EN, Jan. 26, 2009]

Trost and Djerassi are two of the rock stars of organic chemistry. When such people “go nuclear” in their open personal criticism, it is so compelling that you can’t help but take notice. Far from being unseemly, I think this kind of thing is healthy for the field. Neglecting key early workers while trotting your own references up to the front of the line is a kind of misdemeanor racketeering of scholarship. If true, Djerassi has a good point.

But, I can sympathize with Trost to some extent. Eventually, past progress becomes part of the background. Do we have to cite Henry Gilman everytime we use BuLi to remove a proton? There must be some juicy backstory that has Djerassi riled.

Plea from China

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I don’t know what others are experiencing, but I am flooded with desperate email pitches from Chinese chemical manufacturers- “Please, let’s make cooperation!”  Everything from solvents to generic drugs.

A receding tide beaches all boats.

Update:  Just got an offer for bulk Vinblastine Sulfate. Golly, I think I’ll decline. The last thing a guy needs is a few kg of that stuff sitting in a cabinet.

Siccus Silicis. Oh yonder dessicated moon! Why dust thou taunt me?

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Big discovery. A few doors down at The Universe Today there is a report of findings showing that the moon is quite dry. This result is from an interpretation of radar soundings taken by the Japanese lunar probe SELENE.

Given the near proximity of the sun, and lack of any atmosphere, it would be astonishing that any water would be found on the moon, at least in the top few meters. Perhaps there are mineral hydrates in the regolith, but discrete surface water as ice or liquid in the shadows seems a bit of a stretch. Supposedly a trace of water was found by others near the polar regions where the sun angle is always low. 

Comets famously de-gas when they come near the sun. Maybe the moon was blowing a vapor trail too- 3 or 4 billion years ago.

The SELENE radar soundings were used to infer the presence of aqueous reservoirs well below the surface. The results failed to give any evidence of such bodies of water. Given the tumultuous history of the moon, as evidenced by the lava plains and impact activity it has experienced, there has been lots of opportunity for water to sublimate or cook off through fractures in the regolith in the past.

I like and appreciate the Universe Today site. But if I could offer some constructive criticism, they could do with more links to primary references rather than just recursive links to previous Universe Today articles. Actually, more than a few news sites do this.

On a side note, it is worth browsing the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) website to get a feel for the depth of their program.

Fiat Lux! Sen. Gregg’s Moment of Clarity

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Senator Judd Gregg has seen the light. He has had a moment of pure, crystalline insight and has witnessed truth and clarity unfold before his eyes.

Yeah, right.

You have to wonder what kind of pressures were put to bear on him to reject the nomination for commerce secretary. A personal call from Rush Limbaugh? A whisper campaign from conservative cells? Perhaps criticism from the official organ of GOP doctrine, Fox News, was just too much for him. Then again, he might be fickle.

This resignation reduces to one more soldier lining up in the GOP phalanx, preparing for extended battle with the Democrats. It is striking how uniformly GOP soldiers have rejected what many thought was axiomatic– that bipartisanship was, if not necessary, at least highly desirable for the good of the whole.

During the 2008 campaign, the concept of cooperation between parties was pulled frequently from its carrying case by candidate McCain and displayed like sacred icon of civics.

But McCain’s claim of bipartisanship was evidence of the true nature of his bohemian political composition. Bipartisanship and whatever civic merit it might represent is certainly not a plank in the GOP platform. Sen. McCain has shut his maverick hole and is now playing ball with his team.

Sen. Gregg will be rubbed with GOP annointing oil and when the delerium has cleared, he’ll sheepinshly fall into line with the rest.