Speak Truth to People

altlaw.org (via Instapundit). Tim Wu says:

I wanted to write to tell you about the launch of the world's first completely free and public domain legal search engine: altlaw.org. Right now, legal search is dominated by a duopoloy -- Westlaw and Lexis -- that charge hundreds of dollars an hour for searching the nation's laws. Altlaw.org is a pilot project to make the nation's caselaw freely searchable by anyone. The nation's laws are supposed to belong to the people, yet they are amazingly hard to get access to.

Fred takes a swipe at Rudy

Jonathan Martin has a roundup. I moved to NYC under Dinkins, and it did get to be a safer place to live under Giuliani. I don't think it had anything to do with gun control--I've only met one person in the city (out of thousands, and not including law enforcement), who owned a handgun. I don't think ownership or usage changed much with gun control laws over the last 2 decades.

But as far as the Republican nomination goes, a lot of non-coastal states are gun owner states, and their per capita violent crime rates are generally lower than high gun control states, and similar nations to the U.S.

I'm not sure, if Rudy ever is able to raise his hand in January and take the oath of office, will he be able to say:

... support and defend the Constitution of the United States, with the exception of the Second Amendment, so help me God.

UPDATE: Gallup poll shows that Rudy is most popular candidate among veterans, with a 64% favorable and 29% unfavorable view. But 39% of vets are neutral on Thompson, and if 2/3 of these like Thompson if he enters the race, then the two candidates will be neck-and-neck with the veteran vote.

Quiz question: What is The Slutter?

Hint: It's a baseball thing.

I'm not sure what sort of prize I will give to the first person who answers this in the comments, but I would like to do something.

Gaming the markets

Bill Gross, head of PIMCO (the largest bond fund), had a great run until a few years ago, when he started to underperform the Lehman Bond Index. His more recent bearishness cost his clients a lotta dough. He was a bond bull, riding the Greenspan easy money to billionaire-dom. But earlier this summer, he announced that he was bearish on bonds (i.e. he was positioned for interest rates to climb).

I'm not one to theorize in conspiracies much, but when I read this I had to wonder:

Get with it Mr. President and Mr. Treasury Secretary. This is your moment to one-up Barney Frank and the Democrats. Reestablish not the RFC or the RTC, but create an RMC – Reconstruction Mortgage Corporation. If not, make some modifications in the existing FHA program, long discarded as ineffective. Write some checks, bail ‘em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all “W”, you’re “the Decider,” aren’t you?

See, if there is a fiscal (Treasury) rather than a monetary (Fed) response, then Bill will not take yet another punch in his bond funds, as interest rates would fall with a Fed cut.

Is it any wonder that he is asking Bush to bailout homeowners, in lieu of a Fed cut of interest rates? I'm not sure who's slimier, Gross or this guy:

Never Give Up

Tedy Bruschi's book is out. Here is an excerpt. Here is a review from a local journalist, Mark Farinella, who mentions:

If you're looking for Bruschi to tell secrets from the locker room or go into excruciatingly detailed depth about his personal life in the book, you've come to the wrong place. The book has enough personal detail to give you the general idea of what was going on in the Bruschi household during the height of the challenges faced by Tedy, wife Heidi and their children, without giving you the "too much information" feeling.

As for the portrayal of the Patriots' organization, there are a few moments when it's clear that Bruschi is walking on egg shells. It's obvious that Bruschi has no desire to bite the hand that feeds him - nor should he have much reason, because team owner Robert Kraft was supportive, particularly when it appeared that Bruschi would have to retire and a job was created for him in the organization.

Particularly in the case of the Denver press release, Bruschi felt the ownership was shifting responsibility away from the organization and placing it solely on Bruschi's shoulders as a means of covering the corporate rear end. Welcome to the NFL, kid.

But beyond that, Bruschi expresses a lot of love for Kraft and Bill Belichick in the book, and no one should expect anything less.

Now, I fully understand what Bruschi felt during his recovery, when he was cautioned by his doctors against picking up his young sons and carrying them to bed. The victim feels he is victimizing those who love him, even though that couldn't be further from the truth.

But at the time all this was happening, a lack of information contributed to what Bruschi saw as a lack of understanding. Many of us wrote columns wondering why Bruschi, with three Super Bowl rings, a lovely wife and three young boys, felt the need to risk his life by coming back.

Not every stroke victim will be as fortunate as Bruschi, and he recognizes that. But the proper information and a message of hope can be powerful tools in any recovery - whether it's the recovery of an iconic football player who made it back to the field against all odds, or a beloved family member for whom the ultimate victory would be recovering the ability to say "I love you" to his or her children.

One predictor of energy pricing is how much the enivronmental agenda shapes policy

In today's WSJ:

Just about everyone claims the U.S. must urgently become "energy independent," yet at the same time just about every policy that may actually serve that goal is met with environmentalist opposition. That contradiction has impeded the Bush Administration's attempts to increase domestic energy production. And even the modest progress so far may be blocked because litigation is driving the conflict out of politics and into the courts.

To see this trend at work, look north to Alaska, where lawsuits are blocking an offshore drilling program. Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay that will suspend all operations until at least September, when the court will hear full arguments. The decision noted that the litigants -- environmental pressure groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council -- had shown "a probability of success on the merits." Uh-oh.

This is bad news for Shell, whose three-year exploration program in the Beaufort Sea was green-lighted by the Department of the Interior in February. The company planned to sink up to four temporary wells this summer to determine the available resources. But there's a limited open-water window before the winter ice moves back in, so the Ninth Circuit could delay work for a year, even if it decides in Shell's favor.

The public interest in this case is domestic energy. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that chooses to lock up its natural resources. Since 2003, the Administration and Congress have lifted the federal moratoria on a few select areas of the Outer Continental Shelf. The Beaufort basin, which is estimated to hold 27.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 8.2 billion barrels of recoverable oil, was one of those. A successful exploratory program could open a new frontier of energy.

That public purpose is what drives the greens bonkers, so they're trying to create a legal backstop to prevent any Administration from doing what President Bush has done. The Shell case shows that even a long and expensive effort to address every conceivable concern can still be undone by lawsuits. If anyone wants to know why we're still "dependent on foreign oil," this is it.

UPDATE: James Taranto says this, quoting Der Speigel on Norwegian carbon emissions:

"Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos [4,630 pounds] of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting," reports Der Spiegel:

Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway's technical university, said a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a year.

So not only man but animals cause global warming. Apparently the only way to preserve life on earth is to wipe out life on earth.

UPDATE: Good stuff, courtesy of Greenpeace!

How ephemisms do not move prediction markets

Christopher Dodd is running for President. He looks presidential, but his policy potential looks weak to me. (For instance, in the last debate, he said he'd levy a carbon tax to reduce energy prices. I'm thinking that even some of the inner city high school students I've taught economics through Junior Achievement know better than that).

Anyhow, Dodd was blitzing CNBC all week after calling Bernanke and Paulson to his office, which he can do as chair of the Senate banking committee. What he can't do is pressure the Fed to change monetary policy, as a legislator (separation of powers). So he mutters "moral
suasion" (to mean the Fed needs to loosen money) and hopes to get a boost to his presidential hopes.

I think the above graph says it all. Despite a boost in trading volume, he still has a 0.2% chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 2008. The feed below is Dodd's meeting post-mortem on CNBC (it's 6 minutes):

Sports law

From Bainbridge



From Tradesports

Swivel breaksdown presidential campaign donations by industry

Which brought to mind this from the WSJ today:

Welcome to Kentucky, where this thriller is unfolding in real life. Scholars are calling it one of the biggest legal frauds in U.S. history, but it's better viewed as a case study in how hard it is to hold trial lawyers accountable for their low crimes and misdemeanors.

The facts are largely undisputed. In 2001, American Home Products reached a $200 million settlement with 440 plaintiffs for claims that they'd suffered heart damage using the fen-phen diet drug. The lawyers -- including William Gallion, Shirley Cunningham, Jr., and Melbourne Mills, Jr. -- were supposed to get one-third of the payout. Instead, the lawyers kept $106 million, put another $20 million into a charity they established, and left the plaintiffs with a mere $74 million. Plaintiffs say they were told by their lawyers that if they complained they could be sued or go to jail.

Some plaintiffs complained nonetheless, and the circus that has followed has become a black eye for Kentucky's legal establishment. In court papers, the three men denied wrongdoing, and said they deserved the extra money. They noted that the judge who'd signed off on the original settlement, Joseph F. Bamburger, had said the lawyers were due this windfall "for their services and for the incredible risks they took," as well as for various "administrative headaches."

Maybe. Then again, when Judge Bamburger retired from the bench in 2004, he was made a director of the very same charity the lawyers had established with that $20 million. The judge was paid $5,000 a month, money he later returned. He was also reprimanded by the Judicial Conduct Commission of Kentucky for "misconduct in office."

Price biases in Tradesports NFL trading

According to Rick Borghesi:

Short selling is a procedure with which few NFL bettors are familiar. This deficiency causes a reluctance to sell, creates a supply shortage of bets on Team A, and results in an unwarranted price increase of bets on Team A. The result is that NFL contracts expire at $0 more often than expected, and the sellers cash in.

You know what would calm down this crazy debate

and hopefully lead to less religious self-righteousness and even better policy decisions? That's right, global warming contracts! (via Don Boudreaux)

Jeff Jacoby has more on the diversity of scientific opinions on global warming.

Calmer Cramer on Colbert

Via Dealbreaker.

3 years after the Google IPO

At BusinessWeek (via Eddy Elfenbein). I was looking to short the stock for the first 2 years, until a businessman filling a small niche market explained how he used paid search to sharpen his marketing.

Off for a few days to New England

Finishing up at this conference, then leaving the crazy capital markets of New York for the saner climes of New England.

Will be back late next week.

Gas prices coming back down

From Swivel


From Intrade

Bernanke smarter than Greenspan

I posited this to my colleagues during Bernanke's confirmation process, getting some wait-and-see shrugs in response. Now Eddy Elfenbein ramps up his polemic against Greenspan:

Well, let’s take a look at what he has to say. Here the maestro defends himself against the charge of bring interest rates too low:

Mr. Greenspan raised vague fears with colleagues over the possibility this policy could create distortions in the economy, but he says today that such risks were an acceptable price for insuring against deflation. “Central banks cannot avoid taking risks. Such trade-offs are an integral part of policy. We were always confronted with choices.”

Oh dear lord. This is a completely meaningless answer. We know you face choices, Alan, so does everybody else. The question is, “were those choices correct?” As usual, he refuses to acknowledge his mistake.

But that’s not all—and this is the most maddening part. Greenspan now admits that he was the one who was really concerned about a real estate bubble all along. Honest he was.

Looking back, he says today: “We tried in 2004 to move long-term rates higher in order to get mortgage interest rates up and take some of the fizz out of the housing market. But we failed.”

This is a stunning statement. Did it ever occur to him that he failed in large measure to his initial non-mistake? His answer is equal parts disingenuous and disgraceful. First, the Fed has no business managing mortgage interest rates. Yet in 2004, it was Greenspan who urged investors to get adjustable-rate mortgages.

UPDATE: WSJ econ blog has a roundup here.

Liquid markets

Above graph from Statistical Modeling, Causal Science, and Social Science.

The graph below is from Intrade, of course.

Jim Cramer blowing up on CNBC

Around 230pm I read this, about how Jimmy might have a bit of BSC in his p.a. (personal account). I was chuckling over the post when he made his regular appearance with Erin Burnett, almost popped an artery, and left Erin needing to mop the flecks of froth and spit off her front.

Cramer even used the word Armageddon, hoping to nudge Bernanke, Poole & Co. to nudge that fed funds rate back down. There is a good chance of that happening later in the year, but with BSC losing a third of its value in the last couple of months, I guess, for some, it is really is Armageddon right now.

I think it could get a lot worse than it is now, with the S&P slipping another 10% to under 1400. But that is still a rather gentle lull compared to 2001-2002.

Obama sows a few seeds of doubt

AP interview (via Drudge):

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons «in any circumstance.
«I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,» Obama said, with a pause, «involving civilians.» Then he quickly added, «Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table.
The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf earlier this week that he would use U.S. military force in Pakistan even without Musharraf's permission if necessary to root out terrorists.
However, when asked by The Associated Press after a breakfast with constituents whether there was any circumstance where he would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons to defeat terrorism and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Obama replied
«There's been no discussion of using nuclear weapons and that's not a hypothetical that I'm going to discuss.

Correlations in baseball

Eric Gagne traded to the Red Sox.