January 2011
11 posts
The Subsidy
How a Handful of Merrill Lynch Bankers Helped Blow Up Their Own Firm
Within Merrill Lynch, some traders called it a “million for a billion” — meaning a million dollars in bonus money for every billion taken on in Merrill mortgage securities. Others referred to it as “the subsidy.” One former executive called it bribery. The group was being compensated for how...
Super-majority
We have apparently moved from a majority-ruled to a supermajority-ruled senate:
A hold is like a passive filibuster of one. It can be removed only through the same process to defeat a filibuster: 60 votes along with days of procedural hurdles that paralyze all Senate business. While theoretically the secret senator must come out after six days, that rule is no help at session’s end.
Eric Schmidt shows us how to do a jedi-non-answer
The Truth Wears Off
Is there something wrong with the scientific method?
As the experiment is repeated, that is, an early statistical fluke gets cancelled out. The extrasensory powers of Schooler’s subjects didn’t decline—they were simply an illusion that vanished over time. And yet Schooler has noticed that many of the data sets that end up declining seem statistically solid—that is, they contain enough data that...
