Posts made by cystic crypt

@ABWorsham:

I can find people to play Risk. I CANNOT find anyone to play Axis & Allies. :x  Do any of you have any ideas on making Risk more like Axis & Allies?

you have to make human beings smarter.

@Cmdr:

Bah, okay, fine, CC, you dragged outta me, you can have a good karma…. :P

Wha Hooo!!

@Imperious:

Well what did they do near Powell st?  its like a subculture akin to the ‘mole men’ from planet of the apes.

The airport is further south… that would be a looong subway. You sure?

Thanks for the Advice - both hotels look great. I am tempted by this “mole men” place, however . . . .

I am thinking of going to SF for the annual American Psyciatric Association meeting in May.  Wondering - what is the best hotel to stay in - preferably with proximity to either fisherman’s warf or the convention center.  I did do the Kayak thing, but going through 420 hotels seemed a little work-intensive.  Anyone have any ideas?

@Cmdr:

@cystic:

i may or may not be offended.

If you are, then you must tell me what offends so that I can invoke the Disclaimer and make the required changes!

Well that just offends me - assuming that i have the time to tell you what offends me.  That plus your fancy lawyer-type talkin’.

Not far from our cottage currently is located were a number of POW camps during WW II. 
Here is a fun one:
http://www.siouxnarrows-nestorfalls.ca/municipal-government/community-profile/history/german-prisoner-of-war-pow-camps/

note the following:
Rapport among POW’s, the O&M employees and guards was generally amicable. If an issue arose the POW camp leader would present the problem to the O&M supervisor and the guards for a resolution. Both Hans Kaiser and Hans Lieberwirth recall the guards to be “easy going and very friendly.” This non-aggressive attitude displayed by the captives combined with the reality that the soldiers were “out of the war” and in the bush with few options for escape likely contributed to the docility of camp life. Mr. Kaiser also noted that the men he was with were not ardent Nazis or strong supporters of the Hitler regime. However, they retained their soldier identity and maintained internal discipline. Given the circumstances they were satisfied with their situation.

For the most part security did not appear to be an issue for the prisoners or for the authorities. In most cases there seemed to be a general rule that the German prisoners were free to roam as long as they stayed within a one mile radius of the camp! Drinking with camp officials and the guards was not unheard of, and illegal distilleries within POW cabins hidden underneath floor boards were known to exist. Friendly relations were also extended to other activities. Hans Luengen, interned at camp 61, remembers going duck hunting with the guards. The apparent trust between guards and prisoners was evident in a story retold by inmate Luengen when a POW had to go to the dentist in Kenora. “One time a guy had to go into Kenora to see the dentist. Two guards went with him and they got really drunk. The prisoner had to put their rifles on his shoulders and drag them back to the boat. He didn’t try to escape. None of us spoke English and there was nowhere to go.”

My dad tells of a similar story - a guard brought two POW’s into town to pick up supplies - flour and the like.  While the POWs were loading up the sleds, the guard went to the local bar.  The POWs waited for him, and finally tracked him to the bar and pretty much carried him the 5 miles back to the POW camp.

@dezrtfish:

I did some digging and this was the day I became stronger than tanks:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12035.0

Polls never lie…

That’s funny, ‘cuz i think i can take ya’.  Unless you are armed and i am not.  Or if we both are armed.  I’m pretty sure that if i had arms and you did not, i could take ya’.  Well, one of your kids anyway - not both of them.  Together they could probably smoke me.  But . . . I could pick up girls better than you.  Before i got married.  Now its probably a bad idea.
Oh - and i’m guessing DJ is in the 25-29 range.

i may or may not be offended.

I’m looking for Lego, Rubic’s cube, and the collected works of Sid Meier.

@U-505:

OK. This next one I think will be easier.

Question 2:Marital bliss

Lady Astor had had a number of exchanges between herself and a certain person. One of the most famous was her quote:

“If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.”

To whom was she speaking?

Bonus question: What was his response?

I believe that Sir Winston Churchill replied “and if i were your husband, i would drink it”

4

I do not know the answer - it is just a chuckling pleasure to be able to dialogue with TGMIV again.  How is your little sister doing?

BTW - i will guess A&A Europe, but that is more a guess than anything.

Cheers my long lost friend,
CC

So i am watching this on the History channel, and it is about the Mayans in Belize!  This is great - he went on a tour of Actun Tunichal Machnal  - the same thing i paid $US 80 to do when i was working there, and i just had to laugh as he played up the action adventure bit.  There was something a little nostalgic about it, however - it reminded me of my visit.
Fun graphics, and the history was quite accurate as i had studied it, tho’.

So this is pretty much reflective of what i am talking about.

With inflation rising and currency value dropping, combined with decreasing property values, then America’s real GDP is dropping - particularly relative to its major trading partners (Canada, Europe, etc.).  This would work in favor of yor trade imbalance short term as it is becoming cheaper for me to buy American goods/services/properties (particularly given NAFTA), which should help to maintain or even increase production and therefore exports.

However with interest rates bound to rise to correct for inflation, decreasing credit and cash availability due to the massive banking and financial company screw-ups, increased debt (and deficit) with concurrent increasing cash outflow to pay the interest to foreign debtors, there becomes less money (and less valuable money to boot) available for capital projects, for needed imports, for new buildings, or even to support current infrastructure.

Say what you like about the lack of necessity for gov’t funded social services and health care - allowing for the aging population, aside from turning everyone into soylent green as they get older, there will be a massive crush on gov’t resources, requiring more tax dollars from a population less able to draw from.

Is this sustainable?  How will America deal with this?  Will America default on its loans?  
Supposedly if the foreign aid, and military money dries up and is poured back into realistic expenditures, there may be a way to maintain some sense of financial order, but to what avail?

@ncscswitch:

Yes, there is a difference.

Stagflation is the condition of money losing value rapidly while at the same time the economy is in modest negative real growth.

The Great Depression in the US had only negative net growth while the purchasing power of the cash that people had was pretty constant.

If you combine massive negative net growth AND rapid uncontrolled loss of purchasing power of the cash that people currently hold, you end up with something more akin to Germany circa 1924.

right.
So, if as Jen says, the US dollar buys more-or-less what it used to (in Canada, inflation is around 3.5% including gas, 1.5% not including gas - i assume the US is not too far off), then purchasing power is constant.  The $64,000 question, is whether a combination of the factors i discussed initially will contribute to negative growth.  Again - maybe not similar to the great depression, but at least similar to the '70s (although i do not see interest rates hitting 20% again).

Is there a difference between stagflation and a depression?  I think that the US is in a depression similar to at least the 70’s, if not the '30’s, i think Canada is in a stagflation, as well as some of Europe.  Of course we will not recognise this for another 20 years or so.
Having said this, and given that i have no interest in retiring for another 20 years minimum, i am looking into profitible European and Canadian financial institutions as investment vehicles.  I mean, the emotion of jittery investors having tossed out the baby with the bathwater just put everything on sale!

Ahhh just from meeting with my financial advisor.  Viva European money/pharma/consumer goods companies!
@Cmdr:

Well, for one, I think the public promises need to be realized for what they are: false promises.  If they were terminated immediately, many of the budget problems would also terminate.  Perhaps the fire sale of American financial institutions would also stop.

Really?  I thought that these were things that could not be terminated because people need health care and social security and have believed that they were paying into these things.  I think that if these promises were reneged on, wouldn’t there be some kind of new crises with even more bankrupcies than due to the sub-prime mortgage thing?

However, that said, I have to say that for over a decade now I have been lamenting the fact that American realestate was way over priced.  I believe it is the unrealistic pricing of American realestate that is the culprit of the fire sale, not the deficit or any of the other factors being listed.

i am not sure that American real estate was that overpriced in most places - supposed that in some places it was artificially driven by dishonest sales of sub-prime mortgages.

Another method of reducing the deficit would be to retail our energy reserves.  The United States of America (and Canada) holds almost a third of the world’s coal reserves and almost 15% of the world’s oil reserves (Colorado alone has more oil than all of Saudi Arabia) and, adding Canada to the mix, that number is even higher.

errr . . . after all the work of securing oil reserves in the middle east, the environmental pressures, that this is realistic?  Also why are we adding Canada’s oil reserves to the mix?  Our economy is in a bit of a recession, but not to the degree that America’s is with a fraction of the (relative) debt and none of the deficit.

If we were to cash in on the unrealistic prices of oil right now, I wager the United States could easily see a negative deficit in a matter of a few short years.

i would be really surprised if this should change in the favor of consumers.  Gas companies know that they can get whatever they want for gasoline, and even at $1.43/liter we will still buy gasoline.  Add the rapid expansion of the transportation industries in india, china, etc. i would be very surprised to see this as well.

As for the value of the American currency, it will remain strong.  It may not be uber right now, but it is strong.  That’s because the value of American holdings, resources and institutions back up the currency.  People know that the US Dollar is worth one US Dollar and that it will be worth one US Dollar tomorrow and the day after and the day after that for as long as one can speculate life will exist barring any serious acts of god(s).

strong relative to what? Why should i sell Canadian Dollars or Euros to buy US currency if the US dollar is so unstable.  To put it another way - why spend money spurring on the US economy if the dollar will continue to fall and give me back dollars worth fewer Canadian dollars/Euros than i spent?

I must admit that the current financial buyout packages (both passed and proposed) worry me greatly.  I, for one, would have been much happier had AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gone out of business, liquidated their assets and let smarter men and women take control of those assets and fix the problems.

i am not an expert on these things, but these corporations ARE assets in many people’s mutual fund portfolios.  Also their holdings being sold as a fire sale items can’t be good for the perceived value of American assets and as we know, people are idiots and react badly to perceptions.

What problems?  Honestly, I think it started in the 1980s when people were taught to become Bungee CEOs.  A Bungee CEO is one that flies in, fires a third of the staff, makes the P and E ratio look great, increases stock prices, cashes out and leaves with millions of dollars in personal profits and a company gutted and unable to function as they did before.

What has the solution been recently?  Give them their golden parachutes and bail the company out with public money.  What’s my idea of a solution?  Put them in bankruptcy, sell all their assets to other companies, let their stocks dry up and cinch your belt for a while until you can recover.  Why won’t it happen?  Americans are cry babies.  They gambled, they lost, now they want “Mommy and Daddy” to come bail them out.

i am not sure that this would actually fix anything.  I will agree that the money paid to CEO’s, MBA’s, Bankers etc. was exhorbitant and was probably instrumental in the drop in profits.
Anyway - i am hoping to not come across as antagonistic, however i am trying to figure out what is going on and what to expect out of America. 
Question - would this bailout occur if there was no election?  Or is this question too political?

I am not an economist or analyst or any kind of “ist” (maybe a capitalist - note the small “c”) but just a health care professional, and a Canadian to boot.
Still, i can’t help but wonder about the America and its ability to financially weather the financial weather.
A nation that is $9.5 billion in debt, with a deficit of $800 million, also has unfunded public promises (social security, healthcare etc.) enhancing the debt to $53 trillion (September Dines letter '08).  Foreign debt is > $8 trillion dollars, and until recently America had a GDP of ~ $11 trillion. 
Stocks/markets have crashed by double-digets (ignore, if you will, the possibly artificial correction last friday - i like to believe that it is also the fearful recognising that many of the companies that they have sold are actually profitible), and the government has participated in (illegal) bailouts of some of its failed financial companies. 
Nations sch as Cuba, China, India, and every other nation in the world are holding trillions in US currency - likely because of a hitherto belief that US currency is as or more valueable than its own. 
It does not require much imagination to consider that foreign currancy holders may get skittish and release their $US.  Given the higher-than-ever production of fiat paper money - particularly following the beginning the Iraq war, the increase in energy (oil) prices, and subsequent food shortage, one could imagine a fair bit of inflation - unless interest rates are engineered to rise, decreasing the ability for companies to begin capital projects, or for people to purchase houses. 
I suppose that this inflation could well help America’s debt position, however would creditors not recognise this first and make a margin call on America?  Now obviously US politicos would have the de facto ability to thwart foreign creditors by simply refusing to pay them, but is even this a viable position?
I guess my question is this - how is the American economy to be viable in the long term?
(note: i am hoping that this would be more of an economic discussion, rather than a political one, so if we could avoid using the words of political parties such as to avoid the arbitrary locking by IL, that would be appreciated)

@Cmdr:

Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?

Skin Cells - living units - produce increased amounts of melanin as exposure to UVB increases.  This is to protect deeper levels of skin from dehydration by increasing UV absorption by these superficial cells (it backfires as melanoma may result).  Hair is an organic non-living compound of proteins that is occassionally denatured by sun exposure resulting in bleaching.

Why can’t men shave with their mouths closed?

We can, but opening our mouths stretches the skin lateral to our mouth so that it is easier to shave.

Why do you never see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?

they are full of sh*t

Why is abbreviated such a long word?

why is “long” such a short word?

Why do doctors call what they do “practice”?

Medicine is an inconsistant field, more art than science.  Nothing is certain or 100%.  Furthermore, we learn from every case we are involved in.  So “practice” is a more appropriate verb than “perform” or “do”.

Why you have to click on “Start” to stop Windows XP?

it’s stupid

Why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor, while dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons?

it all depends on the juice/dishwashing liquid

Why the man who invests all your money is called a broker?

it’s a trading thing.

Why there isn’t mouse-flavored cat food?

because mice don’t taste as good as other meats - its the chase that’s important

Who tastes cat food to determine when it has a “new and improved” flavor?

ummm . . . cats?  if fewer cats like it, then it’s not improved.  If more of them do, then it is improved.

And how can something be both NEW and IMPROVED?  If it was improved, then it cannot be new!

ahhhh marketing.

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

habit

It did not fail to escape my notice that my name is inaccurately omitted from this list.