Tim's Tumblr

Oh wait that's a "t"

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:20:00 -0400

Last year, the Federal Reserve allowed Bank of America to move a huge portfolio of dangerous bets into a side of the company that happens to be FDIC-insured, putting all of us on the hook for as much as $55 trillion in irresponsible gambles.

Education don't help

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:14:22 -0500

And here’s the mind-blowing surprise: For Republicans, having a college degree didn’t appear to make one any more open to what scientists have to say. On the contrary, better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science than their less educated brethren. Only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college-educated Republicans.

Cutting IRS = stupid

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:41:40 -0500

“IRS data show that auditors assigned to the 14,000 or so largest corporations found $9,354 of additional tax owed for every hour spent testing tax returns in the 2009 fiscal year. The highest-paid IRS auditors make $71 an hour. Based on a 2,080-hour work year, that works out to around $19 million of lost revenue annually for every senior corporate auditor position cut from the payroll.”

Cruise culprits

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:32:15 -0500

“the 15 largest cruise ships emit as much sulfur dioxide pollution annually as all 760 million cars in the world.”

No value added

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:43:00 -0500

“What we told the directors of the [investment advisors] firm was that, at least when it came to building portfolios, the firm was rewarding luck as if it were skill. This should have been shocking news to them, but it was not…We all went on calmly with our dinner, and I am quite sure that both our findings and their implications were quickly swept under the rug and that life in the firm went on just as before. The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry.”

Bombs in vans

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 07:18:00 -0400

“In a country [Pakistan] that is home to the harshest variants of Muslim fundamentalism, and to the headquarters of the organizations that espouse these extremist ideologies…nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities are transported in delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads.”

What me worry

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 07:48:06 -0400

“Every year, corporations and governments spend staggering amounts of money on forecasting and one might think they would be keenly interested in determining the worth of their purchases and ensuring they are the very best available. But most aren’t.”

Ignoring the obvious

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 23:21:00 -0400

“the United Nations “medium variant” population projection…assumes no demographic influence from the coming environmental changes.”