Short Trip to London

I had the chance to go to a conference in London at the end of October.  I added a couple days to the trip for sightseeing since I had never been to London.  The City has so much to offer it would take at least a week just to see the highlights.  I managed to check out Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, the Tate Modern, the Tower of London and Piccadilly Circus. 

I had a beef pie and fish & chips.  Both were served with peas, the vegetable of choice it seems for the British.

Quantitative Easing as Filtered Down by Glenn Beck

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/glenn-beck-explains-quantiative-easing

This is the most Glenn Beck that I have ever watched and I only watched to see how quantitative easing would be broken down for ordinary Americans.  Wow.  Apparently  as part of a socialist agenda to make all countries equal, financier/philanthropist George Soros controls the White House and the Fed and is orchestrating a 20% devaluation of the dollar, taking your money to fund union pensions and help the rich can get richer while America which currently produces nothing, swiftly descends into a banana republic no better than Greece.  Negligible details are the unemployment rate which has been north of 9% for 18 months and the annual earnings of political talk-radio/cable news commentators, in Beck's case $32 million. 

Besides the part about the rich getting richer, Beck's rant is completely backward.  Inflation is currently at dangerously low levels (see: Lost Decade, Japan).  As the world's second largest exporter of goods and services, America makes a lot of things (despite its myriad political talk radio/cable news commentators who produce nothing).  Union membership is at multi decade lows (as are effective corporate tax rates might I add).  The Fed's resumption of long term asset purchases directly benefits the holders of financial assets i.e. wealthy executive management as well as union pensions.  Finally, the Greeks rioted over deep spending cuts, required because as a member of the European Monetary Union, this country does not have the freedom to devalue its currency.   

With all that horse$hit debunking out of the way, what do I think of the second round of Quantitative Easing?  The Taylor Rule suggests that interest rates should be near the oh-so-impossible level of -7% so I don't think it is unreasonable for the Fed to take additional and extraordinary measures.  However with the credit transmission channel for monetary policy frozen, I have strong doubts that this will do much besides inflate valuations.  

Tea Baggers: Be Honest About The Deficit

"The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term."

A.k.a. Obama inherited the deficit from the Bush administration and the gravely irresponsible Republican congress.  This is according to an article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that the nice people at Goldman Sachs shared with me.  More here:

Avenue Q in Picadilly Circus

Last night in London and I have managed to secure a ticket to see
Avenue Q at a theatre in Picadilly Circus. Could have seen it any
number of times in New York. I hope it is good.

Stanford Homecoming/Reunion

Jessica and I went down to Stanford this Saturday to attend the Class of 2005 5th year reunion festivities.  It was good to spend some time with old friends and see the renovated football stadium for the first time.  I'm also pleased to be involved with the fraternity again now that I have returned to the bay area. 


The class party at the end of the day was pretty awkward however.  Stephen pointed out that Facebook has pretty much made these reunion events obsolete.  I still think they are nice but I think it is harder for them to live up to their expectations.  Now that we have Facebook to stay connected to the people we care about, reunions are comprised of a dozen or so conversations with people we have not cared enough about to follow on Facebook over the last 5 years.  Still, there is something good about the proximity.  I guess the only thing to do is to wait another 5 years for the 10 year reunion and see if this dynamic persists.