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"You can build a statistical model and that’s all well and good, but if you’re dealing with a new..."

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:56:23 -0400

“You can build a statistical model and that’s all well and good, but if you’re dealing with a new type of financial instrument, for example, or a new type of situation — then the choices you’re making are pretty arbitrary in a lot of respects. You have a lot of choices when you’re designing the model about what assumptions to make. For example, the rating agencies assume basically that housing prices would behave as they had over the previous two decades, during which time there had always been steady or rising housing prices. They could have looked, for example, at what happened during the Japanese real estate bubble, where you had a big crash and having diversified apartments all over Tokyo would not have helped you with that when everything was sinking — so they made some very optimistic assumptions that, not coincidentally, happened to help them give these securities better ratings and make more money.”

- - Nate Silver on the bias of statistical models (via nprfreshair)

latimes: Today’s headlines: California Gov. Jerry Brown acts on...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:02:53 -0400

latimes:

Today’s headlines:

California Gov. Jerry Brown acts on driver’s license, deportation bills: Immigration-related measures are among a raft of legislative items that the governor considers before a midnight deadline.

Debates are Romney’s best chance to reverse tilt toward Obama: For Romney, the first presidential debate in Denver may be pivotal if he is to blunt Obama’s edge in swing states.

Carmageddon II comes to a close: L.A., restart your engines: Carmageddon Redux on the 405 Freeway ends in time for the Monday commute, with workers having finished extra maintenance during the two-day closure.

Cable networks are TV’s biggest stars: Technology and competitive advantages have been game-changers for premium-tier outfits such as HBO and Showtime and basic-cable’s FX and AMC.

Westminster post office a vital hub for Vietnamese community: Little Saigon branch has been helping the Vietnamese immigrant community adjust to the United States and maintain connections since the early ’90s.

kateoplis: “The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian...

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:25:08 -0400

kateoplis: “The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian...:

kateoplis:

“The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. (The second highest is Yemen, where the rate is nevertheless only half that of the U.S.) No civilian population is more powerfully armed.

Men are far more likely to own guns than women are, but the…

Photo

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:21:36 -0400

progressivefriends: Stockholm streets on 3 September 1967, the...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:18:22 -0500

progressivefriends:

Stockholm streets on 3 September 1967, the day when Sweden switched from driving on the left to the right.