10 Thoughts for April 2, 2014

1. Over 7 inches of rain in March in Portland, making up for a dismal start of the water calendar.  Mudslides galore.  At least this morning it's nice outside, even if chilly (39F) -- what they would call tropical right now in Buffalo and Toronto.
2. Now that we've passed the ACA open enrollment deadline, I thought it good to remind ourselves that insurance is a collectivist-based program.  When you hear or read conservatives complain about the cost of health insurance, it makes one wonder why they care at all, since Ayn Rand would have been adamantly against such collectivist programs to share societal costs between the sick and the healthy.
3. We're not going to know the precise details of how many previously uninsured people signed up for health insurance for a couple of weeks.  Nonetheless, the first words out of conservatives' mouths: the numbers were cooked.  Sure sounds familiar.  Jobs numbers come in good?  Must be cooked!
4. Speaking of numbers, the ADP Employment Report was released showing 191,000 gain in employment for March.  When the BLS releases their numbers this Friday, we'll have a better idea of what's going on, but right now it looks like we're seeing a surge in hiring following the polar plunge this Winter.
5. The media is reporting about the IPCC's study and how the narrative includes getting nations prepared for dealing with the effects.  For the last few years I've been thinking that that we've passed the rubicon of climate change and we're well on our way towards some really bad consequences.  CO2 and other certain greenhouse gases stay in the upper atmosphere a very long time, such that we're probably a decade too late.
6. I read this issue of DMCA searches on your Dropbox files.  Not entirely unexpected, as this is the sort of thing that has been going on for some time now.  But the way you put an end to these types of intrusive searches is to use strong client-side encryption where only you have the key.  No company will be able to preemptively search your files to find potentially illegal content; if a subpoena comes your way, forcing you to provide the key, you'd want to hire a lawyer to dissect the probable cause assertion, since no one would have been able to casually look at your stored content.
7. I came across this today, and it describes the very thing I've told many people for a very long time: No matter what you think, if you're not on the inside, you're on the outside and are permanently disadvantaged.  That info you read online was released to insiders before you had a chance to read it.  The cute little analysis you've done off financial data was already automated via XML releases, allowing the insiders to know what was going on long before you could sit down in front of your computer.  The advice a broker is giving you, is days or weeks old.  The insiders have their own insiders, and you're just a casual outsider wanting to run with the bulls.  You built your own analysis algorithm that is successful, but guess what, those insiders have quants who earn their money beating your algorithms, then rewriting them over and over to stay ahead of we, outsiders.  It's an arms race and outsiders are permanently disadvantaged; if this wasn't so, then having connections on Wall Street would be a pointless and expensive waste of capital.
8. Alabama's Nick Saban is either genius or wildly nuts.  Upon hiring Lane Kiffin earlier this year, he's now hired Tosh Lupoi.  Both are considered talented coaches on offense and defense, respectively, though not without controversy.
9. Blackberry, what art thou thinking, with severing distribution ties to T-Mobile in the US, along with further cost-cutting measures in the distribution channel?  Coming on the heels of selling your own building, factories and slashing payrolls, it almost seems as though you've got your own little Chainsaw Al up there in Toronto, eh?
10. Finally, Paul Ryan showed off his Sparkling, Neo-New, This Time it's Different Because it's Newish, Path to Prosperity budget plan.  With all of the same devices of deception from his prior budget plans, of course, but doubling down on slashing spending on the poor (Medicaid), elderly (Medicare and Social Security) and the middle class (ACA) coupled with better (re: lower) tax rates for the rich.  Ha.