Thursday, July 14, 2011

Brief Reminder

I wrote the following in January:

When we do hit the limit, and we don't raise it, this is what happens.  Let me put it in some familiar context:  Do you remember the 2008 crash?  The whole thing about the derivative debt fiasco, fraudulent credit ratings, write-downs forcing some of the world's biggest banks to declare bankruptcy overnight, forcing even Republicans to support TARP and multi-billion dollar bailouts, etc?  And how it brought the stock markets crashing down, killed retirement accounts, yadayadayada?  Let's have a quick refresher course.

Housing bubble leads to lots of mortgages, given to people with questionable resources, but seem affordable because rising housing prices artificially inflates the equity value and keeps a variable interest rate low.  Wall Street discovers that if they bundle mortgages together, then chop them up into chunks again, they can trick credit agencies into rating them AAA while claiming absurd rates of return.  Wall Street gobbles up mortgages and sells them off as collateralized debt obligation vehicles (CDO) to any pension fund manager, mutual fund, institutional investor, and other bank who'll throw money at at.  It's all AAA debt.  Housing bubble bursts.  Home prices crash.  Bad mortgages have their interest rates increased.  Homeowners default on payments.  CDO revenue stream starts drying up.  Panic.  Credit agencies forced to reassess CDOs at lower ratings.  Triggers reserve clauses at banks, who now A) need to have more cash on hand to balance the bad debt and B) need to write off the loss of market value.  Banks start to go bankrupt.  CDO values nosedive.  Anbody holding a CDO is now sitting on a pile of steaming shit and doesn't know what's inside.  Mutual funds drop 45%.  State and institutional pensions experience catastrophic loss.  Stock market crash.  Banks disappear.  Investment vehicles underwritten by those banks disappear.  Global fucking meltdown.  Etc.

Ok, so this happened because CDO/CMOs, a relatively modern invention, had a sudden credit-worthiness shock, which set off the domino chain.

Now imagine how many investors worldwide, how many banks and firms, pensions and IRAs, are holding US Treasury bills right now.  Way more than were holding mortgage-based CDOs, right?  And guess what happens to the AAAAAA++++++!!!!!111eleven credit rating of United States paper when we hit the debt ceiling and have to start missing interest payments and defaulting on government-issued debt.

Take a wild fucking guess.
Even a downgrade of AAA to AA could have catastrophic global consequences.  Surely you've read about how Greece and Spain's debts are killing Eurozone banks and other EU governments who own portions of that debt?  Global holdings of US debt is like that times a thousand.

Would a brief period of interest default necessarily cause 2008 Round 2?  No.  The chances are, however, nonzero, and any government official who even thinks about daring to risk the consequences should be immediately (forcibly?) removed from office.

This will impact foreign governments, foreign and domestic banks, mutual funds, variable insurance products, tank the bond markets, raise interest rates (making future debt even more expensive), everything.  The stability of US government debt is a cornerstone of global finance.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Draft Analysis conclusion

Speeding this up because it's become agonizing to transcript player stats across pages when it takes 15 seconds per player page just to load.  I'm not sure why we pay for Optimum Boost when all our web traffic gets channeled through a proxy that roughly approaches dial-up speeds.

Now I can't even load player pages.  Fuck this, I'm winging the last three rounds with no stats.

Round 19

14: (12) Michael Pineda - SP - (Stew)
13: (6) Erik Bedard - SP - (Chris T)
12: (7) Bud Norris - SP - (Owen)
11: (9) Russell Martin - C - (Fabian)
10: (2) Brian Fuentes - RP - (Mike)
9: (4) Mitch Moreland - 1B - (Joe)
8: (1) Chase Headley - 3B - (Tom)
7: (14) Placido Polanco 2B/3B - (Chris J)
6: (3) Luke Gregerson - RP - (James)
5: (13) Carlos Lee - 1B/OF - (Austin)
4: (8) Joel Pinero - SP - (Paul)
3: (11) Hideki Matsui - OF - (Kyle)
2: (5) Marco Scutaro - SS - (Ryan)
1: (10) Brian Roberts - 2B - (Shawn)

Round 20

14: (13) Scott Baker - SP - (Mike)
13: (9) Logan Morrison - OF - (Chris T)
12: (3) JP Arencibia - C - (Stew)
11: (14) Derek Lowe - SP - (Tom)
10: (1) Chris Sale - RP - (Chris J)
9: (8) Scott Rolen - 3B - (Owen)
8: (7) Dexter Fowler - OF - (Paul)
7: (11) Kyle Drabek - SP - (Joe)
6: (12) Joaquin Benoit - RP - (James)
5: (5) Derrek Lee - 1B - (Shawn)
4: (6) Juan Gutierrez - RP - (Fabian)
3: (4) Darren O'Day - RP - (Kyle)
2: (2) Ian Stewart - 3B - (Austin)
1: (10) Bobby Jenks - RP - (Ryan)

Round 21

14: (6) Jordan Walden - RP - (Chris T)
13: (2) Freddie Freeman - 1B - (Mike)
12: (3) Stephen Strasburg - SP - (James)
11: (8) Clayton Richard - SP - (Paul)
10: (1) AJ Pierzynski - C - (Tom)
9: (7) Jack Cust - OF - (Owen)
8: (11) Kerry Wood - RP - (Kyle)
7: (12) Jon Garland - SP - (Stew)
6: (13) Adam Laroche - 1B - (Austin)
5: (5) Juan Uribe - INF - (Ryan)
4: (10) JA Happ - SP - (Shawn)
3: (9) Clay Hensley - RP - (Fabian)
2: (14) Desmond Jennings - OF - (Chris J)
1: (4) Brad Emaus - 2B - (Joe)

Final Scores

1: Owen (175) [+1]
2: Chris T (174) [+1]
3: Chris J (169) [-2]
4: Stew (153) [+1]
5: Mike (152) [+2]
6: Tom (146)
7: Austin (141) [-3]
8: Paul (127) [+2]
9: Kyle (123) [-1]
10: Shawn (118) [-1]
11: Fabian (113) [+1]
12: Ryan (112) [-1]
13: James (99)
14: Joe (88)

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Draft Analysis pt5

Round 16

14: (3) Carlos Beltran - OF - .282/.372/.486 42-53-3 (Stew)
13: (8) Ryan Madson - RP - 15 SV, 34K, 2.03/1.19 (Owen)
12: (1) Neil Walker - 2B/3B - .248/.320/.381 41-51-4 (Chris J)
11: (9) Jon Rauch - RP - 7 SV, 23K, 4.05/1.17 (Chris T)
10: (12) Ryan Theriot - 2B/SS - .293/.344/.350 32-28-4 (James)
9: (4) Angel Pagan - OF - .263/.346/.371 28-24-13 (Kyle)
8: (14) Juan Pierre - OF - .262/.320/.306 35-20-11 (Tom)
7: (10) Rajai Davis - OF - .234/.263/.347 28-17-18 (Ryan)
6: (13) Andres Torres - OF - .222/.321/.357 28-13-8 (Mike)
5: (2) Kurt Suzuki - C - .217/.289/.324 23-18-2 (Austin)
4: (6) Hisanori Takahashi - SP/RP - 0 SV, 29K, 3.41/1.28 (Fabian)
3: (7) Octavio Dotel - RP - 1 SV, 25K, 4.35/1.35 (Paul)
2: (5) Jeff Niemann - SP - 2-4, 24K, 5.58/1.41 (Shawn)
1: (11) Chone Figgins - 2B/3B - .190/.239/.255 21-14-8 (Joe)

This awful round is brought to you by everybody listening to the "get stolen bases cheap" advice of fantasy baseball publications near you.  Like "don't pay for saves", that strategy isn't working out so well.  I had significant issues ranking everything from Pagan down, so those four outfielders could probably go in any order.

Kudos to Owen again for finding (and lucking into) a gem, and similarly Stew for taking the risk nobody wanted to take until the reserve rounds.

Round 17

14: (13) Anibal Sanchez - SP - 6-2, 111K, 3.30/1.19 (Austin)
13: (12) Mike Adams - RP - 1 SV, 41K, 1.17/0.65 (Stew)
12: (1) AJ Burnett - SP - 8-7, 91K, 4.12/1.26 (Tom)
11: (14) RA Dickey - SP - 4-7, 74K, 3.68/1.34 (Chris J)
10: (3) Jake Peavy - SP - 4-1, 36K, 4.47/1.08 (James)
9: (5) Matt Capps - RP - 13 SV, 21K, 4.63/1.11 (Ryan)
8: (6) Tyler Clippard - RP - 0 SV, 59K, 1.91/0.85 (Chris T)
7: (10) Brian Duensing - SP/RP - 6-7, 68K, 4.25/1.46 (Shawn)
6: (11) Carlos Ruiz - C - .254/.355/.348 21-18-0 (Kyle)
5: (9) Denard Span - OF - .294/.361/.385 32-15-4 (Fabian)
4: (8) Bronson Arroyo - SP - 7-7, 61K, 5.49/1.42 (Paul)
3: (7) Magglio Ordonez - OF - .209/.284/.281 11-11-0 (Owen)
2: (2) David Aardsma - RP - 0, 0, N/A (Mike)
1: (4) Hong-Chih Kuo - RP - 0 SV, 13K, 9.72/2.04 (Joe)

Round 18

14: (13) Gavin Floyd - SP - 6-8, 77K, 4.17/1.20 (Mike)
13: (7) Koji Uehara - RP - 0 SV, 50K, 2.13/0.79 (Paul)
12: (14) Sergio Romo - RP - 0 SV, 38K, 2.36/0.86 (Tom)
11: (1) Ivan Nova - SP - 8-4. 51K, 4.12/1.47 (Chris J)
10: (2) Alfonso Soriano - OF - .264/.306/.485 30-37-1 (Austin)
9: (6) James McDonald - SP - 5-4, 74K, 4.40/1.59 (Fabian)
8: (10) Carl Pavano - SP - 5-6, 49K, 4.19/1.30 (Ryan)
7: (11) Derek Holland - SP - 6-4, 75K, 5.10/1.54 (Joe)
6: (5) James Loney - 1B - .281/.322/.360 23-31-3 (Shawn)
5: (9) Luke Scott - 1B/OF - .223/.305/.408 24-22-1 (Chris T)
4: (8) Brandon Belt - 1B - .211/.328/.281 7-4-2 (Owen)
3: (3) Evan Meek - RP - 0 SV, 12K, 4.40/1.88 (Stew)
2: (4) Rafael Soriano - RP - 1 SV, 10K, 5.40/1.73 (Kyle)
1: (12) John Lackey - SP - 5-8, 45K, 7.47/1.63 (James)

Skimping on the text commentary because I don't have much to say.  Obvious lucky picks are obvious, obvious goats are obvious.

Updated scores:

1: Chris J (150) [+1]
2: Owen (145) [-1]
3: Chris T (134)
4: Austin (128)
5: Stew (120) [+3]
6: Tom (117) [+3]
7: Mike (115) [-2]
8: Kyle (109) [-1]
9: Shawn (108) [-4]
10: Paul (104)
10: Ryan (104) [+1]
12: Fabian (95)
13: James (75) [+1]
14: Joe (71) [-1]