David Gerard's misguided tweets..., Is he really that free and loose on Twitter? Options

[Doc glasgow]

You know, I've spent the last 10 years wondering if people were going to say "twenty-ought-something." Or even "twenty-oh-something". They never did. We're still saying "two thousand -this" and "two-thousand that." I don't think I've heard "twenty-ten" yet. Anybody? Do you suppose this "two-thousand" thing will continue through the entire freaking 21st century? Or just until I'm dead?

I've been hearing twenty-oh-something or twenty-aught-something since at least 2008. The one that really amuses me is when I hear twenty-oh-ten (20010?), abbreviated to '010.

What I'm waiting for is the name for this decade. The general consensus seems to be that the 2000-2009 decade is the "oughties" or the "noughties" (mainly the same name that the 1900-1909 decade had), but I've yet to hear a general consensus for the 2010-2019 decade. The 1910-1919 decade never acquired a catchy name, mainly because it was culturally dominated by World War I, so there's no real historical precedent.

In any case, I digress.

We don't divide the early 20th Century by decades at all - maybe we won't for the 21st either.

1900-1914 is generally designated "at the beginning of the century" or "early 20th century"
1914-18 is "during World War I" (although this really only includes 1917-18 for American late-showers)
1919-21 is "immediately after WWI"
and then we are in to the 20's and 30's - although even here the "roaring 20's" are defined by the War, the early 30's by the depression, and the later 30's are "on the eve of WWII". We don't really count decades again until 1950.

Now, if we can have a big war in the next year or two, then we won't have this current dilemma.

[Subtle Bee]

You're all bad Nostradami. We only have to work out cute shorthand up until 2012 - after that it'll all be in binary code.

[Doc glasgow]

You're all bad Nostradami. We only have to work out cute shorthand up until 2012 - after that it'll all be in binary code.

Or simply get a new calender?

We could designate today not, Thursday the twelfth of august the year of our lord 2010, but

Flounderday ,12th of Jimbo-ary, in the ninth year of our wiki

[SB_Johnny]

What will you say in the year 2525 (if man is still alive)?

"Brains! Must eat more brains!"

[Doc glasgow]

What will you say in the year 2525 (if man is still alive)?

"Brains! Must eat more brains!"

Speaking of brains......

.....does any of this have anything to do with Gerard and his twittering?

[Milton Roe]

*You know, I've spent the last 10 years wondering if people were going to say "twenty-ought-something." Or even "twenty-oh-something". They never did. We're still saying "two thousand -this" and "two-thousand that." I don't think I've heard "twenty-ten" yet. Anybody? Do you suppose this "two-thousand" thing will continue through the entire freaking 21st century? Or just until I'm dead?

We say "twenty-ten", "twenty-eleven", and "twenty-twelve" at the office, very frequently. Often, it's in connection with forward budgeting plans.

Interesting, as that is what I'd naturally expect, by extension with the 1900's (save the first decade). So many the English-speaking world won't be insane in the next decade, and will say "twenty-whatever."

I suppose part of the problem in English is that you could say "nineteen four" and not have it misunderstood, but "twenty-four" can be. I suppose that's why the "two thousand" thing has been with us so much to now. I've been expecting "twenty-ten," as this finally went away as a linguistic problem, but so far have missed it.

[Milton Roe]

We don't divide the early 20th Century by decades at all - maybe we won't for the 21st either.

1900-1914 is generally designated "at the beginning of the century" or "early 20th century"
1914-18 is "during World War I" (although this really only includes 1917-18 for American late-showers)
1919-21 is "immediately after WWI"
and then we are in to the 20's and 30's - although even here the "roaring 20's" are defined by the War, the early 30's by the depression, and the later 30's are "on the eve of WWII". We don't really count decades again until 1950.

Now, if we can have a big war in the next year or two, then we won't have this current dilemma.

I kind of like the "oughties" as it stands for all those things we ought not to have done in the first decade of the 21st century, but did anyway. Elect W. Bush. Go paranoid after 9/11 and construct the Department of Fatherland Security. Invade Iraq needlessly and then quagmire it by firing all the army and officials, who them proceded to become the "insurgency." Admire Enron. Ignore Katrina. Borrow-against and spend on the 2000-2006 housing bubble like there was no tomorrow. Ignore the health care problem until 2010. Ignore illegal immigration until one child in 12 in the country is born to illegals, and 1 child in every 3 in California is on Medicaid.

The early 20th century is sometimes referred to as the "progressive era," that that usually includes the roaring 20's. There was a "lost generation" in Paris after the Great War, but I think they had something to do with Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

The last few decades of the 19th were called the "gilded age." Perhaps what we're in now, could be called the "lead painted age." Certainly it feels like it. It ain't The Diamond Age, despite the internet.

Anybody for The Stupid Decade? We can extend it retroactively a few years to cover most of the dot.com bubble that finally got taken out officially on 9/11, sort of like the "60's" are really 1965-74.

[Milton Roe]

What will you say in the year 2525 (if man is still alive)?

"Brains! Must eat more brains!"

Speaking of brains......

.....does any of this have anything to do with Gerard and his twittering?

No. Does Gerard and his twittering have anything to do with brains?

[radek]

I kind of like the "oughties" as it stands for all those things we ought not to have done in the first decade of the 21st century, but did anyway... Admire Enron.

Enron was 90's. You're thinking Lehman Brothers and AIG (though dem Europeans were just as bad if not worse).

Ignore illegal immigration until one child in 12 in the country is born to illegals...Anybody for The Stupid Decade?

Who cares? Seeing as these are going to be (or already are) the people paying for your retirement you oughta be thankful. The stupid part is needlessly freakin' out about it.

[Milton Roe]

I kind of like the "oughties" as it stands for all those things we ought not to have done in the first decade of the 21st century, but did anyway... Admire Enron.

Enron was 90's. You're thinking Lehman Brothers and AIG (though dem Europeans were just as bad if not worse).

No, Enron went down at the end of 2001, just a few months later than 9/11. That scandal and creative bookkeeping (that would be a remarkable word if it had two p's!) took their principal accounting firm Arthur Andersen down in 2002, since obviously they didn't do their job (and probably were criminally negligent).

This all connects to the 2008 meltdown, in a way, because it was a warning that was sounded,but missed. Arthur Andersen had been the principal oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When it went down in 2002, the government used it own accounting office the GAO to have a look at these two companies, and didn't like what they found. By 2005, before the housing bubble had burst, this resulted in a big warning about Fannie and Freddie and CDOs and mortgage backed derivatives and big exposure by the government to bad housing debt and overleveraged housing related "securities." Greenspan at the time made the warnings, but at the same time refused to allow the SEC to do anything about it, saying essentially that it was a private business problem (apparently he thought Fannie and Freddie would just listen to him and get totally out of the housing reated securites business). Short story: they didn't.

The story of how the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a woman named Brooksely Born, tried to regulate derivatives in the late 1990's and was shot down by Greenspan, Rubin and Summers, and ultimately congress which had its finger in its ears, is told here in this Frontline special you should watch.

Born got her chance to say "I told you so" later. Of course it was too late. Greenspan had been out of office for 4 years and the economy had been in meltdown for two.

Anyway, the rest of it is history. Bear Sterns was saved by the Feds in early 2008, but when Lehman was going down, the Feds decided to let it. Its collapse touched off such a financial storm that the Feds had to bail out AIG and pass TARP as an emergency in late 2008, and off we go.

Ignore illegal immigration until one child in 12 in the country is born to illegals...Anybody for The Stupid Decade?

Who cares? Seeing as these are going to be (or already are) the people paying for your retirement you oughta be thankful. The stupid part is needlessly freakin' out about it.

Excuse me? These people are not going to be paying for my retirement. These people are not even going to pay for their own retirements. These are not engineers, nuclear physicists and heart surgeons who are sneaking across the border. They are, by even their own boosters' words, the poorly-educated people who are willing to do the minimum wage jobs that "nobody else wants to do." Except you don't build a world-class economy on the labor of people like that. But they cost the social services of your country just as much as a Ph.D. polymer chemist from China, here on an H1-B visa. More.

This is the way to destroy an economy. Places like New Zealand don't even let you emigrate if you're over 40, even if you've got a Ph.D. Because you probably won't pay for yourself before you retire. Our situation with the poorly educated from Mexico is that same problem, but in spades.

The stuff about jobs nobody else wants to do, is B.S., also. In this economy, there are plenty of U.S. citizens who'd do any job. I've a friend in the NYC metro area (Flushing) with a masters' degree in history, who can't find work as a secretary or a cook! He passed the state department civil service exam (no mean feat) a few years ago, but as a while male, he's been screwed by affirmative action. And the manual labor and blue collar jobs are all held down by "undocumented" people from Mexico. So it goes.

[radek]

No, Enron went down at the end of 2001, just a few months later than 9/11. That scandal and creative bookkeeping (that would be a remarkable word if it had two p's!) took their principal accounting firm Arthur Andersen down in 2002, since obviously they didn't do their job (and probably were criminally negligent).

This all connects to the 2008 meltdown, in a way, because it was a warning that was sounded,but missed. Arthur Andersen had been the principal oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When it went down in 2002, the government used it own accounting office the GAO to have a look at these two companies, and didn't like what they found. By 2005, before the housing bubble had burst, this resulted in a big warning about Fannie and Freddie and CDOs and mortgage backed derivatives and big exposure by the government to bad housing debt and overleveraged housing related "securities." Greenspan at the time made the warnings, but at the same time refused to allow the SEC to do anything about it, saying essentially that it was a private business problem (apparently he thought Fannie and Freddie would just listen to him and get totally out of the housing reated securites business). Short story: they didn't.

The story of how the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a woman named Brooksely Born, tried to regulate derivatives in the late 1990's and was shot down by Greenspan, Rubin and Summers, and ultimately congress which had its finger in its ears, is told here in this Frontline special you should watch.

Born got her chance to say "I told you so" later. Of course it was too late. Greenspan had been out of office for 4 years and the economy had been in meltdown for two.

Anyway, the rest of it is history. Bear Sterns was saved by the Feds in early 2008, but when Lehman was going down, the Feds decided to let it. Its collapse touched off such a financial storm that the Feds had to bail out AIG and pass TARP as an emergency in late 2008, and off we go.

The point was that the shenanigans Enron got up to occurred during the 90's and weren't prevented during the 90's. I guess you could say that "failing to heed the warning of Enron" was a mistake of the naughties. The rest of your commentary is pretty much correct.

Excuse me? These people are not going to be paying for my retirement. These people are not even going to pay for their own retirements. These are not engineers, nuclear physicists and heart surgeons who are sneaking across the border. They are, by even their own boosters' words, the poorly-educated people who are willing to do the minimum wage jobs that "nobody else wants to do." Except you don't build a world-class economy on the labor of people like that. But they cost the social services of your country just as much as a Ph.D. polymer chemist from China, here on an H1-B visa. More.

This is the way to destroy an economy. Places like New Zealand don't even let you emigrate if you're over 40, even if you've got a Ph.D. Because you probably won't pay for yourself before you retire. Our situation with the poorly educated from Mexico is that same problem, but in spades.

The stuff about jobs nobody else wants to do, is B.S., also. In this economy, there are plenty of U.S. citizens who'd do any job. I've a friend in the NYC metro area (Flushing) with a masters' degree in history, who can't find work as a secretary or a cook! He passed the state department civil service exam (no mean feat) a few years ago, but as a while male, he's been screwed by affirmative action. And the manual labor and blue collar jobs are all held down by "undocumented" people from Mexico. So it goes.

On this one though you're wrong. Ummm... not sure how much I want to get into this - and it's obviously a discussion best saved for the Annex but:

*For the most part illegal immigrants to US are people who pay taxes and social security. At the same time most of them will never collect their social security benefits either because most of them will remain illegal (i.e. not eligible) or because they will move back to their country of origin. Most of them are NOT over 40 yrs old.
*"You don't build a world-class economy on the labor of people like that" - not sure what you mean. To the extent that low skill people earn less than skilled people and to the extent that a lot of illegal immigrants are low skilled I guess their low earnings will drag down the average. So what? That doesn't mean that their presence actually lowers skilled people's wages. In fact, if skilled and unskilled labor are complementary - and in fact there's evidence that they are - the presence of more unskilled workers will boost the wages of skilled workers. As in fact there is evidence that it does.
*The cost of illegal immigrants on the social services of US is trivial, greatly exaggerated and more than fully off set by the taxes they pay. That's one thing you never hear from anti-immigration people; the fact that even illegals (vast majority of them anyway) pay taxes just as native workers do, and that by far they under utilize the social services that are available (mostly due to the fact that they're afraid that if they do they will get caught and deported)
*The situation with New Zealand is completely different. Most illegal immigrants aren't over 40. And what you're talking about is New Zealand's legal immigrants. So the "problem" with Mexico is completely different.
*I seriously doubt your friend's inability to find a job as a cook has anything to do with affirmative action. As a secretary ... maybe, but even there I'm skeptical. Affirmative action is hardly a binding constraint on low skill jobs (since a significant portion of low skilled workers are ethnic minorities it is trivial for employers to fill any implicit quotas) and very rarely enforced (not surprising since most poor people don't have the resources to pursue legal action to enforce it). And hell, if I ran a construction company or something similar I'd be weary about hiring someone with a history degree - just cuz they know the causes of World War I doesn't mean they know how to hammer in a nail. I think the problem for your friend is the history degree (trust me, I can relate) not illegal immigrants. But that's a problem with the academic job market, one which illegal immigrants are notably absent from.
*Overall the presence of immigrants has a positive effect on wages of almost all classes of native workers. The exception is the very unskilled native workers (those w/o a high school degree) but even there the effect is small (a few percent points in short run, almost nothing in long run)
*If you could move somewhere else to get triple or quadruple your present salary, would you do it? Even if illegal immigrants do have some negative effect on the wages and employment of natives - and that's a very big "if", the opposite effect is more likely - the size of that effect is simply dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the increase in the standard of living of some very very very poor people who, thanks to the ability to immigrate, have a chance at a half way decent life. That also counts for something, unless you think that only people born or naturalized in the US matter and everyone else's a dog.