Nov 09
lindsayrgwattNYC google, maps, mta, subway
Last week Google added subway lines to the list of items that it shows in Google Maps for NYC. What’s neat about this is that we can now plot where the subway lines are in the real world vs. where they appear on the MTA subway map:
A couple of themes emerge:
- Manhattan is ridiculously oversized in the MTA version. Note how much smaller it should be
- If you live in East Brooklyn or the entire borough of Queens you’re pretty much out of luck when it comes to subway transport
- It is ridiculous how far the subway lines are from both JFK and LaGuardia
Nov 08
lindsayrgwattBusiness, Finance
I either didn’t exist, or was way to young to remember it, but the ‘7os were tough economic times. The reason: inflation. Prices were quickly going up, and when this happens faster than the economy grows, your standard of living drops. Here are some quick charts from the Berkeley Econ dep’t:
It took Paul Volcker raising interest rates to absurdly high levels in the early 1980’s – and thereby bringing the economy to a standstill – to tame inflation. This had a profound effect on society: the Fed send a clear signal that they would not tolerate a rapid increase in the prices of goods and services. If such a rise occurs, then they raise interest rates, even if it risks putting the economy into recession.
This has held true to today and as a result, we haven’t had any serious (excluding gasoline) increases in the prices of goods and services since 1981 or so. As a result, this type of inflation hasn’t caused this recession or any since the early 1980’s-and that’s a great thing.
However, notice that I’m being very specific in my choice of words: I’m defining inflation as the increase in the price of goods and services. Recently we’ve had all sorts of recessions caused by other types of inflation: the Tech Bubble of ‘99/00, the Oil Shock of ‘07/08 and the Housing Bubble. In fact, some folks believe that we’re seeing a bunch of other bubbles right now: Chinese property market, U.S. equities, and on and on and on.
So here’s the hypothesis: since the Fed is so tightly monitoring the prices of goods and services – because that’s how they define inflation – they’ve pushed ‘inflation’ into other markets. If you were to look at other prices and define ‘inflation’ as occurring when they rise too rapidly, you’d think to yourself “holy crap, we’ve got an inflation problem.”
There are some hints that people are starting to think this way. A recent New Yorker article on Larry Summers contained the following:
In 2007, Summers started looking at the looming economic crisis. Back in 2003, he had attended a Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in which economists were celebrating the fact that central bankers seemed to have mastered the use of monetary policy to tame inflation without causing the economy to slip into a recession, as had happened in the past. Summers warned that perhaps the victory over inflation meant only that the next recession would be caused by some new phenomenon.
And in a recent investment email, David Einhorn talked about asset price inflation:
Further, the Federal Open Market Committee members may not recognize inflation when they see it, as looking at inflation solely through the prices of goods and services, while ignoring asset inflation, can lead to a repeat of the last policy error of holding rates too low for too long.
This is a really tricky problem to solve. Taming inflation is straightforward: you just tell the public that you want inflation to be between 0.5-2% and then raise interest rates any time it looks like it might be higher. The public pretty quickly learns that you mean business and don’t misbehave.
But trying to prevent bubbles is a crazy hard problem. You can’t say something like “asset prices can’t increase more than 10% a year” because nobody is going to agree to that. There are legitimate times when a category of asset prices could increase way faster than that and it would require unprecedented (and unacceptable) government intervention to avoid it.
Instead, the challenge to the Fed has to abstract the problem and understand how to create a set of incentives to get people to behave properly. This is a really hard problem as first, everyone has to agree on what causes the problem (almost impossible as people who are making quick money have an incentive to disagree) and then Congress, etc. have to be convinced to actually implement regulation.
It’s going to be fascinating to see if the Fed and the Obama administration rise to the occasion and try to solve this problem. As the Chinese apocryphally said: “may you live in interesting times.”
Nov 07
lindsayrgwattRandom at&t
Last week daylight savings time began. One of the small pleasures of the 21st century is that you never have to worry about getting up an hour too early/late on these days because you can use your cellphone as your alarm clock. Their clocks update automatically, so you’ve effectively outsourced the problem to them.
However, it’s interesting to see that their systems don’t always work. Last week I missed a call and when I checked my voicemail, the message was from the future (Just another example of AT&T’s network failing!):
Nov 02
lindsayrgwattNYC
Here are a bunch of random thoughts/comments from yesterday’s marathon:
- As we were waiting for the race to start on Staten Island, we couldn’t help but notice the sniper on roof of one of the buildings. And it was definitely a sniper as he was defiantly placing his rifle on the ledge so that anyone could see it
- Tonnes of people showed up late for the race and therefore had to jump fences to get into the corrals we were held in before the start. Imagine training for four months and then blowing the race because you couldn’t be bothered to get to the race on time?
- The start was sudden: a message from the Mayor, race instructions and then the howitzers (race starts at Fort Wadsworth) went off, followed by us! Immediately, New York, New York began playing; a great way to start a race
- Running across the Verrazano Bridge gives you one of the best views of the city you’ll ever get. I suspect it might be the highest point in the entire city. It’s also the only bridge in NYC you can’t walk over so it’s a treat to run on. While we were running over it we were also being buzzed by at least four choppers: at one point one was above us while another was moving beside us; I almost caught the glare off the camera. I also noticed two massive Chinook helicopters headed towards us, coming in low over the harbour, but the broke away at the last moment and turned to Staten Island
- When we hit Bay Ridge (just across the bridge), the cheering began. At the first fluid station, some cheeky future entrepreneur was offering Gatorade for $0.25 (in case you’re wondering, it’s free; every mile from mile 3 onwards)
- Along the way there are lots of bands/djs. You can tell a neighbourhood’s character from the music: Bay Ridge = classic rock, Sunset Park thumps to a Hispanic beat while Harlem and the Bronx are a little more hip hop
- Fort Greene was the best neighbourhood. For the first few miles, the runners are split into three, then two groups. They come together near Fort Greene, so for a mile or so it gets quite intimate. The street, Lafayette St., narrows at this point and at the same time Fort Greene has some locals who really like to cheer. It was best summed up by the guy next to me who turned to me and exclaimed “This is fucking amazing!”
- Shortly after, we hit Williamsburg. After an inspiring run past a church with a gospel choir outside, the neighbourhood became incredibly quiet. The neighbourhood is bifurcated by the bridge and to the south it is all Hasidic Jews (it’s literally like running through Once Upon A Time In America). They don’t really cheer for marathoners too much. To the north is hipsterville and there you’ll find bands and people eating brunch while cheering you on
- When we passed the halfway mark I let out a cheer, but unfortunately I was surrounded by Europeans who didn’t seem too excited. In fact, in general, the Euros weren’t too friendly. No idea why
- Crossing the Queensboro Bridge from Queens into Manhattan was a little surreal. We were running on the lower level, so it was a bit like being in a sooty tunnel. As we ran, the trains were running beside us and I think they were going slower so that the passengers could gawk at us. I also noticed that when we got to the middle of the bridge they hadn’t yet cleaned up the bottles of the lead runners (these guys actually set up their own water bottles at spots on the course) and they were still lying on the course
- I’d heard that when you come off the bridge and hear the crowd it’s unbelievable…and it was. The roar started with a few hundred meters to go and then suddenly a crowd appeared. Their cheers became a roar and every runner picked up their speed; the cheers continued up 1st Ave
- At 81st street or so I saw another set of cops on a roof watching the crowd
- Somewhere between 90th and 100th, there was a DJ cranking Empire State of Mind. Hearing Alicia Keys sing “Let’s hear it for New York” was sonic adrenalin and made me accelerate
- As I swung back into Manhattan from the Bronx, I saw my coworker Jorgette on the corner of 137th. Very cool to see someone I recognized
- With about five kilometers to go I felt my hamstring start to twinge and new that there was no way I was going to make my goal time of 3:20. In fact, I’d been dropping time since coming hitting kilometer 30. Next year I’ll have to run longer long runs
- After the race, I got stuck next to this guy on the subway:
Before he fell to the left, he was leaning left on me:
We made a great team. I’m pretty sure I smelled because at least one person moved away from me after sitting down next to me- Finally, Timex gave out the best swag: a fridge magnet where you could put your time. Here’s mine:
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