tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23641472482877768122024-03-18T21:33:27.540-07:00Lorem IpsumUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-81784297571312566792019-01-16T17:20:00.001-08:002019-01-16T17:20:12.070-08:00Meera's Caltech Y Alternative Spring Break<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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During Spring Break, 2018, Meera and other Techers went to Texas for a week to help rebuild homes in areas hardest hit by Hurrican Harvey. Here's a <a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/alternative-spring-break-offers-students-valuable-experiences-81980">link to an article</a> about that (and a pic of M!)<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-83596798533903016952014-05-03T22:30:00.001-07:002014-05-03T22:36:30.618-07:00Social Mesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here's a <a href="http://www.screenplaysmag.com/2014/04/02/device-based-mesh-network-seen-as-step-beyond-cellular/">new one</a>. Don't like the picture, though.<br />
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The older ones are<br />
<a href="http://www.viodi.tv/2013/12/27/an-indestructible-wireless-broadband-network-for-all-part-1/">http://www.viodi.tv/2013/12/27/an-indestructible-wireless-broadband-network-for-all-part-1/</a><br />
and<br />
<a href="http://www.viodi.tv/2013/12/27/an-indestructible-wireless-broadband-network-for-all-part-2/">http://www.viodi.tv/2013/12/27/an-indestructible-wireless-broadband-network-for-all-part-2/</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-32729985757106213512012-09-26T17:46:00.003-07:002012-09-26T18:10:57.185-07:00Understanding US Debt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Since there is a lot of misleading information about US debt being thrown about, and very few <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html">fact-based articles</a> I thought that it might be useful to collect the data. Both about levels and ownership of US debt, and about US holdings of foreign securities.<br />
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The US debt currently stands at about $16 trillion. The public holds $11.27 trillion, or 72% of this debt, and foreign governments own the remaining $5.7 trillion (28%.)<br />
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<img height="221" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Estimated_ownership_of_treasury_securities_by_year.gif" width="400" />
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Of this, China and Japan each hold about $1.1 trillion: the full list of foreign holders (as of July 2012) of US debt can be seen <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt">here</a>. Some interesting take-aways<br />
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<li>China's holdings have been decreasing -- from $1.3 trillion in July 2011 to $1.1 trillion a year later</li>
<li>this represents about 7 % of US debt, but represents about 15% of China's GDP (<a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2195.html">estimated to be $7.3 trillion in 2011</a>.)</li>
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As an interesting aside, household debt is almost exactly the same (in 2011) as the amount of US debt that the public owns (the figure below is from the NY Fed's <a href="http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/national_economy/householdcredit/DistrictReport_Q22010.pdf">Quarterly Report on Household Debt</a>.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEia1tcqR5fWvk-8d7nmTVomdkVu17aHeFetPRATrFSAmneSgFRsusaNG3y4FXjz3gQAi9tth5i40rrDpAkpptL8oXbCM2NR4zF_UKHqzYsVzL_zGRCjaRaNx3vCflrMFPEzUAAtCeic2/s1600/householddebt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEia1tcqR5fWvk-8d7nmTVomdkVu17aHeFetPRATrFSAmneSgFRsusaNG3y4FXjz3gQAi9tth5i40rrDpAkpptL8oXbCM2NR4zF_UKHqzYsVzL_zGRCjaRaNx3vCflrMFPEzUAAtCeic2/s400/householddebt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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How much does the US own of other countries' debt? The <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1696.aspx">latest release by the treasury department </a>shows that, as of December 2011, the US owns about $6.8 trillion of foreign debt ($2.3 trillion) & equity ($4.5 trillion). If you're interested, here's the<a href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/shc2010r.pdf"> complete report for 2010</a>.</div>
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So does the US government actually own more foreign securities ($6.8 trillion) than other governments own its debt ($5.7 trillion) ? In Krugman's article, he claimed that </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">"<i>... every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more</i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i> from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors.</i>"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">I cannot find support for the 89% number: here's the summary of the numbers (in Trillions of dollars)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqxXX_z7eugfIYIUziK24HPk_eG-C2VKhKE-e1lrrMB0HBoq20uqjkyk_jERne6Ke-F8IJU7egUi2XH7Q5Sw6vCofuft1y9vC5ZR5oxGVbSUHIx90swwWW8FKj_JPwKnNsn9Lu9Y5ZL15/s1600/debttable.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqxXX_z7eugfIYIUziK24HPk_eG-C2VKhKE-e1lrrMB0HBoq20uqjkyk_jERne6Ke-F8IJU7egUi2XH7Q5Sw6vCofuft1y9vC5ZR5oxGVbSUHIx90swwWW8FKj_JPwKnNsn9Lu9Y5ZL15/s400/debttable.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">So, if the respective amounts are $5.7 trillion owed and $6.8 trillion held, then the ratio is actually 119%. If the amount held is $2.3 trillion, then the ratio is 40%. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">However, the statement that the US earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors can be validated: if you combine the data provided by the St. Louis Fed's FRED (aka <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fred-2012-3">the most amazing economics website in the world</a>) on <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOPXR">Income Receipts on US Assets Abroad</a> (BOPXR) and on <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOPMI">Income Payments on Foreign Assets in the US</a> (BOPMI), the resulting chart shows that receipt have consistently exceeded payments, and increasingly so in the last few years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">And maybe that's the most relevant set of data.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-8399323530056067892010-11-05T00:19:00.000-07:002010-11-08T14:11:06.088-08:00Federal Funding for NPRA letter to NYT in response to their editorial <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/opinion/30sat3.html">"The Noise about Public Radio</a>" can be read <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/opinion/lweb05npr.html">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-11251069589253538982009-03-15T22:31:00.000-07:002014-05-03T22:33:29.218-07:00Rethinking Original Intent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123699111292226669.html">great article</a> on how the Reconstruction Amendments (13-15) enacted after the Civil War changed the way in which individual and states' right are viewed.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-83284967094365993482008-05-03T11:07:00.000-07:002009-05-01T22:10:47.028-07:00A Re-Start<a href="http://www.vampiretravel.com/travelogue">http://www.vampiretravel.com/travelogue</a> is now alive, and has a slightly more polished slideshow, courtesy Lytebox.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.krishnamoorthy.com/travel/travelogue"><br /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2364147248287776812.post-1954328460276842922007-08-01T17:14:00.000-07:002019-01-16T17:15:28.199-08:00Bottled Water<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/opinion/l03water.html">Letter to the NY Times on bottled water. </a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1