I bet i'll get a pretty good time on this one.

Thank the lord for a rest day. I need this so bad. Hope you all enjoy it as much as i will be. Time to veg out!

Have a nice rest day...big hugs to the FRAT you ladies and gentelmen are simply THE BEST!!!

Carlox, NelsonBros, Fernando, Julio, Steven are going to Perú next week big hugs guys i wish you the best of lucks i'm very proud of you GO Ecuadorian crossfitters

More like convalescence day.

Ha ha.. only in Canada would you see the qualifiers being held at a hockey rink!! That's awesome..

GOOD LUCK to everyone competing this weekend, especially our Crossfit Vancouver competitors battling it out in Calgary!! !

"Hansen"

45# DB swings/ unanchored sit ups

= 33:37

Erin

Did anyone else see that the organizers of Canada East were competing in their own Qualifier? Does this mean they created the wods that they're 'competing' in? That doesn't seem to be in the spirit of CrossFit if true.

Thoughts?

that venue is awesome. Leave it to Canada to get down in a hockey rink. Great for spectators.

Hey, all CF Affiliates - if you're still on the fence about whether to buy into the RRG, watch the Dale Saran video to gain some more insight. Then, do the right thing and buy in before 5/15 so we can get this thing off the ground.

#42MARQ - CrossFit Bucks at 6:06 PM

This was covered yesterday. Read the comments there.

happy rest day people. break is doing me the world of good. cant wait to see the vid from wod 3 at NorCal.

I'm on the brink of being over - trained and I know it. I usually take one week off each year.

My body is telling me to take it this week, hope I do the right thing. Something tells me I won't.

Steve #11 - I think you missed the point of the video. Saran didn't say affiliates weren't covered. What he said was that coverage is being dropped as a result of the Makimba Mimms case, where a trainer in a former CF affiliate had Mimms do a CF-style WOD and ended up with rhabdo. Anyone who has seen/done the Makimba Mimms WOD knows that there's virtually no way he could have gotten rhabdo from that WOD, but the effect of the negative light in which CF was cast has led insurance companies to exclude rhabdo from coverage, drop some affilites, and fail to renew others. This trend will continue unless we create our own, in house, insurance company - the CF RRG.

A note on insurance policies: most are extremely difficult to read and understand. There are so many exclusions and riders that unless you've had some legal training or experience with contacts and insurance in particular, you really don't know exactly what's covered and what's not. When in doubt, ask your agent specifically what's covered.

If you read a book called "The Creature from Jekyll Island" you will laugh when you read any financial "news" article.

Steve from Ocean City, MD is right on the money.
If I was an affiliate I would trust like-minded smart folks to protect my investment with CF insurance.

Do your own homework but I dont see anybody getting wealthy off of this.

That picture is epic!

so glad for this rest day tomorrow! plan to spend it building a set of paralettes & catching up on journal articles. =) 3-2-1 GO!

The RRG needs 27K a day for the next 12 days to make it. C'mon people. Stop being cheap.

If you don't sign up, you are a loser.

Does anyone have a clue how to make their own Sandbag? I don't have anything that will hold, and not leak, 80 to 160 pounds of sand.
Got some suggestions?

Thanks.

Hey all, just got back from the Nor Cal Qualifier!

Some pics here, I'll post more tomorrow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14560957@N03/sets/72157605362707987/

At the rink eh? Gotta love those Canadians...! Love it, I'm an X-hockey player...

FoxJr. #19, try a heavy-duty duffle bag from an army depot-type store, they run ~$15-20. Double-bag the sand inside using plastic bags taped shut. If you use 10# bags inside you can easily change the overall sandbag weight depending on the WOD Rx.

Hansen
42:41
subbed glute ham situps for anchored sit ups
One of the hardest, longest workouts ever! so far after two months of crossfit!

Dale you are the man.

Today marks a year to the day that I first dipped my toes in the CrossFit Kool-aid.

Wouldn't leaving the ice on add another dimension to "modal domains"? =D

hi all,

just out of curiosity by watching 2day's photo. How much would it cost to organize a crossfit games day?
Looking at the photo it looks like a ice hockey stadium to me.

Canada has some bad ass workouts for their qf! LOVE IT! I talk to alot of people up there and they are some badasserry!

Go get on event 4!

Cheerin for you down here Melexisveticanin!

~J~

Canada has some bad a$$ workouts for their qf! LOVE it!

We are cheering for you down here Melexisveticanin!

GET IT!
~J~

Believe it or not, York Arena (in the photo above)used to host a wrestling circuit many many years ago. My brother and his friends would go every week.
http://drupal.tranquileye.com/wrestling/

I had the pleasure of judging the "Row/Burpee/Shoulder to Overhead" WOD at the NorCal Qualifiers. I judged some very notable athletes, including Freddy C from One World, Breanne Feudale from Peninsula Crossfit, and Angel Orozco from CF San Fran.

PB&J, cool pics! I hope to see you again this morning at the NorCal quals. I'm almost glad to be sidelined... many of these athletes would DUST me.

PB: Great photos. Particularly good photo of Herm and Cookie of FRAT fame! Thanks.

Sunday musings (thinking about color)...

1) Suffering massive post-cheat meal hangover.

2) Lil' Bingo and I met a color-blind Minister yesterday. Solved the wardrobe issue with his career choice, eh?

3) If you choke a smurf, what color does he turn? (I just love that one)

4) Bill Cosby. America's warm and fuzzy comic has been receiving some less than warm and fuzzy feedback about his quest to encourage the African-American community to take responsibility for many of its problems. He has specifically taken to task young Black men on the issues of crime, drug use, and the abandonment of what then become single-parent families. He has emphatically stated that the solution lies within the African-American community.

His harshest critics say that all of these problems are really the result of on-going systemic racism in America. These critics say emphatically that no effort from within the African-American community is worthwhile/necessary until this systemic problem is eradicated.

From 30,000 feet the question begs to be asked: Why can't both sides be mostly right? Why must it be one or the other? Why can't the fight against systemic racism, overt or covert racism, continue while at the same time members of the African-American community work to change the powerful negative forces that work within?

Why is this black or white?

5) Longevity. My Dad (Grampbingo) lost his high school mentor and champion this week. Margaret Nolan passed away at the age of 92 in her home town of Waltham, Mass. I shared a couple of tidbits of this story once here. My Dad is the only family member of his generation to have gone to college, pretty much solely due to the efforts of a young high school teacher who saw the intellectual spark in a child of the working-class depression, a cardboard-in-the-shoes kid. She plucked him out of the trades track and placed him in college prep, buying a pair of shoes for him to wear to graduation.

How do you live to be 92 years old? I think it's about being loved. Miss Nolan lived her entire life with her also unmarried sister, deeply devoted to one another and to their shared passion for teaching. For decades they reached out to students with love and caring, and they received the same in return. A visit from the Nolan sisters at some gathering in recent years was a significant event because of this.

My Dad planned long ago to fund a college scholarship for poor kids like himself, to be named in honor of Miss Nolan after she passed. A very wise man, counsel to my Father, convinced him to fund that scholarship right then so that Miss Nolan would know how my Dad felt, so that she could see all of the students who would benefit from the help she gave to one kid back in the Depression. My Father sent in the 27th check the week Miss Nolan passed away.

27 years ago my Father established and funded the Margaret Nolan Scholarship Fund, and for the next 27 years Miss Nolan was able to know and experience my Dad's love, and the love of all of those kids unexpectedly off to college. How do yo live to be 92? I sure don't know, but I have to think that part of the secret lies in being loved.

I'll see you next week...

Dale Saran video:

Clear, concise, too the point.

Only two questions remain. If you are an affiliate and/or a trainer, what are you waiting for? I'm in.

Oh yeah, and when did Dale staht sayin' his ahs?

:=)

#7 - CrossFit Bucks

The issue in Canada East is not that the organizers, Anthony and Jodi Bainbridge are competing. Here are the two major issues:

Event #1 - 1RM Deadlit: One of the organizers has National Deadlifting records and the other is known specifically for his deadlift (565!). The bios on their website have them both doing a max deadlift and the last workout they performed before the games was a max deadlift. They also went in the last heat so they knew how much they needed to lift.

Event #2: After no girls could do the workout in the time limit (Jodi was the only one who came close) they changed the scoring system on the fly to make the workout AMRAP in 10 min. Many competitors did not go all out because there was still another event to go and they thought they knew they were going to get 0 points. The scoring change put Jodi right to the top of the standings.

I too had the pleasure of working the row/burpee/shoulder to overhead WOD yesterday at the Nor Cal Qualifier. It was an amazing day.

The event coordinators should be proud of the work they put into making this event world class. Kudos to Austin, Jason and everybody else. I wish I could be back there today, but I need to spend some time with my family...they haven't seen much of me lately. Herm, hold down the fort bro and keep it strict!

To all the athletes that I judged, you have my respect. You were all tremendous competitors who showed a lot of heart and courage in the heat of the competition, you should be proud. Good luck today, that WOD is gonna be a beast!

Herm and Cookie, AWESOME to meet you. You make a great couple and I can't wait until I get to hang out with you guys again. Next time I hope to have my better half with me :-)

Oh, I have absolutely no voice today...none...I left it in Aromas.

#36 davelaemers

I think you should also mention event #4 if you are going to be fair, which is a 5km run (plus other painful things)... Of their many strengths, that is probably their weakest event. Regarding Tony`s 565lb deadlift, that is his PR at a body weight of 180 from years ago when he was mainly powerlifting. His numbers now are impressive but are comparable to several of the top guys in the event. He won by a small margin with his recent PR I believe (i.e., a max effort, irrespective of the other competitors lifts; again see recent workout logs). So I don`t see how you can claim that it was somehow `gamed`.

Also, are you saying that because he did deadlift a few days before the event he was somehow gaining some kind of advantage over the competitors? Did he suddenly raise his deadlift 30lbs with that one preparatory workout? Besides the fact that he has done deadlift every 8th day for the last 4 years. Read his workout log. For that matter, if there was something devious going on here, why did he post it on a public forum?

As for event 2, that decision was made by HQ directly. So making it out as some conspiracy by the organizers is disingenuous.

Correct me if I`m wrong, but HQ knows Jodi and Tony well and clearly felt comfortable with the balance of the workouts, the format, and the events. Perhaps Jody and Tony`s positions at the top are because they are superb athletes, as evidenced by their many strong performances in Crossfit WOD over their many years of dedicated training.

This is nothing more than poor sportsmanship as far as I`m concerned.

Where can I get mats like that in the picture?

Bingo -

To an-suh yaw question -

When he knew he was being listened to by a wid-uh awdience than Fenway and Yawkey way. Pissah Games tee, right?

More thoughts later. (Got your email and concur).

RJ:

Many valid points. Jodi and Tony certainly would have qualified no matter the workouts chosen. There are still points I made that you did not address which I think are worth discussing.

The scoring change was approved by HQ but was suggested by Anthony (this is what Tony Budding said in his post). Tony Budding also said that he sees nothing wrong with the events that transpired and backs the event as 100% legit (I thought this was important to mention).

In any event, I am simply stating the major issues many people felt at the event. I think they are worth the discussion and arguement to make the games better in the future. What can't be argued is that a lot of people felt cheated, and justified or not, it would be best if that were minimized in future events.

Update: The trail run is over. Everyone was sent home not knowing the standings. They took out the tireflips and keg presses at the last minute.

# 36

"Many competitors did not go all out because there was still another event to go and they thought they knew they were going to get 0 points. The scoring change put Jodi right to the top of the standings."

Yesterday I mentioned selecting the exercises (really) randomly to create a workout as an idea. If the next workout is revealed only when the last workout is completed, then people could not do what is described above. I mean, people could always not give 100% in a workout, but not knowing what the workout will be until it is time would seem to help nip 'preserving energy for the next workout by going easy on the current workout' in the bud a little, if that is an issue.

Justin

can somebody explain how the northeast qualifiers came to be held over memorial day weekend- sorry but that seems like poor planning

1286 Watts on Erg. I am HUGE!!!!

Regarding all of the talk of potential integrity issues at the qualifiers, for what it's worth, I've got an observation which has come about from reading posts and articles for a couple of years.

Don't be surprised if the "hopper" at this year's games favors well-known bonafide CFers, you know, the people who publicly follow the Zone Diet strictly and practice the Pose running method. Nothing could be more embarrassing to the Company if the overall winners don't embrace CF, Zone, and Pose as a total lifestyle...AGAIN.

Hey, it's just business...nothing personal.

Hi, I just watched the video on rowing and measuring wattage. I had to chuckle at his comment about elite rowers having trouble reaching 900 watts. Go to www.crash-b.org for views of rowing.

I really enjoy dong CF and it kicks my but on a regular basis. I am excited to see so many CF'ers adopting the erg. The technique on erg needs to be taught just like the technique is taught on cleans or squats.

Hansen. 35:36. My 14 year old accompanied me. Great experience. His time was 41.57

#21 PB

Thanks for sharing your photos. I especially liked the ones from your hike on the High Sierra Trail. Excellent.

#45, DT, writes,

"Don't be surprised if the 'hopper' at this year's games favors well-known bonafide CFers, you know, the people who publicly follow the Zone Diet strictly and practice the Pose running method. Nothing could be more embarrassing to the Company if the overall winners don't embrace CF, Zone, and Pose as a total lifestyle...AGAIN."

If you were choosing the events, what might you pick that would measure the overall fitness of the competitors but not necessarily favor people who follow the WOD's, practice running efficiently, and follow the Zone?

Or to put it more directly, what choice of events might result in well-know CrossFitter's turning in the type of poor performances that would embarrass CrossFit?

A question to everyone about the qualifiers:
(2 parts)

Q1) why isn't every qualifier the same WOD?

* I can see 2 arguments against this (1) they are on different days, (2) people can train for them. question 2 may fix that.

Q2) why not put all the girls, and all the heroes into a hat and draw 3 at random?

(maybe separate out some that have very redundant movements and interfere with each other eg. if Lynn is pulled, Linda is off the table that day, or if Isabel is pulled Randy is off the table)

#50, Mike,

What problem with the process are you trying to solve?

"Update: The trail run is over. Everyone was sent home not knowing the standings. They took out the tireflips and keg presses at the last minute."

A little sketchy, but it's a good move. That makes for a better evaluation of running ability. The world's fittest man should be able to run really well, and I think a raw running event is needed to determine that. There were already enough tests of strength, no need to add it to a 5k.

I forgot to post my time for the Hansen workout the other day.

As Rx'd in 28:42

m/24/5'8"/170#

I'm starting to do the Crossfit football workouts as well which is greatly augmenting the main site. I would recommend it to people who are looking to make gains on their olympic lifting and power lifting exercises.

#51 Hari

The problem that I see in that the way it is now it is possible for the designers of qualifier WODs to design the WOD specifically for a certain athlete.

Shane S,

You may be correct but I think the events were taken out for logistical reasons. For example, what do you do when 6 athletes show up to the event at the same time? I don't know how many 500lbs tires they had but I doubt it was much more than 1.

I also think the athletes were confused because it was announced Saturday without the events, posted with the events Saturday night and when they showed up on Sunday there was one event (sandbag run).

Did fridays wod today and felt it.

Sunday at the firestation, decided not to rest. Setup and ran the "Chipper" for the first time.

30 lunge steps
20 Pullups
400 meter run
30 Box jumps 24"
20 Ringdips
400 meter run
30 KB 45lb plate
20 Knee to elbows
400 meter run
30 Situps
20 Med Ball cleans 20lb ball
400 meter run
30 Wall Ball 10ft w/ 20lb ball
2 rope Climb 15ft

24:18

Wow that was ridiculous!!!

35/m/5'11"/205

LACERATIONS. Anyone got some experience of this?

I have seven stitches in my left index finger from a RIDICULOUSLY sharp kitchen knife last night. This isn't much of an issue for lower-body work, but anything that needs a grip is a bit screwed. Which upper-body exercises would be most practical to program in for the next two weeks?

Funny story this morning at Globo Gym !

Was doing a light sunday morning workout. CFWU x 6. A large guy, bodybuilder wannabe with gloves and straps, showed up beside me and told me ''not to do my pull ups like that''. I didn't answer him. Don't have time and energy for that. He then said : >. Finished my set, looked at him and answered. > He smiled and we got on. He choose bench press and BB curls, I choosed 1 hand DB snatch and DL.

BP
him : 190 x 1 me : 275 x 1. The look on his face ...

BB curls (you won't get strong doing pull ups ...)
him : 100 lbs x1 me : 135 lbs x 1

Then, my territory
1 hand DB snatch
him : 60 lbs barely me : 100 lbs, both hands

DL
him : crappy form 275 me : 465

His total : 525. On a good day, I can DL this wight ...

My total : 975.

Such a lesson of humility. You'll never see me doing lat raise and curls but I'm a lot stronger than you cause I train for it, not for look.

Lesson : Never mess with a guy (or worst, a girl) who does kipping pullups !

Canada East Games Qualifer

Crossfit HQ, you have a black-eye.

Mistakes were made at this event - Event selection, scoring revisions, and obvious and blatant conflicts of interest.

Canadian crossfitters are very disappointed and frustrated with the operation of this qualifier. Competitors will leave this event discouraged and disillusioned. The Bainbridges are great athletes, they don't deserve the doubt and cynicism that they will carry to the Games as a result of this competition.

I love training Crossfit and I love the type of people who train Crossfit. I admire the integrity of the program and the values you advocate.

Mistakes were made at this event and the criticism/debate has been suppressed. Over 150 comments on the event site (http://www.crossfitfredericton.com/crossfit-games-canada-east/) have been removed. I know censorship is not a value you embrace.

We can only hope you will address this situation in a professional and transparent manner and takes steps to ensure it does not happen in the future.

Glenn Butt
Mississauga, ON

Michael Osinski, author of "My Manhattan Project", clearly needs to read "The Black Swan". He seems to think there was a "correct" way to "tailor risks to the needs of investors." He fundamentally fails to understand risk, variance, and randomness. The entire mindset, that you can "model" risk ("models to create the intricate network of bonds based on the homeowners’ payments, models to predict prepayment rates, and models to predict defaults") is inescapably wrong. The attitude that you can usefully model a million random things like that is what led to the financial crisis.

Models are only history. When you start using models to predict the future, you are setting yourself up for total failure. Your models will work for awhile, until something changes. And then you lose almost everything.

Wow. The comments were removed? That is wild.

Comment #59

That may be Tou, but some define someone as stronger than you if they can beat you up, which they may be able to do even if their gym numbers are less. :}

Justin

#61 Mark M

Mark, you really don't know what you are talking about. How would you determine the price of one of these bonds? Pick a number randomly? Should they just not be traded? The fact of the matter is, you need some sort of calculation that will assimilate all of the known information about the security and spit out a number. No uncertain stream of cash flows can be valued by an individual without a model, and the use of a model is certainly preferential to the use of a dartboard. And of course individual investors can and should want to have risks tailored to their needs.

imo, the "Manhattan Project" article was populist garbage written by a guy who even admittedly wanted to be a trader, yet still felt the need to dehumanize them and make them out to be a bunch of undeserving children who have pissing contests. He mentions Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Fed as reasons as to why lending practices occurred in the way that they did, yet somehow still falls back on "Wall St greed" as the culprit, and of course gives himself way too much credit.

Nice, Tou. Nice.

It's t-minus 1 hour until tomorrow's WOD gets posted...I'm on the edge of my seat...

Comment #64- Neil, are you trying to suggest that Wall St isn't greedy? Wall Street greed is what created the housing bubble. Fannie and Freddie lost half their market share to Wall St between 2003-2005. Money was lent recklessly because loans were not held, they were sold. Investment banking industry collapsed because they purchased these loans. Had they not gotten involved, the housing bubble would not have expanded. Fannie and Freddie have been around since WWII. They never created a housing bubble. The government didn't force Lehman to leverage 30 to 1 and purchase liar loans and create CDOs with them. The government didn't ask AIG to insure these CDOs with credit default swaps.

This was a private sector mess that was allowed to happen by the government. It's a libertarian fiasco.

#44 Henry

1286 Watts is huge. Very impressive. Height/Weight/Age/Rowing background?

#60
The events of this weekend in Fredericton are very unfortunate. Most notable of these is the post event scoring change. Being an affiliate owner and coach of 2 very fine athletes this weekend, one of which experienced first hand the disappointment from this ridiculous decision. When a workout is posted as a set amount of work (5 rounds) to be completed in a specific time period (10 min max) it is completely asinine that it be changed to AMRAP as possible because the event organizers didn't like the results. This after being told specifically that ZERO points would be awarded if you did not complete the WOD as Rx'd. In the spirit of competition and fair play I implore all fellow crossfitters to make their voice be heard and give the amazing athletes who finshed the prescribed workout their just due.

"Hansen", details there.

#66 - Joe

It depends what you mean by greed. People on Wall St were acting rationally in their economic self interest within the confines of the law. If that is greed, then yes they were greedy, but so is everyone. There is certainly nothing morally repugnant about making a loan to someone who cannot get one elsewhere, yet this practice has been construed by many to be “predatory”. Fannie and Freddie were government-sponsored institutions that had over a 50% market share in the mortgage origination business. The very definition of a monopolist is someone who has the power to set prices. Fannie and Freddie could borrow money at US Treasury rates and make loans to anyone, and then the government would implicitly cosign the mortgage. The private sector was supposed to COMPETE with that. Because of the political ties to these institutions, Fannie and Freddie were pressured to make loans to risky individuals. The only way that private institutions could stay afloat was to figure out creative ways to also make these risky loans. The low interest rate environment in the early part of the decade created the illusion that this business practice was possible. Don’t you think that it’s weird how, even though this business has been around for so long, that all of a sudden, out of nowhere, everyone started making these risky loans and home prices started shooting up to record highs? Was it really that everyone on Wall St was suddenly more greedy than they were a few years earlier, or were they simply reacting rationally to the incentives put in place by the only people who had the power to drastically and suddenly change the dynamics of the market (the government)?

This was a private sector mess that was mostly caused by the government. It is only a libertarian fiasco in the sense that this crisis is being unfairly blamed on them. In reality, the libertarians had been predicting this crisis. Look on youtube for the Peter Schiff lecture to the Mortgage Bankers Association in 2006.

Southwest Regional Qualifier Winners!

Women:

Carey Kepler, Pollyanna Bobseine, Crystal McReynolds, Lindsey Smith, Nikki Hall

Men:

Dutch Lowy, Breck Berry, Lance Cantu, Vic Zachary, Jason Boag

photos: http://gsxcrossfit.blogspot.com (wfs)

I'm just got back from vacation, so I decided to do Elizabeth since I've done that one before so I would be able to compare my times

"Elizabeth" scaled down to 75lbs, same number of reps and ring dips

Time: 11:49 KILLED my previous time of 16:06

My 2 Cents on this weekends events (Ie. Canada East). Did something fishy happen with the organizers? Maybe. Were there some issues with the WOD scoring? Defiantly. Whatever, get over it. In the end, both of the would be winners withdrew and will attempt to show everyone that they deserve to be in Aromas via the Last Chance method. Good on them. I don't know if they are guilty or not, but they did the right thing here. Lets give them props for that at least. As for the scoring, the rules shouldn't have been changed, but the thought of athletes "gaming" the system pisses me off too. Go 100% on every WOD, regardless of what the remaining events are. Thats integrity to me, not "gaming" the system to make it work for you.

I dunno, just my thoughts. Take from it what you will. This isn't intended to start an argument either.

Playoff Beard-
Let's stick with "Hollywood" and forget that ever happened shall we? Otherwise I may be tempted to go buy one, bring it to The Games, and give you a big hug. Pictures will be taken. You have been warned!

haha

With that being said, i'm truly considering taking those pictures down now lest my integrity as a person be put into question by others. Hmm...

in addition to my last comment:

However, I am single. So if any CF chicks dig that kinda thing...sup? ;)

lollll

Comment #59 Tuo Nice
Usually I just shrug my shoulders because I'll get asked, "what does that do?" or "what muscle group does that work?" and like I said I just shrug my shoulders.
I have a story though.
This one is pretty unique.
I was in the women's section of our gym, its not really a womens section its just that usually the women work out there because the weights only go up to 60 and the rest is all machines, but theres a pull up bar and a place for sit ups so its perfect for Angie, which I was about to do.
Well anyway, there was a guy there, extremely jacked, and he was "training/flirting" with two girls on abs. I already hated this guy to begin with because he never would wear his hat the right way and he always had a tank top so that people at the gym could admire his really sweet tattoo and enormous lats. Complete tool, lemme tell ya. So I go get a drink and as I come back I see him put his leg over a decline ab bench, and as he does this, a pill falls out of his pocket.
I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was just a GNC multi vitamin but I just had to think it was something...else. On top of that, I wanted to tell him, but there was really no good way of putting it out there in front of his bodacious babes without myself sounding like a tool, "hey man, you dropped your steroid." So I just waited for him to back up as the girls went to town for their abs and I just kinda tapped him and pointed to it. He gave me a "nah thats not mine" gesture and went back to "training". So now I was REALLY curious. I wanted to see if he would actually pick it up after he said it wasn't his. And sure enough, about fifty reps into Angie, they rapped things up, the girls started leaving the area and meathead looked around to see if anyone was looking then picked the pill up and put it in his pocket. Now the dude can't make eye contact with me.
Moral of the story: Dont place your steroids in your pocket when training hot chicks.

Eric: You better bring the best hug you got dude, cause my man hugs are huge...I don't care what you're wearing! I'm just giving you sh#t brother, I can't wait to meet you! :-)

BTW, there were some serious looking cougars prowling this weekend, bring your g-string and your A-game to Cali in July ;-)

I wonder why, with over 1,000 affiliates, less than 100 CrossFit affiliates and trainers have paid into the RRG. The RRG sounds like an awesome program, but there must be good reasons why CrossFitters aren't signing up for it. I've been to a Level 1 cert and kettlebell cert, so I guess that I'm a "trainer" but it's mostly for hobby purposes and doing "pro bono" work with military units. I wonder if many affiliates and trainers are in the same situation I am, you know, devoted to the principles but dabbling and lurking in them as a non-profit pasttime as opposed to a livelihood.

#73 RunningStrong

Well said. In the end the proper decision was made by HQ/Organizers and they should all be commended.

Although I think it would have been difficult to go 100% in a WOD where you knew you were scoring 0 and you still had another event to go. I think that would creep into anyone's mind when deciding to either push through the pain or slow down to make the pain stop.

Playoff Beard:
It's all good, I'm used to getting sh#t for those pics anyways so i just go with the flow and enjoy laughing at myself as much as anyone else.

Eric @ The Games: Side Event
Lap dances...for time?? haha

#59 Tou,

Great story. If you had picked Fran, you could have made him cry.

Damn playoff beard, Eric, Herm, Cookie, Jakers you will have a GREAT time AWESOME fun at the games...damn I WANNA GO!!! Have fun guys

#60 "censorship is not a value you embrace."
Are you joking? Censorship is de rigueur for HQ. Comments are deleted daily on these boards and I'm surprised that yours has stayed up this long.

Tabata Something Else
Pushups, 23, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 11 = 102
Situps, 30, 25, 21, 20, 20, 18, 19, 17 = 170
Squats, 16, 14, 18, 15, 15, 17, 15, 16 = 126
Pullups, 5, 13, 12, 8, 8, 7, 7, 6 = 66
Total 464 PR

Unanchored crossover situps, pullups last because that station was wet from rain. With neighbor Bob. Wow Bingo, how the heck do you do it every week? What an inspiration!

@Comment #64, Neil:

"The fact of the matter is, you need some sort of calculation that will assimilate all of the known information about the security and spit out a number."

Guess you've never heard of the problem of induction, huh?

But seriously, go read "The Black Swan" by Nicholas Taleb. If you're still defending computer modeling you should consider having your head examined.

4/30/09
WOD
100 pull-ups
200 push-ups
300 squats
time: 44:40

Parkerblueeflamee................WOW, I thought my workout, "Chipper" was brutal, yours was insane. Nice job!

I have yet to bite the bullet and actually go to a Crossfit affiliate to workout (despite years for watching the site and changing my entire workout routine to be Crossfit-like). So, I don't know what the process is to get started working out, but, I am an attorney, so I know something about how the liability side of things works.

If they are not already, each affiliate and trainer should be going over the risks with perspective clients. Not just the risk of rhabdo, but also the risks of pulled muscles, falling weights, other people running into them... anything you can think of including EVERY way that anybody has ever been injured in a Crossfit workout. Those risks should all be identified in a WRITTEN document that the trainer reads to the participant and has the participant sign BEFORE the first workout. The participant should acknowledge that he or she understands the risks and wants to participate in Crossfit anyway. The document should acknowledge that the participant waives all right to sue anybody for any reason (except perhaps gross negligence), and should particularly point out the waiver of injuries due to the risks delineated. The participant should acknowledge that he or she ALONE is responsible for his or her safety, and that the trainers are there to help them and encourage them, but NOT to keep them safe from injury. The signed document should say that trainers may even yell encouragement to them while they are working out and that the encouragement may sound like commands or instructions, but that is NO excuse for not being careful and listening to you body. The documents should specifically waive the right to bring suit and waive any right to damages. The exact scope and content of the forms may need to vary from state to state due to state limitations on what someone can waive.

Having all of these signed documents will NOT keep you from being sued, but it may make the suit go much better for you and may help you get out of it quicker and cheaper.

#85 Mark,

The problem of induction does not apply to every assumption in every model. Not all information about a security is based on past prices.

I was hoping for pull ups!

My first official WOD since knee op...goodbye quads, great stuff coach!

Read the articles, couple comments.

First off, his delineation of mortgage backed securities into GOVERNMENT backed securities/Non-Government backed securities is a good one. His quote:

". . .when 1,000 similar loans are combined, and the U.S. government, through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, absorbs the default risk, you now have a nifty little AAA-rated piece of paper paying one or two points above Treasury bills."

Now, I see different statistics, but near as I can tell, between them Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ultimately wound up holding--through direct loans, or through their purchase of mortgage backed securities--some 70% of all American mortgages. Someone can offer alterative, specific numbers if they like, but there is NO QUESTION that FF and FM were the 800 lb. gorilla in mortgages. None. And the simple fact is that they were unregulated, and massively leveraged. I have seen numbers of up to 50 to 1.

The difference between FF/FM and investment bankers is that they were playing with taxpayer money. Theoretically, they were a de facto, for profit private corportation. But their formal name was Government Sponsored Entity, if memory serves, and particularly given that they were once overtly "in-house", so to speak, it was always understood by everyone that when you loaned money to FF/FM, your loan was backed by American taxpayers, and the credit of the Federal Government. I make that distinction for the simple reason that American tax-payers no longer fund our Government fully. Our government borrows--on our credit--the difference from other nations.

Thus, we have to see mortgage backed securities as nothing other than a means by which to provide added capital to the home loan market. Had underlying fundamentals been sound--had FF/FM not been buying up everything, regardless of creditworthiness--there would have been no problem. In fact, it is an intelligent process.

The problem arises in the subprime arena, which is basically loans that should not be made, and are only made due to the usurious rates that can be charged, and in some cases government mandates.

In effect, this is the "payday loan" business. The pawnshop where you go take out a loan on your car for some quick cash. The owner financed home at 6 points above industry standards.

This is a slimy business, and likely SHOULD be regulated much better. But to whom are these loans made? Disproportionately, to inner cities, and economically depressed areas. The same places you can't find banks, but CAN find check cashing services (and bail bondsmen) everywhere. If the interest rates weren't so high, no loans would be made. Supply and demand.

Overall, though, it does not appear to me that the subprime market, per se, was the primary problem. I don't agree with the Community Reinvestment Act, but it doesn't appear to me--and I'm open to convincing--that a very large percentage of the defaults were in this area.

Most of the bad loans were in the FF/FM backed arena. This is logical, since they held 70% of the mortgages. As private businesses, their poor decisions caused them both to fail roughly 18 months ago. They leveraged themselves 50 to 1, put an ENORMOUS amount of cash into the system, and bought up pretty much every loan that hit them. This enabled local banks to NOT CARE about the quality of the loans, because they could push their "heat" off to the Fed, in effect.

The housing bubbles were, then, ultimately funded by taxpayer backed money, that was put into circulation by two organizations with STRONG ties to Democrats, and which were almost entirely unregulated, due to Democrat's defense of them from Bush's efforts to regulate them.

Fannie Mae was FDR's program. Freddie Mac was Johnson's. First was New Deal, second was War on Poverty. Both had as their explicit intent making home ownership easier. Both accomplished it, much too well.

Second comment: I think the point is valid that the effort, in effect, to centralize information in the form of credit scores, Credit Rating Agencies, and other instruments, is a prima facie rejection of the value of Hayek's Distributed Information.

We have talked often about the perversion of the CRA's. I don't question this happened, but I wonder if the reliance people placed on them worked to (acted to, in Hayek's terms) rationalize what would otherwise have been manifest stupidity. Investors KNEW that mortgage lenders were making loans that were ridiculous. Why then listen to the CRA's lies? Surely we all know people can be bought?

Ultimately, we also all know what best practices are. People who know you, can vouch for you. People who know you, may tell a prospective investor to run for the hills. CRA's and credit scores are unnecessary to this process.

Socialism, as an illness, is the substitution of Harvard intellectuals for the local banker who has known John Smith all his life. It is the substitution of general principles, for common sense and personal observation.

Local is always better. Anything we do, in my view, to keep the Government away from the banks--for example by eradicating entirely both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--would be useful.

The second author mentions the Gold Standard as contributing to the Great Depression. As many of you know, Ron Paul has called for this.

The reality of the Gold standard is simply that it prevents rapid expansions of credit. You have to have a physical quantity of gold for every dollar issued.

To the extent that our problem is excessive credit, something like this would be useful. But the overarching problem is simply that the cash being injected into our economy is coming from the Government. And it is not coming from taxes, but borrowing.

It is bad enough, in my view, to move money through taxes from local governments to large States. It is worse yet to move money from the future into today. And if that is an inaccurate analysis, it will only be because we go bankrupt, which I am half persuaded is Obama's actual goal anyway.

#89 - Neil,

Nor is the problem of induction the only problem with modeling.

"you need some sort of calculation that will assimilate all of the known information about the security and spit out a number."

Of course, by definition, your model can't include unknown information. The unknown information can include factors that seem irrelevant (or impossible) at the time the model is created, but which eventually have a huge impact on the outcome.

Further, the farther out the model projects, the more unknown factors are likely to drastically alter the output.

Models are BAD, because (1) they're mostly useful until something unexpected happens and then they're suddenly and completely wrong, and (2) people think because there is a lot of complicated statistics and computers involved that the model can't be wrong.

Mark,

The question is not: are models perfect. The question is "are they more useful than guesses, or inaction?"

Your view that "Models are BAD" is a model. All computers do is spit back what we put into them. They are just human thought, amplified by the capacity to do an almost infinite number of calculations.

If you look at IPCC models, for example, they COULD actually be made useful, if they were conducted in a spirit of honesty. Likewise, the software in play here appears to have been intended to facilitate business transactions, and not to model accurately the real world.

Common sense tells you that if banks by the thousands are selling bad loans, and in so doing supporting a housing bubble which HAS to burst at some point, then the bonds based on them are likewise going to lose their value at some point as well.

No question irrational greed--which I would distinguish from the "ordinary" millionaire, who accumulates his capital over a lifetime of base hits--pervaded the system, top to bottom. Ultimately, though, I would argue it was the power of the Federal Government which stood backing trillions of dollars in mortgages, and--as we have seen--even massive banking houses, that enabled the self delusion that preceded this collapse of both money supply and confidence.

This just in: Obama only wants to interfere in healthcare, energy, and our wars overseas. He doesn't like "meddling" anywhere else: http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2009/04/27/daily48.html?ed=2009-04-30&ana=e_du_pub

In case anyone is unclear on this, his policies are going to enact massive taxes on private industry, funnel them through a new burocracy, and then redisburse the money on the backside, less a government "cut".

With respect to health insurance, you can expect to have less choice with respect to all aspects of healthcare, and pay more for it through taxes.

With respect to "energy jobs", what he is talking about is taking taxpayer money, and funding companies investing in research he likes. Thus, these jobs are GOVERNMENT jobs. They may or may not at some point be able to cut the umbilical cord, but he really doesn't care.

You all must remember this: THE STATE DOESN'T CREATE ANYTHING. IT CAN PRINT MONEY, BORROW MONEY, OR TAKE IT IN TAXES, BUT IT IS A PARASITE, NOT A CREATIVE AGENT.

ONLY private industry creates sustainable jobs that don't depend on sucking cash out of someone else through the force of law.

Barry Cooper,

What? The state doesn't create roads? Security? Any sort of worthwhile organization? This is such a blatantly ridiculous point that you must be arguing something else, but face it, you're doing a poor job.

Geoff,

Help me out: where does the money to create, what was it? Oh yes: roads, security, any other worthwhile organization. Where does it come from? Money trees? Organic cash gardens? Is it recycled from aluminum cans? Does God put in cash every time PETA puts up a billboard with Pamela Anderson, out of solidarity with the righteousness of their cause? Does the money--could the money--come from some other source than taxes, printing money, and borrowing it?

The first shrinks investment capital. The second creates inflation, vitiating many investments. The third is a reverse investment, in which we pay for the use of someone else's money. None of them make any sense whatever, other than to fund the VERY few tasks for which a large Federal government is needed.

Yes, we need government for national defense. Our government takes our taxes, and doles it out to industry. We need roads. Our government takes our money, and doles it out to (often corrupt) highway contractors.

But this is not creation. Arguably, it creates, if done properly and intelligently, the POSSIBILITY of economic growth, but no growth is sustainable which makes no sense on its own merits.

My point is so self evident, it is eluding you. It eludes all leftists, who somehow think that the State is something other than a representative of the will of the people, and something which uses THE PEOPLE'S money for purposes which are quite often counterproductive and corrupt.

Geoff,

You misunderstood Barry. What he meant was that the government is incapable of creating WEALTH. Every penny it uses must be taken away from some productive activity. Yes, the state does and should create roads, security, and other shared goods that the private sector is incapable of providing. It should also protect private property. These actions enable private individuals to create wealth. Private individuals must innovate in order to provide better quality and prices in a competitive market. Government organizations don't have the incentives of a private organization and therefore run inefficiently and on a deficit. They also tend to have monopolies, as they undercut the private sector or use laws to prevent competition. They force these regular costs and opportunity costs onto the taxpayers. Taxpayers don't realize how much extra they are paying, nor do they see what their world we be like if they were allowed to put their money to productive use.

I will add, that I have the number of leftists. There is no way I can say this without sounding arrogant, but the simple fact of the matter is YOU CAN'T DEFEND YOUR OWN POSITIONS. It is impossible, since they are contradictory, and counterfactual.

Read his post. Let us analyze it like we would a wine, or a fine meal.

What is the first thing he does? He misunderstands me. Now, this could be intentional, or simply a lack of intelligence, but either way it seems to me the lack of effort directed to the response shows a lack of concern for factual debate, and rather a desire to create the APPEARANCE of content, prior to the next sentence.

He then tells me I am "blatantly ridiculous" and doing a poor job. Why exactly the points above are "ridiculous" or that I am doing a "poor job", he leaves wide open.

In leftists discourse, the goal--always and every time--is the marginalization of your opponent. The methods are shown above: insincere, half-assed argument, combined with insult. It shuts most people up, who either have thin skins, or don't know as much as you pretend to know.

For "content", you only need to know enough to create an argument that sounds good. A very common tactic is a simple recitation of alleged crimes of your opponent, with the thought that if the list is long, some of them MUST be true. If presented as slogans, they are even more effective.

Now, in true Communistic rhetoric, the preferred method is calling people by the names of various animals, as in Sartre's "Anyone who opposes Communism is a dog". One sees lice, spiders, pigs, leeches, ticks and other things cited in the record often as well, almost invariably in tandem with what might be termed the process of "marginalization by murder", which typified ALL Communist regimes.

"Pinko" rhetoric is simply slightly more subtle. You merely get called a Fascist, right winger, or one of the almost infinite varieties of stupid.

The one-two punch, then, is very simple, and very predictable. [plausible sounding statement] [insult].

That's how you do it. This model will fit almost any message board on the planet where leftists condescend to try and reason with us lesser mortals, who remain unconvinced of the foundational and definitional sanctity, truthfulness, and perfection of the State in all its many beautiful forms.

Who ignorantly retain, to be clear, some sense of personal independence and liberty from the coercive authority of self satisfied and ignorant intellectuals, who are hell bent on saving the world even if they have to kill everyone on the planet to do it.

First ever triathlon

Tri-Miami Sprint Triathlon

Swim - 0.25 mile
Bike - 12.4 miles
Run - 3.1 miles

Swim/Run- 0:21:35
T1 - 7:54
Bike - 0:51:16
T2 - 2:40
Run - 0:32:45

Total - 1:56:10.638

Barry Cooper,

You call me a leftist. I assure you that I stand somewhere to the right of most anarchists. I simply don't appreciate your weak bending of facts and rhetoric to suit your personal crusade against Communism. You call the government a parasite while railing against your enemies for calling others varieties of pests, while providing no citations.
Sorry Barry. I am right, and you are both wrong and a hypocrite.

The Government IS a parasite. A parasite is something which depends on something else for its existence. The State depends on its police power of coercive taxation, the credit that cash flow enables, and its legal authority to create money. Paper money, to be clear, is not wealth.

The State is not useless. We need it. But it IS uncreative. It does not build, but rather uses wealth. It does not provide the money to build roads. It does not provide the money for national defense. It will not provide the money to fund the millions of jobs Obama promises from "clean" (i.e. from sources that won't work) energy. It will not improve, but rather damage our national health care system.

If you believe the State creates things, then how is it you are "to the right of most anarchists"? How does that work? Explain your politics so we can understand them. Until you do, I have to guess, and unless you do, I believe I am warranted in my suspicion that either I am right, or you haven't thought your own ideas through.

You cite my "weak bending of facts and rhetoric". Which facts?

Quite obviously, my summation of leftist rhetoric was an ideal type. Actual iterations of this sort of thing vary widely, but I would offer that the following conforms reasonably well.

Ostensibly plausible argument, which uses no facts, and which manifestly does not engage with any important claim I've made:

[You call me a leftist. I assure you that I stand somewhere to the right of most anarchists. I simply don't appreciate your weak bending of facts and rhetoric to suit your personal crusade against Communism. You call the government a parasite while railing against your enemies for calling others varieties of pests, while providing no citations.]

Insult: [Sorry Barry. I am right, and you are both wrong and a hypocrite.]

Son,

These are deep waters you're swimming in. I've read the Black Book of Communism, and I know that Obama has willingly surrounded himself with Communist sympathizers his whole life. I have no patience whatever for postliberal bullshit, and will offer you no quarter whatsoever.

The Government IS a parasite. A parasite is something which depends on something else for its existence. The State depends on its police power of coercive taxation, the credit that cash flow enables, and its legal authority to create money. Paper money, to be clear, is not wealth.

The State is not useless. We need it. But it IS uncreative. It does not build, but rather uses wealth. It does not provide the money to build roads. It does not provide the money for national defense. It will not provide the money to fund the millions of jobs Obama promises from "clean" (i.e. from sources that won't work) energy. It will not improve, but rather damage our national health care system.

If you believe the State creates things, then how is it you are "to the right of most anarchists"? How does that work? Explain your politics so we can understand them. Until you do, I have to guess, and unless you do, I believe I am warranted in my suspicion that either I am right, or you haven't thought your own ideas through.

You cite my "weak bending of facts and rhetoric". Which facts?

Quite obviously, my summation of leftist rhetoric was an ideal type. Actual iterations of this sort of thing vary widely, but I would offer that the following conforms reasonably well.

Ostensibly plausible argument, which uses no facts, and which manifestly does not engage with any important claim I've made:

[You call me a leftist. I assure you that I stand somewhere to the right of most anarchists. I simply don't appreciate your weak bending of facts and rhetoric to suit your personal crusade against Communism. You call the government a parasite while railing against your enemies for calling others varieties of pests, while providing no citations.]

Insult: [Sorry Barry. I am right, and you are both wrong and a hypocrite.]

Son,

These are deep waters you're swimming in. I've read the Black Book of Communism, and I know that Obama has willingly surrounded himself with Communist sympathizers his whole life. I have no patience whatever for postliberal BS, and will offer you no quarter whatsoever.

I will add, more generally, that I am often told that Communism is dead. Irrelevant. Who, today, could still worry about it? Well, roughly a third of humanity still lives under Communism, in China. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons, and is developing--slowly, as we are seeing--missiles capable of delivering them to targets thousands of miles away. Cuba still lives under a fascist dictatorship which denies ALL of the basic liberal rights of freedom of speech; freedom of assembly; freedom of religion; right to petition for grievances; right to keep and bear arms; and the right to live, generally, in liberty. Che Guevara was a murderous, fascist thug, who killed some of his best friends simply because they didn't agree with his EXACT, pro-Soviet, pro fascist views. He was killed, ultimately, because nobody liked or trusted him.

But how could people like that exist in a liberal democracy? How could people be so stupid as to want to work in those directions, when we already have the most prosperous, most generous--politically, socially, and economically--nation in the history of the world?

Well, it's simple. People like Geoff--if I've read him correctly--lie. They lie about their intentions, and they lie about who they are. They find a cause--the exact nature of which is irrelevant, provided it is superficially plausible--and then use that cause to gather the support of weak-minded people, who then help them get into power.

Once in power, they purge moderates, and the whole point of the exercise--the acquisition of naked power--becomes regrettably clear. If you read Obama's political primer--Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky--you quickly notice that he is LONG on ideas about how to get power, and almost entirely silent about what to DO with that power, the POINT of that power.

Studying Obama's proposals for universal health care, one sees readily that nothing of value is going to be added to our system--all of it still has to be paid for--and much that is bad--such as massive reductions in choice--will be forced down our throats.

What is the value of Universal Health Care? Simple: it SOUNDS GOOD. It sounds like you get something for nothing, that there is a free ride, that someone else--out there somewhere--will pay for everything--hell, the STATE will pay for everything, through its magical creation of money--and you just have to take it easy.

What has happened in this process? An engine for control of large segments of private industry has been created. A means which, in malignant hands, offers the potential for the further consolidation of power into what promises, ultimately, to be an autocratic state purportedly governing the people for their benefit, but actually operating solely and completely for the perpetuation of POWER, by and for self annointed ELITES. These elites, self evidently, get power posing as Populists, and advocates of the people. This lie has been told so many times that only the massive and inexcusable failures of what might be termed our "memory apparatus" enables it to continue to work.

I've posted this link before, but it is a MUST READ: http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1588/article_detail.asp

It shows the autocratic--to be clear, what are for all intents and purposes the COMMUNISTIC--impulses of the Environmental movement.

"McKibben and many other environmental writers affect an indifference toward, or transcendence of, politics in the ordinary sense, but ultimately cannot conceal their rejection of the liberal tradition. Here we observe the irony of modern environmentalism: the concern for the preservation of unchanged nature has grown in tandem with the steady erosion in our belief in unchanging human nature; the concern for the "rights of nature" has come to embrace a rejection of natural rights for humans."

"Al Gore employed the same "communitarian" trope in his first and most famous environmental book, Earth in the Balance (1992), where, in the course of arguing that the environment should be the "central organizing principle" of civilization, he suggested that the problem with individual liberty is that we have too much of it."

"Several environmental authors now argue openly that democracy itself is the obstacle and needs to be abandoned."

"Another recent self-explanatory book is The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy by Australians David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith. Shearman argued recently that

[l]iberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the U.S.A., unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens.... There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties."

Note the use of the word "collective". What this means is tyranny of the people by the intellectuals and savages.

Then he goes on to praise the Fascist regime in China:

"To retain an inhabitable earth we may have to compromise the eternal vicissitudes of democracy for an informed leadership that directs. There are countries that fall within this requirement and we should use them to initiate more active mitigation.... The People's Republic of China may hold the key to innovative measures that can both arrest the expected surge in emissions from developing countries and provide developed nations with the means to alternative energy. China curbs individual freedom in favour of communal need. The State will implement those measures seen to be in the common good."

And so it goes. These people--tenured, smart people at well respected universities--are quite literally laying the ideological blueprint for the END of our liberal, liberty valuing traditions.

That they are doing it on the basis of crappy science is beside the point. NONE OF THESE RADICALS CARES IN THE SLIGHTEST IF THEY ACCOMPLISH ANY GOOD, IF THEY CAN JUST GET POWER.

If you wonder why I get cranky, well just ponder a future life in a concentration camp, ruled by people like Nancy Pelosi, who are sure they know what legislation we need, but can't figure out within an order of magnitude how many people live in the United States. Who, in other words, fail to rise to the educational level of an average fifth grader.

Did you all see that Michael Savage was recently barred from entering Britain for his "far right" views. See above on "Pinkos". They don't want diversity. Savage has not committed any crimes, nor has he advocated crimes, to the extent of my knowledge. They simply don't like his politics. This, from the home of John Stuart Mill, is proto-fascism.

As a general rule, when Leftists speak of tolerance, they are at that very moment not practicing it. Tolerance doesn't apply to diverse views. It applies to diverse views YOU DON'T LIKE. Mill argued this quite well, and carefully.

Perhaps their school system has failed as well, and they don't read their own great lights any more.

The banning of Geert Wilders was quite bad as well. Wilders is one of the few souls willing to tell the truth in what many seem to want to turn into a preapocalyptic world, while protesting the virtue of their self loathing, and unprincipled intolerance.

Here's "right winger" (synonym for "enemy of the people", itself synonym for "person we must hate this week") Michael Savage interviewing a prominent and articulate critic of the propaganda being spouted by the IPCC, who was himself banned from hearings on "climate change", the outcome of which will be economically and politically devastating: http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=5614

Why, after all, would Democrats submit themselves to the prospect of contrarian views, when they already know all the answers?

Studying the history of Communism, the beauty of it is you never have to admit you're wrong, since you can jail and murder all evidence to the contrary.

There is no structural difference between banning people from participating in open debate, and sending them to concentration camps. Obviously, there is a tremendous difference in EXTENT. But the underlying sentiment--sanctimonious self certainty which brooks no dissent--is the same. And the underlying intent--consolidation of power--is likewise the same.

Think about this: what happens if we get hit with some disease which kills a third of our population while the Democrats are in control? What happens if we get hit with a nuke or a number of nukes? Who takes the reins of power and runs with them? Who "knows best"? Who made a campaign stop at the home of a man who plotted concentration camps in the Southwest, and the deaths of ten's of millions of Americans who refused to be "reeducated"?

The same people who loathe America, and criticize her and sell her short every chance they get.

I needed to get this off my chest. If anyone wants to debate any of these points, have at it. I've already outlined the strategy I expect.

Ref: Cap and Trade, which will increase average US household energy costs $3,000--a regressive tax if ever there was one--see this article: http://news.ibj.com/ibjemg/ibjemails/2009_04_27_IBJDaily_Standard/Articles/36404.htm?1=1&EGEmailID=1269&PublicationID=1&PublicationDesc=IBJ%20DAILY&EmailType=Standard

Money quote: "I think, rightly understood, the cap-and-trade legislation represents an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals in Washington," Pence told The Star Press in Muncie."

Last post of the day. Read this article about a dystopian fantasy of a military historian: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4845

We read little about it, but the technology exists today for a perfectly hermetic autocracy. No leaks. No flaws. No deviations.

Who do you trust in power? People who want to solve your problems for you, or people who expect you to solve your own problems?

It really is that simple. Which path will we choose?

Osinski says,

>>The packaging of heterogeneous home mortgages into uniform securities that can be accurately priced and exchanged has been singled out by many critics as one of the root causes of the mess we’re in. Osinski, p. 1.

Many maybe, but not all critics. Felix Salmon wrote an online piece in Wired Magazine entitled “Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street”, laying the blame squarely on David X. Li, “On Default Correlation: A Copula Function Approach”, The Journal of Fixed Income, 3/00.

Osinski’s passive voice conceals priced by whom? Does Osinski claim to have created that price with his software? In fact, the investments were properly priced for neither the risk nor the ratings given them.

Heterogeneous seems quite the wrong word. The bundles were made rather homogeneous as to risk. That's how a separate market developed at all for subprimes. And here lies the cornerstone of the crash. The US government required lenders to make reportedly 10% high risk loans. Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA). This was the initiating action of the crash, an act of over-regulation.

In response, the loan originators first jiggered the bad loans with buydowns to trap the pigeon, but it had the effect of keeping him from coming home to roost for a year or two when the sky rocketing price of homes began to flag. Meanwhile and immediately, they separated the mortgages into two homogeneous stacks, good vs. bad bonds, and managed to purchase AAA ratings for both stacks! Was this what Osinski means by “accurately priced”?

What the lenders along with the rating agencies, the investment bankers, and Congress did was jigger next the securitization system in a rather unregulated environment (according to the Democrats). The ratings however were a fraud, violating fiduciary duty and criminal code on the part of everyone involved. More layers of regulation will not solve this problem, and the CRA remains on the books. It’s no wonder the banks are defying Obama by not lending. More CEOs will need to be replaced. What the new regulations will accomplish is concealing the complicity of certain Senators who shared the profit from the boondoggle.

Osinski says,

>>But when 1,000 similar loans are combined, and the U.S. government, through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, absorbs the default risk, you now have a nifty little AAA-rated piece of paper paying one or two points above Treasury bills. Osinski, p. 3.

But the U.S. government, through Fannie & Freddie or otherwise, did not absorb the default risk. If it had, the instruments would have held their value. S&P, Fitch, and Moody's never would have downgraded them as they did from 7/07 to about 11/08, precipitating the collapse. The collapse would not have occurred but for the lack of risk backing. We might still be enjoying a highly over-leveraged, multi-tiered, supremely risky, securitization credit system if the government had absorbed the default risk beforehand.

Osinski hints that his software might have assigned the AAA ratings. It did not.

Only the gullible would believe that an instrument paying one or two points above T-bills and T-bills could both be AAA. That gullibility was especially true where the instruments were known to be connected with subprime. That is, unless the government was thought to be absorbing the risk.

How much did Osinski contribute to this gullibility? Does he contend that people relied on his program to trust the stated price or rating?

Apparently the rating agencies did their own rating and without the Osinski program. Starting in 1996, Moody’s used its proprietary Binomial Expansion Technique (BET) to produce what it called a diversity score on which to base its ratings. On 8/10/04, it scrapped BET to switch to Li’s simple Gaussian Copula formula. Following Moody’s lead, the other rating agencies followed suit. Li substantially post dates Osinski’s work, and Osinski doesn’t mention Li at all.

Osinski says,

>>The software proved to be more sophisticated than the people who used it, and that has caused the whole world a lot of problems. Osinski, p. 2.

and

>> It hurts when people say I caused this mess. I was and am quite proud of the work I did. My software was a delicate, intricate web of logic. They don’t understand, I tell myself. Perhaps it was too complicated. But we live in a world largely of our own device. How to adjust and control these complexities, without stifling innovation, is the problem.

The bottom line with respect to Osinski is that he is over-blowing his own horn. His software caused no problems, but actually helped with sensible pricing and ratings in the period when pricing and ratings were honest.

Osinski says,

>>Bonuses got bigger because the Wall Street boys were doing good for themselves and the world. Osinski, p. 4.

Bonuses got bigger because of the pervasive corruption of corporations following Michael Milken’s lead. Corporations no longer exist to provide the best product and services for their niche, but instead they exist to maximize cash flow and debt for the enrichment of the Boards, and especially the CEOs. This is OK for a private corporation. It is theft and criminal for a publicly held company. This corruption creates a tangential problem for the ever deepening crisis, and demands more government intervention in an already over socialized and failing economy.

Osinski says,

>>As the government lowered interest rates to stimulate the economy, bonds increased in price. Osinski, p. 5.

The government influences interest rates, but doesn't exactly set them as Osinski implies.

As market interest rates decline, all investments increase in value, and vice versa. Prof. Gesiak's lessons in present value were inadequate.

Osinski says,

>>The Feds raised rates. Osinski, p. 6.

Reading on, he appears to be referring to circa 1995. The Fed brought the Federal Funds rate down sharply from 9.79% on 7/1/89 to 2.66% on 1/1/93 as part of a little appreciated bank rescue plan. It returned the rate during beginning at 2.85% on 1/1/94 to 7.8% on 7/1/96. For all practical purposes, the Fed can set this rate, but not the overall market interest rate. This overnight rate was less than the established inflation rate then of about 3.7%, which held from mid 1989 to mid 1991. Thus the Fed created the appearance of a negative real interest federal funds rate, or in other words, free money. The idea was to pump up the banks (at the public expense), ostensibly so that they would reduce interest rates on loans and stimulate the economy. Instead, they bought equity.

Economists like to say that inflation occurs from expansion of the money supply coupled with the velocity of money. This is true enough with respect to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). But inflation is immediately apparent in the yield of long term treasuries sold at auction even, as now, when the velocity is minimal. The treasury yield represents a small amount for the utility of money, a tiny bit for AAA risk, plus inflation during their term. The Fed is now monkeying with the yield by short circuiting the auction. It is buying down Obama’s borrowing, having already committed $300 billion just for 2009. The last time the Fed did this was in the decade from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, and that policy triggered the economic over expansion in the 70s, and when the Fed had to abandon its policy the bottled-up inflation surged to over 22%, causing the catastrophic failure into the 80s of investments, S&Ls and banks. The Fed is bottling up an unprecedented U.S. surge in inflation being created by Obama.

The crash was not caused by Osinski’s program, nor by Li’s formula, nor by failure to heed the silly Black Swan conjecture. Osinski and Li provided an excuse for fraud. The raters knew what was going on. Aaron Lucchetti wrote,

>>In one email, an S&P analytical staffer emailed another that a mortgage or structured-finance deal was "ridiculous" and that "we should not be rating it." The other S&P staffer replied that "we rate every deal," adding that "it could be structured by cows and we would rate it."

>>Meanwhile, an analytical manager in the collateralized debt obligations group at S&P told a senior analytical manager in a separate email that "rating agencies continue to create" an "even bigger monster -- the CDO market. Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters. ;O)"

“S&P Email: ‘We Should Not Be Rating It’”, Wall Street Journal, 8/2/08.

The present crash was caused by S&P, Fitch, and Moody's precipitous withdrawal of fraudulent ratings assigned to investments backed by subprime mortgages. This was on the heels of AAA subprimes just one or two years old defaulting at rates close to 10%, and much faster than good AAA mortgages. There was no housing bubble to burst -- just a little flagging in the growth of home prices was present and sufficient. The several trillion dollar, 20-fold, untraceable leverage of the subprimes through Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) collapsed first, and reverberated beyond with the bursting of the rating bubble, the loss of trust, and the widespread loss of accounting value in all rated assets.

I have an exam tomorrow, Barry, so I'll keep it short, but when you write,
"Who do you trust in power? People who want to solve your problems for you, or people who expect you to solve your own problems?

It really is that simple. Which path will we choose?"
I think that you're making a false dichotomy (that's not the precise phrase I'm looking for; instead of there being more than the two choices offered, I don't think that there is one). Vanishingly few of the people who "expect you to solve your own problems" exist in any kind of politics today.

"Starting in 1996, Moody’s used its proprietary Binomial Expansion Technique (BET) to produce what it called a diversity score on which to base its ratings. On 8/10/04, it scrapped BET to switch to Li’s simple Gaussian Copula formula."

Again, cue "The Black Swan". Using Gaussian distribution in finance is fundamentally wrong!

Re Yves Smith, “Musings on Structural Challenges to the Financial System”, in Naked Capitalism:

This article must be read with the commentary. Together, it is analogous to maggots in a corpse arguing over which one killed the body. No insult intended, but the article and commentary are decidedly insider, microscopic views of the crash. It is an autopsy that mentions the bullet in the brain just in passing so that it can focus on the consequential shut down of the organs.

Yves Smith says in his article,

>>There have been massive information losses. Much of sound banking credit processes has been replaced by sophistry, such as score based credit models that have been demonstrated to perform badly, incomplete loan files (so no one has enough borrower G2 to do updates and triage for mods), a reliance on ratings and hedging in place of credit analysis, even a mortgage registry service that only reduces transparency. And the very worst element is that securitization vehicles make debt restructuring, a key element to resolving a financial crisis, well nigh impossible.

Strange that he would mention "a reliance on ratings", but say nothing of the loss of information in the ratings themselves. The ratings given to the subprime bonds and the various layers of derivatives were fraudulent, and when S&P, Fitch, and Moody’s withdrew AAA ratings only a year or two old, confidence in the whole rating system collapsed. The bubble burst. Not just subprime mortgage backed securities (MBS) failed along with their tiered derivatives, but prime MBS and their CDOs collapsed. So did commercial bonds and all their leverage. The largest banks, which had morphed themselves into investment banks, and investment banks, and insurers were left with no way to assign a value to most of their portfolios. They suddenly were short reserves. Their backstop for an emergency was gone, and they couldn’t make their debt payments. Credit and the velocity of money came to a halt.

General Motors and Chrysler have done the same thing. GMAC got $5 billion and Chrysler Financial $1.5 billion from TARP, and asked for more.

Smith says,

>>But the lack of any thought, much the less action, on the securitization front is troubling. And I suspect no real fix is possible. [¶] It's surprising nothing has been done on the rating agency front. That's a contained element. [M]any good proposals have been made, yet not a peep from anyone in authority. If small fry like them can't be reformed, clearly nothing serious is in the offing.

Thus if anything could be done, fixing the rating system would be easiest and should go first, but regardless that won't happen. So Smith drops the subject to focus on secondary and tangential problems. Why even read the rest of the paper? It and the commentary focus on relatively fine tuning securitization and bank business plans, turning them back into risk takers laboring under a broken rating system.

Some commenters said that securitization is not a problem at all. And in the information model of the credit system, the use of ratings is prominent but the information inherent in the ratings is not!

Obama is trying to manufacture a recovery with anti-growth stimuli (spending) instead of real stimuli (tax rate reduction). He is creating a massive and unprecedented increase in borrowing, which is highly inflationary and constrictive. Meanwhile the Fed is trying to bury the effects by intervening in the treasuries auctions to buy down interest rates.

At the same time no one in the Administration mentions the core problems to fix them. We still have the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 on the books, obliging lenders to make a certain percentage of bad loans. Now it must be done without securitization. We still have a busted rating system with nothing being done to make it objective and transparent. These can’t be fixed because of the culpability of certain important Senators (e.g., Obama, Dodd) who were being greased to look the other way by the culprits in the subprime securitization scam.

Smith says,

>>Which brings me to the Depression. There are many theories of why it spiraled downward, but the one I find most persuasive was that it was the result of the efforts to restore the gold standard in the mid 1920s (worsened by France pegging the franc too low and accumulating massive gold reserves). The key observation from works by scholars of that era like Peter Temin is that the banking and political leaders of that day felt restoring the gold standard was pro stability, and perhaps even more telling, they were virtually unable to imagine a world without it.

Fiat money has been proved to work as well, and in some ways better than backed currency. FDR was distracted by the gold rigmarole, which kept him from just getting out of the way of the self-priming, free-market economy.

Some Republicans say Obama is printing the money he's going to spend. All of our money is printed! When a country prints money to cover debt, it doesn’t keep track of it. We borrow instead, so we pay interest on what we add. That interest has first draw on future national income, and it is on the way to being a dangerously large percentage. It can lead to national bankruptcy.China and the Saudis buy our debt not out of generosity and camaraderie. They spend dollars for profit and safe-keeping. They will stop soon after treasuries are no longer real AAA investments.

Some Republicans say we’re putting a burden on our children and their children. That’s sort of true, but more misleading. When we borrow, we incur immediate added interest expense. Our children and their children will not pay off the new debt. We never do that. When old treasuries come due, we pay them by selling fresh ones. The debt is permanent, and the cost is the interest rate. And inflation can make the interest rate go up. The system can go unstable.

Obama is trying to implement Lord Keynes’ spend-to-grow model, which FDR spent a decade proving counter productive. Pools of cash at various spots in the economic loop only create a transient velocity and hording. What is needed is not cash but streams of income, a flow into the hands of consumers and the promise of a flow into the hands of capitalists, the ones who take risks with their money and what’s left of their credit. Not many people are going to build a factory or introduce a new product for a one-time sale. The economy has a flow variable, the velocity of money. Goods come from bets on the future velocity from demand backed by wages.

Even WWII did not bring the world out of the Depression, yet it absorbed a huge share of the unemployed and spent money furiously. What got us out of the Depression was a pent-up demand for goods and services created by the depression and wartime shortages, plus the contraction of government employment and the sharp cut backs in tax rates and spending. Capitalists returned to investing, stimulated first by the pent-up demand, and new found cash flow from reduced tax rates (58.6% for 1944 vs. 38.6% for 1946, effective Federal individual income tax rates). Those capitalists built up inventory, and put people to work. The consumers now had jobs and purchasing power, not a one-time cash payment.

What the Democrats don’t know is that cutting high tax rates increases tax revenue. The Democrats don’t want to know because their mission is income redistribution to create a constituency, not federal income to do what is best for our country and as the world leader.

Smith says,

>>The saddest fact of all at present, to me, is that much of what our 'crisis response' consists of is likely to make our subsequent outcomes WORSE, both economically and politically. This is the first major crisis the US has completely flunked on since the 1850s. Our exceptional luck in the grim 20th century has about run out with the turn of Century 21.

Does Smith think we passed the test of the Great Depression?

Obama is debasing the dollar, leading to an inevitable, huge inflation. This discourages capital investment. One reason is the risk that inflation adds to investing. This will certainly be reflected in the CPI, but it will take a while because the velocity of money is low. It would be evident immediately in the borrowing, if the market for treasuries were free. Treasuries trade at a rate reflective of the utility of money, plus a minute risk, plus inflation over their term. However, the Fed is masking the effect by purchasing treasuries. It plans to spend $300 billion in 2009 to hide Obama’s spending. This action provides an artificial price support to treasuries keeping their yield low, and damaging their value as a measure of inflation.

The Fed buy down creates an artificial, low market interest rate throughout the economy. The last time it was tried was in the late 60s to mid 70s, and it caused negative real interest rates, and massive investing in useless capital: cities in the desert, excess manufacturing capacity, wind farms, loans for anything, huge bonuses. A person is a fool not to borrow when real interest rates are negative; the trick is figuring out what to do with the money. The Fed found that it had to buy more and more of the debt every year just to keep up the charade. When it could no longer keep up the charade, it let go of its end of the rubber band and dumped much of its holdings. Interest rates soared to over 22%, investment portfolios collapsed, S&Ls and banks went under. The Fed has again stepped onto the slippery slope.

Government spending is not stimulating, but is contracting. It is not expansive, it is contractive.

Obama is threatening return on investment through confiscatory taxation.

Obama is foreclosing on capital accumulation. The stock market is bust, at present seeking a new level to adjust to Obama’s generous new accounting rules. But capitalists still can't borrow because the credit market is defunct.

Obama is nationalizing, replacing economic growth with political objectives. He intends to force auto makers to build cars no one wants. He insists banks make bad loans. He intends to nationalize health care, about 17% of GDP, which will queer growth in instruments, drugs, and facilities. Economic well-being is proportional to energy consumption, and Obama plans to kill energy consumption. The recession will soon be a full blown depression.

Obama is doing nothing about the rating system. Assets cannot be evaluated.

Obama is doing nothing about public corporations that exist to maximize cash flow for the aggrandizement of Boards, and especially CEOs. Too many corporations no longer operate to accumulate seed money for new products and services, but instead operate to pay its profits plus whatever it can borrow to the CEO. They are turning into corporate shells. Banks are no exception, converting themselves into investment banks.

One of the commenters said,

>> Business 101 is about "borrowing" at cheaper rates to "lend" at higher rates. Employee compensation is the difference between those two rates and the velocity of the money. Employee compensation can be maximized by increasing the arbitrage or by increasing the velocity of money."

This is the banking and MBA distortion of capitalism. In this model, capitalism is no longer about capital accumulation and deferred gratification, risk management and risk taking, and selling to an eager market. This MBA model removes product and value-added to substitute pure cash flow and deal making. Cash flow trumps better products and services in the boardroom. It explains why risk-taking banks turned themselves into investment banks. It explains why investment banking came to dominate the economy. It explains the conversion of American corporations from competitive -- satisfying customer niches with superior goods and services -- into non-competitive -- maximally indebted shells paying family fortunes to their CEOs from exhausted products now being built in the Third World.

Some choice comments:

>> The bigger and longer-term question re disintermediation is whether the banks can compete. Can they recover the sort of "relationship" business that used to be their bread and butter before the capital markets became so dominant. The credit markets are going to take a long time to return to handling stuff that smacks of risk.

>> Now we have the government frantically trying to backstop a money system that completely removed itself from the "real" economy. Very hard to see how that works. Everyone needs to take their losses and quit putting it on the tax payer. I really don’t see the value of middlemen who simply make money off money, outside a very conservative banking system. The further money disassociates from the "real" economy, the bigger the fall -- so we learn again. No one needs a bunch of complex equations to understand that.

>> National and global crises demand a paradigm shift for resolution, forces resisting paradigm shifts worsen and prolong the crisis.

>>I've just about reached the point that I think the regulatory use of ratings -- either as a mandate or a safe-harbor for fiduciaries -- should be abolished. They're too easy to game on the sell side, and they seriously erode fiduciary responsibility on the buy side.

The U.S. is deathly ill with the securitization pandemic, and the doctor and staff on duty are quacks.

Jeff,

Excellent commentary, particularly the part about the Fed buying back Treasury bonds, and the role this is playing in delaying inflation.

I agree fully as well that there is some merit to the argument that what amounts to corporate greed has much to do with this.

Now, when Oliver Stone had Gordon Gecko say "Greed is good", we all know he was attempting--in his oh-so-subtle way--to indict a SYSTEM, that of a world without Obama and his Harvard hacks.

Yet, the foundational difference between conservatives and leftists--the difference articulated at length and well by Edmunde Burke over two centuries ago--is the difference between reform and rejection.

You don't kill patients because they need an amputation. You keep what you can, and reject what is bad. In this case, everyone knows full well that abuse invites regulation, and that in some way, in some form--and this would be a fruitful topic for debate--we need to get back into the business of BUSINESS. Business, in my world and my understanding of the word, is about pride. It is about providing something good, that people need, and doing it in a competitive environment which determines what is a fair price.

In a very real sense, pride depends on shared understandings of what is desirable. It is not obvious on the surface, but I personally blame the cultural disruptions of the 60's and 70's even for the collapse of morality in the 80's and 90's. All of these executives were influenced by the cultural hedonism on display everywhere in that period, and if you add to that superficial readings of Ayn Rand--do what you want, it will all work out--you get what we have gotten.

Morally, there is room for negotiation between sincere so-called Progressives, and both political and cultural Conservatives. There is NO room for negotiation with those who want to reject our system and our values in toto. There is room only for battle with those people, who are quite literally trying to end every bit of good we as Americans have accomplished in two centuries.

Nick,

You may or may not see this, but I will say that in my view formal dichotomies do often work to generate clarity. The real world is always fuzzy, but I do think, regrettably, that even sincere intellectuals have to embrace sloganeering in our postmodern, postrational political world. Who understands their thinking, and who doesn't, becomes clear quickly in substantive debate.

Also, the simple dichotomy can easily be expanded into something larger by inserting "direction" for "position". What direction are we moving? Towards, or away from greater State control of our personal lives?

We know, as one incontrovertible example, that the low fat lifestyle endorsed by powerful Washington agencies was wrong. What if they had mandated it? Think it over.