• Chuck Norris can borrow at the discount window
• Chuck Norris can sell $300bln in high yield loans before lunch
• Chuck Norris’s curves are never inverted
• Chuck Norris doesn’t hedge . He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t target inflation. He roundhouse-kicks it until it begs for mercy.
• The Chuck Norris dollar buys 3 Canadian dollars, and trades at parity with the euro.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t supply collateral, only collateral damage.
• The tears of Chuck Norris would supply enough liquidity to solve the credit crisis. Too bad he never cries.
• When the yield on a Chuck Norris bond goes up, the price also rises.
• Chuck Norris trades on fear and greed simultaneously.
• Alan Greenspan calls Chuck Norris “The Maestro.”
• Chuck Norris has already banked his dividend payment from Northern Rock Plc.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t borrow at the Fed’s discount window. Chuck Norris LENDS at the Fed’s discount window.
• There is no market regulator. Just a list of securities Chuck Norris allows to be traded.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t buy gold to hedge against inflation. Gold buys Chuck Norris to hedge against inflation.
• Chuck Norris charges the Bank of England a penalty rate for borrowing – And guarantees its deposits.
• Chuck Norris gets ALL of his funding from the asset-backed commercial paper market.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t mark-to-market. The market marks to Chuck Norris.
• When the U.S. economy sneezes, the world catches a cold. When Chuck Norris sneezes, the U.S. economy catches pneumonia.
• Chuck Norris thinks Credit Crunch is a breakfast cereal.
• Chuck Norris isn’t a market maker; he IS the market.
• Chuck Norris subprime collateralized debt obligations still trade at 100 percent of face value.

Thanks, BJ!

The city will use the DNA database it is building to match feces to a registered dog and identify its owner.

Owners who scoop up their dogs’ droppings and place them in specially marked bins on Petah Tikva’s streets will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys.

But droppings found underfoot in the street and matched through the DNA database to a registered pet could earn its owner a municipal fine.

Hopefully, this will be my last dog-poop-related post for a while.  Speaking of which, it’s time for Layla’s walk!

Under the pilot plan, announced this week, Sunset Scavenger will place biodegradable bags and what are tastefully called dog-waste carts in a popular San Francisco dog park. The dog poo will then be put into a methane digester, where bacteria will eat away at it for two weeks before it turns into methane gas. The gas can then be used to power appliances such as cookers and heaters that currently run on natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.

The best part about the article is that it highlights several problems that I have discussed with Katie in the past few months regarding Seattle’s bag tax.  Namely, if the 20-cent tax per plastic bag at a grocery store goes through, what do the dog owners do if those same bags were helping them comply with the dog-waste pick-up laws?  We may just see more poop going un-picked-up, who knows?  Of course, the (debateably) environmentally proper way to dispose of dog-waste is to get it into the toilet, but as most pet owners know, there’s rarely a toilet handy on your walks.  (Another way would be to compost it yourself, but there are issues of remaining bacteria getting into your vegetables or even the water supply if you do this.)

I’m wondering how much it would cost San Francisco or Seattle to provide smaller versions of these “dog-waste carts” and biodegradeable bags every few blocks throughout the city.  We already have public trash cans, public recycle bins, etc.  Why not another small bin next to it that can possibly yield some extra methane power?

I don’t mean to steal Eric Zivot’s thunder (well actually, I do), but he sent out a link to this blog post on econgrad earlier. It’s just about the funniest statistical commentary I’ve ever seen (not that that’s saying a lot.)

…the early advisers to presidential candidates can leave a big imprint. For the 2008 campaign, the six leading campaigns have each signed up their first-string economic policy teams. These advisers don’t hold the sway that the political aides do, but they can ultimately have a bigger effect on the world. If the next president is going to reform health care, attack climate change or address middle-class anxiety, the solution is going to be shaped by these policy advisers. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain’s director of economic policy, says, ‘If you’re specific about what you want to do and you win, you have a mandate.’

Link to full article

I was a little disheartened, however, by the handful of students that made an exit when they realized that my talk wouldn’t be covered on any test they had in that class. It reminded me of this website I came across a few weeks back, which discusses some of the myths and realities of college education. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of what is said, I think this professor hits on some very good points.

I know that as a student I was probably guilty of a few of these, but as a teacher, it has become clear to me that the meaning of a college education has really changed over the past few decades. You read stories about students in the olden days really getting into learning the material and deepening their knowledge base, rather than just showing up to class and doing the minimum that is necessary to get that piece of paper at the end of 4, 5, or 6 years. The huge jump in demand for a college education has forced these eager learners to pursue graduate studies. Is this bad, or is it just progress? I think we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next few decades.

Thanks again to those students who spent just 45 minutes of their Friday with me, learning for the sake of learning. I really do appreciate it.

The reason I’m posting this here is because I actually used my own family in the example, and here’s the handout to prove it: The Rotten Kid Theorem

(And yes, in my presentation, Claire was the Rotten kid. Sorry, Claire!)