Own the Odium

Although our providing $117M over the last 5 years to support Olympic athletes was good, calling the effort "Own the Podium" was a lousy idea. It paints Canadians as arrogant, bad sportsmen and small minded. To add to this display of rudeness and lack of respect, access to practice sites was strictly limited (to Canadian athletes). We denied access to the Olympic Oval to German, Chinese and Dutch teams to give home-grown athlete's an advantage. Aksel Lund Svindal, of Norway, who usually trains in Canada, wasn't allowed to continue that activity, pre-Olympics. American speedskater Catherine Raney, who spent more than seven years living and training in Canada, was told that the Canadians did not want foreign athletes training with them leading to the 2010 Games. ("It’s un-Canadian", Raney said.) At the Whistler downhill course, unfamiliar to most of the world’s best skiers, several medal contenders were left watching over a fence as the Canadian team trained. Australia's moguls team was prevented from attending a training camp with the Canadian team. As noted in the Globe and Mail: "Canada – lovable, fair-minded, tolerant, decent Canada – has allowed its athletes to practice at venues denied to other countries' athletes. Other countries are furious at Canada's poor sportsmanship." It makes me ill. Then, the tragedy: The death of Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili. How much can be attributed to the lack of practice runs by non-Canadian competitors? Were we gracious hosts? Hardly! WAKE UP CANADA! "We stand on guard for thee" doesn't mean locking doors to "foreigners". It's not that excluding competitors is unusual. Many host countries do it. For example, the world-leading Chinese and Australian aerial skiing teams were locked out of a training complex in Utah at the behest of the rival US team. Canadian skaters didn't get on the ice once in the last (Turin) Olympics and skiers were not allowed to train with the Italians. WE SHOULD NOT!! And "Own the Podium" pressure was on for the athletes. For example, Kristina Groves won silver in the women's 1,500 speed skating. That was a failure. She was apologetic. As the Vancouver Sun noted: "Somebody should be apologizing for what's happening here. But it isn't our athletes." However, I was pleased to see (hear?) the largely Canadian audience cheer all athletes, regardless of country-of-origin. Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, thanked Canada "For your unfailing courtesy" and "... for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us." That's Canadian, eh? Perhaps I should modify my rant: Wake up CANADIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE! You've made us seem vain, immodest, unseemly ... and un-Canadian. Canada has won more medals than ever before and the most gold of any country (in Winter Olympics). So, am I a proud Canadian? Hardly! It was best described by the Times online: Well done, Canada, you Own The Odium. ------------------------------------------ Canadian speed skater, Clara Hughes, the world's only Olympian to win multiple medals in both Summer and Winter Olympics, said: "It's been incredible to be Canadian here and to feel the sense of pride, to see all these young people out there watching and learning and being inspired. To me that is the value of the Olympics and that is the potential of sport and if you're going to base that only on medals, I don't know what planet you live on." Good fer you, Clara! ------------------------------------------ In 1988, Canada held the Winter Olympics in Calgary. It's regarded as one of the best. It was .. like an invitation to the world: "We have these neat new facilities. Come play with us!" Canada didn't win a single gold medal. Those were the days, my friend. ------------------------------------------ Now here's a great Olympic story: The Snow Leopard, from Ghana. Now here's a lousy Olympic story: Brian McKeever, legally blind, was hoping to become the first athlete to compete in both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. He qualified for the Olympic team after winning a 50K trial in December. At the last moment, he was removed from Canada's four-man team for the 50km cross-country. Why? "Officials" thought they had a better chance of winning without him. Own the Podium. Remember? McKeever was devastated. I would have been proud had all the Canadian members of the team volunteered to let Mckeever race. The race is today (Sunday, Feb 28). I can't say I'll be cheering for the Canadians. I will be cheering for the Canadian hockey team.

 

Gold Rush

One thing fascinating about short-track speed skating is watching for the unexpected (then placing the blame): Click to enlarge. Is that Ohno pushing Tremblay? Is that Hamelin pushing Sung Si-Bak? Is that a Canadian judge ... pushing for more Canadian Gold? I had to stay up (way past my bedtime) to watch. -------------------------------------------------- The P.S. Rule: If A lays a hand on B and B immediately falls, then A is disqualified. By the P.S. Rule, both Hamelin and Ohno get a DSQ. So who gets what? Sung Si-Bak gets Gold, Tremblay gets Silver ... and the P.S. judges gets Bronze.

 

Krugman

One fella whose opinion I respect is Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman. When there's something of consequence happening in the U.S., I rush to read his column. Today, I was not disappointed. I was amused to hear Republicans complaining about the need for this and that and Obama (as his usual cerebral self) quietly noting that this and that are in the proposed healthcare bill. Anyway, the health reform discussion was an interesting diversion from watching the Olympics for hours (and hours). P.S. What's sad (but not surprising), is the recent hike in health insurance premiums. A few years from now, health insurers can claim: We haven't raised our rates since early 2010.

 

Go Norway!

Check this out: Norway's population? 4.6 million. Roughly half the population of New York City !!

 

Internet slouch

I happened across a recent report from Harvard University that compares Internet Access and Speeds. I always thought we (Canada) was doin' good. After all, lots of households got Access, eh? Click to enlarge 'course, if 100% of Canadian households had Access at 1 byte / hour, would that be good? Alas, we is jest creepin' along, with slower speeds and higher prices: Click to enlarge Well ... at least our life expectancy ain't bad, eh? That means 80.7 years of slow & expensive Internet. -------------------------------------- Check your speed here then look here. Are you better than Mongolia?

 

Gold medal, eh?

It's been a long wait Congratulations, Joannie

 

Stock tracker

Years ago, I made up a clumsy spreadsheet that'd track some stocks throughout the day so's I'd see when to Buy or Sell. Alas, the spreadsheet ran continuously and my desktop PC was tied up. Yesterday I noticed my laptop, sitting unused. Then, as a consequence of creeping senility, I finally realized that I could let the laptop run all day (while I surfed on the desktop). So I generated another spreadsheet that'd track a couple of my favourite stocks and beep when the price hit some upper or lower price, like this: The prices are updated every minute or three: I'm looking forward to trying it out today. So why don't I just put in Buy and Sell orders? This is more fun! Besides, I have a hard time deciding whether hitting the upper price should be a Sell or a Buy. Is the stock headed UP, so I should Buy? Should I lock in my gains and Sell? I also had a hard time figuring out how to make the spreadsheet beep. It turns out to be a very complicated code, namely: If Range("C7") >= Range("G7") Then Beep Did I mention the thing about creeping senility?

 

I'd talked about Darvas Boxes (tho' they is really gummy boxes, 'cause they don't follow all the Darvas Rules)** ... and I figured Darvas was just plain lucky. He happened to find stocks that were "on a roll" in a rising stock market and made a bundle. I then had to stick this into that writeup, pointing out that I (accidentally) happened upon a stock that went bananas. Namely this guy: Now if only I could find a few more I could make that $2M like Darvas. 'course, he traded on margin. Uh, let's see ... how about solar panels or maybe some lithium or maybe I should check out penny stocks... Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. John Maynard Keynes **However, I did try to mimic Darvas more closely, here.

 

Correlations

Somebuddy wrote to mention the interesting correlations between various futures. For example, this one which involves gasoline prices. It seemed too slick to be true, so I wandered about and found other neato comparisons. For example: There's a fun spreadsheet here.

 

Darvas revisited

I was playing with that Darvas stuff, typing in a stock symbol, clicking a button, typing in another stock symbol, clicking a button, etc. etc. Since I wanted top see how good (or lousy) that Darvas thing was, I needed a spreadsheet that'd allow me to type in a few dozen stock symbols, then just click, click, click to get the collection of Darvas boxes** ... like this: click! click! etc. etc. etc. So I've added that spreadsheet, as described here. ** Since these "boxes" don't follow all the rules for "Darvas" boxes, I reckon they're "gummy" boxes.

 

Darvas Boxes

Richard C. writes and asks about Darvas Boxes. As usual, I ain't never heard of 'em before. So I browse a bit and find that it's the brainchild of former ballroom dancer Nicolas Darvas (in 1956 ) and has something to do with stock prices trading in a narrow range ... for a while. For example: Microsoft, over the period Nov 18/09 - Dec 16/09): The variation is about 3%. So I draw a rectangle identifying the range. Then I see what happens after that. See? The price breaks out of the rectangle and (I guess?) one should buy the stock. "I guess", 'cause I don't know much about these Darvas Boxes. Did I mention that I ain't never heard of 'em before? P.S. I reckon the stock can break out down as well as up. There's a spreadsheet to play with. Click! See if you can find neat Boxes. ... especially recent ones. Here's a recent one (Walmart): Let's see what happens next, eh? The spreadsheet looks like this. --------------------------------------------------- P.S.

 

Happy Geng Yin

 

Back to the Future

I don't believe in any of the (financial) stuff I write about on gummy-stuff, but it's often quite amusing if not downright entertaining. However, I'm quite surprised at how well the "Predicted Future" has done for my brother-in-law's stock ... so far: Of course, the problem with predicting the next month, starting today, is that ya gotta wait for a month to see if'n it was a reasonable prediction ... or not. So I thought it'd be neat to pretend that "today" is, say, a year ago. Then we can actually see the subsequent month and how well or poorly the "Predicted Future" was. For the DOW (moving back a year or so), I got this: and this (back another year) and this (back another year) Conclusion? Pretty lousy, I'd say ... but entertaining, eh? Want to be entertained? There's a clutzy (and too large) spreadsheet here: testing-1-2-3 I should mention that, sometimes, it ain't bad. Here's Microsoft (pretending that "today" is about 3 years ago):

 

Climate, not weather

This is hilarious: Does anybody really believe that one-day weather events (or one century or one millenium) can prove or disprove global climate change? Remember this guy? (Click on the picture.) re Climate change deniers: Which is more humorous? Their arguments or their antics. Al Gore may have placed too much emphasis on the (human) cause of climate change, but not the fact. I'm often tempted to analyze recent weather patterns using Mean and Volatility a la stock market analysis.

 

Sanctions?

I must be gettin' feeble-minded, 'cause I don't understand economic sanctions (imposed on a country with a nasty dictator). I understand that some 85 sanctions were imposed by the U.S. in the period 1996-2001 (and many more, recently, by the U.S. and Canada ... among others). Do they cause political change? Hardly. Did the Iraqis rise up against Saddam Hussein? Hardly. How about the dictator. Is he hurt? One of Hussein's palaces Indeed, innocent people are hurt. Who do they blame? Their evil leader? No, it's the countries that impose the sanctions. But U.S. companies (for example) lost $billions because of the 1996-2001 sanctions, so they were hurt. In 1996, when former American secretary of state Madeleine Albright was asked on 60 minutes if she thought the death of half a million children (as a consequence of the Iraq sanctions) was a price worth paying, she replied: "This is a very hard choice but the price, we think, is worth it." So, why are sanctions the first (only?) tool employed? Are they "feel good" policies? Canadians (I'm sure) feel satisfied that something has been done to demonstrate our displeasure ... then we go back to watching the hockey game on TV. Maybe I'm gettin' old, but carrots seem better than sticks.