Author: Natasha

Finance Industry, Real Estate Market Threatened by Mortgage Fraud

~ Natasha ~ 10 Comments

The emerging media consensus on the foreclosure fraud scandal is that, well, the banks might have committed some ‘technical’ errors, but the homeowners weren’t paying their bills, so it all evens out. Those technical errors appear to include perjury and fraud.

In the middle of the worst recession in generations, media professionals feel free to talk as if being broke were the moral equivalent of breaking the law, as Diana Olick does in this CNBC video segment where she squares off with Barry Ritholtz:

Unfortunately for the finance industry, (and we’re playing the world’s tiniest violin just for them) the instability they’ve created for ordinary Americans is threatening to collapse real estate and investment markets again, potentially putting them on the hook for massive investor lawsuits:

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Walk It Off

~ Natasha

Harvard Business Review recently posted on the discovery that workers who nap are more efficient, correction in the original:

… When Sara Mednick, a former Harvard researcher, gave her subjects a memory challenge, she allowed half of them to take a 60 to 90 minute nap. The nappers dramatically outperformed the non-nappers. In another study, Mednick had subjects practice a visual task at four intervals over the course of a day. Those who took a 30 minute nap after the second session sustained their performance all day long. Those who didn’t nap performed increasingly poorly as the day wore on.

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 percent increase improvement in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight. …

That might not seem to have anything to do with another study I read about, indicating that traumatic childhood experiences can have lifelong health effects, as per a massive research study on the effects of childhood trauma:

… Childhood adversity radically increases the risk for physical illnesses and disabilities, including heart and lung disease, autoimmune disease, liver disease, cancer (48 percent greater chance), diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, hepatitis, and chronic pain. It’s shocking to learn, though it probably shouldn’t be, that [individuals who experienced 6 or more categories of adverse events in childhood and young adulthood] die, on average, two decades earlier than those [who report none]. …

Is it likely that workplaces will start adopting naps? Nah. Looks too lazy. People just lay there, you know, not doing anything. Refusing to maximize their therbligs.

Is it likely that the health system is going to be revamped to deal with the reality that people’s unattended social traumas are actually damaging to their health? Frak, no. Neither the health system nor our government are even willing to face the fact that ambient pesticides and PCBs appear to contribute to obesity and diabetes.

The doctor who did the primary study on the health affects of childhood trauma is met with a mix of derision and inattention. When a major hospital chain tested the effects of running patients through a brief questionnaire that acknowledged their experiences on the scale developed for the study, they found dramatic reductions in the need for medical attention … that went away after two years without follow-up. The practice of investigating this part of a patient’s history, though it would have likely saved billions, was never adopted.

No, everybody needs to just suck it up. Deal. Walk it off. Take responsibility … for the caretakers who mistreated you or destroyed themselves while you watched, for the chemical companies who dump toxic crap in your food and water, for the job demands that take you to the brink of utter exhaustion.

We need a kinder way to deal with each other than this.

This is the fault of the Professional Left

~ Natasha ~ 5 Comments

It’s time, I’m coming clean and taking responsibility. It’s my fault. And, seriously, what isn’t?

Did you read this? Or this? Or this? Totally the fault of progressive bloggers and liberal activists, me included, for complaining about Democratic policies and the behavior of the Obama administration.

Because all Democratic and liberal-leaning voters totally read our blogs or ask us personally before deciding whether the government is making their lives better and reflecting their values. All of them. We’re that powerful.

Kneel before Zod, m@f&ers.

Our Warming World

~ Natasha ~ 3 Comments

You may have been told by climate denialists that rising temperatures would be good for plants and help them grow better.

This is, of course, wrong.

Large-scale droughts have wiped out plants that would have otherwise absorbed an amount of carbon equivalent to Britain’s annual man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists measure the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed by plants and turned into biomass as a quantity known as the net primary production. NPP increased from 1982 to 1999 as temperatures rose and there was more solar radiation.

But the period from 2000 to 2009 reverses that trend – surprising some scientists.

This had actually been suspected for a while, it being kind of inevitable due to the effects of unexpected heat stress and weird precipitation patterns. While some extra warmth can help plants, it also makes them perspire more. When plants perspire, they aren’t doing much in the way of turning carbon gases into carbon solids.

Plants are a good illustration in that way of why global warming is such a big deal, because of how they thrive in very narrow ranges of conditions. They need some nitrogen, but not too much. Some phosphorus, but not too much. Some water, but not too much. Some heat, but not too much. Humans have a wider range of tolerable conditions, but can’t escape our reliance on plants with a very narrow set of tolerances, indeed.

A planet that’s a bad habitat for plants is one where there isn’t as much for people to eat. That will affect us even if there no more countries get flooded out.

Though luckily, new studies on my personal favorite geoengineering fix, biochar production, show that it could tuck away a lot of carbon and improve plant growth without the use of chemicals like this. Anyway, that’s what I remind myself to ward off the despair.