Germany’s Spiegel has posted a very interesting Interview with Bill Gates. The magazine’s interviewer takes a very strong tone with his questions, much more so than we see in American media, but BillG keeps his cool and stays on message thoughout. The article was originally published in German and then (I suppose) translated to English and I wonder if some of the impression is an artifact of the translation; when I hear Germans speaking English there often seems to be a similar harshness. Still, an interesting read. [via /.]

Mortgages: the hidden bomb

Dan Gillmor, among others, has written frequently about a housing bubble and the strong likelihood that metropolitan California and possibly most major American metropolitan areas will suffer a significant correction or worse when the bubble is popped, which he sees as pretty much a mortal lock. “This market may be a sucker’s bet,” he wrote and who am I to argue with him?

The trigger will be a return to more normal interest rates than what we’ve enjoyed for the last 4-6 years. I’m guessing 30 year fixed rate loans above 8% for more than a month will do the trick. Bankrate.com says this week they fell one basis point to 5.67% according their national survey of large lenders. So that means a, say, $250,000 mortgage has a monthly payment of $1446 but if the rate goes to 8.125% the payment rises to $1856, nearly $5,000 more out of pocket every year. Not an amount most families can just pay out of pocket change.

No, instead rising interest rates will decimate afforability. Even now California homes are barely within reach of most people. In 2004, according to the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.), for the third straight year home sales and the median home price reached record high levels, while supply conditions and the share of first-time buyers in the California housing market fell to historic lows.

“At 20 percent in 2004, affordability in California was less than half that of the nation.” More sweet words from the C.A.R., whose report goes on to say that rates are “expected to increase by 50 to 75 basis points as the economy grows in 2005, with the fixed-mortgage interest rate expected to be just under 7 percent by year’s end.” Already, only people selling one home to buy another can participate in the market and those who don’t are unlikely to find a way in until the bubble bursts.

[I am one of the lucky ones, no doubt, having bought Casa de BillSaysThis back in 1998. Even so I paid 20-50% more than some of my neighbors (all the homes in our little development are identical in size and layout) who purchased theirs just a few years earlier but I also know of several more recent sales at prices 50% more than mine. And as far as I’ve read and heard even those buyers would make a profit selling today.

I’ve also had a good mortgage broker. Each year for the last three years she called and asked if I wanted to refinance–no closing costs at all–at a substantially lower rate. Hard to say exactly but I figure she’s saved me over $400 a month, nothing to sneeze at. This year, though, I don’t expect to get a fourth call.]

If you bought your home in the last three years and didn’t lock in a 30 year fixed loan, what will you do when rates go up? The Fed raised rates again this week, six quarter point increase in a row, and the dollar is down enough that foreign investors will begin demanding higher returns to pay for this risk. They’ve been propping up our lack of savings to the tune of $2 billion a day and even the revered but recently politicized Alan Greenspan is saying that can’t last.

Just one more thing to put on your long list of worries.

Bushinations: You see nothing! You hear nothing!

Because actions speak louder than words: The Year of Living Indecently, ‘Pay to Play’ in New Jersey and Blaming the Messengers. Ack! Four more years of this and then what? Will the Dems still be wandering in some disconnected wilderness, unable to find the nose one their faces while the Republicans pound out the lies rat-a-tat-tat? I can’t recall where I saw it but I read an article a month or three ago which mentioned that there have been people in every age who believed they were living in the Last Days. Millenarianism, though the religious component is no longer required IMO. Anyway, there are days when I read about amazing people and wondrous things just around the bend, and then there are the days when I read all this shit and truly wonder why.

TV: Reality in its own mind

Jack and Bobby is a decent TV show, with an interesting hook, but the scene that just ended is a strong example of why it’s decent but not outstanding. Jack is at the doctor’s office and begins chatting with a cute girl his own age. Who turns out to go to his school. Who sat behind him for last year’s biology class. Who she is he has no clue. The dialog puts her at the opposite end of the social spectrum from him. The problem: she’s far too cute and smart for Jack not to have noticed her, meaning the producers hired TV ugly and shined it on.

Alas, John McCain: The Rude Pundit calls out one of the few Republicans of recent years who spent most of his time above the fray, yet since sometime in 2002 or so seems to have stored his manhood in a blind trust run by Karl Rove and is on the verge of destroying the respect he earned honestly. Sad.

Mission Over: After only four seasons, UPN has cancelled Star Trek: Enterprise effective at the end of the current season on May 13. Hardly unexpected but still sad and not my preference at all. The big question: What’s next for the franchise?

Yesterday’s movies: Bad (mostly)

Not Andy Warhol’s Bad. Just three movies that are uninteresting, incomprehensible and simply unwatchable. I couldn’t sit through more than the first 20 minutes or so of the first two, nor more than 10 of the third, and I’ll often watch movies to the end even so if there’s nothing better on. But not with Pieces of April, Barbershop or Starship Troopers 2: Heroes of the Federation; all three are not recommended.

Better was Errol Morris’ acclaimed documentary The Fog of War. This film shows a great deal of creativity without letting the creative distract from its core, a lengthy interview with Robert McNamara structured as a series of lessons learned (and this is the film’s subtitle: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara). For you young’uns out there, this Bay Area native made three significant contributions to modern American society:

  1. Using methods developed for the military during WWII, during a 15 year stint at Ford Motor Company he brought statistical analysis into the corporate world; while much of his work was used to improve marketing he also brought out a number of safety enhancements such as seatbelts and steering wheels that wouldn’t impale a driver after a crash.
  2. Drawing criticism from all sides, he left Ford five weeks after being named president to serve as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ; he was one of the key architects of our initial involvement and huge expansion in Vietnam–this period was of course the meat of the discussion,
  3. Leaving the Cabinet late in LBJ’s term, he was president of the World Bank for 13 years; there was very little mention of his work at the bank but under his leadership some very substantial development programs were funded, though a number later drew strong criticism as wasteful and riddled with corruption on the receiving end.

Movies are a visual medium, to say the least, and so Morris couldn’t simply point the camera at McNamara and ask his questions. Instead, he weaves period footage with bits filmed for this documentary with shots of the 85 year old man talking. The bits Morris filmed, though, weren’t recreations of big historical moments but instead simpler scenes or illustrations; examples are skulls being dropped down the center of a stairwell, an experiment McNamara had done at Cornell University to understand the impact on a person’s head of a crash and how different packaging could protect us better; close up shots of various reports, prose and numerical, as McNamara explains how or when that information was used; and, shots of an old reel-to-reel tape recorder as conversations between McNamara and one of the presidents he served discussed played. But our subject was also on screen quite a bit, generally in extreme close up.

There were some topics he wouldn’t discuss, and secrets he wouldn’t divulge. One comes to realize that, many years after the fact, McNamara understood that Vietnam might have been avoided if leaders on both sides had been willing to talk to each other. The US was caught up in the Cold War, still very raw after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the decisionmakers saw this little faraway country as a chess piece of suddenly significant consequence in blocking the Soviet Union and China. The Vietnamese wanted only to reunite their country and finally be free of foreign domination, and they viewed the Americans as latest in a long line of would-be colonial masters. I wonder, now, how different the last 40 years would have played out if somehow both sides had understood and corrected the other’s mistaken perceptions.

McNamara stands by his record, doesn’t try to whitewash or evade his part. Now that most of the other participants are dead, he provides a level of insight for Vietnam and his part in WWII that I believe is rarely matched by anyone on the inside of such significant historical controversies.

recommended

I linked this speech by Seymour Hersh the other day but just now got to reading the transcript. You thought Abu Ghraib was bad but Hersh is a serious man with a serious track record going back over 30 years and when he says we haven’t seen nearly the worst of it yet I cannot see a reason to disbelieve him. Read or watch it.

Today’s movie: Out of Time

Denzel Washington has spent years building a critical reputation and box office success; he’s one of those (relatively) rare people whose name on the marquee pretty much guarantees a decent opening weekend gross. But over time I believe he’s realized, as have other actors (for instance, Robert DeNiro), that some films you make for the payday and some because it’s the kind of film that got acting into your blood. Out of Time is, undoubtedly, a payday film for Washington. Not that I begrudge anyone the chance to make however many million dollars someone wants to pay him or her for actually doing a job, but the resulting films are generally not worth our time to watch.

Out of Time is, at bottom, a lazy film. Written by David Collard (only prior credit is TV cartoon Family Guy) and directed by Carl Franklin, we get a standard three course meal: overly emotional acting, red herrings and unsurprising surprises. Denzel is police chief in a small Florida beach town; the woman with whom he had an affair–his wife is a police detective on the squad–turns up dead and circumstances keep turning up that center him in the prime suspect dartboard.

John Billingsley is very Phlox-like as the only friend Washington can turn to, though he’s also one of the red herrings. Eva Mendes is the ultra-hottie wife/detective who can’t decide whether to arrest and divorce Washington or forgive him and rip his clothes off. Terry Laughlin is cardboard stock as a senior DEA agent, for which I can’t blame the veteran character actor, since his only dramatic purpose is to increase the heat on our hero; his subplot has absolutely zero connection to the main story but is an indicator of the lazy factor. The moments of this movie intended to be the most suspenseful fail utterly because we know that, despite all the mounting evidence, Denzel cannot die nor can he be the murderer.

not recommended

U2? Yes!

TS1 and I want to get tickets for the U2 concert at HP Pavilion At San Jose which go on sale in a bit more than an hour. There are three ticket prices, depending on seat location, and I wanted to know before we drive to the TM location how the seats are divided but of course the website doesn’t have that posted. They’ll still be happy to add a $12 or so PER TICKET service charge, of course, for the privilege of printing a ticket. In fact, looking at other concerts at HP Pavilion already on sale, I see that the TicketMaster scum will charge an extra $2.50 (per order, not ticket) if you want to speed up delivery by printing them on your own printer, supplying your own paper. Tell me this is not a monopolistic abuse of power, though if you do I will be laughing very loudly from two inches in front of your nose.

60 minutes later: Well, we drove over to the Tower Records store, which hosts the only local TM counter, but the “starting number” was 53 places ahead of our number. Better off having two computers to hit their website right at 10 than to wait in line so long so we drove home. Three minutes until the opening whistle…

A further 20 minutes on: We got through on the website. Each of us purchased two of the $49.50 tickets, which is $99 face value though our credit card will see Total Charge: $119.55 because of the ridiculous fees charged by these wankers. All are in the same section (207, rows 14 and 15), but I can’t see if one seat is on or close to the aisle; information important to me but not to TicketSlime.One pair will be resold later, or used as trade bait, so we can get an aisle seat.

The important thing is that we will be going to see U2. These guys are the last band (going by year of first record release) who I’ve really enjoyed year in and year out. Which really proves the old chestnut that the music you like in high school is the music you like the rest of your life. You can have your Dave Matthew Bands, your Radioheads, your White Stripes, no problem in my book, but I’ll take some Bruce, Zeppelin, Beatles, Allman Brothers, Elvis (Presley or Costello), or U2 over all of them.

GmailUsers.com, “owned and operated” by Kathie Fry, is another interesting example of a site that could easily deliver a small (but nice for a single person) revenue stream without too much work. Matt Haughey’s PVRBlog and Wi-Fi Networking News by Glenn Fleishman are ones I’ve known about for a while, though Matt and Glenn (appear to) put in more effort on their sites. And Glenn’s might not belong to him personally any more.

GM FastLane Blog: Myths and Facts about Fuel Economy

General Motors executive Tom Stephens, Group Vice President of GM’s Powertrain division, makes his blogging debut witha post titled Myths and Facts about Fuel Economy. To me the piece is total marketing spin BS and not the reasonably honest, blog-like writing previously published in the same blog by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. I made one simple comment early on in the thread (the second, actually, though the blog doesn’t create permalinks for each comment) pointing this out but subsequent commentators dismissed the attempt by myself and the anonymous first comment. LOL, like that would stop me and so I wrote a much longer comment. GM moderates the comments and mine hasn’t made it through the screen yet, a couple of hours later (hey, it’s Saturday and I’m not accusing the automaker of blocking negative comments), so I thought I’d polish it a bit and post my thoughts here:

For all of you who want to dismiss the concerns I’ve stated (and not anonymously, my user name is linked to my personal website) about the need for a huge change in oil consumption rather than just cars that are a little bit better than the competition, please read this NY Press article: It’s the pipelines, stupid [via JRobb].

While the article’s main focus is on the short term political risk, specifically the increasing focus of terrorist activity in the Middle East on disrupting oil exports (a reality that is independent of your political views or mine), the author also describes the long term (by which I mean 10-20 years, not really that long) problem of Peak Oil.

What is Peak Oil? That’s the concept that we have, or are soon will, pull half the global oil reserves out of the ground. Dr. King Huppert, one of the first scientists to write about it way back in the 1950s, claimed we would reach this level in the 1970s and clearly he was overly pessimistic as significant additional sources were discovered in the 20 years after his initial publications but now that no major new oil fields have been discovered in more than a decade his idea is widely accepted on both the environmentalist left and in the industry. For a good example of the latter, I refer you to Texas oilman and Bush supporter Matthew Simmons who has given many speeches, such as this one, to try and bring this problem into the public debate.

Can GM or the auto industry alone prevent the economic shock that will happen when declining oil supplies–for whatever reason–push prices up far above the recent $57/bbl? No. But building cars and trucks that use a different fuel source can make a huge difference in when the crisis happens and how big it impacts us.

GM has been showing the Hy-wire, a fuel cell-powered complete reimagining of the automobile, for several years now. In my opinion, Stephens and the other GM execs need to partner with their competitors, specialized manufacturers, academics and government to drive these new systems to commercial viability as quickly as possible.

Related: The NY Times has an article today about the latest fad in Celebrityville, New Way for Stars to Keep Truckin’, and as I read it the phrase “How freaking stupid are these people anyway?” repeated in my head, reverberating like a powerball inside an elastic box. “[T]he 7300 CXT, which went on sale in September, weighs about seven tons unloaded, more than twice the weight of the Hummer H2 and equivalent to about five MINI Coopers.” This truck, made by Navistar division International Truck and Engine,… damn, I am so discombobulated by the concept of rich assholes like Ashton Kutcher driving one around that I can’t finish the thought. We’re supposed to think that Kutcher only plays a stupider than a small rock character on That ’70s Show and in movies but he’s making liars out of his PR staff.

Reading the vendor and customer responses to Students Find Hole in Car Security Systems, I can only sadly laugh. Because even if these people are correct and the possibility of packaging the necessary computer power in a small enough container to avoid detection is unlikely today, and I’m not in agreement that it is, then just wait 18-36 months and surely it will be. Admitting a mistake of such magnitude–over 150 million of these ‘secure’ RFID chips are in commercial products today and millions more are being sold every month–just goes against human nature and corporate profitability, so one cannot be surprised.. [via /.]

I found out the endings today to Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed Million Dollar Baby and Julianne Moore’s quickly forgotten The Forgotten and am even less interested in both of them now. A filmmaker’s resolution for the plot is so important yet so difficult but in these two movies I have the impression they took the easy way out, though in Eastwood’s story one wonders what a (non-schmaltzy) ending could have been substituted.