Thursday, March 27, 2008

(Yet Another) Existential Crisis

I have this pipe dream that just keeps on clinging, like static-charged saran wrap. Maybe I should have gone to journalism school.

Friday, March 14, 2008

The "R" Word

Here at the Fed, we've been in a bit of a tizzy, looking for signs that we are, in the words of former Chairman Greenspan, undergoing a "cumulative dynamic unwinding of economic activity that feeds upon itself," also known as a recession. To make things even more interesting, I am in the finance group, which means I have an upfront view of the hottest-burning fires. It's ironic that I came to the Fed because I wanted nothing to do with investment banking...yet here I am, 6 months later, learning all sorts of things about finance, albeit from a much more theoretical vantage. Who knows, I may end up working at a big bank after all...

A lot of people have been asking me questions like "Why does the economy suck balls?" The short non-answer is, it's complicated. In a nutshell, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Fed lowered interest rates and credit became cheap, e.g. borrowing money was really easy. Mortgage brokers began underwriting loans to borrowers with checkered credit histories. Why would you lend money to unreliable borrowers though? Well, here's an innovative idea: you can bundle these subprime mortgages into new securities and sell them to investors, like other banks, hedge funds, institutional investors, etc. That way, rather than holding the loans on your balance sheet, you can resell these securities and escape risk-free. But who would buy securities based on crappy loans? Well, we could bundle a large portfolio of mortgages into separate tranches, with a range of risk levels, say, AAA through CCC. If some borrowers default, investors in the lower-rated tranches will not get paid, but the higher-ranked senior tranches will continue to pay. To compensate for the increased risk, junior tranches will also receive higher interest pay-offs. Wow, now we've even managed to create AAA securities out of a bundle of sketchy loans! This process sort of cycles through (you can repackage securities again), until homeowners decide they can't afford their mortgage payments, bank balance sheets are a black hole of intangible assets, and investors suddenly realize the emperor is wearing no clothes.

To further complicate matters, most of the financial terminology being thrown around is confusing for economists, not to mention reporters and novitiate news readers. Alt-A mortgages? SIVs? ABS? CDOs? CLOs? A new acronym seems to pop up every week. No wonder the mainstream press is replete with errors when they try to explain the unfolding events. When our department gathered for a meeting earlier this week, someone commented, "Who knew 3 weeks ago what an auction-rate security was?" This garnered a lot of laughs.

The combination of bubbles in the housing market and the financial sector is a bludgeoning one-two blow to the economy. Whereas a few years ago, credit was too cheap, now credit is too expensive, and businesses and consumers who should be able to borrow are being denied loans. Banks are nervous about lending out money, particularly to each other, and the anxiety is pervasive. This credit crunch is unusually far-reaching in scope, and seems to be taking down arcane sectors of the financial markets that have nothing to do with housing. A month ago, the leveraged loan market was under pressure. The next week, it was municipal bonds and student loans. The week after that, auction-rate securities fell victim. And now, it looks like Bear Stearns (the 5th largest investment bank on Wall St) is on the verge of going bust.

This news scares me more than any other development so far. Basically, at the beginning of the week, rumors and speculation began swirling that Bear Stearns didn't have the cash flows to meet the demands of its creditors. Despite releases and press conferences by Bear Stearns' top brass stating that their liquidity positions were sound, the market's fears were not eased. By Thursday, investors were pulling funds out en masse, and by Friday, it was clear that, regardless of whether the original rumors were true, Bear Stearns' "liquidity position in the last 24 hours had significantly deteriorated." Take a good, hard look, because we have just witnessed the modern-day equivalent of a bank run. For more details, Felix Salmon has an excellent, clear explanation of what just blew up.

Luckily, J.P. Morgan and the Federal Reserve are working to partially bail-out Bear Stearns. Amusingly enough, almost exactly one century ago, J. P. Morgan himself stepped with large sums of cash to quell the Panic of 1907, and stabilize the US economy.

As FDR once said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The next FOMC meeting is on Tues the 18th. I intend to take my final exam for stochastic processes (man, those quarters zip by fast compared to semesters!), and then dash back to my computer to see what sort of rate cut will be unfurled.

Pi/Dragon/St. Patrick's Day



(with apologies to Don McLean)

Pi, pi, what's the value of pi?
Starts 3 . 1 4 1 5 9
Them good ol' boys gave it a try
But the decimal never dies, the decimal never dies...



It's March 14th, and we all know what that means - time to celebrate Pi Day! Much like Talk Like A Pirate Day or Towel Day, Pi Day is part of that pantheon of holidays that, well, take a special someone to appreciate.

At 1:59 pm sharp, Phil brought in a splendiferous assortment of pi(e)s: peach, apple, cherry and pumpkin. Considering there were only about a dozen AEs, it was quite a lot of pie to go around. (Note: actual pies consumed differed a bit from the ones displayed above.) Next year, I think we should have a pie with the pi symbol on it, and a second pi with the digits of e on it (2.71828...) so that all together, we have a complete pie.

Here there be dragons
Meanwhile, spring break has kicked off at Cornell, which means it's time for the annual architecture bacchanal, otherwise known as Dragon Day. Since I never managed to go anywhere exciting for spring break, I was almost always in town to watch the Dragon Day parade and pyre. So, those of us who hadn't jetted to Cancun were treated to the sight of sleep-deprived, festively costumed archies burning an elaborate dragon in the middle of the Arts Quad. As I recall, the weather varied wildly from cold rain to warmth & clear skies to thick snow last year. And it appears that the engineers finally got their act together and constructed a competing phoenix this year.

Sushi Hat
This morning, as I was waiting in the dentist's office, Coldplay's "Clocks" began playing on the radio. All of the sudden, I was flooded with memories of playing Clocks on chimes, hearing Clocks on marimba, jogging around campus as Clocks emanated from the clocktower as the sun set. It has been almost a year now since I last chimed regularly; would I still be able to play the (notoriously difficult) piece today? Would I be able to sprint up the 9 flights of stairs like I used to? And forget chiming, it's been years since I stopped playing piano regularly, and even longer since I dropped violin. What was the point of all those lessons again? It was a sobering reminder of the passage of time.

Anyway, back to the present. Dragon Day has always coincided with the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, and curious about a possible linkage, I sat down to investigate the origins of the former. As it turns out, Dragon Day began as a celebration of Architecture School pride by Willard Straight, and he chose St. Patrick's Day, who legendarily drove the serpents out of Ireland. Ergo, the burning of our dragon every year actually has some throwbacks to Catholicism. Who would've thought?

Dyeing the Chicago River green
Chicago historically has had a large Irish Catholic population, though I suppose many other cities also claim to be Irish-friendly, since it's much more in vogue than being say, Iranian-friendly. However, unlike many other cities, we have perfected the art of dyeing our river shamrock green for St. Patrick's Day. The dye solution has been tested to be eco-friendly, but it looks like the exact composition is a city secret. The fountains at Daley Plaza, which were spouting orange back in Oct, are now bubbling green as well.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Recruitment Season

One year ago, I was trekking to Chicago for my interview at the Fed. In a whirlwind 24 hours, I flew into town, did a Table for One dinner (for the first and last time) at Giordano's, had a series of 6 interviews with 14 economists, and then flew back to Ithaca that night. The whole experience felt like a dream, but with more awkwardness, less nudity, and equivalent amounts of flying.

Recruitment season is once again in full swing, and the Fed is busy interviewing for new Associate Economists who will replace those of us leaving for grad school or other jobs. So far, we've had about 8 or 10 candidates come in for interviews with Micro, Macro, and Payments. My group (Finance) is actually not hiring this year, since we've already asked an intern from last summer to come back for a full-time stint. Essentially, my already limited influence is now down to nil.

The only contact we really have with prospective AEs is during lunch, when they are treated to a meal at the Fed cafeteria and then immersed in a conversation that usually has nothing to do with economics. For instance, lunchtime topics in the recent past have included chupacabras, whether a plane will take off while on a moving conveyor belt, and the difference in behavior between male and female lobsters in a pot.

So, do we lowly AEs have any say on who gets hired? The answer is, not much, but there is still the potential to influence the opinions of hiring economists. One candidate in particular came off as creepy, and after we discussed this in the elevator, a senior economist asked what we thought of the recruit. I never thought I'd be on the other side of the table, and I must admit, it's kind of nice. Moreover, HR is responsible for much of the initial candidate screening, but since they often don't know what to look for, sometimes AEs will help do some screening. That means we read your cover letters, resumes, recommendations, and transcripts..

Good luck to all the job applicants out there, for the Fed and otherwise.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A "War" on Asians

So, the past month is clear evidence that time spent on class substitutes away from blogging activity. I keep thinking of things to write about...and then doing math instead.

Anyway, Jie forwarded an article to me a few days ago, attached with the question "Is America still collectively anti-Asian?" Before reading, I would not have hesitated to answer "no," but this article gives me pause. Perhaps I've been living in yuppie, "progressive" parts of the country for too long?

The United States has a long history of institutionalized discrimination against Asians, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned and limited Chinese immigration for the subsequent 60 years, the first (and only) instance of federal immigration law targeting a specific ethnicity. This legislation was fully repealed in 1943, and was followed by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. However, most people are wholly unaware of all this, for a number of reasons. (Personally, I would know much less if I hadn't written a paper on Angel Island for history during junior year of high school.) The first is the prevailing myth of the "model minority," that because a portion of Asians have assimilated and have achieved academic and financial success, all Asians are similarly well-off and don't face the usual minority struggles. The second is the lack of a figurehead to act as a civil rights leader. There is no Jesse Jackson equivalent to advocate for the Asian community, which makes it more difficult for our voices to be heard.

Earlier this week, the University of Colorado Campus Press published a piece titled "If it's War the Asians Want, It's War They'll Get." Now, I fully understand that college newspapers, including the Cornell Sun, often publish silly items and radical opinion pieces. However, this article takes things to an extreme, and masquerades hate speech as satire. It calls for Asians to rounded up and "hog-tied," and then lists a three phase plan for their "reformation," all the while listing a stream of racial stereotypes.

In the morning, the Asians will arrange themselves in rows, if they haven't naturally done so already. I will stand in front of them and hold up a card with the name of an emotion on it such as, "sad," or "surprised." The Asians must then make a facial expression to match the word on the card. Any Asian who remains deadpan or makes the wrong face will be tickled until they pee. When all Asians make the correct face at the same time, the game will end, but then they will be yelled at for being conformists.

Frankly, I'm shocked that this even got published in a campus-wide newspaper. Campus Press editors later issued a statement emphasizing that the article was not meant to offend, but was intended to be satirical. I can take a joke (and I've heard plenty of comments in my day about being an Asian female driver), but this was about as funny as a plan for a mass lynching or a concentration camp. Not only were the article's claims ludicrous, but the proposed plan was chilling in its thoroughness. Everyone else I spoke with was similarly appalled, but in response to the question "Do you think a satire entitled 'If It's War The Asians Want' is racist?" on an ABC-7 Denver poll, 48% of respondents voted "No." I'm not quite sure what to make of that, and whether the use of the word "satire" versus "piece" would have made a difference. (To contrast, for an example of well-written satire, see "Stuff White People Like.")

Not surprisingly, the author has a history of inflammatory writing and inappropriate comments. He also went to Amherst High, which is about half an hour away from my house. (wince*)

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Going Postal

Although I live in Chinatown, for the most part, I am pretty removed from the neighborhood's activity. I work in the Loop, shop on Roosevelt, and play in Wrigleyville. Aside from the occasional foray to buy soy milk, I could go weeks without stepping foot on Cermak. This morning, in a moment of extreme naivete, I decided to swing by the Chinatown post office. I needed to mail a package, and didn't feel like waiting until Monday to go to a post office downtown. When I arrived, the line was almost out the door, as one postal clerk worked the counter. (45) minutes began to tick by.

It soon became apparent why the line was moving so slowly. A combination of language barriers and bureaucratic hurdles meant that even simple tasks, like buying stamps, were long and arduous. I watched as a woman bought 20 stamps, then explained that she actually wanted a second sheet of 20 stamps. To give credit to the post office worker, she was being exceedingly patient with each customer, taking time to explain the details as the line continued to grow.

USPS accepts passport applications, and you can imagine a fair number of immigrants are hoping to apply for passports, so they can visit their families abroad and whatnot. It's kind of ironic that non-English speakers are forced to disentangle bureaucratic hoops (passports, citizenship applications) more often than native Americans. A family presented their paperwork at the counter, and the clerk tried to explain what kinds of IDs were acceptable, and what the emergency contact information was for. "You can't put yourself down for the emergency contact," she chided, "aren't you going to be traveling with the kids?" The mother nodded yes. "Well then, you need to put down someone else. Do you have a sister? Someone outside of the family?" The family huddled together, trying to recall a relative's phone number. The father solemnly raised his hand as the postal clerk read the passport oath aloud.

The next man carried a large box and was followed by a teenage girl who translated for him. "What's in the package?" asked the clerk. "Books? What kinds of books? I need to open the box and take a look, ok?" She unsealed the carton and pulled out several books. "What are these about?" she asked. The girl replied, "Ah, this is a recipe book. And that one is about making money." The clerk consulted a sheet with restrictions listed. "I'm sorry," she said, "but you can't mail that book about making money. It's 'printed matter,' and they don't allow printed matter with political or economic content into China." She continued rummaging through the box, and pulled out some clothing. "Is this used clothing? You can't send that either. This pair of jeans is fine because it still has the tags on it." The girl hastily said that the other shirts were new as well. "It doesn't have the tags on it though, do you still have the tags? Otherwise it's used, and you can't send it. These are Chinese government restrictions." In the end, they left the post office with the package unmailed.

Curious, I looked up what exactly is banned for mail shipment to China. Among the usual restrictions against radioactive materials and arms, China bans the mailing of media "which could do political, economical, cultural, or moral harm to the People’s Republic of China," along with a number of seemingly innocuous consumer goods, like wristwatches and cameras. Moreover, the value of each shipment cannot exceed 100 RMB, which at a conversion rate of about 8 yuan to $1, comes to around $12.50. So much for mailing that camera.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Just your average Fed party...

Chris threw a sake (bombing) party Sat night, and I ventured out for it, even though it was something like -3 degrees outside with 15-20 mph winds. Why? 3 words: Phil was coming.

Phil works at the Fed, and might be one of my all-time favorite people. At the very least, he tops the list of people I'd consider "characters." He's pretty dorky, plays a lot of WoW, and says things like "My new year's resolution is 1024 x 768."

Alas, Phil is 26ish, married, and lives in the suburbs, so it's a hard sell to get him to come party with the rest of us. (His penchant for Warcraft usually ensures that he doesn't leave the house all weekend.) So, his presence at this party was a bit of a watershed event. Plus, we were all morbidly curious about what Amber (his wife) was like.

The man did not disappoint. Even before showing up, he called Chris, and demanded to know where the nearest Taco Bell was. Apparently, Amber was insisting on getting food, since they'd spent all day playing WoW.

A few shots of warm sake later, somehow Chris and Phil decided to have a gay-off. The contest was over who had the gayest song on their ipod, and each person had 3 picks. Chris started off with some generic riverdance-esque music, which was gay but nothing particularly flaming. Phil responded with "Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror. He knew all the lyrics. There was hip thrusting. I almost peed in my pants.

Chris then ups the ante with N Sync. He doesn't quite know all the words, but that's ok because Alex does, and they perform an loosely choreographed routine that would bring tears to your eyes (for better or worse). Phil replies with another girly favorite: "My Heart Will Go On." He doesn't know the words either, but I am shocked that this is even on his ipod. Chris - 1, Phil - 1.

For the last round, Phil goes first, and reminds us that the contest was originally over who had the gayest song, not necessarily the gayest performance. With that in mind, he plays Fred Schneider's (of the B-52's) "Monster (in my Pants)" I'd never heard this song before, but suffice it to say, the lyrics are highly special. Finally, Chris pulls out a song "in honor of his nickname," ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I'm laughing so hard that my face hurts.

At this point, Phil brings out the song I thought should have been his trump card all along: Electric Six's "Gay Bar." Really, you can't get more gay than that. We decide it might be a draw between the two of them.

Phil: "Come on, when I saw that Chris had all 5 seasons of 'Queer as Folk' on DVD, I knew that I was finished."