India and the Polar Route

Travel from the US to Asia has been shortened by use of the “Polar Route“, which means flying over Greenland and the north and then traveling across Russia to Asian countries. It should have been obvious to me that we were taking the polar route since it was a long, direct flight out (to Hong Kong, with connections) but I really didn’t think about it until we started flying north, over Canada.

As someone who has spent their entire life studying military history, particularly the Russian fronts, it was fascinating to me that I was actually flying over that country. When you are up over Canada and over Russia and looking at the sparsely populated map on the flight display it does get a little unnerving. When I got back home I looked up the “diversion airports” and there are a few here and there over Canada and then over Russia but it is a long way between them in what would be the dead of winter.

Also interesting is the distorting effect of Greenland on maps as you near the north pole. Greenland is actually about the size of Mexico but of course it seems enormous due to the distorting tendency of common mapping technology.

On the outbound flight we were in a United 747, a four engine aircraft. On the return flight we were in a 777, a two engine aircraft. It is a bit scary to fly over the far north in an aircraft that presumably wouldn’t get far on a single engine. To make matters worse we were waylaid on the tarmac for a few hours before we took off due to “engine troubles”. We made it, but it was a bit hair raising. Per wikipedia there haven’t been any serious incidents with the 777 but our faith in mechanical airplanes is truly amazing.

I also learned to sympathize with flying from the developing nation point of view. The Delhi airport was busy at 2:30am because flights take off in the wee hours of the night in order to arrive in the West at a reasonable hour. It was brutal for me to stay awake that late and it didn’t seem to help my jet lag which I really wasn’t cured of for over a week.

Cross posted at LITGM

Just Another Mickey Mouse Argument on Copyright Law

 Virginia Postrel  makes some good arguments against the current mess of copyright law, but both she and most others neglect what I believe to be a primary driver for major corporations seeking ever broader copyright protection: franchises.

Until we address the need of corporations to protect franchise in which they are still creating new works, we won’t make any progress on copyright law.

In mass entertainment, a franchise is a connected series or group of works sharing common characters, plots etc produced over relatively long span of time. Franchise characters or settings become recognizable brands in their own right. Recurrent characters like Sherlock Holmes became franchises long before the term was coined. In the modern era, Star Wars, Star Trek and various Disney properties are examples of major franchises. Star Wars and Star Trek have produced a vast number of secondary works from novels to games, not to mention the toys, T-shirts and, according to some, religions. Disney has been in the franchise business since the end of WWII. Many credit Walt Disney for creating the artistic franchise business model in the first place.

Traditional copyright law predated the evolution of the franchise and instead assumed that copyright protected discrete works e.g. a single short story, novel, song etc made by a single artist.

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History Friday – The Legend of Sally Skull

It was said of Texas that it was a splendid place for men and dogs, but hell for women and horses. Every now and again though, there were women who embraced the adventure with the same verve and energy that their menfolk did; and one of them was a rancher, freight-boss and horse trader in the years before the Civil War. She is still popularly known as Sally Skull to local historians. There were many legends attached to her life, some of them even backed up by public records. Her full given name was actually Sarah Jane Newman Robinson Scull Doyle Wadkins Horsdorff. She married – or at least co-habited – five times. Apparently, she was more a woman than any one of her husbands could handle for long.

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The Municipal Bond “Storm” Is Still Coming

A while back there was a furor over analyst Merideth Whitney, who made a “call” that the Municipal Bond market had serious issues and would have an increasing number of defaults. This comment was cited as irresponsible by cities, bond underwriters, and others involved in the municipal funding business.

Many people have been gloating about the fact that these defaults haven’t occurred, such as this article in Bloomberg. The cities and states were bailed out by ultra low interest rates (ZIRP) and a demand for any sort of yield which made their bonds look good in comparison.

While our insane ZIRP has given a lifeline to many municipalities and states, the facts are plain to anyone with any fiscal sense.
1. Most states and municipalities are running annual deficits, meaning that they need to keep borrowing more money to keep functioning
2. Long term liabilities like pensions and medical care for staff (and the many unionized staffers) are continuing to grow and are gigantic relative to money set aside to pay them
3. Even if the state or municipality were to stop running an annual deficit, there is little capability to PAY DOWN this giant pile of debt

Detroit, long a leader in social ills, is now a leader in fiscal ills. To be fair, the city is a shambles, with a vast acreage to support, a huge flight of anyone in the upper or middle classes, and a history of corruption and failed leadership.

The city is down to its last bullet, and reliant on state aid. Per this article,

Detroit had its bond ratings cut deeper into noninvestment-grade territory by Moody’s Investors Service, citing a cash crisis that may mean bankruptcy or default in the next 12 to 24 months.

“These downgrades reflect the city’s ongoing precariously narrow cash position and a weakened state oversight framework,” Moody’s analysts Genevieve Nolan and Henrietta Chang said in a statement from the New York-based credit-scoring company. The downgrades affect $8.2 billion in Detroit debt, according to David Jacobson, a Moody’s spokesman.

Who owns that $8.2 Billion in Detroit debt and what are they thinking right now? They can’t be assuming that Detroit will pay them back – Detroit can’t cover their CURRENT obligations and is shrinking rapidly – much less would they be able to ever pay down this debt.

In reality they are likely counting on other groups to bail out Detroit, whether it is the state of Michigan, or the Federal Government, because Detroit itself as a stand alone entity shouldn’t be able to finance a night out on the town, much less support $8.2 billion in debt. This game made winners of some with Greek debt, for instance (buy on the cheap during distress and wait for the German taxpayers to pick up the tab) and absolutely could be the right strategy right now, as well.

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