Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Citibank Pays Lower Interest Rates to People With Florida State Mailing Addresses

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

People with a New York mailing addresses get a higher interest rate on “Savings Plus” savings accounts from Citibank than we here in Florida get.

So much for a national capital market, eh?

I learned this when I called Citibank to ask about rates and was accidentally given the New York one at first and then couldn’t find it on their web site.

In any case they are all low. Citibank, much like other big banks, offers less than 0.5% to savers — how much less depends on which product and where you are. In contrast some online banks, Sallie Mae for example, seem to go up to 1.15%, slightly edging out Costco’s 1.06%.

All these numbers compare poorly with the annualized rise in the Consumer Price index — 3.6%. Not to mention what banks charge for loans.

Posted in Econ & Money | 1 Comment

A Medical Student in Ireland Writes

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

In other Islam-related news, today I met my first Irishman who thinks Obama is secretly Muslim. I’d thought that sort of thing was confined to the US. But in this man’s defense, he was a paranoid schizophrenic I met with the psychiatric crisis team. What’s your excuse, Americans?

via Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz (eh?)

Posted in Politics: Tinfoil | 2 Comments

Unexpected Consequences of P ≠NP

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Philip Maymin, Markets are Efficient if and Only if P = NP.

I prove that if markets are efficient, meaning current prices fully reflect all information available in past prices, then P = NP, meaning every computational problem whose solution can be verified in polynomial time can also be solved in polynomial time. I also prove the converse by showing how we can “program” the market to solve NP-complete problems. Since P probably does not equal NP, markets are probably not efficient. Specifically, markets become increasingly inefficient as the time series lengthens or becomes more frequent. An illustration by way of partitioning the excess returns to momentum strategies based on data availability confirms this prediction.

But if P = NP then that’s it for most of modern cryptography, especially public/private key encryption. We’ll have to send giant one-time pads to each other before we can have secure communications.

So it turns out (if this paper is correct) that the choice is not (national) security or privacy. It’s market efficiency or (data) security and privacy.

Then again, it’s hardly news that markets fail. Look outside your window.

Posted in Cryptography, Econ & Money | 8 Comments

I Am Not Going to New York Tomorrow

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

We were planning to go to New York tomorrow, but the event we were going for is cancelled due to the city being closed this weekend for hurricane. It’s a little ironic for a Miami person to not be able to go to New York because they are having the hurricane, but there it is.

I can’t help but be reminded of a previous trip that I scrubbed due to bad weather. I had planned to go to DC in mid-February, 2010. That got scrubbed due to an enormous snowstorm. During the time I’d planned to be away, my aorta burst. Had I been in DC, I likely would not have been as near a hospital, nor as likely to go to one, as I was at home — with deeply bad results. Had I flown out late, delayed due to weather, I could have been on the plane when it happened. Had I been on the plane, I’d be dead.

Instead, I’m pretty well — and very lucky. I hope New York is lucky too.

We’re going next weekend instead, assuming New York is still there. By Miami standards the predicted winds by the time Irene gets to New York seem strong, but not incredibly fierce — sort of on the border between a very bad tropical storm and and a lesser hurricane. But I suppose they’re not as well set up for it as we are.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on I Am Not Going to New York Tomorrow

Wet

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Given all the years we’ve had cars, rain, and umbrellas, why isn’t there an easy, or even effective, way to get into the driver’s seat of a car with a very very wet umbrella that doesn’t either get you wet before you get into the car, or get you wet when you bring the umbrella into the car?

(I mean of course when the car is parked outside: parking indoors makes this easy, but that’s not always an option.)

Posted in Etc | 2 Comments

End of an Era

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot.

I could have had a four-digit slashdot number, but never bother registering until I had something to say. So I’m a five-digit member, #18607. For me, Slashdot was essential for years. Then it stopped being essential several years ago. But it never stopped being worth following.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on End of an Era