HotShot Blog

I apologize if this entry is rather long, but there's a lot I've wanted to say about abortion.

First, we start with mainstream American thinking on abortion. Support for Roe vs Wade has fluctuated over the years, but has never enjoyed less than a majority support. SurveyUSA took a state-by-state poll recently surveying the attitudes on abortion within each state. The results may surprise some people. In only 10 states does the pro-life position enjoy outright majority support. These states are Utah, Louisiana, Arkansas, Idaho, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. Furthermore, in only 15 states does pro-life gain more support than pro-choice. To get a better sense of things, I've colored an electoral map based on how each state would vote on the single issue of abortion. Red is of course pro-life and blue is pro-choice.

It is striking how blue the map is. Even at a state-by-state level, abortion rights are supported by a broad section of the country, with heated opposition arising primarily in the south and great plains. Even then, states such as South Carolina and Georgia would support abortion rights.

So if the majority clearly supports keeping abortion legal, why do pro-life forces seem to be winning the battle? There are several reasons I want to dissect.

First, the pro-life/pro-choice distinction cuts across party lines. Many wealthy Republicans are pro-choice, but place greater importance on economic issues at the voting booth. Analogously, many Democrats, especially Catholics, are pro-life but care more about poverty and war. According to a Quinnipiac poll, the numbers break down as follows on the question of whether Roe should be upheld.

A clear majority may support abortion rights, but it seems a chunk of that majority are Republicans who are fairly apathetic towards the issue.

Still, given this level of support, it is hard to imagine any anti-abortion zealot being elected. Here is where I think the right wing has triumphed. The Republican message is full of phrases such as "culture of life" that make their position sound more moderate and mainstream than it actually is. Additionally, they've been able to demonize more reasonable voices by tagging them to the horrendous sounding procedure "partial-birth abortion."

On the other side, activists seem to be blind to their losing fight. As Amy Sullivan writes, pro-choice forces seem hellbent on purging anything but the strictest rhetoric on abortion while shooting themselves in the foot in the process.

But the final straw came when Senate Democrats acted on this advice and recruited pro-life Democrat Bob Casey to run against Rick Santorum for Pennsylvania's Senate seat in 2006.

Pro-choice advocates lashed out. National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy called out Kerry and Dean by name, and declared: ''If that's what it means to have a big tent, if it means abandoning the core principles of our party, if it means throwing women's rights overboard like so much ballast...then I say let's keep the skunk out of the tent." ... The race appears to have become a test case for many in the pro-choice community. They would rather see Casey lose than defeat Santorum, perhaps the Senate's most vociferous abortion opponent.

As if to underline their point, NARAL took the unusual step of endorsing Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, a full year and a half before the 2006 election. The message was clear: a pro-choice Republican is always preferable to a pro-life Democrat.

It didn't take long for NARAL to regret the move. Less than three weeks later, Chafee voted to support the nomination of radically conservative judge Janice Rogers Brown. NARAL issued an angry press release, warning Chafee that they would be ''watching closely his future votes on judicial nominees, including...those for the Supreme Court." Now, of course, Chafee has announced he will vote in support of Roberts. Meanwhile, the pro-life Reid--exactly the type of Democrat these groups would see defeated if they had their way--has announced that he will vote against Roberts's confirmation.

It is patently stupid for NARAL to go after Hillary and other Democrats who have softened their rhetoric on abortion. Because when it comes time to actually vote, the Democrats have consistently stood for abortion rights. 22 Democratic senators voted against John Roberts, including the traitor Hillary and pro-life minority leader Harry Reid. Not one Republican did, including so-called "moderate, pro-choice" ones like Specter and Chaffee. Yet, NARAL continues to throw a temper tantrum on how Democrats are abandoning them. If pro-choice activists don't pull their collective heads out of their asses, we are going to lose this fight permanently.

It seems Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), of video diagnosis fame, is embroiled in an insider trading scandal. Frist's family founded and still runs Hospital Corporation of America, the nation's largest hospital chain. (Incidentally, they perform abortions at HCA's hospitals.) Frist apparently sold 2.3 million shares a week before the stock of the company started to tank, leaving open speculation that Frist traded on insider information.

A little bit of history: Insider trading is placing a trade to buy or sell securities based on material knowledge of a company's assets and liabilities that is not available to the market as a whole. Insider trading was legal until the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. During the depression, there was a great deal of speculation about what caused the market crash, and insider trading was labelled as one of the causes. CEOs had made heaps money selling their firm while making public statements to the contrary.

Still, there were almost no prosecutions for insider trading until the 1980s. Then, a young New York lawyer made a name for himself by handcuffing corporate criminals and walking them in front of the cameras. Rudy Guiliani took down leading Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken among many others and made insider trading an enforced crime.

So if it wasn't a crime except in the last 20 years, what's the big deal? The argument against insider trading is the following: if CEOs and others are allowed to trade based on their private information, they will have an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Ordinary investors will demand a higher return in compensation for being placed at an informational disadvantage. This will drive up investment costs and weaken economic growth.

There are two problems with this. First, word does get out. A number of academic papers have highlighted price movements that occur before the announcement of news. Second, the market sees information and reacts very quickly.

In fact, you can make a fairly strong case that insider trading should be legal because it makes prices more efficient. The stock market in a capitalist society serves to direct investment where it is most productive. By allowing insider trading, the CEOs and other people in the know will eliminate the short term mispricings that occur before private information is revealed. As an example, suppose a company is being sued for producing a harmful product. This news is not available to the public. In the meantime, the stock price will be higher than the company is actually worth, leading some people to invest unproductively. If insiders were allowed to trade based on their information, they would sell shares until the price dropped to what the company is worth after settling the liability.

Of course, regardless of whether insider trading should be illegal, it is a crime. Certainly the most powerful senator should be expected to obey the law. I have no tolerance for corporate criminals who in many ways do more damage to society than their volient street thug counterparts.

Last weekend I went to homecoming at Cornell. I got to march in the marching band, and I even managed to convince Tracy to march with me. She finally admitted that marching band was in fact fun -- something she was loathe to say during our four years at Cornell.

We actually won the homecoming football game, which I don't recall winning in the past. Not only did we win, but we clobbered Georgetown 57-7. It was complete humiliation.

Food was another highlight of the weekend. Despite being dragged to the fish and vegetarian Moosewood restaurant, I had a good meal. On Saturday, however, we went to the Boatyard Grill, one of my favorite restaurants. Their dishes are much tastier than 90% of the supposedly fancy food I've eaten in New York City, and much more affordable to boot.

The only downside to the weekend was the weather, which was very Ithaca-like. On Saturday we experienced brief spurts of rain. At one point, it was even pouring hard while the sky directly above us was deep blue and the sun was shining. Physically impossible, except in Ithaca.

This story is just sad. One rape victim in Arizona frantically searched for three days to get emergency contraception.

While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug. When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections. "I was so shocked," said the 20-year-old woman, who, as a victim of sexual assault, is not being named by the Star. "I just did not understand how they could legally refuse to do this."

It's disgusting how the religious right tries to force their views on others. It is not acceptable that a pharmacist refuses to do the job he undertook in full knowledge of what it entails. What if on "moral grounds," the pharmacist chose not to fulfill prescriptions for Jews, or non-Christians for that matter? Apparently, pharamacies such as the ones in Tuscon or the whole Target chain (which allows pharmacists to choose what they fill) do not have a problem with that.

The Associated Press ran an article yesterday on corporate bonds. One of the things I find incredibly silly about financial market coverge is the single-minded focus on U.S. equities. The American stock market is one of largest in the world. But the bond market, including Treasuries and corporate bonds, is significantly larger and in many ways far more important for the U.S. economy.

Bonds are debt. American governments and corporations issue bonds, which investors buy. The bond then entitles the investor to a fixed interest payment each year for the life of a bond and the original amount given back at maturity. Bonds are issued because for example, when IBM needs to borrow $20 million to build a new plant, no bank is large enough to lend them that amount of money. Of course, the price of a bond, or how much you lend to the company/government, depends on the risk that you won't get your money back. When buying bonds from a company that is likely to go bankrupt, you will pay less than you would for US Treasury bonds that have the full backing of the US government. Since the risk of default is dependent on economic conditions, bond prices fluctuate with the economy.

The lack of media coverage has kept the investing public largely unaware that there are other investments than stocks, let alone how bonds work. Ask your average person on the street and they can tell you what a stock is - it's ownership in a company. Few people would be able to answer the same for bonds. The result is what finance people call "segmentation."

Corporate bond prices, however, could provide a more complete picture of a company's prospects. Unlike stock investors, who tend to jump on and off a company's bandwagon quickly, bond investors have a more long-term approach. And that makes bond trading data a sound tool for assessing a stock investment.

"The presumption is the bond market is smarter than the stock market," said Ken Tower, chief market strategist for Schwab's CyberTrader. "I'm not saying it's always true, but there's a reason that the bond market tends to lead the stock market."

The article mentions that the bond market seems to be smarter than the stock market. Probably true, given that most people, and likely a good chunk of stock market investors, don't seem to have a clue about bonds.

Sprint has a new commercial on tv that I think is great. In it there is some corporate executive sitting at his office when his assistant walks in. The dialogue is something like

Executive: I like Sprint's new fair and flexible plan. It offers me flexibility .... It's my way of sticking it to the man!

Assistant: But sir, you are the man.

Executive: Yes.

Assistant: So you're sticking it to yourself?

Executive: Maybe.

It's quite amusing how media, entertainment, and marketing have thoroughly embraced the counterculture and anti-establishment message of decades past and now use it to promote establishment products and services. We can "stick it to the man" by using Sprint cellular service. It's incredibly silly, but at the same time, pretty funny.

Today I had a monumentally important third-year paper presentation in front of the faculty. It was important largely because it is a first impression of how well I can do research. The faculty do talk about us amongst themselves and word gets out if you're stupid and/or lazy. Hopefully, that was not the message I conveyed.

Anyways, after the presentation and subsequent talking to professors, I took a walk over to the Halloween parade on 6th Ave in the village. As usual there were some very elaborate costumes. A few years ago, I saw a full Cinderalla getup complete with a pumpkin-shaped chariot covered in lights.

This year I didn't see anything quite that elaborate. But there were some very interesting highlights. My favorite float was the z100fm float. They had some dancers on the float that were, shall we say, "well dressed." I have a picture I took on my cell phone camera, although I have to admit it's terrible quality.

My favorite costume had to go to this group of people that held up mock "gates." I thought it belittled the monumental waste of money in the name of art that was "The Gates." I'm glad they are gone from the park. Good riddance.

In response to my repeated complaints that he never updates his blog, Abhishek has finally given up and said, 'Well then you write something.' So I will. And then all you loyal readers can complain that neither one of us ever updates this blog. Sadly I am not as passionate about politics or finance or golf or anything that Abhishek writes about. I do like giraffes, however, so you can look forward to many exciting posts about how wonderful and cute giraffes are. See you in cyberspace!