As hamsteralliance says, ContentAware uses proximity matching and relative area matching. If you tried to fill in the white space with ContentAware, it'd be full of everything except eyes. They nVidia folks used thousands of images to train the neural net (ie generate the model using training data) which has more discrete sequential or spatial relationships between features (ie. eyes go to either side of the nose, below the eyebrows, level, interpupilary distance etc etc). The neural approach ALWAYS needs training data sets - it doesn't appear to (from reading the paper) any adaptive or learning algorithm outside of the neural framework (so, it's not AI in the sense that it learns from any environmental stimulus and alters its response... that I can see anyway. The paper doesn't get into the minutiae). But I'd still date her, if only she'd have me.

I don't consider the chemical reactions of plants to be the same. I said that 'even' plants have a response to negative stimuli. Animals have instinct, a response coded into their DNA, that allows them to respond to negative stimuli. Does that make them a fully sentient being, capable of self-awareness and logical thought? No, it doesn't.

Do insects have rational thought? Do clams or lobster have rational thought? If your entire goal is to avoid (formerly) living matter that can respond to negative stimuli, then why draw the line at plants? Do you really believe that a sea urchin has more capability of self-awareness than a head of lettuce?

This is the fallacy of logic that lies at the core of vegan ideology. Vegans say "I will eat this item because it doesn't understand pain!" when there are, in fact, many life forms that do not understand pain beyond a stimulus reaction.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

@radx @enoch @eric3579

For one thing, give the executive or legislative power over the printing press in a crisis and they will not willingly give that power up and end up abusing it. For another, if you're simply printing money to spend then you depreciate and inflate your currency commensurately, at least in the long term. Relying heavily on this is the kind of thing that Venezuela does. There's a reason that governments instead take on their fiscal spending as debt. On that I would say, I've also become much more skeptical of fiscal stimulus in general but particularly in corrections or recessions. I'm okay with automatic stabilizers (unemployment benefits, the largely limitless kind with strings attached we have here in Australia) but not so much direct fiscal stimulus.

The fundamental issue to me is large, even extremely large fiscal spending will not affect business confidence levels of economic conditions. There is some fiscal multiplier effects (the multiple of the effect on national income over the spending injection by the government) but the worse economic conditions are, the lower this will be. Also, yes with say infrastructure spending, you're creating immediate jobs. Problem is these are in no way permanent jobs and simply pushes the can down the road on them finding new employment. Better to provide unemployment benefits and training to get them into a more permanent job faster.

Also large bouts of spending (again to use infrastructure as an example) tends to be hugely wasteful. Good projects require appraisals, consultation and careful planning. The notion of handfuls of 'shovel ready' projects is a political myth. You can instead span it out but then you don't get the mooted fiscal boost. In fact I would argue infrastructure spending is never appropriate as fiscal stimulus. It should be in a constant, planned process of improvement irrespective of business cycles or downturns. The US stimulus under Obama was largely long term spending projects like this as giveaways to the states. There is little evidence it eased the recovery or altered behaviour though. Many states simply enacted the same civic projects they would have otherwise and used this money instead of issuing debt like they would have otherwise - effectively they saved on interest.

So what are the alternatives then? The government here in Australia also heavily spent on roads, home subsidies and schools but notably also gave all income earners a cash deposit of AUD $300-950. The latter is probably the closest you can get to a pure fiscal stimulus - immediately cash to spend, injected not into banks than might save it but given particularly to low / medium income earners most likely to spend it. Again what we saw is that it hardly altered consumer / household behaviour. Many saved it, many spent it on large one off purchases (e.g. TVs, in which case most of that value was transferred overseas). So we gave a dollop of cash as stimulus to the global economy of which Australia is a drop in the ocean. Basically my attitude is, if you maintain good infrastructure, effective education systems, adequate but efficient regulation, reasonable tax rates, and importantly competitive markets, the best way to get through a crisis is to let the market stabilize by itself. Provide assistance and retraining to workers who lose their jobs by all means, but don't expect government spending to be some kind of savior.

I agree on the inflation aspect of your post. There were certainly no shortage of self-declared monetarists buying up gold in anticipation of high inflation, but as you say dollops of cash in the economy are meaningless if they are idle and the economy under capacity. The question now with unemployment in the US at 5.5% whether capacity is finally pushing LRAS levels. Probably not, participation rate is low and falling, and the unemployment rate is woefully underrepresenting forced part timers. Also as you mention the dip in oil will temper prices on the input cost side. The Fed certainly seems to think so and has started tightening rates but as so much commentary in the investing world is saying, this may turn out to be a mistake and they may end up having to reverse course.

Apologies, I got carried away... wall of text incoming.

@RedSky

I agree, monetary policy at low rates has very little to offer in terms of economic stimulus. Then again, the focus almost solely on monetary policy is part of the problem. Fiscal policy can have a massive impact, both directly (government purchases of goods and services) and indirectly (increase in automatic stabilizers). But for that you either need to be in control of your central bank, so that you can engage in Overt Monetary Financing ("printing" money). Or you need the blessing of the private banks, which is particularly true for a Vollgeld system.

The budget is the core of a parliamentary democracy, and to be at the whim of the folks at Deutsche Bank, HSBC or Credit Suisse -- no, thank you very much. We saw how that played out in Greece.

Anyway, the central bank can do miraculous things: if it provides funds to the democratically elected body in charge of the budget, aka parliament/the government. Trying to "motivate" the private banks to stock up on cheap reserves to stimulate lending is just a sign of ideology.

The great Michal Kalecki, in his essay The Political Aspects of Full Employment, summarized the general issue of government spending quite clearly. The industrial leaders stand in opposition to government spending aimed at full employment for three distinct reasons: a) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; b) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); c) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment.

I'd say control over your currency is too great a tool to leave it in the hands of unelected managers. Clement Attlee knew very well why he had to nationalize the Bank of England in '46.

Back to the issue of inflation, I'd like to make two points. First, how big a role should inflation really play when talking policy. Second, what's the influence of a central bank on inflation.

Where does it come from, this focus on inflation. People usually talk about government spending when discussing inflation. Private spending is rarely brought up, even though it can be just as inflationary. So let's ignore private spending for a moment and talk purely government spending: should a deficit/surplus not be judged primarily by how well it helps us achieve our macroeconomic goals? Or more clearly, why should we sacrifice full employment or our general welfare on the altar of inflation? Yes, that's over the top. But so is the angst of inflation.

I'd say let's stick with Abba Lerner's concept of functional finance and judge deficits/surpluses purely by how well they help us achieve our macroeconomic goals. Besides, the US has run massive deficits during the GFC, so much in fact, that a great number of monetarists saw hyperinflation just around the corner. Still waiting for it. Same for Japan. Massive deficits... and deflation.

As long as spending, both private and government, doesn't push the economy beyond its limits (full employment, real resources, production capacity), out-of-control inflation just doesn't materialize. Plus, suppressing inflation is actually one thing central banks can do quite well. Unlike causing inflation, which both Japan and the EU are showcases off. Draghi can dance naked on the table, monetary policy (QE, mainly) won't push inflation upwards.

Which brings me to the second point: what's inflation, what's the cause of inflation, how can central banks manipulate it.

CPI is often used as a measure of inflation, but I prefer the GDP deflator. CPI doesn't account for externalities that you cannot influence, whatever you do. Prime case: the price of oil. Monetary policy of the Bank of Sweden has no influence on the price of oil. The GDP inflator, however, accounts for every economic activity within your currency zone -- much more useful.

General theory says, this measure of inflation goes up when demand surpasses supply. And vice versa. The primary factor of demand is domestic purchasing power, therefore wages. If you suppress wages, you suppress inflation. If you push wages, you push inflation. More specifically, you can see a direct correlation between unit labour costs and the GDP deflator in every country at any time. Here's a general graph for multiple countries, and the St. Louis FED provides a beauty for the US.

That's why it's easy for central banks to combat inflation, but almost impossible to fight deflation.

@bareboards2
@newtboy



Answer this Why is Baltimore such a shit hole in treating inner city poor folks like dogs?


Like many failed cities, Detroit comes to mind, and every city besieged recently by rioting, Democrats and their union pals have had carte blanche to inflict their ideas and policies on Baltimore since 1967, the last time there was a Republican Mayor. In 2012, after four years of his own failed policies, President Obama won a whopping 87.4% of the Baltimore city vote. Democrats run the city of Baltimore, the unions, the schools, and, yes, the police force. Since 1969, there have only been only been two Republican governors of the State of Maryland. Elijah Cummings has represented Baltimore in the U.S. Congress for more than thirty years.”
..."the Democrat-infested mainstream media is treating the Democrat like a local folk hero, not the obvious and glaring failure he really is. Every single member of the Baltimore city council is a Democrat. Liberalism and all the toxic government dependence and cronyism and union corruption and failed schools that comes along with it, has run amok in Baltimore for a half-century, and that is Baltimore’s problem. It is the free people of Baltimore who elect and then re-elect those who institute policies that have so spectacularly failed that once-great city. It is the free people of Baltimore who elected Mayor “Space-to-Destroy”. From a recent Allen West post

http://allenbwest.com/2015/04/the-dirty-little-secret-no-one-wants-to-admit-about-baltimore/

Not to mention the $1.5Million /year federal dollars for education. Total 18.3 Million from 2001 and today..

plus the 1.8 Billion from Obama's Stimulus.

Peace/ love sharing and caring. Yep a Democrat Utopia.

I   puppy, said James staring out over the endless void. He didn't notice the hiccups but something was stirring in the dark recesses of memory despite the void of all eternity and what it knew while lurking in his soul.

He was still able to register the faint recollection that puppies provide stimulus. Whether or not it was positive or negative is a matter of debate, for he had been drained of all human emotion. I   puppy. Like? I like puppy? No, too much heart, too much optimism. All actions void. Language meaningless. I ALT255 puppy.

Sad to see Oliver just pick on John Boehner all the while the Dems have been in control last 6 years.

Both parties have failed. Even Obama's $800Billion stimulus fund for highways and bridges and other shovel ready jobs did not seem to produce much. How much of that got wasted for his "buddies"

We also just blew 10 Trillion and now 18 trillion in debt Where did all that go to?

@radx

I think we're probably going to end up rehashing old arguments.

The loans weren't the cause of the output loss, it was the huge and fraudulent debt their government amassed. The withdrawal of loans would have been and still would be more catastrophic than what has occurred. I think you're mischaracterizing it as a loss of sovereignty.

The unwillingness to fund fiscal stimulus rather than just bailouts comes back to the whole issue of lack of trust. It's fair to say the new government may not have the nepotistic past of the major parties, but they also have little to no governing experience, particularly with difficult reform. I don't really see Varoufakis as having the wherewithal to accomplish that.

The more they argue for things like raising the minimum wage or reinstating public sector workers, the more difficult it is going be for them to find any semblance of a middle ground with Germany. If they instead came to the recent meeting with a credible plan for tackling corruption then they may have gotten better terms.

All well and good, but the reason why all the oversight costs piles up is because this plane isn't a solution to a military problem, it's a solution to an economical problem.

It's government stimulus, pure and simple. Get a whole bunch of different contractors from different companies and hand them money to build parts for a warplane that covers roles that are already covered. Keep those guys ticking over to prevent a collapse of the arms industry (or to prevent them developing products for sale to buyers the US might not consider kosher).

And then, because you're dealing with different companies, you need to coordinate, ensure compatibility, oversea each company to make sure they are on time/program/budget etc etc.

You build a plane under one roof, the entire process is overseen by the company and the government get's to check up on them. Far simpler. One department doesn't deliver inside that company, their management has to fix the problem or default on the contract. One company holds up the whole plane, do the other companies get penalised? Of course not, their staff sit around drawing wages with their thumbs up their asses waiting. And the government keeps paying.

Additionally, the planes the F35 is supposed to replace are all better at their jobs because they are specialised. You put every topping ever conceived on that government pizza and no one will like it (apart from perhaps the homeless who would eat anything to stave off starvation). Build a new warthog, improve on the materials, give it better armaments etc and put the tried and true design back to work. That's the core of the super hornet program, right?

When you look at the state of the world, the only real threats currently to America are the bloody terrorists (which, as you note, isn't exactly an existential threat), and the flexing of military might in 2nd world countries not withstanding, there is very little need for a frankenplane that doesn't do anything particularly good.

China and Russia? Lol, the US has 75% more combat aircraft and 400% more combat helicopters. Factor in China's pretty sparse air assets, in an air war, including force multipliers such as electronic warfare/early warning/air co-ordination and carriers, the US would be able to show down both nations handily with it's existing fleet.

I really do appreciate the point you're making, but that just adds insult to injury. The awful waste built in to the program is even more appalling when you consider that the F35 is a plane no one really needs, or even wants.

Many of us took the money in the spirit intended, and went shopping

Since consumer sentiment and the economy picked up right on cue, analysts from the likes of the IPA came out and said it was "wasteful", "unnecessary", and "didn't work". My feeling is that if the treasurer had been red instead of blue they would have hailed him as a genius!

Ross Gittins (economics writer for the left leaning SMH and The Age) argues against their point here - http://www.rossgittins.com/2014/10/re-writing-re-write-of-gfc-fiscal.html

The background to the stimulus is explained here - http://www.thegoodfightonline.com.au/behind-the-gfc-1/

@enoch

I'd agree Friedman wasn't directly responsible, but served more as an academic influence and a proponent of a particular approach because many of the Chilean economists who influenced policy had studies in Chicago.

As far as exploiting a crisis, arguably the crisis itself warranted dramatic action. High levels of inflation caused by Allende's money printing to support wholesale nationalisation of industries pretty much required this.

As inflation is self perpetuation by its continuous expectation and can continue even after the original stimulus is gone, there was little choice here. After all it took Volker nearly half a decade of high interest rates to tame it in the US in the early 80s, to do that after an economic and political crisis in a undeveloped country was an entirely different scale of difficult.

Successive governments likely reversed some of the economic policies enacted under his regime, but the foundation I meant was particularly the budgetary position, free trade, and a competitive cadre of private sector exporters. The welfare, health and educational spending were all made possible by this. Without a credible tax base, trying to enact spending on this level while also raising the tax rises would have just precipitated another crisis.

Coming back to inflation and economics, I believe policies against inflation especially, are generally misunderstood in the short term and their benefits unrecognised in the long term. I would probably say the reverse of what you said, economic policy rarely shows tangible results in the short term but almost always in the long term.

It's certainly not perfect. After all economics has the unfavourable position of being the combination of social science, lacking the ability to test results in clinical conditions isolating a single factor and yet requiring highly specific answers to solve its questions. At its best, it offers answers based on the cumulative knowledge accrued from iterative policies, at each point being based on the 'best available knowledge at the time'.

But it has worked, as I like to often mention, with independent central banks, essentially the most technocratic and pure application of economic theory, inflation has become a thing of the past in those countries that have adopted it.

Then again I'm biased as I majored in it at uni

@chingalera...preserving the stream here....

You have been told the truth by so many here I'm not going to waste my time...I do not suffer fools...and you, "little...thing" are....

Pathelogical, habitual, both, more...it matters little to none to me...you are a liar. Everything you say can be refuted with your own trail of dribbled filth here and elsewhere. Delude yourself as you will or cannot help but I can and will lay it out for all to see if you really want it so. For dag, if you wish, lucky as well, for everyone. Is that what you want? If so, so be it. You might want to read my admonition. Here it is, http://videosift.com/video/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-missing-flight-Preacher-predicted-p. You really should. I have alot more...many more.

The sad thing is, though the facts maybe be unknown to some or all but the totality of them as shines on you is not a surprise to anyone acquainted with you here, and deep down you know that. Poor little thing,...seeking stimulus to tried to momentarily forget the anguish. But, it doesn't work does it? That is why you keep it up.

Well I disagree, wouldn't exactly call it 'reasonable'......lantern53 is coming from a position of familiarity with the fraternity though he's quite honest in his motivations for his addictive love for his chosen 'profession', as it provides that calming "rush" of the constant stimulus of adrenal secretions to feed those over-ramped receptors that his habit constantly demands.

He's career, so his attitude ain't gonna change much folks...

He's admitted that he'll 'play-ball' in a courtroom situation to save his job and pension, and plays the frat card again when someone suggests that 'all cops are criminals', which they obviously are (especially in the United States) to any reasonable individual, oh and, when faced with being judged by a reasonable public standard by the people he's allegedly pledged to protect and serve, he'll 'judge' them by a similar, opposite standard, when he sees himself threatened with a realization that they could in fact, be correct in their judgements.

Typical. Programmed, frightened and confused, American, cop.

Yeah man, you night wanna check your shit and decide whether-or-not you're one of the bad ones?? Because you sound like the worst example of so-called 'law-enforcement' to this sinner.

If it squeals like a pig, smells like a pig.....

(Oh, for all you youngsters whose hippie-parents now work for the machine, the term "pig" was used as a derogatory and appropriate euphemism for the police back in the 60s when that dick-less generation failed to shut-down the runaway freight train of human subjugation in the United States.)

"I don't train her" -- and then she won... so... it's a completely random event like watching baby humans race? Sometimes they are inspired by unknown stimulus response to run and jump over things faster than normal?