Collateral damage: Sizing and assessing the subprime CDO crisis

This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of structured finance asset-backed securities collateralized debt obligations (SF ABS CDOs), the subset of CDOs that traded on the ABS CDO desks at the major investment banks and were a major contributor to the global financial panic of August 2007. Despite their importance, we have yet to determine the exact size and composition of the SF ABS CDO market or get a good sense of the write-downs these CDOs will generate. In this paper the authors identify these SF ABS CDOs with data from Intex©, the source data and valuation software for the universe of publicly traded ABS/MBS securities and SF ABS CDOs. They estimate that 727 publicly traded SF ABS CDOs were issued between 1999 and 2007, totaling $641 billion. Once identified, they describe how and why multisector structured finance CDOs became subprime CDOs, and show why they were so susceptible to catastrophic losses. The authors then track the flows of subprime bonds into CDOs to document the enormous cross-referencing of subprime securities into CDOs. They calculate that$201 billion of the underlying collateral of these CDOs was referenced by synthetic credit default swaps (CDSs) and show how some 5,500 BBB-rated subprime bonds were placed or referenced into these CDOs some 37,000 times, transforming $64 billion of BBB subprime bonds into$140 billion of CDO assets. For the valuation exercise, the authors estimate that total write-downs on SF ABS CDOs will be $420 billion, 65 percent of original issuance balance, with over 70 percent of these losses having already been incurred. They then extend the work of Barnett-Hart (2009) to analyze the determinants of expected losses on the deals and AAA bonds and examine the performance of the dealers, collateral managers, and rating agencies. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of their findings for the “subprime CDO crisis” and discuss the many areas for future work.Debt ; Securities ; Asset-backed financing ; Banks and banking

IP Protection for Love: Dating App’s Feuds and Foes

A new method of meeting others and dating online has emerged amid today’s age of technology. Online dating, now largely facilitated through apps, has grown exponentially since its genesis. With this growth, online dating services have sought intellectual property protection. This Note examines the patentability of dating app features, primarily the digital user interface through the backdrop of a recent dispute between Tinder and Bumble. It begins with a history of online dating and analysis of why apps have become a popular tool to launch a business. The Note then delves into a new dating app concept and accompanying patent application surrounding artificial intelligence-based matchmaking. This Note supports the conclusion that Section 101 of the Patent Act and the two-step framework developed by the Supreme Court are sufficient to bolster Tinder’s claim that their swiping feature is a patentable, digital interface improvement. This Note also argues that artificial intelligence, using a natural phenomenon such as attraction, should be patentable when coupled with an inventive concept

Pray Away the Criminal? Crime, Religiosity, Gender and Sexuality Over the Life Course

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in the United States seem to be making strides in some social institutions, such as family, due to the recent ruling on marriage equality. Still, there remains a contentious relationship between sexual and gender minority youth, adults, and the institution of religion, for many faith systems. This study explores the relationship between religiosity, long theorized to act as a protective factor from offending, gender and sexuality. We use three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) (Wave I, N = 12,940; Wave III, N = 10,742; Wave IV, N = 8,362) to look at these relationships over three stages of the life course (adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood) on a particular type of offending: selling drugs. We find that while the effects of high levels of religiosity are protective from selling drugs, the effect is not as strong on sexual minority youth and adults as their sexual majority counterparts. We also find the effects of gender are stronger than sexual minority status, across the life course

Homophobia without Homophobes: Deconstructing the Public Discourses of 21st Century Queer Sexualities in the United States

In contrast to even a decade ago, there are more queer people in the public eye, and an increasing number people embracing a diverse range of sexual identities in the United States. To be overtly homophobic in public discourse is now risky, with public figures facing increased backlash. At the same time, even after marriage equality has been achieved, queer people in the United States still face systemic barriers to lived equality. We theorize that homophobia, while no longer as overt as it once was, has been rearticulated into covert forms of homophobia and heteronormativity, paralleling the covert racism seen in today’s social structures. While not an empirical study, we provide several examples from public discourse, including television, film, popular music, games, politics and social media to support our theory. Similar to the way Bonilla-Silva (2014) examines “racism without racists,” we contend that heterosexism is maintained through modern forms of homophobia: naturalization, cultural homophobia and the minimization of homophobia

Land suitability evaluation using GIS-based multi-criteria decision making for bio-fuel crops cultivation in KhonKaen, Thailand

The effective Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) has been adopted by this study. Several studies agreed that one of the understandable principles of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) MCDM can be able to work on multiple criteria analysis. It can deal with the data uncertainties among several criteria which is the strength point to be chosen for land suitability evaluation for biofuel crops cultivation in KhonKaen, Thailand. Due to this study aims to allocate the scarcely land availability for the most suitable crops and turn into the higher beneficial incomes for farmers. Therefore, the sixteen criterion layers that related to the selected crop requirements were analysed using the GIS based approach. These include soil texture, soil reaction, soil drainage, soil depth, soil cat-ion exchange capacity (CEC), ground water, stream water, irrigation zone, slope, elevation, aspect, erosion, soil salinity, drought, rainfall and humidity. The results shown based on the objectives in different degrees. The suitable areas were extracted by matching the potential suitable areas with the existing land use dataset. It shown the total areas of land allocations by MCDM is as 71.86% and by individual crops in the three suitable classes that the rice areas should be preserved around 32.02% while the rest areas of around 24.34%, 10.87% and 4.63% were for sugarcane, oil palm and cassava respectively. While the results of total areas by FAO is 66.76% and provided the total areas by individual crops as around 28.94%, 25.92%, 8.35% and 3.52% for rice, sugarcane, oil palm and cassava respectively. The results can be simulated by multiplying the average cost and benefit values with the suitable areas to visualise the potential budgets and potential incomes for the decision makers

Quantitative photoluminescence of broad band absorbing melanins: A procedure to correct for inner filter and re-absorption effects

We report methods for correcting the photoluminescence emission and excitation spectra of highly absorbing samples for re-absorption and inner filter effects. We derive the general form of the correction, and investigate various methods for determining the parameters. Additionally, the correction methods are tested with highly absorbing fluorescein and melanin (broadband absorption) solutions; the expected linear relationships between absorption and emission are recovered upon application of the correction, indicating that the methods are valid. These procedures allow accurate quantitative analysis of the emission of low quantum yield samples (such as melanin) at concentrations where absorption is significant.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figure