On Jupyter

 Working from my newer - and memory-rich - computer, this morning. Just

installed Jupyter. It's pretty dramatic!

                                                       

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Deal Made

 

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Granted the US debt does not all come due at once; but the sudden dramatic shift

in interest rates does make the deficit look ominous. Yo! it is the amount of interest

payment on the total debt at current rates. One most certainly doesn't want to go

beyond that; not for the moment, anyway!

But then the situation in Canada - which looks brighter - is structurally different.

The US federal government budgets for everyone, while in Canada the Provinces

take on more of the burden.

Good luck on passing that deal. Legislators from 51+ states will be involved...

Wondering

 Bing is now sending me a new wallpaper every day.

If one would like to know about the image, one just asks

for hidden icons from the taskbar, and right-clicks Bing Image...

Enjoying Life

 Jeff Bezos has been seen at Cannes, with his new boat, the Koru.

It is running under the flag of the Netherlands.

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Somethimes I get confused in doing tutorials, when the model is on Mac

and I'm on Windows. Still, following along as I isolate - and print out - test data.

                                                                    

 

                                                                                

                    

                                                                                 

Waiting it out

 ...

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Moved on to lesson on Google Machine Learning. This involves

downloading aa dataset of pictures of irises.

Aspic

Decided to up my aspic game, as summer weather is about to hit.

Missed the unmolding, but otherwise it looked fine. Five seconds in hot water

and no more is the rule.

Used pineapple juice and unflavored gelatin for the jelly. Added avocado, celery

and orange. Tasted acceptable, and the avocado remained pristinely colored. But I

do need to be more imaginative with this. Will be trying again...

 

WorkingOn

 Yesterday's exercise with numbers needs to be continued. a small number

of data requires a t-test. And that means a look-up on a Gaussian cureve.

Asked Bing/Chat if I could create a normal distribution with python numpy and matplolib:

I don't know, at this point, where the code came from but it works...

Bunch

 continuing on yesteday...Just some numbers, I know, but one can see how python/numpy

would quite simply produce the required statistical test results. 

                                                     

Short-Term

 Put that short-term extension on DoorDash!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/23/debt-limit-solution-14th-amendment/

Var and Cov

 Onward with numpy. Am now asking for, and reading a covariance matrix.

                                                              

Actually checked the math myself: good work, numpy!

Game It

The Washington Post game on the debt problem:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/national-debt-cut-game/?itid=hp_temp4-app-Debt-Ceiling_p009_f001

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A sensible outcome to this stalemate might be: both sides cave. The Republicans chill and

let Treaury pay what the government owes; the Democrats get real, and lead form the Presidency.

The Liberty Bond Act of 1917 needs a rvamping. The US should stop living in a permanent

war economy. Deficit financing might be looked at living in a globalized world entails. 

Details to come...

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source: Le Monde

author: Le Monde, AFP

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Public finances: the government will freeze an additional 1% of the 2023 budget appropriations to better maintain its position

Elisabeth Borne validated, during a meeting in Matignon, Tuesday, a proposal from Bruno Le Maire to increase the credits set aside for the current year.

The government will freeze an additional 1% of the appropriations of its 2023 budget to maintain its trajectory in terms of public finances, announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Tuesday, May 23, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire , and the entourage of Elisabeth Borne.

The Prime Minister validated, during a meeting at Matignon, a proposal from her Minister of the Economy which consists of “an increase in the credits placed in reserve – frozen – in the 2023 budget, up to 1% of the credits planned in the finance law (excluding salaries of civil servants) , “said the entourage of Ms. Borne  . “I proposed to the Prime Minister to take an additional precautionary measure to meet our public finance commitments in 2023 ,” Mr. Le Maire told AFP.

This 1% freeze “applies to all state credits except salaries. This represents 1.8 billion euros and this 1.8 billion euros is added to the 5% of State credits which had already been frozen for a total amount of frozen credits of 10 billion euros, added the minister. This measure "should guarantee that we will meet our public finance objectives in 2023, that is to say return to below a 5% deficit" , he argued.

The government is awaiting the rating of its debt, scheduled for the beginning of June, by the financial agency Standard and Poor's. At the end of April, the Fitch agency lowered the French rating , citing the strong social tensions at work around  pension reform. Mr. Le Maire had then assured that he would “pass structuring reforms” .

After reaching 4.7% of GDP in 2022, the public deficit should rise slightly this year (4.9%) then gradually decline from 2024 to reach 2.7% in 2027, within European guideliness, according to projections for the coming years, presented in April. Deleveraging should also experience a boost, with public debt representing 108.3% of GDP in 2027, but still far from the European target of 60%. It was at 111.6% of GDP at the end of 2022.

Holiday

                     

Yesterday was World Baking Day and I failed to bake, playing with machine

learning on the computer instead. So today is a Holiday, VictoriaDay/LesPatriotes 

and I'm planning to make up for thpeasantis. I'm off to buy some imported ricotta($$) to

make a fancy  dessert of Ricotta Semoule Cake. 🍰

HAPPY HOLIDAY TO ALL!

                                                                              

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Federal Spending | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data

Debt ceiling basics: What you need to know, what default might mean (usatoday.com)

Been looking through the official publications of the US government on the

budget situation. Interesting, if a bit unexpected; everything is in terms of the

projected GDP!!

                                        

No wonder there's a lot of posturing; everything is speculative...

Budget | Congressional Budget Office (cbo.gov)

Orange

 Could not resist any longer; just had to start on creating

machine learning projects. What's not to love: machine learning

allows one to put together widgets, but without coding. the computer 

learns from example.

An early release to developers was from Google, with Tensorflow. this is what

I am strting with here. More recently, Facebook's Pytorch is said to be so much

better...Later!

Below, starting at 'Hello World' level.

Hello World - Machine Learning Recipes #1 - YouTube

The code allows me to ask the computer whether I asked for an apple or an orange.

The features I fed in were for orange, and that is what come back!!

                                             

For those who want to try, with Pycharm: one uses pip install for scikit, but imports

sklearn for this particular project. 

JointC

 source: La Presse, 5/21/2023

author: Mélanie Marquis

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Joint Ministerial Cabinet Project between  Ottawa and Paris  getting closer

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands during a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima on Friday.

(Ottawa) The project to bring together in Paris members of the cabinet of Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, put on hold because of the pandemic, should materialize this summer: the France has submitted to Canada a date for a summit meeting in the City of Light, according to our information.

The long-standing plan to organize a joint cabinet between the governments of France and Canada is expected to come to fruition this summer.

France's ambassador to Ottawa, Michel Miraillet, is convinced that the two countries have much to gain by strengthening their ties.

The Conservatives, who criticize Justin Trudeau and his ministers for their trips abroad, express doubts about the relevance of the exercise.

On the agenda: energy, economy, technology, Russia. A menu that, it must be said, has evolved over time.

Because at the time when the Franco-Canadian cabinet plan was in its infancy, the elephant in the room had been Donald Trump, not Vladimir Putin. It was he, and his influence on the rest of the world, that the Trudeau-Macron tandem sought to counterbalance by joining forces, said the ambassador of France in Ottawa, Michel Miraillet.

"The idea was to try to find, at a time when we were worried about the re-election of a certain American president, how to move forward, under the presidency of the two heads of state and government. There was a desire to rebuild something," he said in an interview last February.

While the game has changed, the need to rebuild is perhaps even more relevant, after a pandemic, and as the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine continues.

"There is a theme very dear to President Macron: the international financial environment, with the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis," said the head of mission.

Because it is necessary "to re-establish a financial system with the major financial institutions that are the World Bank, the IMF, to try to find a way of financing African economies or the major countries of the South that do not necessarily accompany us in our condemnation of the Russian attitude," he advanced.

The Trudeau government declined to say whether the embassy's proposed date had been accepted, or even whether a joint cabinet could be held over the summer in Paris. It was also not possible to obtain details from the Canadian embassy in Paris, where former minister Stéphane Dion officially settled last October.

"We have a real partnership with Ambassador Stéphane Dion," said Miraillet, more talkative.

"All the files are there"

We also have fundamental economic interests, both in the markets, the promotion of the Airbus A200 built in Mirabel, green hydrogen – it is also a way to go beyond the battery stage – but also batteries, critical minerals.

"All the files are there," he summarized.

Michel Miraillet, Ambassador of France to Canada

This would be the first time Justin Trudeau's government has organized a joint cabinet. On the national scene, the Liberal governments of Jean Charest and Philippe Couillard had lent themselves to the exercise with the governments led by leaders of the same allegiance in Ontario, Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

Conservatives skeptical

Without commenting directly on the relevance of such a meeting, Conservative Pierre Paul-Hus still wonders: "If the Prime Minister is about to take his ministerial office on a trip to France, he should say so. Above all, he should explain the reasons for the trip. Canadians have a right to know. What does he have to hide? »

These days in the House of Commons, the Conservatives are lecturing the Liberals because of their travel abroad. Seeing it as a "disconnect" from Canadians struggling to make ends meet, they mocked Justin Trudeau, as well as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, for their participation in the G7 in Japan.

"The Conservatives are trying to insinuate that there is something elitist, something that goes against ordinary Canadians in the fact that Canada's leaders participate in G7 meetings," replied last Wednesday to Pierre Poilievre the deputy prime minister.

"I would like to ask Canadians if they think it is abnormal for the Prime Minister to go to a meeting with the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of Japan," she continued.

Justin Trudeau's trips abroad, whether personal or professional, have often embarrassed him. One of the most recent examples is the $6000, 2022 bill for his overnight stay in a suite in London, where he was attending Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in March .

Determination

 Below, a very simple example to illustrate the use of statistical

tests in the Social Sciences. It is from the Paris-Sorbonne series

I have been going through. The math is mind-bending but the 

example sane enough to pull it all together.

The test in question: Student's t-test. (I love it: Student

never existed, but the test was designed by someone working 

for a beer manufacturer...). A summary of the test and findings.

In a business with 32 employees, we want look at the relationship between

salary and years of service. With a correlation of 0.4, is this significant.

We have used variance as r in the Pearson test.

The t-test tells us that it is, with a possible error less than 5%.

                                               

Equally interesting. With a r^2 of 0.16, only 16% of the effect (ie salary) is being 

accounted for. This is the coefficient of determination at work.

That is weak...

Correlation Coefficient | Types, Formulas & Examples (scribbr.com)

                                                            

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Working from Karl Popper: 'all swanns' are white is a null hypothesis.

One should not seek to establish such a thing, At best, one can show that

some aren't ie if we find pink ones...

https://youtu.be/ShUVjGqbd5o

                                             

Deadlock

 

Seen from a neighboring country, the US debt ceiling crisis

is not pretty to watch. As a senior citizen, I am particularly touched

by the situation of the elderly, being put in a loose-loose situation:

they loose if they are not paid, they loose if the Republican Bloc gets

a deal changing their entitlements, all on no sensible notice.

There are ways to adjust social programs; the recent pensions changes

in France, the ongoing adjustments in the UK. Not popular, but sensible

in that they are in reaction to real changes in the population: we live longer, and

healthier. I would hesitate to add 'get a job' to medicare assistance. What!‽

but then, it is all argued in the name of economy, and not real concern for the

population concerned. The point here: if a program needs to be changed, do; but 

legislate on the program and not the budget.

Is there no adult in the room to unblock the situation. The Biden administration

has been looking at invoquing the 14th amendment to the constitution. What that is

about is not paying indemnities to those who lost money on the emancipation of slaves,

Not a clean appeal to principle.

There is precedent on raising the debt limit: it has happened innumerable times

since 1917 whne it was first put in place. In a measure - incidentally - meant to give

the government some leeway in funding its operations in wartime. 'You are are

allowed to emit obligations within the very sensible limits we have set...'

So here we are: two sides unwilling to move from their initial bargaining positions.

Nobody is blinking.more time

There is one measure I do like: that is raising the limit without a vote. But on a

temporaty basis.  Give the situation a little more time, pay the veterans and the elderly...

ie no interruption to the normal flow of events. Till both sides blink.

Think of it as a game: each side write on a piece of paper one thing it would

really like, and exchange papers. Start there...with a little from a consulting

group that would flush that out as the receiving side would see it. Mediation

with a twist!!!

HomeW

 Did the homework problem I referenced from Alloprof; with a little

help... ended up as a python project. I did alter the code Bing/Chat had

given me to actually show the line equation. Below, our new cable:

https://www.statology.org/line-of-best-fit-python/

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Hey, I'm smart enough. Looking at the data form the Varsity tutors example,

I can see that the average y value over the average x is 1.1. And because the

y values are getting smaller as the x inxreases, I also know that the slope is

negative. Why do I have to go through all that.

https://www.varsitytutors.com/hotmath/hotmath_help/topics/line-of-best-fit

Here, a sense of the history of mathematics is useful.

                                                               

https://www.actuaries.digital/2021/03/31/gauss-least-squares-and-the-missing-planet/