Chas

Quick question for Fernando - When can we expect your Eddie Costa discography ?

Yes , but in the counterfactual I outlined , the rise in the dollar price of oil is engineered by the oil exporters , whereas if oil were priced in euros , the rise in the dollar price of oil would be a direct consequence of the depreciation of the dollar against the euro . The imprecise nature of the former method of adjustment is the reason why Guy's assertion that a " a 20% depreciation of the dollar against the euro will cause the price of oil to go up by 20% in dollars and remain unchanged in euros" would only be true if oil were priced in euros , which it isn't . The main point is that there exist scenarios wherein oil exporters seeking to maintain their purchasing power and diversify their assets have reason to prefer oil priced in euros to oil priced in dollars given the additional efforts needed to achieve those ends when oil is priced in depreciating dollars . The fact that two-thirds of foreign reserves are in dollars , and that any move away from the dollar as a medium of international exchange would undermine its function as a store of value , makes this truly a 'thought experiment' more than anything .

How do you reckon that the absence of arbitrage opportunities implies that " it doesn't make a difference to oil producers what currency oil is priced in " ? Assume that at some time in the future supply and demand for oil are in long-term balance and that the price of oil is thus in long-term equilibrium . Assume also that the dollar continues its secular decline against the euro . Given the increasing propensity of the oil exporters to spend their oil receipts on imports ( rather than adding to their already enormous dollar reserves or further unbalancing their investment portfolios ) , and given that the eurozone ( and other non-dollar trading partners ) is the source of most of those imports , wouldn't the oil exporters want to maintain their purchasing power by compensatory increases in the dollar price of oil , perhaps through production cuts ? In addition , oil exporters who end their currencies' dollar-peg would see rising production costs that could exceed growth in oil revenues , adding additional impetus to any attempt to engineer a rise in the dollar price of oil . It is in this sense that , " it doesn't make a difference to oil producers what currency oil is priced in " , is contingent . Your reasoning in support of that conclusion made it sound like an analytic truth , and that is the gravamen of my objection .

Don't have the primary source , so can't vouch for the methodology , but the correlation is mentioned here and here . Whatever the numerical value of the correlation actually is , the important point is that it is not - 1.0 , which is what your initial assertion , "a 20% depreciation of the dollar against the euro will cause the price of oil to go up by 20% in dollars and remain unchanged in euros " implied . As I said , given present conditions I agree with your point , but not with your reasoning in support of it - reasoning which if it were sound , would rule out any contingency in your statement . Of course not ; nothing I wrote supports such an imputation in my view .

If the currency used for pricing were irrelevant , how then to explain the - 0.7 correlation between movements in the dollar/euro cross and the dollar price of oil ? When you consider that almost all of the oil exporters' exports are priced in dollars , while a great deal of their imports are priced in euros , and that they have an understandable desire to diversify their investments , the relevancy of the currency used to price oil becomes apparent . Recall that Guy's initial claim was that at present , the use of dollar-pricing for oil does not hurt oil exporters . I pointed out , contrary to Guy's assertion , that this is a contingent fact , not a necessary consequence of the very meaning of dollar depreciation .

On Jazz of Two Cities Warne Marsh does Tchaikovsky's Opus # 42 Mt. 3

I'm afraid it does . Your initial claim* was about the effect of dollar-euro depreciation on the dollar price of oil , not the effect of dollar depreciation on the ratio of the dollar price of oil to the euro price of oil . This new assertion about ratio adjustments does nothing to support your initial claim , and what's more , your statement of it is incorrect . A 20% dollar-euro depreciation does not result in a 20% increase in the ratio of oil prices in dollars vs. euros , but rather a 25% increase , and then only if the depreciating currency is in the numerator of the ratio . If the dollar price of oil is in the denominator , then a 20% dollar depreciation decreases the ratio by 20% . In any event , the ratio adjustments are merely a consequence of the depreciation itself and are not predictive in the way you claim of whether or how much the actual dollar price of oil will increase which was the substance of your initial claim . It's not because of "other cross-rates" that the dollar price of oil can increase more or less than 20% for a 20% dollar/euro depreciation , but because research has shown that the coefficient of correlation is - 0.7 and not - 1.0 , meaning that the dollar price of oil needn't increase at all in such a case , though more often than not it does . *

So Guy , is Jan correct in his supposition that you were , contrary to appearances , talking about oil's intrinsic value ??

I don't see that in his post at all. I took Guy to mean this: hold all currencies other than the dollar fixed wrt to each other. Now take X% off the value of the dollar. All else being equal, this will have an X% impact on oil prices as expressed in dollars. Your last paragraph seems to me to fit under the disclaimer "obviously other factors can exert upward or downward impacts on oil prices". Invoking ceteris paribus is , as it usually is , explanatorily vacuous . I await Guy's clarification of his assertion .

That is obvious, but it isn't what Guy asserted. What he asserted is if the value of the dollar drops by X%, then this will have an X% upward impact on the dollar value of oil prices. Other forces could have additional upward or downward impact on prices. I stand by my criticism of Guy's original assertion ( and by extension , your reformulation ) . Guy's statement contains two elements . First , he asserted the existence of a - 1.0 coefficient of correlation between the dollar-euro exchange rate and the price of oil - when the dollar weakens against the euro , the price of oil increases . Please note that my criticism of Guy's assertion does not rest ( as you supposed ) on a claim that it cannot explain all of the rise in the price of oil . Two , he asserted , that the slope of the regression line has a unity value - if the dollar depreciates by 20% against the euro , then the price of oil increases by 20% . Both these claims are false . As to the first , normally in any given year the dollar depreciates ( at various rates ) against some currencies and appreciates ( at various rates ) against others , so one needs to specify which cross-rate is correlated with the price of oil . Guy used the dollar-euro cross , which as it happens does have an approximately - 0.7 coefficient of correlation with the price of oil , owing to the importance of the trade between the eurozone and the oil-exporters . Contrary to his assertion however , this means that there are contemporaneous periods where the price movements of both the dollar-in-euros and the price of oil are in the same direction . That said , now that the dollar is depreciating against all major currenices , looking at a trade-weighted average of dollar-exchange rates might reveal an even stronger negative correlation with the price of oil . As to Guy's second claim , even if the correlation were - 1.0 ( the result of the desire of the oil-exporters to maintain their purchasing-power in the non-dollar world ) there is no reason to expect that an X% move in the dollar leads to an X% move in oil . There is a tendency here , not a mathematical necessity for equivalence . My reason for pointing out that the recent rise in the price of oil has far outstripped the depreciation of the dollar , was to remind everyone that the supply and demand fundamentals of oil are vastly more important determinants of the price of oil than the supply and demand of dollars . This is not to say that leveraged speculation has not also been a factor in oil's recent meteoric rise .

The assertion that there is a perfect negative correlation between the exchange value of the dollar and the price of oil is false . The supply and demand functions of oil and the dollar have no such identity . In the last six years the dollar has depreciated 65% against the euro , while oil prices are up nearly 300% in dollar terms . This is the real reason that pricing oil in dollars has not been bad for oil-exporters thus far. What happens however when their growth in oil receipts normalizes , while the dollar continues its long-term depreciation against major currencies ?

Vivaldi's Four Seasons was done by Raymond Fol in 1965 for Philips ( on CD as part of Gitanes Jazz in Paris series ) Edit to add : Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf by Jimmy Smith in 1966 ( arrangements by Oliver Nelson ) .

Dr. Seuss would have been proud of that sentence I don't think it's the recognition of difference per se that leads to your appreciation , which as I said , is more a function of what you want/need the music to do .

Do you find minced oaths in your mincemeat ?

What's 'dumb' is not having at one's disposal adjectives beyond 'dumb' and 'stupid' . "We all occupy different worlds" = "Everything is incommensurable" = The nihilistic solipsism of postmodernism .

Cyrus must be getting ready to tour with the Bad Plus .

Kenny G and Coltrane are/were trying to do different things on soprano and succeeding , but that fact neither compels nor precludes the expression of a preference . In other words , your lack of a preference between Wilson/Patterson has nothing to do with recognizing their different aims , and everything to do with your equal sympathy for their respective aims . The fact that "they were going for different things" does not mean it is "stupid" to compare them . It's both natural and valid to compare how 'what they were trying to' do meshes with 'what I want/need my music to do' . It is also well to be circumspect of musicians' aims , lest we make it easy for musicians of limited technique to deflect criticism by defining their aims in such a way as to avoid comparison with others .

If there still were a Rare Grooves series that is - the last batch came out in April of 2003 ! Never really dug Wilson's issued sets , so I can't generate any enthusiasm for an unissued one , even one with Ted Dunbar who is eminently diggable . Speaking of Dunbar , I hope those of you clamoring to hear this unissued Wilson already have The Return of Don Patterson on Muse ( on CD as Genius of the B-3 ) . Same era , same instrumentation as the Wilson , but with Ted Dunbar , Eddie Daniels , and Freddie Waits . Wilson couldn't carry Patterson's Leslie !

The cover of that Collette Interlude LP ( some copies with yellow/gold vinyl ) : The Collete LP was repackaged for a 1962 reissue on the Charlie Parker label : The only picture I could find of Jolly and his ( no doubt Italian ) squeezebox :

AFAIC , LaFaro is the only reason to listen to this . I see Moran as closer to Peterson than Drew inasmuch as she lacks the latter's deep blues feeling and swing , while evincing Peterson-like lapses of taste and subtlety in her rhapsodic 'interpretations' of standards that are at once , overwrought and square .

Whether a mono folddown yields a louder , better balanced piano or not is neither here nor there to those who don't care for the way Van Gelder mic'd the instrument ( q.v. this earlier thread) I myself don't understand blanket condemnations of Van Gelder's piano sound , since there are plenty of examples of excellence . Which of course is not to say that I prefer Van Gelder's piano sound over all others , since I do prefer DuNann's for instance , but then by the same token I prefer Van Gelder to Dowd .

Kinda like the George Braith Blue Note 2-fer? Looked good on paper, not very happening. Well Braith may be the poor man's Roland Kirk , but there is some pretty happening music in that set . The first album is pretty duff , save for that version of Mary had a little lamb which is a corker . The second album is more consistent , while the third album may be Braith's best ( the later Prestige sides are a lot less happening ) . As to the worst Mosaic decision , count me among those who find it difficult to square Mosaic's commitment to give you 'the whole enchilada' , with their refusal to reprint original liner notes and cover art in their full-size boxes .

Pretty obscure I know , but trombonist/arranger Lon Norman was Miami-based in the Fifties .

Another native who comes to mind is Blue Mitchell . Lots of transplants I would imagine , though the only ones who come to mind right now are Flip Phillips and Wally Cirillo .

Tight headshots of serious visages (signified by closed mouths) , with overhead lighting giving a chiaroscuro effect .