Vacation Seven

  Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:


There is a recent article about the American character, how risk is inherent to it, how the history of the settling of the west symbolizes it and how federal regulations endanger it. The author's point is that regulation in the future will inhibit a successful aspect of the American character and impair our recovery. I, on the other hand, think the damage has been done; the current problems are directly attributable to the markets aversion to risk. There are countless factors in the economic disaster we are experiencing, and about to experience. The obvious are expanding credit/debt, the purposeful loaning of money to less than credit worthy people and the tremendous leverage that has developed in the economy (by that I mean using less and less assets to support more and more debt.) But I'll bet when the final assessments are written there will be a more basic culprit: the attempt to eliminate risk. This "risk" concept is essential to free markets. Every economic encounter should contain risk because risk is a proxy for responsibility. If you can buy a house with no money down and get 125% from the bank, you can walk away from the mortgage with 25% of the loan and put it in your pocket. No risk. No responsibility. On the other hand, the creditor is completely dependent on the good will of the borrower, as vulnerable as a woman in the street. Such thinking makes investment closer to theft. No wonder the creditor runs to homogenize the risk. And I will bet it is the underlying problem in the "illiquidity" of the economy: no one wants to give money in a culture that holds irresponsibility in such high esteem. Everyone wants to be as safe as possible but transactions that are risk less, like
other efforts, are worthless--or will prove to be. Life cannot be seen as risk less. Nothing in, nothing out. The real question is if the risk aversion nature of our economy will supplant the older pioneer quality of the country. That would be real change.

Vacation Six

 Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:


"ACORN had been given a compelling incentive, as CRA allowed the organizations to collect a fee from the banks for their services in marketing the loans. The Senate Banking Committee had estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion had gone to pay for services and salaries of the organizers."
This from a review of the history of the sub prime disaster. It is a small part but nonetheless surprisingly accepted. This may well be what these candidates mean by spreading the wealth.
Tolerance has become indifference. This huge scandal has blended in with all the discrepancies, outrages and disasters that the democracy metabolizes in its days and weeks. That any culture can blink at such behavior, behavior that strikes at its roots, is compelling evidence for its decline. This bizarre manipulation of finances, demographics and now voting--a huge sweeping effort at social restructuring conjoined with considerable personal gain--is unpleasant only, like bad weather, as people submissively adjust their lives in their passionless economic worlds. We shrug these events off like minor wounds and slog on. At its heart this indifference comes from despair, the despair of the soldier in the trench who knows the decisions that will decide his life have slipped beyond his control and he must survive within the limits applied to him from above, by his superiors. This country has always had a defiant independent quality in its genes; that may be thinned out.

Vacation Five

Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:


Palin was in town last night. I'm beginning to feel some real sympathy for her. This woman is not a professional politician. She ended up governor of a big state by a series of circumstances and, by all accounts, is an attractive and compelling woman. Is she an expert on the Middle East? No. Is Biden? No. Is she as goofy as Biden? No. Is Barney Frank a guy you would put in charge of anything? No, not even a male prostitution ring. But I think the savagery she has inspired means something: I think people I dislike are afraid of her and that interests me. And they--that is the republicans, the democrats and the press--have been cruel to her. The republicans have thrown her to the wolves because it doesn't matter; she attracts a voter she will not alienate under any circumstances. The democrats hate her because she makes women and abortion complicated, and the press hates her because the democrats do and she is popular with a group they disdain. That stunt on CNN was unforgivable. The cruelty is unforgivable. It is beyond anything I imagined people in the public space would do.
That said, I really dislike the two presidential candidates and hope that whoever wins has enough judgment and humility to pick good advisers and listen to them. This period of time is too important to us to have such uncertainty in our leaders (although I must admit Obama acts the part). At any rate, I am done with this election; I'm voting for Palin. I know she won't win but she needs a friend.

Vacation Four

Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:

I have met a milestone: I have signed up for Social Security. This has been troubling. First, I can not believe I am this old. This is clearly an emotional and not a reasonable conclusion. After all, a woman younger than I -I knew her as a child - has Alzheimer's. But there is something about this age that feels a bit like turning the third corner of the 400; there is a finishing feeling. Many people I know think that people are in much better health than people used to be and generally I think that is true. But illness is more than a weight that grows like a wart with age, it is a sniper in the trees. I've never thought much about my health or my limits until just recently but milestones are reminders. For some they become millstones. On the other hand, I bought some o.r. shoes two years ago and thought wistfully at the time they would be my last. Now, with this economy and the idiots running for office I have decided to buy another pair.
The other discomfort was the office itself. My experiences with these bureaucracies are usually bad. From the inevitable surly cop to the stunningly disinterested postal worker, the professional government employee always meets my low expectation. And it started badly; my first effort to register--after taking time from work with great effort--was yesterday. Columbus Day. Of course they were closed and I walked away cursing that most of the government wanted to abolish the day--or at least the name--anyway. On my second try every preconception I had was initially confirmed. The room was filled with tough looking, badly dressed people. There was a lot of loud talk and some clearly undiagnosed problems loosed on an unsuspecting world. On the other hand they were uniformly polite, concerned and social. The employees were helpful to everyone; even with the obvious lunatics late in the day they were all smiling and good natured. I was sorry to have prejudged them all, clients and employees, so harshly.

Vacation Three

 Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:


So much is going on.Everyone should keep journals. These times are astonishing in their speed and change. Obama looks like a blowout. I spoke to a very conservative woman last weekend who hates Obama and she said she hoped the election would be decisive. No more of these bitter, hard fought contest with courts and challenges and outrage. I think it is a wise view. Nixon was beaten by Kennedy by gross fraud in Chicago and never considered fighting the results because of the pain it would cause the country. I think the same now. But this is going to be destructive. Obama is coming to power with a groundswell of uncertainty of the value of freedom, uncertainty that we can run our own lives and should be stuck with the results. It is a depressing view--hardly new and shopworn with failure throughout history--but seems popular enough to carry the day and decade. It is even accepted by the capitalist who fears a real social collapse without it. But it will be hard. A class of bureaucrat/managers will develop to guide the world and there will be no place to hide from their benevolence. Production will certainly decline for the more homogeneous mean and, lurking in the background, will be that gnawing threat that there are limits to growth, that innovation may not be forthcoming under such a benighted and preoccupied system and that serious sacrifices must be made by some, likely the very individuals who should step forward. And in the face of such problems flies the overt failure of the government leaders to exhibit any competence at all in this crisis. "No one knows what to do" will echo in our minds for years. How can we possibly look to the government system--however changed--when the leaders of the new system are the same pilots that caused the initial wreck? Well, there are no guillotines, no firing squads, no racks. And we are resilient. Even in an economic revolution run by half baked politicians avowing discredited theories, hard work always survives--if it doesn't win.

Vacation Two

Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:


It's fitting that these elections follow the Olympics; these elections are the Olympics of insincerity. Virtually nothing that is said is real. Energy independence is foremost--and geologically impossible. Good inexpensive medical care for all Americans is an oxymoron. Solving the sub prime mortgage problem is a bit awkward as the problem occurred with strict government oversight and appears to be aided and abetted by government policy.
And what is not talked about is very real, specifically the debt of the government and its citizens.

The core of this problem, this propaganda of hypocrisy, is our tolerance, our willingness to listen to nonsense and our unwillingness to judge, to hold opinions we may be held responsible for. But first it comes from our terrible tolerance for the truth, a disinterest in the face of serious and obvious problems. This indifference comes from conformity in a world where all the sharp edges have been rubbed off. And indifference to terrible truth makes the indifference to lies almost a relief.

Vacation One

Some guys go on vacation and have guest bloggers. My guest blogger is me from the distant past:




The democratic political process is, in its marrow, insincere. The aims, ambitions, motives, achievements, successes and failures of politicians are a twisted and irregular matrix of smallminded, egocentric and sometimes overtly evil preoccupations wrapped in a fragile shell of glitz, optimism, charity and fellowship. Atilla wearing St. Francis' cowl. We, and our media filters, view events like the current campaign with detached openmindedness and grade them like a contest or performance. We see the practiced frozen smiles of the gymnast and judge how well they "connected to the audience". We watch the paired skaters and comment how they are interpreting the music despite our knowing they would skate exactly the same without the music and the music was no factor in the performance at all. And so every four years we watch these performances and hear these sentiments with suspended judgement, openheartedly--or, perhaps, hopefully--giving these incompetent and predatory creatures a second chance.
The Clinton drama gives some spice to this year's masque. Hillary brings adult conflict to the fore. With little experience, with the ironic dependence upon her husband for her independent stature and with notable political failures she has, by force of will and personality, become a national figure and built a base of fierce support. She energized her campaign and prepared to step foreward to her position as next in line only to have her trailbreaking make way for a candidate from a more disenfranchised group than she. And last night she had to applaud his success. No one can say where she is in this play, second or fourth act, but she is no minor character and she is brave.
Unfortunately she and the rest of them--regardless of their compelling complexities-- are minor leaguers. Our nation and the world face serious problems that will require solutions that will be judged on results, not posturing. The fact that any of these ciphers want to appear responsible for our future proves they do not understand our problems well enough to be given the task.