Bright eyed Cashion

New Year's Resolutions

1. Get chummy with Tila Tequila
2. Bigger head, I need a bigger head.
3. New job. Oh, make that 3 new jobs.
4. Finish selling off all possessions.
5. Embrace the chaos.
6. Drink more, smoke less.
7. Stay closer to people (by using the internet).
8. Listen to even more music.
9. Stay cool.
10. Don't go crazy in August this year!
11. Learn to love again.

In 2009, I'm gonna do it for the shorties. Peace out and love the future--you're gonna be spending all your time there.

Heisman Prediction

My pre-season prediction for the Heisman Trophy was that Tim Tebow would dominate the SEC and win a second trophy. Right now I think the Trophy belongs to Colt McCoy, a guy on no one's radar early on, he willed Texas to a fine season and barely missed a shot at the championship. Sam Bradford put up ridiculously impressive numbers and he did get his shot at the championship where he'll meet Tebow and he'll have plenty of voter support. But on the eve of the presentation, I'm sticking with Tebow. Though I think he was realistically 3rd place out of these three, I think Bradford and McCoy will split the vote and Tebow rides his base support to a 2nd Heisman. (Another stray prediction: if Tebow stays at Florida for 1 more year, he'll win another Heisman, another championship and go down as one of the greatest college players ever. On the other hand, with the Wildcat offense taking over the pros, his game may be more Sunday-worthy than anyone yet gives him credit for) I'm looking forward to Oklahoma-Florida but I gotta say, the rest of the bowls don't really excite me this year. Oh well, I'll watch them anyway.

The Films of 1949 (part four)

I certainly didn't see all the films from 1949 but after this survey I'm ready to compile not a top 10 but a top 8. Good enough.

The Third Man -- A classic, one of my favorite movies of all time. I haven't seen it in a while but I'm never disappointed. There's humor, police procedural, melancholy romance, murder and intrigue, post-war corruption, the privileged yet always broke American, a classic score--this film has so much cool stuff going on its hard to know where to start. Plus, I always love Joseph Cotton.

Thirst -- This is my kind of movie: endless sexual angst with hardly any sex at all. Talking, talking, talking with amazingly little action--I love it! When Bergman is at his best his investigations of human weirdness can be utterly fascinating (see Persona, Scenes from a Marriage); at his worst it's hopelessly dull and frustrating (see Sarabande, Autumn Sonata). This is the story of women and men doing what it is they do: fucking and feeling guilty about it or fucking and feeling superior only to be brought low in some other manner. You may find it depressing, I find it inspiring. Bergman is in the flower of his youth here, fine performances, complicated relationships that glide along and train--I love trains, too.

The Heiress -- This is the film that probably should've won Best Picture and I'm surprised it didn't. It is a woman's tale, a costume drama, a frustrating soap opera and a wildly popular film in its day, those are pretty much all the things the Academy is looking for. I can only assume that All the King's Men touched some chord in the post-war years, when President Truman's approval ratings were struggling, social roles were quickly changing and USA's overwhelming dominance looked like a burden more than a boon. Olivia de Havilland is a plain girl living on the fringes of upper crust society in New York around 1850. Her father is a wealthy and respected doctor who dotes on his lonely daughter but mostly loves her through a series of back-handed compliments that are as distressing as comforting. When dashing young Montgomery Clift shows up and sweeps Olivia off her feet, dad is skeptical. It just doesn't seem possible that this young man could love anything other than her money which sets off a rift within the family. The way it all works out is frankly just fucking marvelous and the push and pull between love and cynicism is just so… real. This is a really great post-war American film. Well-made and powerful.

Kind Hearts and Coronets -- This is another one of those post-war British comedies that film nerds typically go so ga-ga for and I gotta say, this one sucked me in more than the rest. A young heiress marries outside of her class and is banished by her austere family to live a life outside their social influence. Her son grows up with revenge in his heart and longs to obtain the position that is his birthright. The only way to do it, though, is to kill several dozen people who have been moved ahead of him in line. So kill he does. Some of the killings are clever, some are funny, some are just necessary to the plot. But the dialogue all the way through is top notch, the performances (most of which are Alec Guiness) are all on time and the twist at the end is just about perfect. Big thumbs up, very funny flick, very worthy of its classic status.

A Letter to Three Wives -- I gotta be honest I never quite understood the ending. The attention that goes to the bickering couple doesn't complete the story to my mind so I wonder why they take over at the close. Otherwise, this is a clever and funny melodrama about three women trying to figure out which one just lost her husband to the neighborhood jezebel. Three wives bound together by social connections--all the sexual confusion of social connections in those days, thank God that's all changed!--have always been a little jealous of the one girl their husbands all endlessly romanticize. We never see her but we hear an awful lot about her and today is the day she finally snagged one of those husbands for herself. But which one? The puzzle is a good one. This won Best Screenplay and Best Director for Joseph L. Manckiewicz, who may be the most underrated figure in all of American cinema. He made many, many badass films and yet he's very rarely put along side Welles, Ford, Capra, Cukor, Chaplin, etc. and I'm not sure why.

Stray Dog -- Akira Kurosawa is my favorite filmmaker. This is one of his earliest films, a thriller about a cop whose gun is pickpocketed by a ruthless killer. The cop must end the killing spree all the while measuring his own culpability in the crime. Are we guilty of the sins of others? The detective obsessing over the bullets in his gun is one of Kurosawa's finer moments. This is a youthful effort from a guy well on his way to becoming a total badass and just like Bergman's Thirst, it gives a hint at the effortless intensity he's able to put on film. (The DVD features a fine commentary from a film historian who never misses a chance to gush over the occasional wide-angle shots that would dominate Kurosawa's visual palate in later years)

Champion -- I totally dug this flick. I saw it years ago at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I haven't seen it in a while but it is a gripping tale of a ne'er-do-well (Kirk Douglas) who finds himself prize fighting for money just to make ends meet. It turns out to be his secret talent and a fine world for the kind of bullying money grubbing social climbing that takes him all the way to the top…but only briefly. This is the fisticuffs version of Madame Bovary: the people he encounters along the way are merely tools for getting what he wants out of life.

The Small Back Room -- This is the story of secret British analysts during the war, sequestered away from the world so they may be undisturbed while obsessing over the most disturbing parts of the war. The main character is alcoholic, lonely and full of self-pity and he can only hold himself together by holding the operation together. The woman who loves him is prey to his mood swings but possesses such an admiration for him that she endures--similarly the co-workers, the friends, the bar keep, the landlord, etc. This guy is an alienation machine but he does what needs to be done and maintains a civil air. In many ways this film is way ahead of its time, it hardly seems representative of the glorious Technicolor years that were right around the corner. Indeed, this film is dour, stark, gloomy and pessimistic. Not easy to watch honestly but a fine production. Powell and Pressburger were just getting their groove on in these days and this (like Thirst and Stray Dog) just a taste of what was to come.


My favorite performances I've seen from 1949:

Actor
Broderick Crawford (All the King's Men)
Joseph Cotton (The Third Man)
Birger Malmsten (Thirst)
Edward G. Robinson (House of Strangers)
John Wayne (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)

Actress
Linda Darnell (A Letter to Three Wives)
Olivia De Haviland (The Heiress)
Mercedes McCambridge (All the King's Men)
Eva Henning (Thirst)

Supporting Actor
Van Heflin (Madame Bovary)
Howard de Silva (Border Incident)

Supporting Actress
Ethel Barrymore (Pinky)
Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
Thelma Ritter (A Letter to Three Wives)
Patricia Neal (The Fountainhead)
Ethel Waters (Pinky)

Film Trivia

Kooky film trivia: Only 2 directors have won the Director's Guild Award and then failed to even be nominated for an Oscar. Can you name them?

Dogs at work

The Films of 1949 (part three)

The films that I liked but didn't love are an interesting bunch:

I had originally included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon at the bottom of my top ten but while I liked this film I didn't love it, so I chose to go with a top 8 instead. I hate to dis a fine performance by John Wayne, one of his few efforts where he's really stepping outside of his typical bravado pose. Here he is an aging, struggling outpost commander who's being retired and cast off and doesn't really quite know what to do with himself. He fears the uselessness that awaits and he doesn't have the sensibility necessary to embrace it the way his character in The Searchers does, so it all just plays like a downer here. Even the wild attempts at humor seem melancholy. A fine film but I found the romantic relationships confusing and a little intrusive.

All the King's Men is a good film, won the Best Picture that year but its driven by its captivating performances more than its grandiose political commentary. Watch for Broderick Crawford and then go read the novel.

House of Strangers veers back and forth between gripping drama and laughable melodrama--and it works both ways! Edward G. Robinson is a tough-minded Italian immigrant who does what it takes to survive and over the years builds a respected community bank. But when the depression comes, its tough times for everyone and the regulators start working over time to place blame on someone other than themselves. Though Robinson is a beacon of hope and goodness in his hardscrabble neighborhood, the symbol of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming a success, it turns out maybe there was some double-dealing at work behind the scenes. And the double-dealing continues when the patriarch's sons squabble over who will take the blame and who will protect the family name. A very watch-able film, entertaining and Robinson is pretty solid with his broad Brooklyn Italian accent--won Best Actor at Cannes, if I'm not mistaken. (And I can't deny these people reminded me of my family, in good and bad ways)

White Heat is one of James Cagney's classic roles and it is a pretty cool flick. Cagney is a career criminal with an ingenious plan: avoid taking the rap for the big score but pleading guilty to a piddly score he had nothing do with. But the cops get wise to his scheme and send in an undercover to keep an eye on him. It all makes for a good gritty crime drama from back in the day. (Though I'll probably always remember this for Cagney's cameo in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Martin: 'Say something like uh…no no ma look listen to me.' Cagney: 'No, no, ma. Look, listen to me--' Martin: 'That's good, good.')

Adam's Rib is not one of the films I watched recently, rather I watched this one a few years back when I was a kick of watching films adapted from plays. As I recall I liked it a lot and anything with Judy Holliday in her prime is fine with me. George Cukor directing a Garsin Kanin script will always be worth watching--Tracy and Hepburn are just a bonus!

On the Town, too, is one I watched years ago and I can't say as I remember it so well. Gene Kelly was just becoming a big star at this time and this was one of his first big showcases. From here it was on to American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and then exile in France (eluding Senator McCarthy), which pretty much crippled his career.

Battleground was a solid war film for its time and a Best Picture nominee (perhaps it split the war movie vote with 12 O'Clock High allowing the politically cynical All the King's Men to take the top prize). It boasts a handful of intricate set piece battle scenes with a fine mix of the camaraderie moments that the great war films handle so well. A fine flick, producer Dore Schary followed this with Red Badge of Courage directed by John Huston.

The Set Up is the story of a washed-up fighter who wants to fight just one more time though his wife begs him to give up the whole dirty business. The fighter is feeling pretty good that night but little does he realize that his manager has assured the local mobster that he will take a dive. Since the manager has no faith in the boxer to win anyway, he sees no need to cut the fighter in on the deal. When the fighter comes out blazing, the mobster is pissed, the manager is in trouble and we see quickly that this is not going to end well. The characters are fine, the gritty realism works well and the story is compelling but unfortunately its all rather slight. There's not a heck of a lot going on and while the parts are satisfying, the totality leaves you hungering for more. Not bad, in fact I wanted to like it more than I did, but this movie is like half a lunch. (Also, I couldn't help but think that The Set-Up was Tarantino's inspiration for the early scenes of the Bruce Willis portion of Pulp Fiction)

Ah, Border Incident. This is the film that inspired this season's Netflix queue and it lands firmly in the middle of the pack. Howard de Silva gives a marvelous supporting performance and John Alton's command of light is in full effect. As a film its fine, perhaps a little risqué, even exploitative for its day. But it's got heart and a lot of talent oozing around the edges.

I've seen a few Elia Kazan films in the last few years (Gentleman's Agreement, Viva Zapata, Sea of Grass, Panic in the Streets), and while I haven't exactly gone loopy over any of the films, its easy to see what an up-and-coming force he was at this time. Still considered the finest theater director of the 20th century (along with Orson Welles, of course), Kazan came to Hollywood with a lot of muscle. It's hard to imagine anyone else making a film like Pinky in 1949. I didn't think it was an overwhelming film but the cultural taboos it sets its sights on are penetrating. Pinky is a light skinned black girl passing for white who has just returned to her backwoods Louisiana ghetto after a failed romance. She is goaded into caring for the ailing local matriarch (Ethel Barrymore) by her beloved granny (Ethel Waters) and finds herself at the center of a brewing controversy when the matriarch leaves Pinky all her money. The relationship between the two is always contentious but the lady respects Pinky and sees her as a capable human being and hopes that she will do good things with the fortune. (The film doesn't wonder aloud whether this is because of her abilities or her light skin but the question begs to be asked) In the end Pinky triumphs over petty cultural norms and claims her prize which she turns into a paradise for children. Rampant racism as shown in contemporary films always seems a little myopic and hackneyed to me, an easy target rather than worthwhile commentary. But to see its portrayal from 60 years ago, a time when Jackie Robinson was just becoming an accepted member of the American landscape, gives it a raw power--even when it looks exactly the same! This one was also imbued with recent events. Not even two weeks after the elevation of Barak Hussein Obama to Pennsylvania Avenue, it's hard to ignore the significance when Pinky asks her WASP boyfriend: 'Don't you know what kind of people live in that house?'

Sands of Iwo Jima was fine. It all seemed like a genre war movie, by the book, nothing spectacular but it did what it set out to do so its hard to give it a thumbs down. I liked John Wayne's excursion to the single mother's lonely home (and the by-gone morality of leaving without giving her the deep-dicking she truly desired). After Eastwood's recent Iwo Jima double feature this felt like an old-timey curio and that's all it was, wasn't it? Still, it was okay. Sunday afternoon with a hangover kind of movie.

Whiskey Galore! is one of those charming comedies that the British cranked out with regularity in the post-war years. I was never as huge a fan of them as most cinephiles but I don't dislike them and I can't deny their impact. This one is about a tiny village suffering through a wartime booze ration when a tanker filled with whiskey runs aground on their beach. The machinations the townspeople undertake to make the most of this gift from heaven is all pretty funny. But strangely none of the characters really stand out and that's a little bit disappointing. It all becomes a farce rather than something sweeter. That said, it is a harmless piece with plenty of laughs.

I was not an English major so I never read Madame Bovary. Also, somehow I'd never even seen an adaptation though there have been dozens, so my knowledge of the story wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. This version undertakes a curious bookend element: it begins and ends with the trial of Gustav Flaubert, the novel's author, trying to cast a light on the humanity of Madame Bovary (and keep himself out of prison). I don't think I needed that element but perhaps in 1949 the censors would've vetoed such a brazen display of romantic desire from a housewife. I wasn't so offended by her sexual needs as her incorrigible social-climbing which I found unnecessary and a little depressing, to be honest. She is a remote farm girl lucky to be loved by a successful, if only marginally talented, doctor. But when she discovers a whole new social scene as his wife, she is soon bored by her limited oafish husband. She craves more. But its not that she craves a new man (she quickly takes a lover at any rate), it is that she wants a whole new life. Now I understand that in the 1850s women weren't as free to have their own professional lives but when will we get the story of the woman who tries that route instead of simply trying to fuck ever-wealthier men? Madame Bovary is dissed by one lover and hounded by another, all the while devaluing the one man who believed in her and gave her a life she otherwise could never have had. I'm not suggesting she has to worship the husband or even stay married to him, but why can't she see him as a valuable piece of her life instead of an impediment? Oh well. This film was fine but the bookend elements didn't do anything for me and none of the performances were as noteworthy as this type of film probably requires. A fine adaptation but nothing superlative.

The Fountainhead is a tough one. I grew up on a steady diet of Ayn Rand and her precepts are well-known to me and in some sense still revered by me. While I want to like this adaptation of her magnum opus--she did write the screenplay herself--it really comes off as a parody of Rand more than an embrace. Everything is clipped and melodramatic so the rousing character of John Galt and his iron will seems cartoonish rather than admirable. There are still many fine moments (and it is a lot shorter than the book!) and Patricia Neal is particularly good so I still gotta give it a reluctant thumbs up.

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The Films of 1949 (part two)

Of the 17 films I watched only 3 did I really dislike.

Man on the Eiffel Tower is an attempt (directed by Burgess Meredith) at a Hitchock-ian thriller that just never develops the zest needed. Though it does pre-date Strangers on a Train (never one of my favorite Hitchcock films anyway), the story of a stranger willing to kill another man's nemesis (in this case his wealthy aunt) never gets off the ground. Its twisty-turny police procedural elements just get confusing and the humor never comes off the page. Also, it is one of the ugliest looking films I've seen in ages! It looks like it was shot through a dirty fishbowl. (This is where Michael Bay draws his aesthetic inspiration, I presume)

I Shot Jesse James, the directorial debut of the great Samuel Fuller, does earn points for being an off-kilter western but visually and structurally it never gets ambitious enough to be interesting. Westerns about gunslingers would've been standard in those days and this one goes for a more soulful element of the trepidation of killing the killer. But it is such a lackluster production with little energy that there's not much to get excited about. It hints at what Fuller the mad genius would become but it isn't in and of itself terribly noteworthy (no matter what Criterion Collection wants you to believe!).

12 O'clock High was a popular film in its day, won a Best Picture nomination, starred Gregory Peck in his prime and has survived to the present day as a bonafide classic. But for my money this movie sucks. It is the true story of an under-performing bomber unit during WWII that gets the personal attention of their commanding general, who shows up to inspire the unit. Peck's character, though, is really just capricious and strange, there's little inspiration to him at all. And the final 10 minutes are just maddening! The general gets mental at the end and sits back at headquarters while the unit performs their most dangerous mission. Didn't see how that was supposed to be inspirational at all! And then it ends on that note. Mystifying. The movie does boast a fine opening sequence: a B-52 without landing gear comes in for a dangerous touchdown and there's no special effects, folks, its all fo' r-izzle. The first few minutes are cool but it quickly goes down hill from there. Unless you're just on a Gregory Peck mission (which for some reason I have been recently), I think you can safely skip this one.

The Films of 1949 (part one)

During this past summer I got on a kick of throwing random old movies (mostly American films from the 1940s and 1950s) into my Netflix pile. I stumbled upon an Anthony Mann film called Border Incident (shot by the incomparable John Alton), and I dug it. I was impressed by the hard edge of the story of the underbelly of the people-smuggling trade along the California-Mexico border. The film didn't shy away from ruthless characters, violence or social commentary. It had that sharp black and white I love (even in the exterior shots) and Alton's telltale contrasting light and dark visual composition. A fine film, nothing superlative but a top notch B movie, a melodrama with elements of crime thriller. But I was knocked out by Howard de Silva as the bad guy. His command was superb, lightening the character's ruthlessness with an easy-going charm and good humor, and I wandered if that was perhaps the finest performance of 1949. So I've since been on a kick of watching films from 1949 to measure it all up.

Well, right off the bat, it was not the single finest performance. That hosanna belongs solely to Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men. I've long thought that Crawford's performance is probably the finest ever in the history of film! What he does is singularly unique to his skills (he never gave another performance nearly as fine), it fits the part of the bumpkin turned political powerhouse perfectly and he is the beating heart of this film--he alone is what makes the film worth watching. To test this thesis, compare and contrast Crawford to the great Sean Penn's lackluster turn in the lame remake from a few years back. I didn't give the remake much of a chance because frankly the original was driven by fine performances and was otherwise a fairly overrated film, so I had no high hopes for another attempt at it. I've heard nothing but good things about the original novel and I can imagine it being a novel too good for a film adaptation.

It is worth noting that All the King's Men won Best Picture, Best Actor (Crawford) and Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge) but it did not win Best Director or Best Screenplay (both of which went to Joseph L. Manckiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives). Why is this worth noting? Because Best Picture is often the film that was the most popular or made more money than anyone would've thought possible or the film that captured the temporal zeitgeist, and is usually not the best picture or the one that will age well. When a film is really a badass accomplishment then it takes the other prizes as well. In this case, the power of the performances drove it to a popularity that the film itself did not merit. A Letter to Three Wives was a much better film, for example, which is why it took the 'artistry' prizes even if it didn't take the top award. (Don't fret for Manckiewicz: he came back the next year and won Director and Screenplay again and took Best Picture all for All About Eve, one of those rare Best Picture winners that really was the best picture!) And actually how The Heiress didn't win Best Picture that year, anyway, I don't understand.

More to come…

Russell 2000 (Oct 31-Nov 7)

......... 537.52 (10.31.8) ...................... 505.79 (11.7.8)......
............................-31.83 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

Nov 3-7

Construction Spending Sep (-0.3%)
ISM Index Oct (38.9)
Auto Sales Oct (3.8M)
Truck Sales Oct (4.1M)
Factory Orders Sep (-2.5%)
ADP Employment Oct (-157K)
ISM Services Oct (44.4)
Initial Claims 11/01 (481K)
Productivity-Prel Q3 (1.1%)
Average Workweek Oct (33.6)
Hourly Earnings Oct (0.2%)
Nonfarm Payrolls Oct (-240K)
Unemployment Rate Oct (6.5%)
Wholesale Inventories Sep (-0.1%)
Pending Home Sales Sep (-4.6%)
Consumer Credit Sep ($6.9B)

Wilshire 5000, 11.7.8

Thoughts on the first Thursday in November

Obama won. Should we all be proud as Americans? Dude, every time there is a smooth and peaceful transition of power it should make you proud to be an American. That's what makes America great!

'Change' doesn't really get me all jazzed up as a cultural buzzword. Its worth noting that at least half of the elections in American history were run on 'change', there's nothing older than change in American politics. Liberals in general want to use the government as a tool for social change but I think that's just a poor model: our founding fathers left us with a system intentionally designed to move slowly and to be above anyone's control. Change comes from society itself, not government, so I'm not sure exactly what it is Prez-Elect plans to do or even what his acolytes want him to do. To some the mere election of a black man is a bold step forward, but to me its just a historical inevitability that I happened to witness, somehow I'm not so blown away. I've seen 2 space shuttles go down in flames, the Berlin Wall get raized and the Red Sox win the World Series, I've had a busy life on that level. A 'black president' is just so much symbolism that doesn't illuminate anything to me. Barak Obama is a real person, not a symbol, and he may well make a fine president. I hope he does.

I don't think America's racial problems will be in any way changed by an Obama administration and as I blogged previously, any worthwhile social change will come from Mrs. Obama and the little girls, not the political paterfamilias. And to that end I'll go ahead and predict that Michelle Obama will be staggeringly popular--more even than Laura Bush, who was pretty staggeringly popular herself--and that she'd do well to simply ignore the right wing media. The left-y media will fawn over her for years to come and the Fox News crowd ain't ever gonna be swayed so I see little reason to even acknowledge them. I don't see her like Hillary, with her own political ambitions, rather I see her more like Eleanor Roosevelt: an impassioned, intelligent woman who will use her celebrity to speak out on causes for rest of her life. (Weird shift here) I never thought JFK Jr would run for office, I think he would've been content to run his magazine and be a political bigwig on the media side rather than actually getting in the meat grinder of politics. Similarly Michelle Obama will be a beloved first lady for the rest of her life now and that's probably way more useful for social change that being a senator from Illinois or trying to bigfoot the Democratic party.

Barak, on the other hand, will be fighting the left wing media throughout his administration. They will hold his feet to the fire in a way that he won't particularly much appreciate since he's convinced he got to this office solely on his own merits and without sucking up to his press corps. The right wing media will of course never warm to Obama and they'll gladly give succor to Congressional Dems who find themselves at loggerheads with the executive, but realistically I don't think they'll be that influential on him. Again, the Fox News crowd ain't ever gonna be swayed, so Obama needn't spend too much time trying to win them over (in an abstract sense, that is, here and there courting the right will present itself as politically effective).

I don't care about race. I never did. Skin tones in human beings range from very light to very dark and none of them are adequate representations of what any given individual may be like. I've met plenty of black people that I liked and plenty I didn't; I've known way more white people that I didn't like than all the other races combined I would suppose. I've never felt compelled to like or dislike anybody based on race (or gender, nationality, religion, etc.). None of those things make you good or bad, the conditions you react to and the choices you make are what you are and black people and white people are just as likely to make good choices as bad ones.

That said, I did have one racial moment during this campaign. One. While watching Obama give his coronation speech at the Dem convention, I made a kooky observation: his wife is black, he married a black woman. Barak Obama had a white mother, was largely raised by his white family, spent most of his time in white neighborhoods, white schools, surrounded by white chums and colleagues. The bulk of his self-identity, other than the face staring back at him in the mirror, would've been white. But he fell in love, courted and married a black woman. At that particularly moment that struck me as an odd choice, perhaps a brave choice or a cynical one, but an unpredictable one nevertheless. I don't blame the guy, I think she's pretty hot and I'm sure she's smart, kind and lovable in the way we all can be. The observation isn't 'racial' so much as 'sociological', it seems like he would've married a white woman. That's it, for all the talk or subtext about race, it never really much occurred to me that Barak Obama was anything more than a politician running for president.

Now he's president. Hey, I'm just glad the election's over! Its not an easy world he finds himself in. The economy, despite what politicians continually try to make us believe, isn't really controlled by the government. Oh, it has its sway here and there but for the most part its you and me getting up and going to work every day that shapes the economy into what it is. Will Obama being in the Oval Office make us all happier, more productive citizens? It might, hard to quantify but its not without its influence. Will his black skin save us from disaster? No. Will his black skin bring ruin to the Republic? No. His 'blackness' is now officially over, he's got to govern the same way the 43 white dudes before him did. (And he better keep his eye on Vladimir Putin...)

As for 'change', well I just finished reading The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor, a marvelous political novel about an old timey mayor making one last bid for re-election. (spoiler alert) In the end he's bested by unknown upstart whose single finest moment was a TV appearance with his wife and kids and a dog they rented for the occasion (because their real dog was considered much too un-lovable). As the lighter side of the news reports on the Obama family shopping around for a new lovable pooch to join them in the White House, I can't help thinking that all this 'change' reminds me of a novel written 50 years ago.

Thoughts on the first Tuesday in November

I know the blogosphere breathlessly awaits the endorsement of Eat Your Vegetables, so here it is. But first:

I won't be voting tomorrow. Truth be told, I think Democracy is overrated. Why? Because it leads to elections. Oh, to be sure, democracy is the least dangerous thing out there but it has its weaknesses. A propensity toward deficit spending is a trait fairly unique to democracies, for example. Think about that on Tuesday as your voting for a guy guaranteed to be out of a job in 8 years.

I should say I grew up in a strict Libertarian household and two things have remained ingrained: free markets are what it is all about and I've never been a partisan. In consideration of the economy the government is merely another agent trying to carve out for itself what it can from the collective production, just like the New York Knicks, Outback Steakhouse, General Dynamics and you and me and everyone when we know. It needn't be worshipped or feared. We should let the government do what it needs to do and get on with our lives, much as we do with the New York Knicks or Outback Steakhouse. The way to keep it manageable is to keep it minimal.

But this embarrassing partisan silliness we get barraged with every 4 years--this is the drawback of our form of government! Our national 'debate' gets hijacked by two extraordinarily wealthy corporations (Democrats, Republicans) who have colluded together to maximize duopolistic control of the processes of government. They overwhelm the collective consciousness with slickly packaged empty rhetoric larded with logical fallacies and call them 'issues'. Then they break us off into rigidly divided ethnic and cultural sub-groups and tell us how to vote. Frankly, I think it all sorta sucks.

Both of the parties are fundamentally flawed: the Republicans want unlimited economic growth but they don't want anything to ever change; the Democrats want unlimited personal expression but somehow they don't see that as a function of living in a thriving economy. Republicans think money just gets made and we gradually buy more expensive brands until we die. Money gets made because people are doing new things, they want new products, new experiences, they want improvement and progress. Money don't get made where things don't change! Democrats see the economy has something invented by and presided over by the government and that merely sitting in the seats will give you the power to spend on all the shit society 'needs'. But that just isn't how it works! The government prints the money but they don't create the value for the money, do you see? We do that! It is our products and services that are building the economy, not government fiat. When the government takes our money, it burns most of it in overhead--just like any other business or entity that exists in the physical world. The difference is the government doesn't go out of business so it has no incentive to ever do anything the right way. So Democrats enact policies that purport to help people but actually just raise prices. They love sticking it to the rich so much that they never notice the poor are paying more too.

So the system is creaky, the parties piss me off and in the end, I don't like either of these guys. I wasn't enthralled by either of them at first: McCain's too old, Obama's too young. But I didn't dislike either of them too strongly either. They both seem fine to me, this wasn't one of the more agonizing elections of my lifetime, I don't fear for the Republic whoever wins. But I will say as the campaign wore on, I liked McCain less. He strikes me not as a liar but as a man that'll ride what advantage is tossed to him. He'll say what he needs to say to be elected--not to the people, but to the hand-greasers behind the scenes. I don’t distrust McCain, I just don't like him that much. I don't think I like Obama any more than I did when I first saw him but he hasn't really had to do much this year. His fight with Hillary was faux, man, he had her whooped early. And McCain, too, was beaten soundly during the debate season, so Obama had little to do but hone his speech-making.

Obama is a smart guy, sure, I can dig that. But I had plenty of professors I wouldn't vote for, plenty of people I respected that wouldn't necessarily have made wise decision makers or been as cool in real life as they look when well-prepared. Smart people don't always make the best leaders. That's not an indictment of Obama, just of the notion that his smartness makes him worthy. I don't suppose it does, this country has had plenty of jackass idiot leaders. He's a fine public speaker and I can appreciate that. To be composed on stage requires composing back stage and he is a fine writer, his imagery and narrative style are perfectly pitched and he reads his audiences well. My one piddling complaint: when he's trying to ride the applause and talk through it, he has a tendency to get just a bit too close to the mic and the sound gets distorted. This leads to a melancholy realization though: I suspect that as Prez, he won't be making those soul-stirring speeches quite as often or effectively. That style is fine for abstractions like 'change' but not so good for dancing through the tough press conferences--or do you suppose no one will die in hurricanes any more with Prez Obama around to protect us? He's notoriously unpopular with his own press crew, his toughest opponent will be the media once he's in office. His race will neither save him or hurt him. It'll be the grandest non-issue in our nation's history.

So who would I vote for if I voted? I guess I'd vote for Obama. McCain just doesn't have anything to offer at this point. My thinking for most of the summer was that McCain would win and Obama would come back at defeat in 2012. If Obama truly is a 'change' than he'd still be a change in 4 years. I think I favored giving him some more seasoning before sending him to the White House. But 4 more years in the Senate would probably doom him politically: look what's it done to Joe Biden--far more qualified than any of these people and they've got him hidden away lest he embarrass himself! And what's 'seasoning'? McCain has been seasoning away all these years and look where its gotten him: a ride on the Bob Dole Express!

It’s a new era. For all the 'change' we've been promised I've got a feeling its gonna be a lot of the same. And right wing radio is gonna be louder than ever, you know? Is that a good thing?

Russell 2000 (Oct 24-31)

......... 471.12 (10.24.8) ...................... 537.52 (10.31.8)......
............................+66.40 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

Oct 27-31

New Home Sales Sep (464K)
Consumer Confidence Oct (38.0)
Durable Orders Sep (0.8%)
Crude Inventories 10/25 (493K)
FOMC Policy Statement
Chain Deflator-Adv. Q3 (4.2%)
GDP-Adv. Q3 (-0.3%)
Initial Claims 10/25 (479K)
Employment Cost Index Q3 (0.7%)
Personal Income Sep (0.2%)
Personal Spending Sep (-0.3%)
Chicago PMI Oct (37.8)
Mich Sentiment-Rev. Oct (57.6)

Wilshire 5000, 10.31.8

Tuesday's almost here

Looking back over some old journals, I came across this election-era chestnut from way back in 2004. You're in control, you are the decider, its good stuff. Bush's 'Money Walk' is my favorite.

Debate 2004

A day in the country

Thoughts on football (AFC)

Titans -- I'm believing the hype on the Titans now. I don't think they're going undefeated and I don't think they're better than NYG, but they could be. In a league dominated by injuries building a deep team with strong coaching from the bottom up looks like the way to go. They've got a good running game, a good enough QB (though you'd like to see a little more dazzle down the field, at least a little bit) and a D that hits people hard. I don't think they're a classically great team but I think they've got strength and depth and a game plan that will keep them in it all year long. You know, when they had lean years in Tennessee and they never fired Fisher even though blaming the coach is always the first move, I always thought they were making the right move. He's a good coach and while this isn't his best team it may be the one that can win.

Steelers, Bills -- Both have good QB play, pretty good running games but rickety O-lines. Big Ben gets hit too much and while Edwards hasn't morphed into Drew Bledsoe (the way QBs in Buffalo seem to do), he'd do better with a little more breathing room in the pocket. Both have good D's and good special teams and are efficient enough on offense and on the road to keep winning games. I like them both to make the playoffs.

Jags, Broncos -- These two are capable of fine ball but they're also real capable of mailing it in. The Broncos have no D at all and the Jags just can't seem to get over the hump of thinking all the way through a game. They're both still on track for the post-season and both can still become fine teams, but at the moment they seem like stragglers.

Pats -- Wild card. Not sure how far they can get w/out Brady but they're still a pretty good team with a pretty good coach. If they can stay disciplined and (of course) avoid more injuries, they can still be dangerous in the playoffs.

Colts, Ravens, Chargers -- 3 old timey powers still hanging around. But none are really inspiring any confidence. The Colts can still ring up the scoreboard--you know they can--but they just don't look sturdy enough to bang with anyone any more. They've got enough class to win but not really the strength. I give them decent odds to make the playoffs but they don't go far. The Ravens are back to their superb defense but the offense just looks stagnant. I don't see where the points come from on that team. The Chargers are flounderers, they've been doing that for a while now. There's still time to right the ship and they are in a crappy division so they can get back in it. But somehow they look like a broken toy to me.

Browns, NYJ, Texans, Dolphins -- Mediocrities. The Browns were everybody's darling but I wasn't sold. Their schedule was brutal and it shows now. They gutted a nice win over NYG and they could do that again, but they just don't seem to have any direction right now. I just don't see how they get on a roll. NYJ is not the place for Favre and vice versa. He'll win some games, put up some highlights, maybe even hang around the playoff hunt. But I just don't see this experiment working and I think they flail for the rest of the year. The Texans are like a construction project that moves at a snail's pace: you can tell they're getting better but they don't seem any closer to complete. The complaint that they're in a tough conference just doesn't wash any more, they should have one of the easier schedules in the league, I'd think. And still they seem like the little engine that does every once in a while. The Dolphins are the team that will gladly play spoiler down the stretch. They won't win a lot of games but you'll remember the ones they do.

Raiders, Bengals, Chiefs -- I hesitate to put the Raiders this low because I think they've got a shot at getting better. I'm not counting on it because flashy mediocrity works pretty well in Oaktown these days. Bengals just look hopeless. They're talent poor, the front office is the least active in the league and the coaching staff doesn't seem in control, bad combo. The Chiefs are just, wow, they're getting like Detroit Lions bad.

Thoughts on football (NFC)

NYG -- I'm buying the hype. Going into Pittsburgh, putting a lot of pressure on Big Ben and finding a way at the end is pretty impressive. Steelers-Cowboys was my pre-season SB pick and NYG has now won at both of them--and Tampa and Green Bay besides. The pass rush is top notch, Eli is settling in as comfortable leader rather than tap dancing deer in the headlights, the running game is ferocious and you would expect a Coughlin squad to possess fine special teams (I can't say as I've really noticed, letting my preconceptions run loose). Today's NFL is all about injuries and as long as NYG stays healthy, I think they're gonna win 14 games and cruise into the playoffs. It's early, but that's the shape for now.

Redskins, Panthers, Eagles -- They all seem like fine teams, good firepower, stern defenses, with stars on both sides of the ball. That's nice. I'm not sure which one seems like the candidate to emerge to challenge NYG. I like what the Redskins are getting out of Campbell and Portis and they're getting strong LB play on the other side. I like that but I wonder if that's enough to stop a really dynamic offense or burrow through a strong pass rush. The Panthers, too, seem good enough to be called good, but I'm not sure they're good enough to best NYG. When the Eagles are in sync they may be the best in the game, but they don't get in sync often enough to bank on. Again, whichever one can stay healthy can win. I'm thinking McNabb and Westbrook are most likely to get tagged (though my fantasy team would be devastated if anything happened to either of them), so I'd put them 3rd out of these 3.

Cowboys -- The ultimate wild card. When healthy they've looked pretty good, but they've endured some Texas-size turmoil lately that has crippled them badly in the getting it done department. Who knows what happens? They'll be playing desperate at the end of the year which may whisk them to the Final or spin them out of control. I have no clue how salary structures and contracts work in football, but I reckon Jerry Jones can blow up a team with a quickness when need be. The Cowboys may look totally different next year.

Bucs, Packers, Bears, Falcons, Cards -- These seem like the teams that might sneak into the playoffs at the end. I like the Bucs, good running game, got that fearsome D back at work. But still too pedestrian to imagine winning the conference final. The Packers have looked really good at times but they seem like flailers at the moment, I give Dallas a much better chance now than the Packers. Bears are better w/out Rex--who's surprised? The D is nice but not so tough as the glory days, the running game is coming along, if they could move the ball they could hang around. But how consistent are they gonna be? The Falcons lucked out with Matt Ryan, that guy is really impressive. His footwork is professional grade, his shoulders are always squared forward, he's got a great eye, reads D well--he's a badass right off the bat. Best rookie QB since Marino? They're flashy and interesting but I suspect by the end of the year they'll be in the middle, which is way better than they probably hoped for. The Cards, yeah, well, they're good enough to hang around and their division is pretty soft so I guess they've got a good shot at the post-season but I'm just not into them really. Everything about them seems more likely to fall apart than fall in place, so their chances of doing any real damage seem meager.

Saints, Vikings, Rams -- These are the 3 that should be better. And you never know there's still time for them. The Saints should have the best offense ever all the time instead of just every once in a while. And the D is pretty raggedy. They'll give great highlights but I'm not sure about W's. The Vikings were everybody's darling but they've just got no 'zazz. They've got a 1 dimensional offense and a soft D, they're just not built to win so why did we all think they would? The Rams just didn't want to play for Linehan, back in the 'Nam they would've fragged him left him for dead. In the NFL they just complain to their agents long enough and the guy gets a gajillion-dollar buyout. (I'm telling ya: peace is better than war) The Rams all of the sudden look like a team that can win games and this is a fragile conference. I'd love to see the Rams hang around and make some noise but I'm not really betting on it.

Seahawks, Niners -- Disappointing efforts really. The Seahawks made the SB a coupla years back because of the best offensive line in the game. Then each lineman got poached and since the Seahawks have just plain sucked. They ran Shaun Alexander into retirement, even Jerry Rice couldn't catch the ball up there and they've got a lame duck coach with no plan for the future. These guys could suck for a long, long time. The Niners rolled the dice on Nolan and Smith and didn't come up winners. But I thought getting rid of Nolan was premature. I liked Nolan and they did make improvements here and there, I thought he had them on the right track. I like Singletary too but bringing him under a cloud seems weird to me. When did the NFL ever fire a guy this early in the season--we've already got 3 axed. I don't understand the shift.

Lions -- Oh no, these guys just suck. They've never been good and they have no plan to get good, they just hang around year after year-- like Ford and General Motors. Unfortunately the Lions are not poised to be liquidated any time soon.

Russell 2000 (Oct 17-24)

......... 471.12 (10.24.8) ...................... 526.43 (10.17.8)....
..............................-55.31 for the week.....................……..

This week's economic events

Oct 20-24

Leading Indicators Sep (0.3%)
Crude Inventories 10/18 (3182K)
Initial Claims 10/18 (478K)
Existing Home Sales Sep (5.18M)

Wilshire 5000, 10.24.8

Frida Kahlo's 'Broken Column'

World Series Prediction

The Rays have stood up to every single challenge so far. But this is the finals, its all brand new from here on out and this team is so different from every other Rays teams that there is just no telling what they've got left in 'em. They fucked around in game 5 against the Red Sox and the malaise set in, but they recovered nicely in game 7. Hey you can't let guys let Varitek and Ortiz get another shot, but in the end they were still slumping and the Rays endured. Last year, the Rockies got hot at the right time and went all the way through the NL playoffs only to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight; the Rays have played well all year long and there's a lot of strong talent that looks poised to compete in the rugged AL East for years to come. The Rays are not a fluke. But in a sense besting the White Sox and Red Sox may bring on a letdown, the World Series may seem anti-climatic now. I think they're good but I think the Phillies are better.

The Phillies rolled through the Dodgers because as much as everyone thought the Dodgers were the hot team, the sexy team, they frankly weren't a very good team. They were easily the 8th best team to make the playoffs and lucked out in drawing the hapless Cubs in the 1st round. The Dodgers vastly overacheived and the Phillies are left perhaps untested. But I like that lineup and that pitching. I think the Phillies were the best team in the NL (well, the Cubs were but they're allergic to success), and I liked them to win it all. They play good D, they play station-to-station style baseball with a healthy dose of power, and the bullpen has been effective.

As much as the talk radio crowd thinks this will be a ratings disaster, I think this will be a fine competitive series. And what do I give a shit about ratings anyway? I want to see a good Series and I think this may be the best since Yankees-D'backs.

Phillies in 7 (2, 3, 5, 7)

I am a patient boy

Ah, the classics.

Russell 2000 (Oct 10-17)

This week's economic events

Oct 13-17

Treasury Budget Sep ($45.7B)
Retail Sales Sep (-1.2%)
Retail Sales ex-auto Sep (-0.6%)
PPI Sep (-0.4%)
Core PPI Sep (0.4%)
NY Empire State Index Oct (-24.6)
Business Inventories Aug (0.3%)
Fed's Beige Book
Core CPI Sep (0.1%)
CPI Sep (0.0%)
Initial Claims 10/11 (461K)
Net Foreign Purchases Aug ($14.0B)
Capacity Utilization Sep (76.4%)
Industrial Production Sep (-2.8%)
Philadelphia Fed Oct (-37.5)
Crude Inventories 10/11 (5611K)
Building Permits Sep (786K)
Housing Starts Sep (817K)
Mich Sentiment-Prel. Oct (57.5)

Wilshire 5000, 10.17.8

USA World Cup qualifiers

USA 6-1 Cuba
Trinidad 2-1 USA

USA needed only one more win to qualify for the next level of World Cup qualification and they came out full throttle against the Cubans at RFK Stadium. Demarcus Beasley is a guy that occasionally shows great veteran leadership and other times he disappears completely in much-too-conservative play. Fortunately he was the former in this contest, finishing 2 sweet goals in the first half. Cuba did manage to get one back with a (lucky) toe-poke that clipped the underside of the crossbar. But the 2nd half was an American throttling.

Cuba is frankly not a very good squad. This does not bode well for the two players that defected during this trip in hopes of getting signed in the MLS. Hey, we take Cuban baseball players all the time, if these guys had 95MPH fastballs or 40-40 type skills, they'd have no problem catching on here. But sizzling mid-field play isn't exactly what Americans crave and political baggage isn't the kind of selling point the MLS is looking for. And, if the rest of the squad is any indication, these guys might not be good enough to play anyway. Yipes! Well, the upside is Janet Reno is long gone.

In the second match USA had the luxury of experimenting with lineups. I still don't understand why Freddy Adu and Jozey Altidore haven't been given the keys to the car yet. They are clearly the future and combining them with Donovan in the middle would make them the best bet for the present as well. Adu's diminutive size is a bit scary: he does get marked out of games but when he gets to the ball he's the best player on the field. And, frankly, Altidore is the finest finisher I've ever seen in an American uniform--no excuses for him to not be playing every minute of every game. I suspect by summer of '10, they'll both be firmly entrenched--I hope so anyway.

I didn't think Trinidad was any more talented than USA but they brought an intensity that USA couldn't match. And the refs blew two off-side calls foiling USA's best scoring chances, which didn't help. It was a disconcerting performance but USA didn't bring their A-team and it was an experimental opportunity so I'm willing to chalk this one up to the fact that Trinidad needed this one more than we did.

46th NYFF

The New York Film Festival doesn't lay out what you should love in the form of obsequious awards like most fawning festivals do. That's okay, awards are for suckers and the NYFF is more about pummeling the locals with a lot of good foreign cinema. Good for them. Considering I live in podunk America, I'll probably never get the chance to see any of these on the big screen, so this is basically just going to my Netflix pile. *Sigh* I used to love going to the movies. I still do, I just wish I got see movies while I did it.

But here are two articles, one a preview from the Village Voice's J. Hoberman, the other a recap from Filmcritic.com's Chris Cabin. Hoberman was one of the organizers of the event (and the author of a marvelous rumination on American cinema between Eisenhower and Reagan called The Dream Life--big big thumbs up!), so we should assume he saw all of the films. Cabin is, I believe, writing about every film he saw--only 1 negative review in there indicates a strong crop at this year's fest. The overlapping faves are probably the ones to watch. I look forward to catching all of these films…eventually.

J. Hoberman's Picks: I'm Gonna Explode, Afterschool, Chouga, Bullet in the Head Tony Manero, The Class, Gomorrah, Che, Hunger, Tulpan, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Wrestler, 24 City, Four Nights With Anna, The Headless Woman

Chris Cabin's Picks: Waltz with Bashir, Tony Manero, Hunger, The Wrestler , The Headless Woman, Happy Go Lucky, Ashes of Time Redux, Gomorrah, Four Nights with Anna, Changeling, Afterschool, Tulpan, Let It Rain, A Christmas Tale, Hunger The Class, Summer Hours, Night and Day, 24 City, Tokyo Sonata, Wendy and Lucy

Van Vleet Original

Word up! Go get yourself a carrot.

The worldwide meltdown

Now that we know that October 9, 2007 was the highpoint of the global economy, can we assume that October 10, 2008 was the lowpoint of the global economy?

Sounds good, don't it?

Consider this about today's massive upswing: there were no economic events or major earnings reports today. Wednesday and Thursday, however, will bring in a boatload of news. Will it be good news? And will anyone care?

You play it on the radio

(Is it embarassing to admit that I don't know what a 'dutchie' is?)

Russell 2000 (Oct 3-10)

......... 522.46 (10.10.8) ...................... 619.40 (10.3.8)......
............................-96.94 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

10.6.8 -- 10.10.8

FOMC Minutes Sep 16
Consumer Credit Aug (-$7.9B)
Pending Home Sales Aug (7.4%)
Crude Inventories 10/04 (8123K)
Initial Claims 10/04 (478K)
Wholesale Inventories Aug (0.8%)
Export Prices ex-ag. Sep (-1.0%)
Import Prices ex-oil Sep (-0.9%)
Trade Balance Aug (-$59.1B)

Wilshire 5000, 10.10.8

Uh-huh, but can you do this?

'Like a team in the heat of a pennant drive…'

Dodgers-Phillies
The Phillies are playing really good right now, they're in one of those grooves that looks like it'll get them past the Dodgers. The Dodgers are similarly grooving but all year long--with and without Manny--they were streaky, following a good week with a poor one. The way the Cubs laid down may be giving LA a false sense of confidence, I don't think the Phillies will allow themselves to get out that way. Sure the Brewers were out of gas by the time they got to Philly but they were scrappy and played hard and got lucky, they were formidable opponents that the Phillies easily dispatched. If the Phillies can get to Lowe and put the kibosh on Manny then I think they are the superior team on both sides of the ball. Watch out for Manny and Lowe (incidentally, Manny & Lo was a pretty good flick back in the day, young Scarlett Johanson, rent it, its good). I'll take the Phillies in (1, 2, 5 &) 6.

Red Sox-Rays
I'm rooting for the Rays, I'm gonna be honest. Since this team's 1st day in existence they've been poorly run, poorly constructed and just a complete disaster. But somehow they pulled it together and over night turned into a formidable opponent in the AL East. I like that. The ESPN crowd probably wants Red Sox-Dodgers but I'm going the opposite way. I like the Rays to ride the Cinderella season all the way to the World Series. They handled the Yanks and Sox like equals this year and I like them to catch a little of that Red Sox confidence and win the pennant. The Red Sox may be the best but I just feel like they're been around long enough and the Rays have a good shot at slipping past them. This might be the last hurrah for the Red Sox, which would be fine with me, I think I liked them better when they were ulcer-inducing washouts. It might be interesting if the Red Sox could dominate the 21st the way the Yankees dominated the 20th, but I suspect the Yankees will dominate the next century too. I'll take the Rays in (1, 4, 6 &) 7.

Check this out

Economist.com on the mortgage crisis of the 1870s
"(T)he contraction that followed as being more severe and causing more social unrest than the Great Depression. He even believes the financial hardship that followed is what spawned a wave of American religious fundamentalism. The 1873 crisis also provided ample financial opportunities for the few with cash. The robber barons of the day—the Rockefellers and Carnegies—bought under-valued assets in the depressed market. As markets recovered, inequality grew and gave rise to the subsequent gilded age in America."

The upside is that whereas this is where America began to supplant Europe economically because of our superior wheat production costs, China is not currently poised to dispose so easily of the Americans. Mainly this is because our trade with China is so beneficial to us that it actually enhances our economic position vis-à-vis China. The downside is now is a historically unfortunate time for another 'Great Awakening' (yeah, I know, there's no 'good time' for it but now seems worse than usual). And as for the inequality that will arise from this, we've already seen it: dude, Warren Buffet is where companies go to get their capital now. Fortunately, Buffet is a much much cooler guy than Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, etc. But, just like then, the government now is going to work in favor of whales like Buffet, whether they tell us that or not.

The real danger is that as the capitalist world rides this crisis out--oh yeah, we've got a coupla years of crisis ahead!--the dictators and oil-rich autocrats are free to tyrannize for the foreseeable future. Could Putin's Russia (oh, I mean Medvedev's Russia) and the Ayatollah's Iran perch themselves at the center of a non-aligned movement? They could but I suspect that once you get beyond those two the power is pretty slim.

The foreign policy agenda for the next president of the United States is clear.

Get Happy!

Russell 2000 (Sep 26-Oct 3)

......... 704.79 (9.26.8) ...................... 619.40 (10.3.8)......
............................-85.39 for the week.......................

This week's economic events

Sep 29-Oct 3

Personal Income Aug (0.5%)
Personal Spending Aug (0.0%)
Chicago PMI Sep (56.7)
Consumer Confidence Sep (59.8)
Auto Sales Sep (4.3M)
Truck Sales Sep (5.2M)
ADP Employment Sep (-8K)
Construction Spending Aug (0.0%)
ISM Index Sep (43.5)
Crude Inventories 09/27 (4278K)
Initial Claims 09/27 (497K)
Factory Orders Aug (-4.0%)
Average Workweek Sep (33.6)
Hourly Earnings Sep (0.2%)
Nonfarm Payrolls Sep (-159K)
Unemployment Rate Sep (6.1%)
ISM Services Sep (50.2)

Wilshire 5000, 10.3.8

Playoffs after two games

Dodgers 2-0 Cubs
You know I think the Cubs still have a good shot of getting past the Dodgers. Yeah, they got pants-ed in back to back games at Wrigley--that's because the home fans are total bringdowns! The Cubs will rebound in LA, they'll relax and their superior pitching and hitting will finally shine through. I say the Cubs take games 3 & 4 in LA and then we'll see what that 'curse' is made of back in Wrigley in game 5. (Even though I like the Cubs to stage a brave comeback, I think I'm leaning toward the Dodgers rolling in game 5. We'll see. I picked the Cubs to begin with and I'm sticking by 'em.)

Brewers 0-2 Phillies
Unless the Brewers get Sabathia to pitch games 3, 4 & 5 (which I assure you they're considering as I write this!), they've got no shot at all. I give them a puncher's chance in game 3, but I don't see this series going back to Philly.

Red Sox 2-0 Angels
I'm disappointed in the Angels. They're hitting well, they're just not finishing. And they're pitching well but getting snakebit. The Red Sox have that mojo right now and it wasn't that long ago when the suggestion of the Red Sox having any mojo of any kind would've gotten you laughed out of the room. I don't like the Angels chances of winning 2 games (or even 1) at Fenway. Red Sox are rolling.

White Sox 0-2 Rays
The Rays look young and hungry while the White Sox look old and slow. The White Sox aren't finished, they can still rake and I think they've got a decent shot at sending this back to Tampa. But I definitely like the Rays to win 1 of the next 3 contests.

Ahhh, I love playoff baseball. I'd like it better if the Indians were still around but this is still good stuff.

Taleb & Teller

I love Nassim Nicholas Taleb, he's my boy. He made a gajillion dollars in the market and retired to hang out in his library and write books of skeptical contrarianism. He is living my dream and how can I not respect the hell out of that? And he's a genuinely engaging writer. The Black Swan is more than just a snooty math text (although it is a bit of that). It employs some interesting techniques like fictional characters (in an homage to Kundera) and anecdotes where political events mirror market events to keep the story from turning dreary. It's a very readable book. When I got a chance to see him live up in Louisville, I took the morning off and headed up there.

As a public speaker he is clumsy, even after all his time giving the same power point lecture, he's smart but not terribly charismatic. Even his attempts at humor fell flat: jabs at Frenchmen probably work just about everywhere in America but his Levantine sensibility has a depth that just doesn't translate to Louisville, Kentucky. He reminds me of Philip K. Dick in that sense: fascinating ideas ineffectually presented.

During the Q&A period, a woman got up and in a pleading voice asked him to guide us. She wondered how we were to take this skepticism and turn it into a bold idea--we were at the Idea Festival, after all. Of course he had no worthwhile reply (some blather about teaching history without theory attached to it, which is quite a bit less possible than it sounds). I wondered whether she felt vindicated for sticking the stuffed shirt or bewildered at how this obviously capable thinker could fail to formulate a plan. I suspect it was the latter which will eventually morph into the former because go-getters like her just cannot comprehend that intellectual avenues are dead ends--even the useful ones! All of them without exception from thermodynamics to nutrition to economics to religion, where did they go? You get innovation and then confusion, then you hope for more innovation. But philosophy is a bitch goddess: for nuclear power you get nuclear weaponry; for technology driven capitalism that gives the economy an enormous boost comes credit default swaps that can rare up and snatch all the gains back in one big gulp; for Ruth, Mays and Aaron you get McGwire, Sosa and Bonds; for Shrodinger's cat you get that same cat's corpse. Bitch goddess, whadda ya gonna do?

We often hear wags say things like 'The language of the universe is math!' Utter hogwash. We didn't discover math, we invented it! We invented the number line and created its parameters and internal logic and imposed it on the universe. Lo and behold it (generally) works! Yes but that's because the universe is so infinitely fucking huge that you could impose any kind of logical graffiti on it and eventually find some positive rejoinder. If a 'week' was 8 days, our entire calendar would be different but we'd still proclaim that it was perfect. If a foot was 14 inches instead of 12, our observations and calculations would be different and yet just as realistic. We invented the rules and the logic--we could've invented anything and told ourselves it was what God wanted us to find!

But that don't mean the universe is always going to catch us when we fall.

On the other hand, we didn't invent the economy, we discovered it. Laws of supply and demand transcend us and we can only hope to fumble our through this material world. The math is only as good as its inputs--and you can't put in everything there is. Our knowledge is always necessarily limited. Ignorance is our true state of being and striding through the markets like a 'Master of the Universe' (totally digging Bonfire of the Vanities right now), is hubris waiting to get brought low. Mortgage derivatives react differently when the market it going up as to when its going down, found that out the hard way.

Afterwards I was able to see Teller (aka Penn's better half). He began by talking of magicians who give their tricks away (a trademark of Penn & Teller among others) and suggested that the real trick was not giving away as much as you think. Then he showed a video of a routine he does in the current Penn & Teller show. It is a quaint piece where he is able to make a ball follow him around the stage, roll up a bench, jump through hoops and all sorts of other curious maneuvers. He wondered aloud if we would appreciate the routine better if we knew how he put it together. He then gave the history of the ball illusion (a legendary magician from a century ago), how he pulls it off (two strings attached to the wall) and even his aesthetic choices of how to build his own routine from this old timey chestnut. It was all very entertaining and when he mixed in a trick or two while he spoke, it was like seeing Dimaggio leg out an infield hit. Then he showed the video again and I gotta say, it was better the second time around. But mostly what struck me was it seemed that he was doing things with the ball that he hadn't explained, making the routine all the more remarkable. Grand! In Mamet-like fashion he showed us a trick and then proceeded to trick us with it again. Good stuff.

My favorite picture today

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as Barry & Shelly Obama.

This was 2nd:

$700 billion = drop in the bucket.

From the Wikipedia entry: Credit Default Swaps
In the US, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported the notional amount on outstanding credit derivatives from reporting banks to be $16.4 trillion at the end of March, 2008. (To put these numbers in perspective, the CIA World Fact Book estimated the US GDP for 2007 was $13 trillion.)

So the problem is potentially bigger than our entire GDP? Hmmm, that's a pickle. And:

The Bank for International Settlements reported the notional amount on outstanding OTC credit default swaps to be $42.6 trillion in June 2007, up from $28.9 trillion in December 2006 & $13.9 trillion in December 2005. By the end of 2007 there were an estimated US$ 45 to 62.2 trillion worth of Credit Default Swap contracts.

On the one hand its only like 3% of the mortgages have defaulted; on the other hand 3% of $45 trillion is a big ass number! Surely they'd tell us if the problem was this huge, right? (Bra ha ha!) Its not impossible that we truly are on the brink of ruin but I doubt it. The US government is still (uh, hopefully) big enough to eat this loss and digest it whereas no Wall Street entity could survive this gorging. Now the Treasury has to buy up the bad debt, make it disappear from balance sheets around the world and absorb it for a year or two so that everyone else can go back to overvaluing their homes and other assets with dubious derivative schemes. The US rides in to suck up the black hole and splash around some money so that banks that don't want to lend any more will get in a giving mood.

It seems to me that dumping huge infusions of cash (as if from a helicopter) into the economy would lower interest rates and currency values raising gold and oil prices but I guess the lack of liquidity is more of a problem. Oh! And none of this raises home values! So the price to be paid will be after the housing market works itself out. Until then you can pretty much count on higher commodity prices, negativity nabobs all over your TV and another 'economic stimulus' package in spring 2009.

MLB Playoffs

I'll take:
Phillies over Brewers in 4
Cubs over Dodgers in 5

White Sox over Rays in 5
Angels over Red Sox in 5

Oh, its looking like an all Chicago World Series. Spooky.

Did I ever tell you...

..how much I love Frisky Dingo? The 1st season is on DVD, the 2nd season is still getting re-runned (I think) on Cartoon Network, so 'get on the bus!' The buzz is that there will be no 3rd season but that supporting characters, the X-tcles (or are they the Decepticles?) will be getting they're own show soon enough. Check it out, it makes me laugh a lot. 'I put you in the dumpster because I thought you were dead! I mean, what would Jesus do?'

2 talking heads debating the debate

I've been a fan of Bloggingheads for a coupla years now, after I read Robert Wright's book Nonzero (interesting but idiosyncratic evolutionary psychology tract). In the beginning it was a ramshackle affair with a coupla posts per week. By now they've thickened the number of regular commentators to the point where now I skip most of the discussions, whereas I used to devour every installment.

This week Glenn Loury and John McWhorter discuss the first presidential debate and continue their running fascination with Obama. Though both are generally conservative thinkers, they both like Obama largely for the transformative possibilities of his potential presidency. This is not their first conversation and they've mentioned numerous times their combination of pride and distress at the first major black candidate. The distress is the notion that Obama is perceived as merely flesh but not blood. That the left will use him, the right will distort him and the man will be left behind searching for himself. They both genuinely like Obama (and McCain for that matter) as a man, as a thinker, and fear that if he is merely a 'black man' then his historical impact won't truly reach its culmination. I don't disagree but I would suggest that 4 (or 8) years in Washington is a long, long time and to sit here and ponder what will become of the next president is more fruitless than determining who will win the Rose Bowl 3 months from now. The slings and arrows are waiting, I guarantee, but of their nature we know not.

I was also struck by their observation that McCain and Obama both refused to look at each other throughout the debate. They speculate as to why: McWhorter suggests that Obama will come off as a browbeating intellectual if he unleashes himself on this tongue-tied old man and McCain will be perceived as racist if his facial expression isn't at all times properly modulated. Loury suggests instead it is the natural contempt these men feel for each other and I'd never really thought about it before but I sense that contempt. By now presidential candidates are career politicians who respect each other enough to be civil within the proper spheres. But these two probably are so far apart philosophically that they really do sense the other is a grand mistake waiting to happen. Loury thinks McCain can only see Obama (as I do) as an upstart much too early into the fray--and wouldn't Obama see McCain (as I do) as a tired old white man? I would also suggest that they are senators and senators treat each other with such a startlingly collegial air--the rules of the Senate are exceedingly polite--that to see each other as true combatants is probably a state they're not accustomed to.

Incidentally I think the grand transformation of an Obama presidency wouldn't come from Obama himself, who would be treated just like any other political figure soon enough. He'd get the honeymoon period of any president, say 6-8 months, and then the long knives will come out for him just like the other 42 white dudes that got there before him. The real transformation would be seeing those two little girls growing up in the White House. After 4 years they'd be near college age, another 4 they'd be getting on with their lives. America will be enchanted by them. The racial undertones will be softened not by political bickering--where the undertones get exaggerated--but by the family that awaits the man back home.

Good conversation.

Glen Loury & John McWhorter at Bloggingheads.TV