Life is made of small sacrifices; one of mine that parent-hood brought on was sufficient time to read, which is now a precious commodity. The book I am currently reading, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, is a journey into the subject of quick decisions and how the human mind parses micro-slices of information.
On page 214 of the book is a discussion of autism and, in layman's terms, describes its impact on the ability to read faces. One of the studies mentioned is by a professor at Cambridge University in England called Simon Baron-Cohen, who is a pre-eminent researcher into autism spectrum disorder.
Now, most people who come across that name would pass over it without a second thought, but if I mentioned another name, Sacha Baron-Cohen, some eyebrows might go up. If I said "Ali-G," a few more would have a glimmer of recognition. But if I said "Borat," virtually everyone in the US between the ages of 18 and 40 would immediately have an a-ha moment.
Simon Baron-Cohen, a world-renowned researcher into autism, is the cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen, an actor and comedian who created the character Borat.
Small world.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Lies, Damned Lies, and Bernie Madoff
Forget the NCAA Tournament and March Madness - for me nothing can beat the Opera Bouffe that following the financials presents. I came across this little nugget today at Yahoo Finance:
http://tinyurl.com/WeepForTheRich
The piece was written by a man called James Stewart, which is itself rather a bit of an inside-joke, given that James Stewart the actor often starred in films that glorified the little guy in his fight against the plutocrat. This incarnation would seem to favour Lionel Barrymore.
Mr Stewart - the writer, not the actor - raises what I am sure he thinks is something of a defence of the so-called rich, and deploys as his foot-soldiers various numerical arguments. The fulcrums (fulcra?) on which this rests are the suppositions that the "rich" are not necessarily so rich, have suffered more than the general population in the current economic downturn, shoulder a larger tax burden, and are largely not criminals.
Now, most people who have more than the intellectual discipline of a housefly understand that the final point is a straw-man. Of course most of the rich are law-abiding, his plaintive comment: "Yet, as hard as it may be to believe, the overwhelming majority of people earning six-figure incomes aren’t criminals or spendthrifts" notwithstanding. Mr Madoff is a criminal, but the guys over at AIG who approved "retention" bonuses are only criminally stupid, which itself is not yet illegal. We are still waiting on the California Supreme Court to rule on that one.
But looking through the rest of Mr Stewart's opus, there are three essential points.
One, those who are high earners (six figures) have suffered greater losses than the typical man on the street.
I'd like to see the numbers before I agree what is fair, and more important, what is accurate.
It's true that the average guy is less likely to own stock, but he likely does have a pension and/or 401-k, which is intrinsically linked to stock performance. I know my own 401-k is off by about 35 per cent, and my son's college fund has lost about 40 per cent.
Second, he fails to make the distinction between "a millionaire" and those who have "a million dollars invested in stocks." Americans to a large degree are disgracefully innumerate, and do not understand the differences along a scale of someone whose net worth is $100,000; $1 million, and $10 million. The differences are, to say the least, enormous. And when he conflates someone with an income between $200,000 and $300,000 (which comes later) with the jet-set who have a million dollars worth of stock, he is directly playing on this ignorance.
And this ignores the existential issue that the "losses" in this case are largely paper losses. If your stock portfolio drops 30 per cent, you only "lose" that money IF YOU SELL when it is down. So while it is true that Warren Buffet's net worth has declined, he in actuality has not "lost" anything in this regard. In fact, to use Mr Stewart's own implied argument, "I think it's fair to say" that, given the current low stock prices, many of the super wealthy are quietly acquiring stocks at bargain prices that their other assets allow them to acquire, and when the market turns up, they will have grabbed an even larger share of the wealth pie than they had before. To extend the Stewart/Barrymore metaphor, as George Bailey said of Mr Potter, he's not selling, he's buying. In five years, we'll see the endgame of the current situation.
Second, Mr Stewart raises the issue that the rich are taxed at disproportionately higher rates:
But let's get real here.
This argument obscures the truth in two ways. First, it focuses exclusively on income tax, ignoring sales, property, and other taxes that all essentially pay. Rich or poor, if you go to purchase a shirt, you pay the same sales tax. And second (and more important), the author focuses on income, not wealth. In this point, the top one per cent of earners are said to pay 25 per cent of all income taxes. Well, what share of the national wealth does this one per cent control?
Third, there is the argument that the wealthy are not, in fact, rich as they are portrayed. Mr Stewart opens with comments about resorts, private jets, and luxury condos, and ends up talking about people earning "six figures" and/or the theoretical target of the Obama "rich guy" tax ladder ($300,000 per annum in income).
The two (three) groups are not the same. A private jet of the sort that Steve Jobs flies around in is tens of millions of dollars. I would suggest that virtually no one earning $250,000 flies frequently in a private jet, or goes to the sort of resort that Jobs or Dick Fuld is able to frequent. To this point, there is a huge problem in homogenising "six figure" incomes - itself an enormous range of 100,000 to 999,9999 - someone earning $300,000, and multi-millionaires.
Mr Stewart again is using the fact that Americans simply do not understand the enormous gulf between 100,000, one million, and ten million as a blunt club.
He turns to a hypothetical individual with an annual income of $200,000, living in Manhattan:
Now, it might be pointed out that the guy at $200,000 is, as of now, NOT going to be affected by the Obama tax rise, but that's somewhat akin to Titanic passengers complaining that their food was too cold.
What truly plagues this example are that, a) it is *not* the case that the person must live in Manhattan, and b) the 1/3 rule for after tax really does not scale up linearly.
For (a), the choice to live in Manhattan in the tiny one bedroom apartment is a choice. There is plenty of housing, along train lines, at much lower cost available in Brooklyn or Queens or Northern New Jersey. There are plenty of people who work at much lower salaries than $200,000 for whom Manhattan is simply not even a choice.
For (b), if one thinks about the application of the 1/3 rule for a second, the fallacy arises pretty quickly. Someone with an income of $75,000 who thus has an after-tax income of about $36,000 would have about $3,000 per month - $1000 for housing. THAT is a crunch, and leaves a total of 24,000 for all other expenses ($2000 per month) The guy in the example would similarly have 33,000 for housing, but $67,000 for other expenses, which is 5500 per month. I don't know about you, but 5 grand per month is a *lot* of money for discretionary spending. What he can buy with the difference in discretionary income over the person with the $75,000 income (more than three thousand dollars PER MONTH) is what makes him relatively "rich."
But more to the point, using this same model, someone who is right in the middle of the "six figure" income, $500,000, would pull down about $250,000 after taxes. If we apply the 1/3 rule to this, that's $83,000 for housing, or $6900 per month, leaving $167,000 for discretionary spend, or more than $13,000 per month. He has more than eleven thousand dollars every single month than the guy making $75k to spend on whatever he wants.
That's an awful lot of downloads from iTunes, isn't it?
To be fair to Mr Stewart, the person making $500,000 per year may not "feel rich," to be sure. But my guess is it's because he is looking from his apartment in Greenwich Village at people in his company who live on the upper East Side, or in Westchester County, and not the bridge and tunnel person who works for him.
So all things considered, the rhetorical question asked by Mr Stewart: "Considering taxes, who wants to be a millionaire," I suggest he look at the famous Pink Floyd song for an answer:
But if you ask for a rise, it's no surprise that they're giving none away.
http://tinyurl.com/WeepForTheRich
The piece was written by a man called James Stewart, which is itself rather a bit of an inside-joke, given that James Stewart the actor often starred in films that glorified the little guy in his fight against the plutocrat. This incarnation would seem to favour Lionel Barrymore.
Mr Stewart - the writer, not the actor - raises what I am sure he thinks is something of a defence of the so-called rich, and deploys as his foot-soldiers various numerical arguments. The fulcrums (fulcra?) on which this rests are the suppositions that the "rich" are not necessarily so rich, have suffered more than the general population in the current economic downturn, shoulder a larger tax burden, and are largely not criminals.
Now, most people who have more than the intellectual discipline of a housefly understand that the final point is a straw-man. Of course most of the rich are law-abiding, his plaintive comment: "Yet, as hard as it may be to believe, the overwhelming majority of people earning six-figure incomes aren’t criminals or spendthrifts" notwithstanding. Mr Madoff is a criminal, but the guys over at AIG who approved "retention" bonuses are only criminally stupid, which itself is not yet illegal. We are still waiting on the California Supreme Court to rule on that one.
But looking through the rest of Mr Stewart's opus, there are three essential points.
One, those who are high earners (six figures) have suffered greater losses than the typical man on the street.
Now, the first problem with this argument is practical. There are not actual data to show exactly how the losses have skewed; Mr Stewart instead says "it's fair to say" that because the decline is largely driven by stock losses, that stock ownership skews to the wealthy, and therefore, losses are "steeper" for them.The Federal Reserve released statistics last week that showed Americans collectively lost $5.1 trillion of their net worth during the last three months of 2008 and $11.2 trillion for the full year. The numbers don’t break that down by income level, but I think it's fair to say that much of the drop came from the steep decline in stock prices, and stocks are owned disproportionately by high-income people. Indeed, stock ownership is so skewed to upper-income households that the percentage declines are probably much steeper for them, more likely in the 30% to 40% range.
That means anyone who was a millionaire at the beginning of 2008, and had a million dollars invested in stocks, has lost about $300,000 to $400,000, which is in line with what I’ve been hearing anecdotally. And the losses have only multiplied this year as the market continues its descent.
I'd like to see the numbers before I agree what is fair, and more important, what is accurate.
It's true that the average guy is less likely to own stock, but he likely does have a pension and/or 401-k, which is intrinsically linked to stock performance. I know my own 401-k is off by about 35 per cent, and my son's college fund has lost about 40 per cent.
Second, he fails to make the distinction between "a millionaire" and those who have "a million dollars invested in stocks." Americans to a large degree are disgracefully innumerate, and do not understand the differences along a scale of someone whose net worth is $100,000; $1 million, and $10 million. The differences are, to say the least, enormous. And when he conflates someone with an income between $200,000 and $300,000 (which comes later) with the jet-set who have a million dollars worth of stock, he is directly playing on this ignorance.
And this ignores the existential issue that the "losses" in this case are largely paper losses. If your stock portfolio drops 30 per cent, you only "lose" that money IF YOU SELL when it is down. So while it is true that Warren Buffet's net worth has declined, he in actuality has not "lost" anything in this regard. In fact, to use Mr Stewart's own implied argument, "I think it's fair to say" that, given the current low stock prices, many of the super wealthy are quietly acquiring stocks at bargain prices that their other assets allow them to acquire, and when the market turns up, they will have grabbed an even larger share of the wealth pie than they had before. To extend the Stewart/Barrymore metaphor, as George Bailey said of Mr Potter, he's not selling, he's buying. In five years, we'll see the endgame of the current situation.
Second, Mr Stewart raises the issue that the rich are taxed at disproportionately higher rates:
andThis group also pays a disproportionate share of income taxes, even before Obama's proposed tax increases. The top 1% of earners are expected to pay 25% of all personal income taxes this year, and the top 5% to pay 40%, according to Tax Policy Center's latest figures. It's no wonder that the people I know who earn $200,000 to $300,000 are incredulous to be branded as “rich.” They certainly don’t feel that way.
By contrast, let’s take a look at the top 400 earners, who in 2006 (the most recent year for which data are available) earned an average of $263.3 million. Now that’s what I call rich. These 400 people paid on average $45.2 million each, and collectively paid a remarkable 1.77% of all personal income taxes that year, the highest percentage since the IRS has been keeping records. They also paid an average rate of just 17%, the lowest ever, largely because of their massive capital gains, which are taxed at a low rate. Presumably those gains will seem a distant memory by the time the 2008 data are compiled. But imagine if they were paying at the top rate of 35%. That would roughly double their taxes paid in 2006, to $90 million each, or a total of roughly $36 billion. And that’s only 400 peopleWhat a fair distribution of the *income* tax burden ought to be is subjective - I am certainly no communist who thinks that the tax burden ought to be borne exclusively by the wealthy, and think that the Obama plan (like the "fix" passed last month in Sacramento) represents if not socialism galloping at full speed, is at least of the creeping sort.
But let's get real here.
This argument obscures the truth in two ways. First, it focuses exclusively on income tax, ignoring sales, property, and other taxes that all essentially pay. Rich or poor, if you go to purchase a shirt, you pay the same sales tax. And second (and more important), the author focuses on income, not wealth. In this point, the top one per cent of earners are said to pay 25 per cent of all income taxes. Well, what share of the national wealth does this one per cent control?
Third, there is the argument that the wealthy are not, in fact, rich as they are portrayed. Mr Stewart opens with comments about resorts, private jets, and luxury condos, and ends up talking about people earning "six figures" and/or the theoretical target of the Obama "rich guy" tax ladder ($300,000 per annum in income).
The two (three) groups are not the same. A private jet of the sort that Steve Jobs flies around in is tens of millions of dollars. I would suggest that virtually no one earning $250,000 flies frequently in a private jet, or goes to the sort of resort that Jobs or Dick Fuld is able to frequent. To this point, there is a huge problem in homogenising "six figure" incomes - itself an enormous range of 100,000 to 999,9999 - someone earning $300,000, and multi-millionaires.
Mr Stewart again is using the fact that Americans simply do not understand the enormous gulf between 100,000, one million, and ten million as a blunt club.
He turns to a hypothetical individual with an annual income of $200,000, living in Manhattan:
In New York City, for example, $200,000 in income yields roughly $100,000 after all taxes (including the unincorporated business tax, which applies to anyone who’s self-employed). If you're following the prudent rule of thumb that you should spend no more than one-third of your after-tax income on housing, that means $33,000, or less than $3,000 a month, can go toward housing — barely enough for rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. As for buying, the collapse in stock prices has wiped out much of what many people invested toward a down payment. New York may be atypically expensive, but many people who earn $200,000 and up have little choice but to live in a high-tax, high-cost location.
Now, it might be pointed out that the guy at $200,000 is, as of now, NOT going to be affected by the Obama tax rise, but that's somewhat akin to Titanic passengers complaining that their food was too cold.
What truly plagues this example are that, a) it is *not* the case that the person must live in Manhattan, and b) the 1/3 rule for after tax really does not scale up linearly.
For (a), the choice to live in Manhattan in the tiny one bedroom apartment is a choice. There is plenty of housing, along train lines, at much lower cost available in Brooklyn or Queens or Northern New Jersey. There are plenty of people who work at much lower salaries than $200,000 for whom Manhattan is simply not even a choice.
For (b), if one thinks about the application of the 1/3 rule for a second, the fallacy arises pretty quickly. Someone with an income of $75,000 who thus has an after-tax income of about $36,000 would have about $3,000 per month - $1000 for housing. THAT is a crunch, and leaves a total of 24,000 for all other expenses ($2000 per month) The guy in the example would similarly have 33,000 for housing, but $67,000 for other expenses, which is 5500 per month. I don't know about you, but 5 grand per month is a *lot* of money for discretionary spending. What he can buy with the difference in discretionary income over the person with the $75,000 income (more than three thousand dollars PER MONTH) is what makes him relatively "rich."
But more to the point, using this same model, someone who is right in the middle of the "six figure" income, $500,000, would pull down about $250,000 after taxes. If we apply the 1/3 rule to this, that's $83,000 for housing, or $6900 per month, leaving $167,000 for discretionary spend, or more than $13,000 per month. He has more than eleven thousand dollars every single month than the guy making $75k to spend on whatever he wants.
That's an awful lot of downloads from iTunes, isn't it?
To be fair to Mr Stewart, the person making $500,000 per year may not "feel rich," to be sure. But my guess is it's because he is looking from his apartment in Greenwich Village at people in his company who live on the upper East Side, or in Westchester County, and not the bridge and tunnel person who works for him.
So all things considered, the rhetorical question asked by Mr Stewart: "Considering taxes, who wants to be a millionaire," I suggest he look at the famous Pink Floyd song for an answer:
But if you ask for a rise, it's no surprise that they're giving none away.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
There Is a Fine Line...
between clever, and stupid.
Anyone of roughly my chronological age and intellectual maturity will immediately recognise the quote of one David Saint Hubbins (of the fictitious, eponymous band Spinal Tap).
I was thinking of Mr Saint Hubbins two evenings ago as I watched the infomercial that was being masqueraded as a press conference by President Obama. Other than the embarrassingly inappropriate question about Alex Rodriguez, and the bumptious interruption about Joe Biden's latest brilliance - what, exactly, is the confidence interval around his 30 per cent point estimate for the probability of failure - the questions were largely not even softballs, which at the least are moving. The questions were rather more like balls teed up for a six year old. I am curious; who decided, for example, that the Huffington Post is part of the press in any real way, or that, aside from the voices in Patrick Leahy's head, who exactly is clamouring for a "Truth and Reconciliation" commission?
I voted for Mr Obama in November, but I have to say, he is off to a rough start. One of the reasons I did vote for him is that unlike his opponent, he at least had a veneer of change and ran on hope rather than fear. But I'll be damned if he did not sound a lot like George W Bush last night, even if only as a different libretto to the same score of fear and anxiety.
As for change, is there anyone left who honestly believes that things are going to be done differently by a cabinet with more re-treads that the 1989 Yankees? Looking over the cabinet (Hillary Clinton? Wasn't she born in the Watergate Hotel), I am reminded of the old English sit-com "Are You Being Served," which ran when I was much, much younger. There was an episode in which the Ladies department had to share with Gentleman's Ready-Mades during a renovation. After all the hilarity of Mrs Slocombe's bras atop Mr Grainger's trousers, the curtains were revealed to show.... that nothing had changed.
"It's just the same," Mrs Slocombe exclaimed.
Young Mr Grace responded that everything had been outfitted with new wood.
I would offer that the new administration is a lot like Grace Brothers.
The cabinet is in fact, all new wood.
But aside from that, Mrs Slocombe, green hair and all, would recognise that this administration and what it is sellling is just the same.
Anyone of roughly my chronological age and intellectual maturity will immediately recognise the quote of one David Saint Hubbins (of the fictitious, eponymous band Spinal Tap).
I was thinking of Mr Saint Hubbins two evenings ago as I watched the infomercial that was being masqueraded as a press conference by President Obama. Other than the embarrassingly inappropriate question about Alex Rodriguez, and the bumptious interruption about Joe Biden's latest brilliance - what, exactly, is the confidence interval around his 30 per cent point estimate for the probability of failure - the questions were largely not even softballs, which at the least are moving. The questions were rather more like balls teed up for a six year old. I am curious; who decided, for example, that the Huffington Post is part of the press in any real way, or that, aside from the voices in Patrick Leahy's head, who exactly is clamouring for a "Truth and Reconciliation" commission?
I voted for Mr Obama in November, but I have to say, he is off to a rough start. One of the reasons I did vote for him is that unlike his opponent, he at least had a veneer of change and ran on hope rather than fear. But I'll be damned if he did not sound a lot like George W Bush last night, even if only as a different libretto to the same score of fear and anxiety.
As for change, is there anyone left who honestly believes that things are going to be done differently by a cabinet with more re-treads that the 1989 Yankees? Looking over the cabinet (Hillary Clinton? Wasn't she born in the Watergate Hotel), I am reminded of the old English sit-com "Are You Being Served," which ran when I was much, much younger. There was an episode in which the Ladies department had to share with Gentleman's Ready-Mades during a renovation. After all the hilarity of Mrs Slocombe's bras atop Mr Grainger's trousers, the curtains were revealed to show.... that nothing had changed.
"It's just the same," Mrs Slocombe exclaimed.
Young Mr Grace responded that everything had been outfitted with new wood.
I would offer that the new administration is a lot like Grace Brothers.
The cabinet is in fact, all new wood.
But aside from that, Mrs Slocombe, green hair and all, would recognise that this administration and what it is sellling is just the same.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Don't Try This at Home
Another day, another incredible story. According to Reuters, the state of California is mulling refusing to release tax refunds to those who overpaid their taxes in 2008.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090202/us_nm/us_usa_economy_california
Now, aside from the fact that this is basically theft, where does State Controller John Chiang get the chutzpah to tell people, whose money this actually is, that they must wait 30 days (or perhaps more) to get their money back?
What do you think the IRS, or in the case of Sacramento, the Franchise Tax Board, would say if, come 15th April, you said: "I know that I owe a few thousand dollars, but I am facing a 'cash shortfall,' and so I am going to hold back my taxes for 30 days?" For some reason, I think interest and penalties at the least would descend on you like the winged monkeys from "The Wizard of Oz."
California's fiscal irresponsibility apparently knows neither bounds nor shame. Some are saying the state is on the edge of a financial abyss. Could all those years of reckless spending finally be coming home to roost? Ah the joys of one-party rule.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090202/us_nm/us_usa_economy_california
Now, aside from the fact that this is basically theft, where does State Controller John Chiang get the chutzpah to tell people, whose money this actually is, that they must wait 30 days (or perhaps more) to get their money back?
What do you think the IRS, or in the case of Sacramento, the Franchise Tax Board, would say if, come 15th April, you said: "I know that I owe a few thousand dollars, but I am facing a 'cash shortfall,' and so I am going to hold back my taxes for 30 days?" For some reason, I think interest and penalties at the least would descend on you like the winged monkeys from "The Wizard of Oz."
California's fiscal irresponsibility apparently knows neither bounds nor shame. Some are saying the state is on the edge of a financial abyss. Could all those years of reckless spending finally be coming home to roost? Ah the joys of one-party rule.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Tax Cut Redux
One of today's headlines is discussing just what sort of "stimulus" is going to be coming from Washington; in this Whitman's Sampler of bad ideas lurks what some are calling "tax cuts," a great deal of which are in fact, not tax cuts at all, but tax credits and other goodies to try to coerce people into the behaviours that our Morlock Overseers want to engender in us.
Some months ago, I posted a comment on this blog
a question about what responsibilities one bears as a citizen of a country. I am reminded of the question today, as the folks in Washington debate just how to get us out of the mess we now find ourselves in due largely to our sloth, greed, and frankly, stupidity.
Put simply, what I see is more and more people being removed from the tax rolls, who, freed from the nuisance of having to pay for the "services" that they receive, will vote to expand their goodie bags at the increasing expense of the few of us who actually have to pay for them.
I once heard a quote that pretty aptly describes liberal compassion:
Compassion is A and B voting what they are going to force C to do to "help" D.
As you consider the so-called "stimulus package," ask yourself if you are a C or a D.
Some months ago, I posted a comment on this blog
a question about what responsibilities one bears as a citizen of a country. I am reminded of the question today, as the folks in Washington debate just how to get us out of the mess we now find ourselves in due largely to our sloth, greed, and frankly, stupidity.
Put simply, what I see is more and more people being removed from the tax rolls, who, freed from the nuisance of having to pay for the "services" that they receive, will vote to expand their goodie bags at the increasing expense of the few of us who actually have to pay for them.
I once heard a quote that pretty aptly describes liberal compassion:
Compassion is A and B voting what they are going to force C to do to "help" D.
As you consider the so-called "stimulus package," ask yourself if you are a C or a D.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
If Christmas is the time of miracles, then surely, early January is the time of lists. This one landed in my mail box this morning:
It's basically a back-of-the-envelope accounting of where the 50 "Best Places in America" to work are. Now, obviously this sample based on self-reported "satisfaction," carries with it all of the psychometric freight of that word as well as the inherent sampling bias. But setting that aside, a quick review of the list renders the following, most interesting top-line.
- Eight of the 50 firms are in management consulting (e.g., McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting). That's almost 20 per cent of the field. Now, given that in the industry I work in, consultants are the modern day equivalent of the biblical publicans - not sure if Jesus Christ himself would sit and have a meal with them - this is strange. And if Scott Adams is to be believed, the view goes beyond just my immediate neighbourhood. I guess these 25 year olds are just good enough, smart enough, and dog gone it, people PAY them.
- 10 of the 50 (20%) firms are new-styled tech (apps, software, services) companies - companies like Google, salesforce-dot-com, Citrix. I guess that there must be something to be said for loving what you do, since these guys are spending the lion's share of there time at the office working and playing ping-pong with their colleagues rather than at home with their families.
- There are several banks (Goldman Sachs is 26th). If this report were adjusted using linearly-weighted moving averages or some other tool for adjusting for the time component and hence implosion of Wall St, what would the outcome be?
- General Mills tops the list. No wonder Jerry Seinfeld always has a box or bowl of cereal in view in every episode of his show. After all, maybe they really are magically delicious.
Enjoy 2009!
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Time To Break Up Oprah?
Two interesting news pieces hit the wires today. They strike the Random Walker as oddly related.
The first is that, apparently, due to Oprah Winfrey's imprimatur, the Amazon-dot-com product "Kindle" (more or less, an electronic vessel into which books, magazines, and newspapers can be poured) is selling so fast that it will not be available for most peoples' Christmas lists.
The second is that the aforementioned Winfrey's weight has topped the 200 pound plateau (despite the war, the arrest of the governor of Illinois, the implosion of our economy, it seems a slow news day).
The fact that she can affect not only the sales of an esoteric product, but apparently, gravity itself in such a huge way, I cannot help but ask the question: "Has Oprah Winfrey now officially, physically, and metaphorically gotten too big for her britches?"
The first is that, apparently, due to Oprah Winfrey's imprimatur, the Amazon-dot-com product "Kindle" (more or less, an electronic vessel into which books, magazines, and newspapers can be poured) is selling so fast that it will not be available for most peoples' Christmas lists.
The second is that the aforementioned Winfrey's weight has topped the 200 pound plateau (despite the war, the arrest of the governor of Illinois, the implosion of our economy, it seems a slow news day).
The fact that she can affect not only the sales of an esoteric product, but apparently, gravity itself in such a huge way, I cannot help but ask the question: "Has Oprah Winfrey now officially, physically, and metaphorically gotten too big for her britches?"
Monday, 8 December 2008
The Apple Cult: Anything Behind the Curtain?
I've long maintained that Apple Computer, and its hygiene-challenged motley crew of devotees are something of a religion. Admittedly, it's a tongue-in-cheek point, but as time goes by, the position of tongue and cheek has become somewhat less firm.
I can recall the first time I went into an Apple Store that had appeared on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, California. It was truly like walking into some sort of Silicon Valley re-imagination of St Peter's Basilica.
There were the glassy-eyed True Believers, assured in their faith that They. Had. Arrived.
There were the icons wherever you looked around.
There were slogans that, if they were in Latin, could be set to music and pass for Gregorian Chants.
There were the religious relics of Lisas and Macintosh SEs and Quadras that had gone before.
And of course, at the centre, Apple's own Pope, if not Deity himself, Steve Jobs, risen from the corporate dead. Jesus Christ in a black turtleneck and ill-fitting jeans, if you will. Of course, he took several years, and not three days, to return from the grave, but Silicon Valley can be forgiven if it moves more slowly than the Lord himself.
Apple IS a sort of cult, and if you doubt it, pay a visit to the local Apple Store near you. But if you need further proof, simply check the reaction to today's news that (apparently) Wal-Mart has struck a deal to sell i-Phones:
Peruse the comments and look at the fury of the Macnostics, half of whom rage about the selling out to the devil of Bentonville, and half of whom of course, worship the brilliance of Jobs, tricking the devil into selling antiquated, knock-down versions to the rubes who have not been baptised into the cult.
I wonder if the people in the Cult of Apple realise that the marketing folks in Cupertino are slicker than any team of bishops, and that their devotion to the Apple Brand has become a quasi-religion?
Steve Jobs may in fact be a genius - it's been said that the greatest feat the devil ever pulled off was convincing men that he did not exist. Jobs has done, perhaps, one better, by convincing shallow, attention-starved nerds that nirvana exists in cheap gizmos manufactured in China that can play games AND function as phones. And get them to pay a couple of hundred bucks that they don't have for the privilege.
I can recall the first time I went into an Apple Store that had appeared on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, California. It was truly like walking into some sort of Silicon Valley re-imagination of St Peter's Basilica.
There were the glassy-eyed True Believers, assured in their faith that They. Had. Arrived.
There were the icons wherever you looked around.
There were slogans that, if they were in Latin, could be set to music and pass for Gregorian Chants.
There were the religious relics of Lisas and Macintosh SEs and Quadras that had gone before.
And of course, at the centre, Apple's own Pope, if not Deity himself, Steve Jobs, risen from the corporate dead. Jesus Christ in a black turtleneck and ill-fitting jeans, if you will. Of course, he took several years, and not three days, to return from the grave, but Silicon Valley can be forgiven if it moves more slowly than the Lord himself.
Apple IS a sort of cult, and if you doubt it, pay a visit to the local Apple Store near you. But if you need further proof, simply check the reaction to today's news that (apparently) Wal-Mart has struck a deal to sell i-Phones:
Peruse the comments and look at the fury of the Macnostics, half of whom rage about the selling out to the devil of Bentonville, and half of whom of course, worship the brilliance of Jobs, tricking the devil into selling antiquated, knock-down versions to the rubes who have not been baptised into the cult.
I wonder if the people in the Cult of Apple realise that the marketing folks in Cupertino are slicker than any team of bishops, and that their devotion to the Apple Brand has become a quasi-religion?
Steve Jobs may in fact be a genius - it's been said that the greatest feat the devil ever pulled off was convincing men that he did not exist. Jobs has done, perhaps, one better, by convincing shallow, attention-starved nerds that nirvana exists in cheap gizmos manufactured in China that can play games AND function as phones. And get them to pay a couple of hundred bucks that they don't have for the privilege.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
And These People *ARE* Rocket Scientists
A hundred thousand here, a hundred thousand there. Pretty soon, it adds up to real money.
Imagine my surprise to see that a team of astronauts, on a spacewalk, allowed a kit of tools to simply float away into space. (I can see the product placement opportunities right now: Space helmet: $2 million; bag of tools: $100,000. Remembering that there is no gravity in space and tethering your equipment so it doesn't float away: priceless).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081120/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle
Once when I was much younger and still living at home, I had to repair one of the headlamps of my car. The housing was not difficult to get at, and the job completed in about 10 minutes (plus time to drive to Pep Boys). I was so pleased with myself, I forgot to unlock the spanner from the engine block, where I had temporarily fixed it to throw the burnt out bulb away.
About six months later, when I popped the hood to check the coolant, there was my father's vise grip where I had left it, and subsequently driven from Cleveland, OH to Palo Alto, a trip of about 3000 miles.
Imagine my surprise to see that a team of astronauts, on a spacewalk, allowed a kit of tools to simply float away into space. (I can see the product placement opportunities right now: Space helmet: $2 million; bag of tools: $100,000. Remembering that there is no gravity in space and tethering your equipment so it doesn't float away: priceless).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081120/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle
Once when I was much younger and still living at home, I had to repair one of the headlamps of my car. The housing was not difficult to get at, and the job completed in about 10 minutes (plus time to drive to Pep Boys). I was so pleased with myself, I forgot to unlock the spanner from the engine block, where I had temporarily fixed it to throw the burnt out bulb away.
About six months later, when I popped the hood to check the coolant, there was my father's vise grip where I had left it, and subsequently driven from Cleveland, OH to Palo Alto, a trip of about 3000 miles.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
When Liberals Eschewed the Limousine
The past couple of days, we've been treated to the spectacle of the heads of our automotive industry (the no-longer-so-big-three) with hats in hand before the Congress, begging for some money to keep their respective shops open. They have faced a great deal of recrimination, and rightly so. The market share that GM alone once held apparently has eroded from 53% to 20% today. There is plenty of blame to go around, from poor quality, bad designs, foolish contracts, greed by executives, laziness from union workers.
It's a Whitman's sampler of misery, really.
But what seems missing from a lot of this discussion is, "Just where are the unions and their advocates?" Do the unions actually stand up for the working man any more? Do the Democrats who have just been swept into power by a tsunami of righteous anger at the corrupt GOP stand for much more than being mouthpieces of various grievance groups? Believe it or not, there once was a time when unions actually advocated FOR their rank and file.
All of this puts one in mind of the term "limousine liberal," which is apropros, considering that if GM and Ford go under, who will be left to manufacture the Town Cars and Cadillacs, and at that point, Palo Alto liberals may be forced to actually take mass transit.
We are now just over two weeks beyond the 4th November election. Amid the hoopla and good feelings was one dark spot - out in left wing California, Proposition 8 was passed, easily as it turns out; it's an amendment to the California state constitution that explicitly forbids homosexual marriage. Turns out, the "get out the vote" campaign in support of Barack Obama planted some ACORNs that yielded mighty oaks that were not so gay-friendly. Who knew that (largely) Catholic Hispanics and Black people are not on board with gay marriage?
Now, whatever ones' feelings on Proposition 8 (for the record, I would have voted NO, just as I voted NO on Proposition 22 almost a decade ago, which was more or less the same thing), looking at the list of who the big NO on 8 givers were, must strike one as odd:
But what this has to do with the needs of the teachers or hotel bus boys, or the guys who pick up the rubbish escapes me.
My sister is a teacher in California. She faces layoffs because the state so foolishly squanders its money. The schools are already among the worst, if not the worst, in the country. The abysmal state of education was a big contributing factor as to why my family decided to leave California.
You would think the CTA has more pressing matters; apparently, they don't. More than a million dollars was taken from dues-paying teachers and donated to a cause that has nothing to do with education. My guess is that rank and file teachers, or dustmen, or hotel workers were not even polled before this happened.
But Prop 8 is a pet, liberal cause of the union "leadership," so the money was appropriated.
So the next time I see one of those nauseating ads from one of the teachers' unions, one about how they are "there for our kids," I cannot help but wonder how blowing more than a million dollars helps my kids.
I've said it before - the idea that the teacher unions are advocates for good schools is equally as laughable as the idea that the auto workers union is an advocate for the motoring public. The difference is now, I say it with an increased cynicism because neither union really even cares about its actual constituents.
It's a Whitman's sampler of misery, really.
But what seems missing from a lot of this discussion is, "Just where are the unions and their advocates?" Do the unions actually stand up for the working man any more? Do the Democrats who have just been swept into power by a tsunami of righteous anger at the corrupt GOP stand for much more than being mouthpieces of various grievance groups? Believe it or not, there once was a time when unions actually advocated FOR their rank and file.
All of this puts one in mind of the term "limousine liberal," which is apropros, considering that if GM and Ford go under, who will be left to manufacture the Town Cars and Cadillacs, and at that point, Palo Alto liberals may be forced to actually take mass transit.
We are now just over two weeks beyond the 4th November election. Amid the hoopla and good feelings was one dark spot - out in left wing California, Proposition 8 was passed, easily as it turns out; it's an amendment to the California state constitution that explicitly forbids homosexual marriage. Turns out, the "get out the vote" campaign in support of Barack Obama planted some ACORNs that yielded mighty oaks that were not so gay-friendly. Who knew that (largely) Catholic Hispanics and Black people are not on board with gay marriage?
Now, whatever ones' feelings on Proposition 8 (for the record, I would have voted NO, just as I voted NO on Proposition 22 almost a decade ago, which was more or less the same thing), looking at the list of who the big NO on 8 givers were, must strike one as odd:
- The California Teachers Association (more than a cool million)
- The local SEIU (a half million)
- The hotel workers' union (small potatoes at only 100 grand)
But what this has to do with the needs of the teachers or hotel bus boys, or the guys who pick up the rubbish escapes me.
My sister is a teacher in California. She faces layoffs because the state so foolishly squanders its money. The schools are already among the worst, if not the worst, in the country. The abysmal state of education was a big contributing factor as to why my family decided to leave California.
You would think the CTA has more pressing matters; apparently, they don't. More than a million dollars was taken from dues-paying teachers and donated to a cause that has nothing to do with education. My guess is that rank and file teachers, or dustmen, or hotel workers were not even polled before this happened.
But Prop 8 is a pet, liberal cause of the union "leadership," so the money was appropriated.
So the next time I see one of those nauseating ads from one of the teachers' unions, one about how they are "there for our kids," I cannot help but wonder how blowing more than a million dollars helps my kids.
I've said it before - the idea that the teacher unions are advocates for good schools is equally as laughable as the idea that the auto workers union is an advocate for the motoring public. The difference is now, I say it with an increased cynicism because neither union really even cares about its actual constituents.
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