There are two things that I want to say about the decade that is ending.
The first is that the decade sucks. That's really the only word for it. I could go on about all the ways it sucked: the dotcom bubble, USS Cole, 9/11, Afghanistan, anthrax, telecom bubble, Enron, Worldcom, DC beltway sniper, Iraq, space shuttle Columbia, Abu Graib, Katrina, North Korean nuclear tests, Iran, housing and subprime mortgage bubble, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, stock market collapse, H1N1 flu, ….
The second thing about this past decade is that we can’t decide on a name for it. The Nineties, the Eighties, the Seventies, the Sixties, those decades all have names. The Zeros, the Aughts, the Naughts have all been bandied about for this past decade but none of them have stuck. This truly has been a decade with no name.
And why would we want to name something that sucks so badly? To name something is to remember it. Maybe by not naming it we don’t have to remember it.
So let’s hear it for the new decade, the Twenty-Teens. The Twenty-Teens are going to be great. Here are some of my predictions for the Twenty-Teens:
(1) The Dow doubles to 20,000 and the S&P to 3,000 after businesses finally figure out how to make money on the internet. It’s the new economy, stupid. That 2008-2009 financial crisis was the old economy dying.
(2) The first woman President of the United States is elected in 2016, and she will not be Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin.
(3) The Muslim world shuns Al Qaeda as nothing more than a cult, as did the Nigerian banker who turned his son in before the Detroit airplane attack.
(4) Israel and Palestine agree on borders for their separate states, and learn to live together in mutual security and peace. Their 40 years in the wilderness are up, or has it been 60?
(5) North and South Korea reunite, Iran throws off rule by the clerics, Chinese capitalists embrace American-style democracy, Russia joins the European Union, and Hugo Cavez as head of Opec apologizes for global warming. OK, maybe not, but a guy can dream.
Here is the problem, when do the Twenty-Teens actually begin? Do they begin on 1/1/2010 or do they not begin until 1/1/2013? We could be in for 3 more years of suckiness before the greatness of the Twenty-Teens can truly reign.
Or do we call this decade the Twenty-Tens? Damn, this coming decade is going to be hard to name too.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
New Security Guidelines for Airline Travel
In response to the Christmas Day 2009 terrorist attempt on a plane landing in Detroit, the Department of Homeland Security has issued these new security guidelines for airline travel in or to the United States of America:
(1) Carry on luggage can no longer be carried onto flights and must be checked. All electronic devices must also be checked. And all toiletries and other liquids must be checked.
(2) All checked luggage will be sent via UPS to your final destination on a nonpassenger flight.
(3) All clothing and jewelry must be removed before passing through airport security, and checked through with your luggage to your final destination.
(4) Special jumpsuits will be issued for airline passengers to wear that will appear opaque to ordinary vision but will be see-through to airport security personnel and airline flight crew equipped with special glasses (available for $25.95 on the internet).
(5) All airline blankets and pillows will now also be made of see-through material. Flight attendants may administer a strong sedative to put a passenger to sleep for the duration of the flight, if they deem the passenger to be unruly, creepy, or just plain annoying (such as socialite Ivana Trump or public official Chuck Schumer).
(6) The seat-back tray table and seat-back magazine pouch will be removed. All meals in flight will be served on clear plastic trays without benefit of metal or plastic utensils or napkins. Eat with your hands and, as no reading material or electronic devices are allowed, enjoy the in-flight movie which will be broadcast over the PA for everyone onboard to hear without headsets: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
(7) In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat-back can be used as a floatation device. In the not quite as unlikely event of midair disintegration of the airplane due to explosion or fire, your seat-back can be used as a parachute. Just buckle in your jumpsuit.
(8) All airplane bathrooms will be fitted with see-through windows using the same see-through material as the jumpsuits. At the discretion of the flight crew, passengers using the bathroom for more than 10 minutes may be jettisoned.
(9) The empty cargo hold of every airplane will hold a special ops team, with snipers deployed in the empty overhead bins strategically throughout the airplane. All flights will carry enough fuel so that they can at any time be diverted to Gitmo, or to the prison in Illinois slated to replace Gitmo.
(10) Airline passengers should refrain from fighting or subduing would-be suicidal terrorists while flight attendants douse the terrorist with water or fire extinguishers: "It is just too embarrassing to us at DHS that, despite all our screening efforts, heroic action by passengers and flight crew members is the only security method that actually works."
(1) Carry on luggage can no longer be carried onto flights and must be checked. All electronic devices must also be checked. And all toiletries and other liquids must be checked.
(2) All checked luggage will be sent via UPS to your final destination on a nonpassenger flight.
(3) All clothing and jewelry must be removed before passing through airport security, and checked through with your luggage to your final destination.
(4) Special jumpsuits will be issued for airline passengers to wear that will appear opaque to ordinary vision but will be see-through to airport security personnel and airline flight crew equipped with special glasses (available for $25.95 on the internet).
(5) All airline blankets and pillows will now also be made of see-through material. Flight attendants may administer a strong sedative to put a passenger to sleep for the duration of the flight, if they deem the passenger to be unruly, creepy, or just plain annoying (such as socialite Ivana Trump or public official Chuck Schumer).
(6) The seat-back tray table and seat-back magazine pouch will be removed. All meals in flight will be served on clear plastic trays without benefit of metal or plastic utensils or napkins. Eat with your hands and, as no reading material or electronic devices are allowed, enjoy the in-flight movie which will be broadcast over the PA for everyone onboard to hear without headsets: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
(7) In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat-back can be used as a floatation device. In the not quite as unlikely event of midair disintegration of the airplane due to explosion or fire, your seat-back can be used as a parachute. Just buckle in your jumpsuit.
(8) All airplane bathrooms will be fitted with see-through windows using the same see-through material as the jumpsuits. At the discretion of the flight crew, passengers using the bathroom for more than 10 minutes may be jettisoned.
(9) The empty cargo hold of every airplane will hold a special ops team, with snipers deployed in the empty overhead bins strategically throughout the airplane. All flights will carry enough fuel so that they can at any time be diverted to Gitmo, or to the prison in Illinois slated to replace Gitmo.
(10) Airline passengers should refrain from fighting or subduing would-be suicidal terrorists while flight attendants douse the terrorist with water or fire extinguishers: "It is just too embarrassing to us at DHS that, despite all our screening efforts, heroic action by passengers and flight crew members is the only security method that actually works."
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Democracy for the Dogs
On Board Balloon "Skylark"
April 5, 2848
I am almost devoured by ennui. Pundit is the only conversible person on board; and he, poor soul! can speak of nothing but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the attempt to convince me that the ancient Amriccans governed themselves! -- did ever anybody hear of such an absurdity? -- that they existed in a sort of every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the fashion of the 'prairie dogs' that we read of in fable.
He says that they started with the queerest idea conceivable, viz.: that all men are born free and equal -- this in the very teeth of the laws of gradation so visibly impressed upon all things both in the moral and physical universe. Every man 'voted', as they called it -- that is to say, meddled with public affairs -- until, at length, it was discovered that what is everybody's business is nobody's, and that the 'Republic' (so the absurd thing was called) was without a government at all.
It is related, however, that the first circumstance which disturbed, very particularly, the self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed this 'Republic', was the startling discovery that universal suffrage gave opportunity for fraudulent schemes, by means of which any desired number of votes might at any time be polled, without the possibility of prevention or even detection, by any party which should be merely villainous enough not to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection upon this discovery sufficed to render evident the consequences, which were that rascality must predominate -- in a word, that a republican government could never be anything but a rascally one.
While the philosophers, however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of the name of Mob, who took everything into his own hands and set up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a foreigner, by the by) is said to have been the most odious of all men that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature -- insolent, rapacious, filthy; had the gall of a bullock with the heart of an hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint of his own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his uses, as everything has, however vile, and taught mankind a lesson which to this day it is in no danger of forgetting -- never to run directly contrary to the natural analogies.
As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth -- unless we except the case of the 'prairie dogs', an exception which seems to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of government -- for dogs.
From Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in February, 1849.
April 5, 2848
I am almost devoured by ennui. Pundit is the only conversible person on board; and he, poor soul! can speak of nothing but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the attempt to convince me that the ancient Amriccans governed themselves! -- did ever anybody hear of such an absurdity? -- that they existed in a sort of every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the fashion of the 'prairie dogs' that we read of in fable.
He says that they started with the queerest idea conceivable, viz.: that all men are born free and equal -- this in the very teeth of the laws of gradation so visibly impressed upon all things both in the moral and physical universe. Every man 'voted', as they called it -- that is to say, meddled with public affairs -- until, at length, it was discovered that what is everybody's business is nobody's, and that the 'Republic' (so the absurd thing was called) was without a government at all.
It is related, however, that the first circumstance which disturbed, very particularly, the self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed this 'Republic', was the startling discovery that universal suffrage gave opportunity for fraudulent schemes, by means of which any desired number of votes might at any time be polled, without the possibility of prevention or even detection, by any party which should be merely villainous enough not to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection upon this discovery sufficed to render evident the consequences, which were that rascality must predominate -- in a word, that a republican government could never be anything but a rascally one.
While the philosophers, however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of the name of Mob, who took everything into his own hands and set up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a foreigner, by the by) is said to have been the most odious of all men that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature -- insolent, rapacious, filthy; had the gall of a bullock with the heart of an hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint of his own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his uses, as everything has, however vile, and taught mankind a lesson which to this day it is in no danger of forgetting -- never to run directly contrary to the natural analogies.
As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth -- unless we except the case of the 'prairie dogs', an exception which seems to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of government -- for dogs.
From Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in February, 1849.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Has Harvard University Lost Its Nerve?
Did Harvard University panic during the financial crisis in the Fall of 2008? A recent article on Bloomberg.com implies as much. The story has to do with interest rate swaps Harvard took out in 2004 during the tenure of Harvard President Larry Summers and endowment head Jack Meyers to help finance its planned expansion across the Charles River into Allston. When benchmark interest rates fell to near zero during the financial crisis, Harvard was suddenly on the hook to its investment bankers for $1 billion.
The article seems to suggest some irony in Harvard President Drew Faust, endowment head Jane Mendillo, and lawyer Anne Olgiby losing their nerve and closing out the interest rate swaps at the worst possible time in December 2008, given Harvard President Larry Summers getting pushed out of Harvard after questioning women’s innate aptitude for math and science.
Larry Summers is now the chief economic advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, and isn’t making any public comment.
I think the part of this story that the article misses is that these swaps were part of the financing for the Allston expansion. As long as Harvard was going to proceed with the expansion, the losses on the swaps meant Harvard would effectively have to pay a higher but still reasonable interest rate at the 2004 levels. However, with the decision to indefinitely postpone the Allston expansion, these swaps became naked bets on interest rates. So it probably did make sense to close them out, whether they could have gotten a better deal by waiting is easier to see in hindsight than it would have been a year ago.
More generally, many in the Harvard community have wanted the Harvard endowment to move away from the high risk, high reward strategies that characterized the Jack Meyer era. That means unwinding some of the things that were done in that era and living with potentially lower investment returns in the endowment going forward. I think the debate over endowment investment is still going on inside the Harvard community. As of June 30, 2009, the Harvard endowment was at $26 billion. That was down from $36.9 billion in June 2008 but still up from $22.6 billion in June 2004.
Harvard was betting interest rates would go up, and didn’t foresee they could instead go down to near zero. And that exposes a fundamental problem with derivatives. It’s not just that you are making what amounts to a complicated bet, you have to find a big investment bank to take the other side of the bet. Actually, these derivatives are sold, the investment bank finds you.
The old adage applies, if a man walks into a bar and wants to bet you that his pet dog will jump on the bar and sing the Star Spangled Banner while tap dancing, no matter how improbable that sounds to you, you can be sure the dog will do just that. In this case, the collapse of interest rates in the financial crisis was caused in no small measure by other derivative bets these big investment banks were making.
The article seems to suggest some irony in Harvard President Drew Faust, endowment head Jane Mendillo, and lawyer Anne Olgiby losing their nerve and closing out the interest rate swaps at the worst possible time in December 2008, given Harvard President Larry Summers getting pushed out of Harvard after questioning women’s innate aptitude for math and science.
Larry Summers is now the chief economic advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, and isn’t making any public comment.
I think the part of this story that the article misses is that these swaps were part of the financing for the Allston expansion. As long as Harvard was going to proceed with the expansion, the losses on the swaps meant Harvard would effectively have to pay a higher but still reasonable interest rate at the 2004 levels. However, with the decision to indefinitely postpone the Allston expansion, these swaps became naked bets on interest rates. So it probably did make sense to close them out, whether they could have gotten a better deal by waiting is easier to see in hindsight than it would have been a year ago.
More generally, many in the Harvard community have wanted the Harvard endowment to move away from the high risk, high reward strategies that characterized the Jack Meyer era. That means unwinding some of the things that were done in that era and living with potentially lower investment returns in the endowment going forward. I think the debate over endowment investment is still going on inside the Harvard community. As of June 30, 2009, the Harvard endowment was at $26 billion. That was down from $36.9 billion in June 2008 but still up from $22.6 billion in June 2004.
Harvard was betting interest rates would go up, and didn’t foresee they could instead go down to near zero. And that exposes a fundamental problem with derivatives. It’s not just that you are making what amounts to a complicated bet, you have to find a big investment bank to take the other side of the bet. Actually, these derivatives are sold, the investment bank finds you.
The old adage applies, if a man walks into a bar and wants to bet you that his pet dog will jump on the bar and sing the Star Spangled Banner while tap dancing, no matter how improbable that sounds to you, you can be sure the dog will do just that. In this case, the collapse of interest rates in the financial crisis was caused in no small measure by other derivative bets these big investment banks were making.
Winter Blooms on a Snowy Night at Club Passim
Winterbloom is Anne Heaton, Meg Hutchinson, Natalia Zukerman, and Antje Duvekot. Their show was a warm holiday festival on a cold snowy night. If you missed the show you can still get the music at the usual places online.
We got a good picture of Antje Dukevot, which reminds us we forgot to blog about her great show with Richard Shindell at the Somerville Theatre in November. What can we say, she plays well with others.
Venue note: Passim has sprung for new chairs and Veggie Planet has fixed the portion size problem by offering small and large. No more backaches and doggy bags.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sarah's Market Now Stocking Beer and Wine
Sarah's Market at the corner of Concord Avenue and Huron Avenue in Cambridge is now selling beer and wine. The selection is respectable if not huge. And for those of us in the neighborhood, you can't beat the location.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wicked Hardcore Christmas Partiers Have Broken Into My Condo
I leave town for a weekend, and some wicked hardcore Christmas partiers break into my condo and film a music video. My apartment is having more fun than I am!
My favorite line: "Shopping drunk, down in Harvard Square. Or was it Davis Square? Who cares."
You can purchase the classic song Wicked Hardcore Christmas along with the Wicked Hip-Hop Christmas remix featured in the video and a few bonus treats for the low, low price of $3.99 (so low I get no kickback).
My favorite line: "Shopping drunk, down in Harvard Square. Or was it Davis Square? Who cares."
You can purchase the classic song Wicked Hardcore Christmas along with the Wicked Hip-Hop Christmas remix featured in the video and a few bonus treats for the low, low price of $3.99 (so low I get no kickback).
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