The Big Short

One of the books I received this Christmas was Michael Lewis' book The Big Short.  I actually think this is one of the most important books of the last decade, and it was made into a movie.  Which, for a book about esoteric financial transactions, is pretty amazing.

The book does a great job describing what the hell happened in the 2008 financial crisis, better than anything else I have read or seen.  I'd really recommend seeing the movie or reading the book, but if you want my interpretation (which is like asking a child to describe the Mona Lisa), it's this:

We encouraged a bunch of people to buy houses they couldn't afford with financial gimmicks (subprime mortgages).  Then the banks repackages these as bonds, used tricks to make the bonds seem a lot more secure on paper than they actually were, and ended up being so leveraged that when the housing market collapsed, it took down a large number of banks.  

I'm still not sure what amount of this was criminal and what percentage was just blind stupidity.  I think it's mainly stupidity; the banks told themselves that the housing market never fell that badly, so they basically bet everything that it never would.  

I'm a capitalist by nature, and still reading about this both shocks and angers me.  Shocks me in that these banks could be so blind that they didn't realize what they were doing;  angers me in that I'm still not sure they learned their lesson.

RIP Neil Peart

Among the engineering students when I was at college, Rush was the band- the combination of Rock and Roll Sound with incredible lyrics and music that was so complex it was incredible that it only came from three band members.  If Rock's basic equation was "Three Chords and the Truth", Rush was the AP Calculus.

Neil Peart, the drummer, passed away from brain cancer at 67 today.  Besides being the drummer, he also wrote most of the lyrics.  Like the music, there was a depth to them that is astounding.  Just one example (from "The Pass", my favorite Rush song):

All of us get lost in the darkness

Dreamers learn to steer by the stars

All of us do time in the gutter

Dreamers turn to look at the cars

That struck a chord with me in a way most songs can't.

Rush was my favorite band, and I saw them several times.  They were so much more than that for my wife, who often credits the album "Presto" for saving her life during a down time.  We saw the band several times, and even briefly appear on their R40 DVD.

Thank you for sharing your gifts with the world, Mr. Peart.

The Year in Review

2019…  It was a year.

The Cold Civil Cultural War (CCCW) rages on.  Two sides that are convinced that their side is right, and more importantly, the other side is not just wrong but evil.  It touches just about every news story today.  The irony is, the issues I am most concerned about (the growing debt, how involved should the US be in foreign wars) isn’t really discussed by either side in the CCCW.  It’s all about making sure one side wins and the other side loses.  And with the election coming up in 2020, I expect the CCCW to, if possible, get even more inflamed.

Sports- I abandoned professional (American) football.  A combination of too many bad people involved in the sport and a concussion issue that is swept under the rug and cannot be fixed.  I still follow baseball and basketball, though the NBA sent a clear message that what they WANT is six to ten Superteams and the rest are versions of the Washington Generals to job out to the Superteams. 

Things sound down, but they aren’t.  If you tune out the Cultural War, in so many ways life is getting better.  We are living longer, and the worst forms of poverty are being eradicated.  There are problems- there always are- but things are better than they are often portrayed.

On a personal level…. I became a Pescatarian this past year.  I just finally decided I couldn’t eat meat anymore.  I thought this would help with my weight loss, and I was wrong (when I eat less meat, I tend to more bread…)  But both Katie and I are healthy and doing well.  We also joined The Houde School this year, and are learning quite a bit.  The Improv classes are outstanding, and I can’t recommend them enough.

My grandmother, Elsie Vortanz Sonby Pittman-Kosteroski, passed away at the age of 93.  She raised five children under difficult circumstances- the more I learned about her life, both from her and after she passed, the more I learned to admire her.  

Farewell to the old year.  On Wednesday, we welcome in 2020…

The Rise of Skywalker thoughts

(WARNING:  This is discussing "Star Wars:  The Rise of Skywalker".  Leave now if you don't want to be spoiled)

The Decade: Movies

We're in December of 2019- not just the end of the year, but the end of the decade.  I'll leave it to other to discuss the worldwide themes of the decade.  I will say this; while there are several unpleasant trends between 2010 and 2019, it's an improvement over the last century at this time- no World Wars destroying millions of lives.

But, on a lighter front, I figured I'd give my own personal opinions on various categories of the decade.  We'll start with movies.  These are just my $0.11, and I'm open to suggestions for movies I haven't seen yet.

2010: Inception/Toy Story 3- we're starting with a tie. Inception is probably my favorite science fiction movie of the decade. I love the concept, even though it falls apart when you think about it. But invading people's minds through their dreams is a cool concept that works in a movie on a big screen.

As for Toy Story 3... Toy Story might be the greatest movie trilogy of all time (yes, I know there is a Toy Story 4; I haven't seen it yet). There isn't a weak movie among the three. I was convinced that 3 couldn't live up to the first two movies, and I was wrong.


2011: Captain America:  The First Avenger- the first of several Marvel movies in my list. Chris Evans nails the character (it's hard to make a non-snarky Lawful Good character interesting, and he pulls it off). Setting most of the movie in the WWII era gives the movie a unique feel among the Marvel Movies, and allows you to see the history.


2012: Avengers- another Marvel movie. They did it- they spent five movies setting up this movie, with only one misstep. They had a movie with ten main characters and they gave them all moments to shine. As a story, the movie is great. But sticking the landing is even more challenging, and they did it.


2013: American Hustle- went back and forth between this and The Wolf of Wall Street. Both are black comedies about scams and based on real life events. I went with Hustle for this reason; The Wolf of Wall Street was made by a production company that stole $10 billion from the people of Malaysia. The reality of making that movie is worse than the movie itself.


2014: Captain America:  The Winter Solider- another Marvel Movie. Tough choice- I could have gone with Guardians of the Galaxy or The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. One movie that it wouldn't be was Birdman- I started watching it and just got bored halfway through. Which might say more about me than about the movie.


2015: The Big Short- Love the book, love the movie. Does the best job explaining exactly what the hell happened in the 2008 economic downturn that I've seen.


2016: Star Wars:  Rogue One- none of the Star Wars movies come close to the brilliance of A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. But Rogue One comes closest- it's an original story, it's fills in some of the story gaps, and it gives moments of awe-inspiring glory and horror. JUST edges out Doctor Strange

2017: none- I haven't seen Murder on the Orient Express or Spiderman: Homecoming, and none of the other movies released this year really appealed that much to me. Maybe Star Wars:  The Last Jedi- but that movie left me with more questions than answers. I'm terrified it'll be like The Matrix: Reloaded- an incomplete movie without the sequel, and the sequel is so bad it ruins the other movie.

2018: Into the Spider-Verse- I love this movie. It has the right 'fit' for Spider-Man, able to be serious without getting too depressing, and somehow manages to tie multiple universes together in a way that works. JUST edges out Black Panther

2019: Avengers: Endgame- technically, this is still up in the air. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker might (I hope) top it, and I really enjoyed Knives Out. But, like Avengers, it managed to tie so many other movies together that right now it's my movie for 2019.

No NBA Predictions

Of the major sports, the NBA had become my favorite.  Note the past tense.

I understand that large corporations want to work with China because China is a gold mine for them.  I'm a capitalist, and trying to balance making money and the need to work with bad actors.  And I don't expect the owners and players in the NBA to give up that money because China is Imprisoning millions of Uighurs and violently attacking protesters in Hong Kong.

But I expect them to stand up for their own people's right to speak out.

Daryl Morey wasn't trying to change the world- he just supported the Hong Kong protests with his tweet.  And China got upset and told the NBA to jump.  And the NBA said 'how high?'

To be fair- Adam Silver said China told the NBA to fire Morey, and they haven't.  But seeing the NBA bow down to China- after making such a spectacle of using their fame as a soapbox on so many issues- is really unpleasant.

So, instead of giving you NBA predictions- or even caring about the sport- here's a picture to show you who is calling the shots in the NBA:

Congress' Hammer

(Fair warning:  This is a political post.  I speak for no one but myself.  I welcome debate and disagreement)

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."-  Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science.

From everything I've read about President Trump's call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, it's skeevy as hell.  President Trump all but tied Ukraine getting some anti-tank weapons to him investigating Hunter Biden, son of the former Vice President.

It reeks of corruption, no matter the circumstances.  No matter what Biden did, President Trump crossed a few lines and basically implied he'd leave an ally in trouble if Ukraine didn't help him politically.

Have other Presidents done worse?  I believe it.  Doesn't matter.

Is it impeachable?  Anything is impeachable if Congress will Impeach over it.

But here's my thought- Congress is going for the Impeachment because they think that is the only weapon they have to contain the President.  

Investigations don't stop Trump.  Congress cannot or will not pass legislation to stop his agenda.  They could always threaten to cut the funding- but that shuts down the government.

In the mind of Congress, Impeachment is the only tool they have.  And following Maslow's saying, when Impeachment is your only tool, everything you don't like becomes impeachable.

The problem is- this won't end with when Donald Trump leaves the Presidency.  Congress has become more and more impotent over the past generations, no matter which party controls the House or Senate.  When Congress is in the control of the same Party as the President, they rubber-stamp the President's agenda.  When Congress is controlled by the other party, they... don't do anything.  They never pass their own agenda, and the President merrily chugs along, running things through the executive branch.  

I don't think this is a party problem- it happens when the Democrats or when the Republicans win elections.  But if it doesn't change- if Congress doesn't start regaining some of the power and control they've lost over the past century- we're going to see Impeachments every time the House is a different party than the President.

This isn't healthy for the country.