Thoughts with Whiskey: Politics

I've been drinking some Aberlour Scotch and cursing trade wars and thinking...

1)  This week, I'm getting a vasectomy.  I'm making jokes about it (the wife keeps referring to the "Cone of Shame", and I've made comments form 'Gonads to 'Gone-ads').  I'm not worried about it (I've had a kidney taken it- this should, in theory, be a piece of cake), but I admit a little bit forlorn.  I'm almost 48; I know I'm too old to be a father.  And I knew years ago that I wasn't going to be one, and that I'd probably be too lenient to be a good father.  But there are still regrets, and the thoughts of "What if...".  

2)  Changing to something less personal... I'm watching High Fidelity on Hulu, and highly recommend it.  The movie was great, and I think the series is even better.  Zoe Kravitz is awesome in the Rob role

3)  The next debate is tonight.  Honestly unless something happens in the next week, I suspect Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic Nominee.  Which sucks from my point of view, because I think both candidates are so awful that neither deserve my vote.  I'll abstain, hope from gridlock, and get a pre-boarding ticket for the Nikki Haley 2024 bandwagon.

4)  I might as well post it here to put extra pressure of myself- my goal in 2020 is to finish the book I've started.  When it's complete, I'll be asking for beta readers.

And on that note, time for me to finish my drink and head.  Peace, my friends.

Political Game Theory: Biden's move

At the moment, according to FiveThirtyEight, Bernie Sanders is likely to win a plurality of the delegates but not a majority.  Bernie has a rock-solid base of 15-25% of voters who will support him no matter what.  The rest of the voters are split among the other candidates.

This is very similar to 2016's GOP Primary.  Trump had a rock-solid base, and the other candidates split the votes.  Since the GOP primaries are winner-take-all, Trump built up a large delegate lead even though he rarely won any states with over 50% of the votes.  

Because the Democratic primaries are proportional (if you get above 15%), Bernie isn't on pace to build that type of delegate lead- but if he wins a plurality by the convention, it will be difficult to not award him the nomination.

The other candidates have a classic Prisoner's Dilemma.  Any one of the could likely beat Bernie if it was one-on-one.  But all of them want to be that one.  So they need the others to drop out.  But none of them have any incentive to drop out to help the other.

So here's where someone needs to cut a deal.  If I were Joe Biden, I would be making two phone calls today.

The first is to Senator Elizabeth Warren, with a simple deal, "Bow out an publicly support me.  I will make you Secretary of the Treasury.  You will have the authority to reform Wall Street and the Banking System.  I will be focusing on so many issues that I will defer to your expertise on fixing the economy."

Will that work?  Possibly.  Senator Warren has to know she's a long shot at this point, and this would put her in a position to implement a lot of the reforms she believes in.  

The other phone call is to Senator Amy Klobachur, "Senator, you've run a hell of a campaign.  But it's time for us to join together to beat Trump.  Join me as my Vice President.  We both believe in the same policies.  And I'm 74 years old- I don't expect to run a second term.  You'll be in the driver's seat to win in 2024."

And end it with a little bit of arm-twisting, "If you're not interested, I'll call Pete Buttigieg and see if he'll take the deal instead."

Again, will it work?  Biden is 74.  And while it's very tough for one party to win three elections in a row, winning a second- especially if Biden steps down and makes Klobachur his heir apparent- is a good spot.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has said that the other candidates should drop out so he can challenge Sanders.  But he's not giving them any reason to do so.  In this idea, Biden is offering something of value to two candidates to join him.  He's cutting a deal.

He's doing what a good politician should do.

Political Thought: Primary voters

The New Hampshire Primaries are today.  The number I'm curious about isn't who wins, but the total number of primary voters.

In 2016, there were 253,062 votes for the Democratic Primary.  In 2008, there were 287,557 vote for the Democratic Primary.  In 2004, it was just under 218,000 votes for the Democratic Primary.  

This year, there are multiple candidates on the Democratic Primary, and it's an election where they are trying to vote out a disliked incumbent President.  

New Hampshire voted Democrat in the 2016 election, but it was close- 46.7% to 46.25%.  For the Democrats to win in 2020, they need to keep all of the states they won and flip some of the others.

In theory, passions are running high- not only for their candidate among the Democrats, but to vote out President Trump.

The turnout in the Iowa Caucus was low- but Iowa had so many problems that I'm not sure it's a good example.  But if New Hampshire has a low turnout under these circumstances- a close Primary election in a year they should be passionate about throwing out the President- then I would be very worried that too many voters have just tuned out completely.

Baseball Card Thoughts

Topps has released their 2020 baseball cards.  I have my $0.11 on them...

1st- they are beautiful- but to me, it's a sterile beauty.  Take a look at these two baseball cards:

The one on the left is the 2018 Mike Trout from Topps; the one of the right is the 2020 Mike Trout.  The pictures are stunning- but the cards are too similar.  Both borderless, both of the same in-game moment.  Except for the helmet, you could have told me that they were from the same at-bat, and I'd have believed you.

Below is an example from almost 50 years ago;  The 1971 Topps Johnny Bench and the 1973 Bench.  They look different; not only is one a pose while the other is in-game, but just the feel of the cards are different.  Each year had a different redesign.  You can pick out a 1971 Topps from a 1972 from a 1973... it made collecting the cards more special.

Cards have also become a legalized lottery.  Packs are expensive (my 3 packs were $2.99 apiece for 16 cards), but they all have special inserts that, in theory, could be sold for more money.  I fear we are at a stage where no one collects and everyone invest, at which point the market will fall out.  There's also so many sets that trying to be a completionist is impossible

I'm not an investor; I collect for fun. I'll pick a small group and work on them.  

One set I do want to collect is the 2020 Topps Heritage Set.  The Heritage sets have the layouts of years past, and this one is the 1971 Topps (the black bordered cards).  I want to do this the old-fashioned way; opening up a few packs at a time, putting the set together manually.  It's a bad investment- but it'll appeal to my inner 11 year old.

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…