Steve Jobs

I've been reading the new biography of Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.

I'll just cite this one passage about Jobs' brief experience with communal living, for its obvious social-philosophy message.

"Alrthough the commune was supposed to be a refuge from materialism, [charismatic central figure Robert] Friedland began operating it more as a business; his followers were told to chop and sell firewood, make apple presses and wood stoves, and engage in other commercial endeavors for which they were not paid.  One night Jobs slept under the table in the kitchen and was amused to notice that people kept coming in and stealing each other's food from the refrigerator.  Communal economics were not for him. "it started to get very materialistic,' Jobs recalled. 'Everybody got the idea they were working very hard for Robert's farm, and one by one they started to leave. I got pretty sick of it.'"

Denver Broncos

I'm going to be watching the Patriots play the Broncos this Saturday evening.

For those of you not in the know: the Patriots won their division, the East, in the American Football Conference, and earned a "bye," -- that is, they could take a break during the first weekend of playoffs, the weekend of January 7-8.

Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos had a very mixed season.  Despote Tebow's talents (and highly publicized prayers) they didn't do better than a W-L record of 8-8. Fortunately, they were playing in a terrible division, the AFC west, where a .500 record was sufficient to end up the winner. It wasn't sufficient to earn a bye, though. They had to play the Pittsburgh Steelers, a wild card team, this past Sunday.

Indeed, the Steelers, who ended the season 12 and 4, were prohibitive favorites to win that game as they flew into Denver. They had a heck of a surprise waiting for them.  The Broncos were all over the Steelers in the first half. Steelers had to stage a rousing comeback to end the regulation time at a tie, forcing the first play-off game overtime since new rules came into play for such events.

The new rules say that the first team to have possession in an OT period in a play-off game cannot win by a field goal. If they get a field goal in that possession, the other team has the right to an OT possession of its own. Teams are getting too good in getting 3-pointers from mid-field. It wasn't sporting to have the game ride on a coin toss that way.

That didn't matter, though, because in a very exciting finish, the Broncos scored a touchdown on their first play from scrimmage of their first possession, ending the game in classic sudden death style.

I'll be cheering on the Patriots, anyway, this weekend. But it was good to see Denver pull that off, and congrats to my Colorado relatives.

A January 1988 Flashback

Back in January 1988, a presidential task force headed by Nicholas Brady announced its conclusions about the stock market crash of the previous October. The Brady Commission blamed automated computer trading.

The report seems almost quaint at a distance of 24 years as does the trading technology then on the cutting edge.
But it was part of Brady's own journey. He became Treasury Secretary before the year was out.  The elder Bush, who of course became President about a year after publication of this report, kept him on in that job, and he stayed until 1993, in the process helping defuse the great sovereign-debt crisis of his day with the creation of "Brady Bonds."

Okay, this was a random trip down memory lane.  Now return to your regularly scheduled activities.

Unintended Consequences

A working paper produced by an economist within the IMF recently warned about possible unintended consequences of regulations "aimed at financial stability" that focus on "building equity and reducing leverage at large banks/dealers."

Here is an abstract to the work, by Manmohan Singh.

As you'll see if you visit that page, those of us who allude to the existence of this paper are sternly warned that it "should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF." It represents the views of Mr Singh alone.

Coincidentally, Mr Singh has the same name, first and last, as the current prime minister of India. This has fueled conspiracy theories about the prime minister as a "world bank/IMF agent".

The name, though, is the only connection. The IMF economist didn't leave that employment to become PM of India!  He is still there, and this paper bears a quite recent release date as if to illustrate the point.

At any rate, the paper appears to me to be sound work and I hope it draws a wide audience.

Gary Weiss versus us Crackpots

 I admire Gary Weiss and I have indicated as much on this blog. I've even been the target of criticism because his critics think I'm a crony of his.  I'm proud to have taken a little heat for so good a reason.
Anyway, I do think Weiss has written insightfully about a wide range of issues and I have learnt a lot from his efforts.

I say all that as preface to this: Gary has unfortunately decided to stigmatize the Ron Paul campaign for president as a uniquely "crackpot" effort. I have to publicly take issue with him there. It is just about the least cracked thing happening within either of the two major parties at the national level just now. Like the US dollar among the other major currencies of our time -- the Paul campaign is the cleanest shirt in a pile of dirty laundry.

I wrote Weiss via the comment section of his blog about these views.  I'll reproduce that comment here, with minor cosmetic changes, below:

"I have to tell you Gary, Ron Paul is the only candidate (including the incumbent) who makes any sense to me these days at all.

"I won't defend everything that's appeared in his newsletters, etc. But he is bringing into the mainstream issues, like the dysfunctional nature of fiat money and central banking, and the uncounted costs of foreign adventurism, that we desperately need to have brought into said mainstream.

"As to the civil rights statutes, I agree with Paul that the use of the 'interstate commerce' clause in this sense was an almost absurd stretch of the reasonably plain meaning of the founding document. To say that the Supreme Court approved of this stretch, so it must be constitutional, is inadequate as a matter of logic. For decades the Supreme Court had approved of the notion of 'separate but equal' too. Sometimes the Supreme Court errs and its errors require resistance.

"Personally, in this case, though I object to the use of the commerce language as a blank check for Congressional power, I would be inclined to recognize a defense of necessity. The various branches of the govt of the US had to do something more to check the inertial force of our long history of racial separation and white domination than the formal declaration by the US Supreme Court in May 1954 of the end of Plessy could have accomplished. A recognition of this necessity need not and should not make us uncritical of the doctrinal particulars of such decisions as Heart of Atlanta, though. Here, too, Paul is serving a valuable purpose by his (relatively) straight thinking.

"The one change in federal policy now that could do the most for the improvement of race relations in America would be an end to the absurdities of the war on drugs. Guess who is the only candidate calling for that?"

I wrote those words prior to this Tuesday's developments in Iowa, and I ended by saying that I would be "delighted" by a Paul win there.  As indeed I would have been. In the first hour of Tuesday night's count, there was a neck-to-neck-to-neck three way tie. Only gradually did Paul fade a bit, becoming a backgrounded third to the true neck-to-neck drama of Romney versus Santorum. That is unfortunately, because it means this teaching moment, our opportunity to throw libertarian memes about in the mainstream, may already have ended.

I guess that's why they call them "moments"!

My three calenders

For my week-by-week desk calender through 2012, I will rely on an unflashy but serviceable volume from American Express. As with last year's calender, there are factual tidbits on each page about various destinations where I can presumably enjoy a debt-financed vacation with my Amex card. One of the early pages tells me, for example, with reference to Kauai, Hawaii, that a native of Kauai was "the only royal-born person ever elected to the U.S. Congress."  Prince Jonah Huhio Kalanianaole served as a delegate to Congress from the then-Territory of Hawaii from 1903 to 1922.

This year's Amex calender doesn't have the "30 years ago this week" feature that last year's did. I wonder why they axed it?  I would imagine that 1982 was at least as interesting a year, week-to-week, that 1981 was.

Maybe they simply realized that I can always check out 30-years events at websites like this: CED Magic. 

Separately, my month-by-month calender for the coming year, from Universe Publishing, provides me with classic illustrations from the career of Tintin, now the protagonist of a Spielberg movie.  The movie has been in the works for a long time, apparently since soon after the death of Tintin's creator, Hergé, in 1983. At one time it was to be a Universal/Paramount partnership, but Universal pulled out, and the movie now in theatres comes to us from Paramout and Sony. Personally, I hope it proves to be a long and successful franchise. It seems to give Spielberg a good excuse to revert to his Indiana-Jones phase.

Finally, for the day-to-day or "box" calender on the top of my dresser, I am done with "non sequitur" and have propped up a box consisting of one witticism a day from Johnny Carson, in the glory days of the Tonight Show.

Out with the old, in with the new!  

Resolutions

Last year my New Year's Resolutions were straightforward. I have achieved four out of five of them.

1. I promised to take good care of my car. Well, I did, although the "car" involved in that resolution changed through no fault of my own!  An idiot ran a red light in February and ruined my old Toyota.  But it was in great shape right up to that moment, and I've done a fine job thus far with its replacement.

2. Keep up with the insurance on car.  Done. 

3. Venture outside of the borders of the U.S. Oops. Never got that done in 2011.  I did get as far as Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, though. 

4. Make progress toward the publication of another book.  This, I've accomplished. I've accepted the fact that the publication of this book will have to be self-financed, but that is more of an observation on the state of the commercial publishing world today than on the merits of my book. At any rate, I've come to a point where the wording of the corresponding resolution for next year will be unconditional.

5. Keep track of Nassar Saber.  Done.  He is still writing about how he is working on his next book.  Maybe 2012 will be the year it actually comes out.  But I've decided not to include such tracking on my next list.

This year....

1. Get my car ("Doug") through December 2012 in good working order

2. Make an entrepreneurial investment. Shouldn't just talk a good game on the anarcho-cap stuff.

3. Regarding technology: enter the 21st century.  For example, get audio back for my computer. Get Skype capacity for it. Learn how to use -- heck, become comfortable using -- my scanner.

4.  Publish GWBCs and sell at least 1,000 copies.

5. Venture outside the borders of the U.S.