Tough Year

Fools Market –

You are a fool to believe that the Fed’s path is sustainable, and that infinite QE will not come with a very dear price.

But you are a fool not to ride the wave of liquidity it provides.

You are a fool not to notice the problems in Europe and Asia, and to think that they will not spread.

But you are a fool not to realize that this will mean money flowing to the U.S.

You are a fool to put money into high-flyers with ridiculous multiples, like AMZN or CMG.

But if you don’t, you will underperform the market badly.’

Oil can’t be this high with abundant supply and slowing worldwide growth…  Unless the middle east heats up, then it will go higher.  Either way, you will be proven a fool.

Precious metals would be prudent, given the monetary shenanigans of the world.  But you have been proven a fool if you still own the miners.

And if you throw up your hands and go to cash or bonds, you are clearly a fool because of their negative real yield.

Curiouser and curiouser.  

And I am sucking at my job.

Bad Day

When I drove across country in 1988, I wound up spending a week or so at my Grandparent’s house in Tacoma.  We had dinner around the kitchen table, did some work in the garage, and listened to stories and such.  It was the kind of visit you have with older people when you won’t have many more chances to spend time with them.  But I didn’t know what that sort of visit felt like when I was 20.  I hadn’t known too many people who got old and died.  At 20, most of the people I knew who were old had been old for my entire life.

My Uncle Brian wasn’t old.  He was middle aged when I was a kid.  He was middle aged in a 1970’s kinda way, like McCloud or even Burt Reynolds.  He had a mustache, and liked dirty jokes.  He would go scuba diving with us.  He liked poker and fishing boats and martinis and Camel cigarettes.  The Cigarettes were what eventually killed him.  But we had lots of visits before he went, usually fishing trips.  One year he was same as he always was, he just went to bed earlier.  The next year he wouldn’t climb up to the flying bridge.  The final year he’d have to rest a few times on the walk down the dock.  Each time we planned the trip, I knew it was the sort of visit you plan in order to spend time with someone who you won’t have too many chances to spend time with.

I had a phone call with my father yesterday.  I told him we’d be in Florida and we made plans to get together in Orlando.  The phone call started to have that familiar feeling.

I’m not expecting his immediate demise. My grandmother was alive for 15 years after that first visit. 

But this phone call, and these plans felt different.  Once you start planning your visits with people with the awareness of their finality, the relationship changes.  So today I felt a little closer to being an orphan.

Remembering New Orleans

Forgot about this story:

My roommate Kevin and I were hanging out in New Orleans, helping to get a shop set up in riverwalk.  I don’t quite remember how we got suckered into it, but someone convinced us to spend our last $30 or so on lightstick neckalaces to resell at all the bars.

We trudged off, in search of bars with no covers, and finally found one down toward the canal street end of things…  But sadly enough, when we go in, the bar was about 20x20 and there was no one there…  two salesmen types fresh from a convention, two working girls working the salesmen, a bartender, and a band who was slated to go on in a few minutes.  Dead, dead, dead.

We were planning our exit, when the band took the stage.  And a few bars into the first set, their pyrotechnics went off.  4 people in the bar, and the band has frickin smoke pots, fountains, flash-bangs, etc.  So-so band, but light show was definitely a-list, and worth sticking around for the oddity of it all.

The hookers started dancing with the guys soon enough, and  they convinced the salesmen to buy all of our necklaces – or at least enough to pay us back and pay for beignets and coffee the next morning.

Best city in the Fuckin’ world…

Progressives

I tend to be tolerant of the social conservatives, even the silly ones.  I disagree with most of their tenants, but with a few vocal exceptions, they seem a nice enough bunch of folks.  I hesitate to judge people as backward or savage, since by some future morality, we will all be judged harshly.  We will either be judged as backward and repressive like we judge the Puritans, or perhaps as amoral and debauched as we consider the Romans.

Morality changes, and any time we project that our current morality will be the future morality we have a pretty bad track record.  Yet historically, people always assume that their current morality is the truest morality.

So I don’t mind the social conservatives, although I don’t vote for their candidates, and I wouldn’t want to subscribe to their newsletters.

Progressives on the other hand, are more fun to drink with.  At least they used to be.  Increasingly, especially as the election looms, many seem more and more likely to look for offense -- which, to me at least, is pretty tiresome.  I judge their current platform harshly, and think many of it’s ideas don’t stand up to logical scrutiny or the lessons of history. 

The current crops of progressives seem resistant to consider alternative viewpoints, and are increasingly ridged in their viewpoints.   Their politics don’t seem like philosophy to be debated, but instead dogma which must be repeated.   There seems little discussion of policy choices, only a repeating of a few select facts, an agreement that the other side is stupid and monstrous, and a lot of nodding. While many progressives consider themselves open-minded and independent, there seems little leeway or difference between their opinions and those of their peers.  They are the new grey flannel suits, conformist and unyielding with surprisingly little room for individuality.

I suppose it’s inevitable.  Historically, progressives – be they suffragettes, prohibitionists, Bolsheviks or whatever – tend to be a pretty arrogant bunch (which can be a good thing).  They are always ready to march -- occasionally to a better future, but occasionally off a cliff.  Given their track record -- maybe a 30% average of real lasting change, with an equal chance of atrocity or genocide – you’d figure progressives of any era would be a bit less strident, and maybe a bit more careful or critical of the platforms they embrace.

But here we are again, marching in yoga-panted lockstep toward uncertainty.  Let’s hope for the happy 30% this time around.

Smartguy no more?

I’m a smart guy.  9’s on my Iowas as a kid, invited to John’s Hopkin’s as a teen, Ivy league SAT’s as a highschool dropout,  Aptitude scores in the top percentiles, Member of mensa, etc.

Whupdedoo.

I play it off like I don’t much give a shit, but it’s been a source of pride.  No matter how much of a fuckup I was, I could always look at the test scores as proof positive that I might, one day, be worth a shit.(Other folks have used the scores as evidence of my wasted potential.)

So imagine my dismay, when in the latest round of testing for my poor beat up brain, I scored  (gulp) “average, to high-average IQ.”  WTF is that?  I’m a “superior to very-superior” kinda guy… At least I always have been.

So  I’m left with three possibilities:

1)      The test was wrong,  or they dumped the data because it was more than 2 standard deviations high.

2)      Although my memory is intact, my analytical abilities have decreased.

3)      I was never as smart as I suspected.

A bit of the old irony…  I am more successful than I have ever been.  Great family, most wonderful wife in the world, making good money, etc.

But, as is so common to getting older, I have a little less potential.

I am reminded that we all get to a point where life stops giving you things, and starts taking them away.

And I hear that lonesome clock ticking.

Chiari and me

Several years ago, I began to get headaches.  I went to see a Dr. Greenfield in Annapolis who ran a battery of tests, including an MRI.  The test detected a minor Chiari Malformation –about 3-4mm.  A referral to a Neurologist did some further tests, but found little nerve damage.  He figured my headaches were migraines, and I learned that they were made worse by chocolate and soy.

So that went on for a few more years.  However in the spring of 2010 I started to have more symptoms.  Tingling in my extremities got worse, headaches got more frequent, and my vision seemed to deteriorate.  But far and away, the worst syptom was an increased “fogginess.”  I seemed more often confused, and my memory started to give me problems.

I saw two more doctors, a general practitioner and a neurologist, before being referred to my current neurologist.

He ordered another round of MRI’s, and did a number of nerve tests.  It turned out I had carpel tunnel, and he blamed that for the tingling in my extremities.  Although the MRI showed that my Chiari herniation had elongated to 7-8mm, he didn’t belive that it was the root of my cognitive problems.  Instead he believed that I might suffer from sleep Apnea.

A sleep study proved him correct, and I began to use a CPAP machine to keep my airways open while I slept.  Oxygen deprivation during sleep causes brain damage (and is associated with a number of health problems), and it was hoped that with time my syptoms would reverse.

So far, as of November 2011, I have seen some improvement.  A course of physical therapy and a number of excercises have made the tingling and numbness a rare thing. The headaches have nearly disappeared – I can even tolerate some soy and chocolate!  But the cognitive problems have been more stubborn.

They seem cyclical, and I believe they have improved somewhat, but my memory issues seem beyond what I could expect at my age.

I have most recently undertaken a more extensive series of cognitive tests in order to benchmark and identify the issue.

Needless to say, I have fears over things like early onset Alzheimers (although without a family history, it is very very rare.)

I find out next Tuesday. 

Additionally, I am wondering if the CPAP is not as effective as it could be due to my mouth opening at night  (I’ve read this can be a problem) I’ve ordered a chin strap in hopes that this helps.  I’ve been using a bathrobe tie to keep my jaw shut the last few nights, and it seems to help keep my AHI numbers down. 

Anyhow, I read about the difficulties many with Chari have, and my heart goes out to them – particularly the kids.  Even on it’s worst days, my own chiari is far from debilitating.  For some folks, it means not being able to walk, work, or really function.

Strange to think how your brain drives your whole life,  that you really aren’t more than the firing of neurons and such. Lack of oxygen and/or restricted CSF fluid might undue some of my thinking, but I'm going to put some of my modest resources toward charities that work on Chiari.  If our brains are nodes in part of a larger collective mind, I'm going to put mine to work as part of the immune system.  Addled or not, I can become part of my own cure, even if it happens long after I'm gone.

How does the fable of the ant and the grasshopper end in a Democracy, when the grasshoppers have a majority?

Often disagree with F.Z.  but found the data in his OCT. 6 essay interesting:

"Perhaps the most crucial measure of our ability to compete in a global economy is our educational attainment, especially in science, math and engineering. A generation ago, America had the highest percentage of college graduates in the world. Today we’re ninth and falling. The WEF report ranks the U.S. a stunning 51st in science and math education. If a willingness to study science, math and engineering is an indication of being willing to work at hard stuff, there is no question that we are going soft. In 2004 only 6% of U.S. degrees were awarded in engineering, half the average for rich countries. In Japan it’s 20%, and in Germany it’s 16%. In 2008–09 there were more psychology majors than engineering majors in America and more fitness-studies majors than physical-sciences majors."

(from http://www.fareedzakaria.com/home/Articles/Entries/2011/10/6_The_Hard_Truth_About_Going_%E2%80%98Soft%E2%80%99.html)

Wow...  So policy fix would be to subsidize math/sci/engineering degrees, and tax Film degrees... It's reasonable, since somewhere down the road the Film majors are going to have to rely on the system for support.

So, to the woman being interviewed at the OWS who was upset about her $60,000 debt, and inability to find a job...  Maybe you shouldn't have majored in sculpture.