What they call a crisis in Greece really has three aspects:
1) The Greek government is unable to make full repayment of loans
2) The impaired ability to repay current loans inhibits the government's ability to access new credit.
3) The governments inability to pay salaries in full makes employees mad, thus there are protests and riots.
What is clear from this is that the Greek government cannot support it's spending habits. They were able to get away with massive overspending in the short run because, for some reason, lenders were willing to lend. The risks associated with lending to the Greek government were apparent. Like al governments that maintain perpetual deficits, the Greek government was running a Ponzi scheme. They had no intention to ever pay down the outstanding principal of their loans. They instead use new borrowers to pay off old debts and hope that system can be maintained forever. Keep in mind, folks, that the new government of Greece came in to power a few months ago promising INCREASED spending.
But this Ponzi scheme has one key difference from the ones operated by Bernie Madoff and others. It's victims are fully aware of the scam.
So today we get news of a giant bailout, nominally of the Greek government. But the bailout will only increase the suffering of the Greek people. It is really the bondholders who are being bailed out. And though I have not the stomach to look at a list of these creditors, you can bet they have names like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, Banco Santander, etc.
Through all the bullshit talk of contagion, the only people who would truly suffer from a Greek default are those who accepted the risk of a Greek default. And yes that includes a few grandmas and retired teachers, but mostly we are talking about wealthy, wealthy people. Again, we see a massive wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich.
So what about contagion? A Greek default would have little effect on the real economy. What the powers worry about is subsequent defaults of Spain, Ireland, Portugal, California, etc. But those governments need to default. The losses have already occurred. All that remains is to demand who bears those losses. Should it be the people who made the bad decisions? I think so.
So what about the civil servants who will surely be getting paycuts and pink slips? The first think everyone needs to recognize is that these people have been severely overpaid for a long time. The Greek tax base simply cannot support this level of services, nor the salaries given to those service providers. But, right now these people are being asked to shoulder the bulk of the burden of "fiscal responsibility," and that is just plain wrong. The people of Greece and the employees of the Greek government must accept the fact that their lifestyles have exceeded their productivity, and they must retrench, but those who underwrote the excesses must bear their share (in fact, rightfully the largest share) of the loss.
The Greeks were running a deficit of about 14% of GDP, in violation of their commitment to keep the deficit under 3%. I have 2 comments here. First, the Greek government has no right to the promised support from its Euro-neighbors. The Greeks reneged, and the German taxpayers and others should let them default.
But contrary to this, the rest of Euroland is coming to the rescue, and in exchange they are demanding austerity measures. Basically, they want Greece to reduce and limit the size of its deficit. This action obscures the true problem and completely fails to address its root cause. The Greeks do not need to reduce their deficit; they need to eliminate it. And this needs to happen not over the course of a few years; it needs to happen now.
So what should happen? The Greeks should say no-thanks to any bailout. They should negotiate a default with their creditors. This would give them the credibility to level with their citizens and reduce the scope of government action, and relieve them of the burden of paying off debts that have already soured.
This would make it difficult for Greece to access credit markets in the short-run, and there are people who say that a government must be able to borrow. I say that is ridiculous. Greece needs to learn how to operate a balanced budget. If they can prove to lenders that they are responsible, they should be able to borrow. Right now the opposite is true.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
This Myth Makes No Sense
Have you ever walked into your boss's office and demanded a decrease in salary? If so, you probably left work that day, smiling from your successful negotiation, and stopped off at the steakhouse where you insisted they accept $60 for a $40 steak... More on that later.
At least since the days of John Snow, American power brokers have been publicly lambasting the Chinese government for currency manipulation. Specifically, the Chinese maintain an artificially low exchange rate by buying dollars and dollar-denominated bonds in the currency and bond markets. In other words, if the exchange rate of yuan-to -dollars (the number of Chinese yuan one can purchase with 1 U.S. dollar) were allowed to float freely, it would naturally decrease.
So, are the Chinese manipulating the market? Absolutely
Is this manipulation bad for the American people? That is another matter.
For if you are a U.S. consumer, understanding that your sneakers and plasticware are coming from China, you might ask for something else from your elected representatives.
Yet, apparently, about 130 members of Congress have sent a letter to King Bush the 3rd requesting that he take punitive action on the Chinese.
Leaving aside the fact that if the Congress feels this is necessary, they should levy tariffs on Chinese goods, like the Constitution says is THEIR job, let's examine this policy.
It is really quite simple. Our government wants the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate against ours. In other words, they want the Chinese to make the dollars you and I buy things with, LESS valuable. This is exactly equivalent to demanding that the Chinese raise prices on everything we buy from them AND telling them to pay us lower prices for everything they buy from us.
Now, if you've had any experience living in the world, you know that lower prices are better for consumers and higher prices are better for sellers. So why would our government advocate a policy that is bad for almost all Americans?
Well, the short answer is that they don't understand economics. Yes, a few select US exporters would benefit, but let's look at the big picture. The Chinese are allowing us to buy their products at below-market prices. They are effectively giving us stuff for free. If they choose to do this, why would we want to stop them?
Now in my opinion, it is the Chinese that are making a mistake. They are foregoing the benefits of their own productivity. Of course, they feel like there are sufficient benefits to maintaining this policy, and they may be right. But the day will come when that ceases to be true. The best thing we can do is take advantage of the policy while it lasts and prepare ourselves for the day when it stops.
It is certain that the day will come, with or without U.S. pressure, when the Chinese will allow their currency to float. And when that day comes, look out, we will feel it. Be careful what you wish for; be even more careful what you allow your elected representatives to demand.
At least since the days of John Snow, American power brokers have been publicly lambasting the Chinese government for currency manipulation. Specifically, the Chinese maintain an artificially low exchange rate by buying dollars and dollar-denominated bonds in the currency and bond markets. In other words, if the exchange rate of yuan-to -dollars (the number of Chinese yuan one can purchase with 1 U.S. dollar) were allowed to float freely, it would naturally decrease.
So, are the Chinese manipulating the market? Absolutely
Is this manipulation bad for the American people? That is another matter.
For if you are a U.S. consumer, understanding that your sneakers and plasticware are coming from China, you might ask for something else from your elected representatives.
Yet, apparently, about 130 members of Congress have sent a letter to King Bush the 3rd requesting that he take punitive action on the Chinese.
Leaving aside the fact that if the Congress feels this is necessary, they should levy tariffs on Chinese goods, like the Constitution says is THEIR job, let's examine this policy.
It is really quite simple. Our government wants the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate against ours. In other words, they want the Chinese to make the dollars you and I buy things with, LESS valuable. This is exactly equivalent to demanding that the Chinese raise prices on everything we buy from them AND telling them to pay us lower prices for everything they buy from us.
Now, if you've had any experience living in the world, you know that lower prices are better for consumers and higher prices are better for sellers. So why would our government advocate a policy that is bad for almost all Americans?
Well, the short answer is that they don't understand economics. Yes, a few select US exporters would benefit, but let's look at the big picture. The Chinese are allowing us to buy their products at below-market prices. They are effectively giving us stuff for free. If they choose to do this, why would we want to stop them?
Now in my opinion, it is the Chinese that are making a mistake. They are foregoing the benefits of their own productivity. Of course, they feel like there are sufficient benefits to maintaining this policy, and they may be right. But the day will come when that ceases to be true. The best thing we can do is take advantage of the policy while it lasts and prepare ourselves for the day when it stops.
It is certain that the day will come, with or without U.S. pressure, when the Chinese will allow their currency to float. And when that day comes, look out, we will feel it. Be careful what you wish for; be even more careful what you allow your elected representatives to demand.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Audacity Of Running For President Without Knowing Any Economics
Barack Obama said last week, in reference to the large bonuses paid to Jaime Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs that:
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen... I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”
He also said:
“There are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
Well, our president obviously does not know what a free-market system is, but he ought to know at least this: We don't have one. Not in banking anyway - the market for banking services in the U.S. is just about the least free of all markets that we have. There are no bailouts in a free market.
These two men, far from being successful businessmen, are among the primary beneficiaries of anti-free market policies. They have not earned their money by being good bankers, but by effective lobbying. They are good at convincing powerful people that they deserve wealth that other people have earned. In fact, they have destroyed wealth and, in a free-market system, would earn no more than a subsistence wage.
Economic activity is all about production and trade. What we produce can be consumed or saved. What we save can sit idle or be used to produce things for future consumption. When we use savings for the latter it is called investment. Savings (also called wealth) is really just an uncertain claim on future consumption. It is uncertain because an investment may or may not work out well. For example, building a house that no one wants to live in is an investment with a negative return; making a small machine that can store and play thousands of songs that is consumed by millions of people has a positive return.
The role of bankers is an important one in any economy, but it is often performed quite poorly. Actually, the role of a banker is simple - he is the middleman between savers and investors. Savers are not necessarily good at producing things that can be consumed in the future, so they take their money to a banker. In theory, the banker knows people who are good at producing. They make a deal that gives the investors access to the savers' resources and all three share the proceeds in some way that they agree to among themselves.
Now, some of these investments fail and some succeed, but in a free market, we can expect that, on average, they will have a positive return. This is true, not because the group of bankers and investors are inherently skilled, but because those who are not skilled will fail and move into other professions. An investor who consistently has negative returns will eventually lose the trust of the bankers and lose access to the resources of savers; a banker who consistently funnels money to failed enterprises will lose savers as customers.
But this process of weeding out incompetent bankers only happens if the bankers must rely on their own success to make a living. If an outside entity, like the government, gives bankers an opportunity to continue banking after they have failed, the system falls apart.
Bailouts accomplish exactly that, and Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase were among those at the front of the bailout line.
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen... I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”
He also said:
“There are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
Well, our president obviously does not know what a free-market system is, but he ought to know at least this: We don't have one. Not in banking anyway - the market for banking services in the U.S. is just about the least free of all markets that we have. There are no bailouts in a free market.
These two men, far from being successful businessmen, are among the primary beneficiaries of anti-free market policies. They have not earned their money by being good bankers, but by effective lobbying. They are good at convincing powerful people that they deserve wealth that other people have earned. In fact, they have destroyed wealth and, in a free-market system, would earn no more than a subsistence wage.
Economic activity is all about production and trade. What we produce can be consumed or saved. What we save can sit idle or be used to produce things for future consumption. When we use savings for the latter it is called investment. Savings (also called wealth) is really just an uncertain claim on future consumption. It is uncertain because an investment may or may not work out well. For example, building a house that no one wants to live in is an investment with a negative return; making a small machine that can store and play thousands of songs that is consumed by millions of people has a positive return.
The role of bankers is an important one in any economy, but it is often performed quite poorly. Actually, the role of a banker is simple - he is the middleman between savers and investors. Savers are not necessarily good at producing things that can be consumed in the future, so they take their money to a banker. In theory, the banker knows people who are good at producing. They make a deal that gives the investors access to the savers' resources and all three share the proceeds in some way that they agree to among themselves.
Now, some of these investments fail and some succeed, but in a free market, we can expect that, on average, they will have a positive return. This is true, not because the group of bankers and investors are inherently skilled, but because those who are not skilled will fail and move into other professions. An investor who consistently has negative returns will eventually lose the trust of the bankers and lose access to the resources of savers; a banker who consistently funnels money to failed enterprises will lose savers as customers.
But this process of weeding out incompetent bankers only happens if the bankers must rely on their own success to make a living. If an outside entity, like the government, gives bankers an opportunity to continue banking after they have failed, the system falls apart.
Bailouts accomplish exactly that, and Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase were among those at the front of the bailout line.
Friday, August 7, 2009
"The Precondition For Hope Is Understanding Reality"
"The Obama brand offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new; it inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained; we feel hopeful; we like our president; we believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest. What for all our faith and hope has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed 12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed attempt to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial project in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15-20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have left 700 civilians dead since Obama took office. Brand Obama has refused to ease the restrictions so workers can organize, and because of pressure from the for-profit health care industry refuses to consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, and Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeus corpus. ... Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state anymore than did Brand George W. Bush."
Now that is what I mean when I say Obama is more Bush than Bush. Those words come from Chris Hedges, of the left-wing Truthdig.com. It comes from a July 22nd speech at Town Hall Seattle. It's well worth a listen, especially for those who still see Obama as the bringer of change he pretended to be.
Now that is what I mean when I say Obama is more Bush than Bush. Those words come from Chris Hedges, of the left-wing Truthdig.com. It comes from a July 22nd speech at Town Hall Seattle. It's well worth a listen, especially for those who still see Obama as the bringer of change he pretended to be.
Friday, July 24, 2009
You Call That A Recovery
Economic activity can be broken into 2 categories: production and trade. In abstraction, both can be analyzed identically because production is actually a type of trade.
Trade, as we typically think of it, creates value by putting goods and services into the possession of the people who value them the most. Trade effectively funnels products to their highest-valued use.
Through production, we trade basic resources for finished products. The other side of the production coin is destruction. The inputs are sacrificed so that we may have the output.
There is no guarantee, however, that the output is of higher value than the inputs. We must be careful what we destroy.
If a business loses money in the long-run (that is, if total cost exceeds revenue), that business is destroying value. We know this because costs can only exceed revenue if the group of inputs has greater value in some other capacity. Unfortunately, value-destroying processes enter into GDP positively; they are really a negative. GDP is a very poor measure of the health of our economy.
It is commonly believed that any production process adds value because the finished product can be consumed whereas the raw resource would sit idle otherwise. But that ignores the possibility of using those resources for something else. There is also value in having the option to use a resource in the future.
There will always be some waste in the economy. We do not have perfect foresight, so we are unable to limit our production to only those that create value. Usually they are a very small portion of total production. Recently, destructive processes (example: General Motors) have been a relatively large share of the total. The result: recession.
The proper response to a recession is twofold: acceptance and recovery. Acceptance means stopping the destructive processes. Recovery means taking the resources that were involved in the destructive processes and finding better ways to employ them.
Acceptance can be quite painful. It involves things like bankruptcies, job losses, foreclosures, asset price declines. But, it is a necessary pre-condition for recovery.
The paths of acceptance and recovery vary in different sectors of the economy and for individual economic agents, and they can coincide to some degree. But acceptance can also be mistaken for recovery.
For example, when a business increases profit by cutting cost (i.e. contracting production) that is acceptance. They are lessening or eliminating the destruction of value. This is why we should let failures fail gracefully instead of bailing them out.
Thus profit can increase as GDP contracts and, importantly, we are better off, on average, as a society as a direct result of this contraction. This might be what people mean when they say 'jobless recovery.'
Make no mistake, though, there is no such thing as a jobless recovery. Labor is the most important input to production, and employment is the best indicator that we have as to the real level of our output. If there are more willing workers sitting idle today than at the beginning of the recession, then we haven't recovered. If net job losses continue to occur, we haven't started to recover - because we haven't fully accepted our recession.
Trade, as we typically think of it, creates value by putting goods and services into the possession of the people who value them the most. Trade effectively funnels products to their highest-valued use.
Through production, we trade basic resources for finished products. The other side of the production coin is destruction. The inputs are sacrificed so that we may have the output.
There is no guarantee, however, that the output is of higher value than the inputs. We must be careful what we destroy.
If a business loses money in the long-run (that is, if total cost exceeds revenue), that business is destroying value. We know this because costs can only exceed revenue if the group of inputs has greater value in some other capacity. Unfortunately, value-destroying processes enter into GDP positively; they are really a negative. GDP is a very poor measure of the health of our economy.
It is commonly believed that any production process adds value because the finished product can be consumed whereas the raw resource would sit idle otherwise. But that ignores the possibility of using those resources for something else. There is also value in having the option to use a resource in the future.
There will always be some waste in the economy. We do not have perfect foresight, so we are unable to limit our production to only those that create value. Usually they are a very small portion of total production. Recently, destructive processes (example: General Motors) have been a relatively large share of the total. The result: recession.
The proper response to a recession is twofold: acceptance and recovery. Acceptance means stopping the destructive processes. Recovery means taking the resources that were involved in the destructive processes and finding better ways to employ them.
Acceptance can be quite painful. It involves things like bankruptcies, job losses, foreclosures, asset price declines. But, it is a necessary pre-condition for recovery.
The paths of acceptance and recovery vary in different sectors of the economy and for individual economic agents, and they can coincide to some degree. But acceptance can also be mistaken for recovery.
For example, when a business increases profit by cutting cost (i.e. contracting production) that is acceptance. They are lessening or eliminating the destruction of value. This is why we should let failures fail gracefully instead of bailing them out.
Thus profit can increase as GDP contracts and, importantly, we are better off, on average, as a society as a direct result of this contraction. This might be what people mean when they say 'jobless recovery.'
Make no mistake, though, there is no such thing as a jobless recovery. Labor is the most important input to production, and employment is the best indicator that we have as to the real level of our output. If there are more willing workers sitting idle today than at the beginning of the recession, then we haven't recovered. If net job losses continue to occur, we haven't started to recover - because we haven't fully accepted our recession.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
In Defense of Failure
All advances that the human race has ever made are the result of trial and error. It is not a blind process; we learn from mistakes and from successes. We pass on knowledge. Our ideas are informed by our own experience and the experience of those who went before. We are smart people, but we are only smart because people have tried things with little or no foreknowledge of the nature of the results. They allowed themselves to fail, and did. But along the way successes appeared, and multiplied and persisted. The failures were thrown out, resurfaced at times and were thrown out again. This is the essence of economic growth. It is the essence of all growth.
If we fear failure, we risk stagnation. We miss the opportunity to expand our knowledge base and improve the standard-of-living. But if we come to hate failure we risk much more. The aversion to failure might not cause us to avoid risk but to dress up failure as a success, to allow bad ideas to persist. This causes us to move backward as it amounts to the destruction of welfare. It locks resources into unproductive pursuits.
If we fear failure, we risk stagnation. We miss the opportunity to expand our knowledge base and improve the standard-of-living. But if we come to hate failure we risk much more. The aversion to failure might not cause us to avoid risk but to dress up failure as a success, to allow bad ideas to persist. This causes us to move backward as it amounts to the destruction of welfare. It locks resources into unproductive pursuits.
La Boca
For my first few weeks in Buenos Aires I enrolled in a Spanish class at a place called Expanish. The students were a mix of laid-off bankers from the U.S. and Europe and global-soul type travellers from North America, Europe, and Australia. My teacher, Diego, is a local guy, a writer and father of two. He chain-smoked, hated to be in nature, and is a very bright guy overall. Outside of living in Madrid for about a year, he's only been outside of Greater Buenos Aires once, for a bus trip taken with his high school senior class. He knows a lot about Argentina, though not from experience, but he is encyclopedic in his knowledge of the city. A great deal of time was spent in these classes discussing things to do in the city. We were not only students of Spanish, but also visitors to a rich city.
La Boca is one of the primary tourist draws of Buenos Aires. More specifically, the caminito in the barrio known as La Boca. The barrio is also home to the famous football team, Boca Juniors. The caminito photographs well; you have seen it if you have ever looked through a tour guide on Buenos Aires. But the surroundings of the caminito are the streets of Buenos Aires with the reputation of being the worst for crime. The people here are poor; tourists with money come through regularly. A low cost way to make money is to buy a gun or a knife and take some of that tourist money.
I hear first-and-second hand accounts of being mugged in La Boca regularly. A guy had a gun pulled on him, then was stabbed, supposedly in the touristy section. Most of the foreigners I know from the tango scene have not been to La Boca, even if they have lived here for months or years. Locals don't seem to be inclined to go either.
Diego says it's not dangerous if you act smartly. Busses can drop you off and pick you up at the caminito and if you stay off the backstreets, no one will bother you. Those who would rob others don't waste their time with Argentines. So Diego told us they'll say something like "Que hora es?" (What time is it?) when a stranger walks by. If he responds "no tengo reloj" (I don't have a watch) they leave him alone. If he says something like "I don't know Spanish," they rob him.
About six weeks after Diego told us this, I decided to spend an afternoon at the caminito. The 168 bus, which comes right by my house, goes to La Boca. My friend said she knows where to get off, so off we went. 45 minutes later, I learned that the 168 is not one of the many busses that drops people at the caminito. So we disembarked, walked across a park and then arrived at the backstreets of La Boca. Moreover, we did not know exactly how to get to the caminito.
I've walked down streets, at all hours of night, that would give my mother a heart attack if she saw them. But they could not inspire in me the dread I felt in the light of day here. Strange looking people lined the street, sitting on stoops, drinking and smoking, wearing hoods that hid their faces. I saw a taxi and almost got in it to travel about 2 blocks. We moved a meter or 2 into the street, and sure enough, I heard it, "Que hora es?" I didn't respond.
2 blocks away we made it to the football stadium. There were more people here and kids kicking a ball around. The atmosphere felt marginally better, but we still weren't sure of our direction. My friend had been trying to learn English and she spoke to me in English. "No quiero hablar ingles aca," I said to her in a low voice.
7 or 8 more blocks and we made it safely to the caminito. I like it. Sure it is touristy, but they present themselves well. We sat outside with a Belgian beer and listened to a bandoneonista, not watching the third-rate tango dancers. The music had more appeal for me. Down the road, dancers danced the chacarera and zamba, which are 100 times more entertaining for me to watch. Tango, the dance, for me, is an art form to be felt; I still do not enjoy watching it. Wax figures of Eva Peron, Carlos Gardel, and others I don't recognize look over the street from high balconies. There is some nice artwork as well.
The tango dancers very overtly asked us for money, which highly offended my friend, who is from Buenos Aires. At first, they seemed to think we were obligated. After we told them that we are tango dancers, they left us alone. I think they knew that we could tell they weren't so good. Most tourists, I guess, are happy to pay obscene amounts and the dancers get used to this. It is probably quite lucrative.
As for me, I was content to overpay for the beer.
La Boca is one of the primary tourist draws of Buenos Aires. More specifically, the caminito in the barrio known as La Boca. The barrio is also home to the famous football team, Boca Juniors. The caminito photographs well; you have seen it if you have ever looked through a tour guide on Buenos Aires. But the surroundings of the caminito are the streets of Buenos Aires with the reputation of being the worst for crime. The people here are poor; tourists with money come through regularly. A low cost way to make money is to buy a gun or a knife and take some of that tourist money.
I hear first-and-second hand accounts of being mugged in La Boca regularly. A guy had a gun pulled on him, then was stabbed, supposedly in the touristy section. Most of the foreigners I know from the tango scene have not been to La Boca, even if they have lived here for months or years. Locals don't seem to be inclined to go either.
Diego says it's not dangerous if you act smartly. Busses can drop you off and pick you up at the caminito and if you stay off the backstreets, no one will bother you. Those who would rob others don't waste their time with Argentines. So Diego told us they'll say something like "Que hora es?" (What time is it?) when a stranger walks by. If he responds "no tengo reloj" (I don't have a watch) they leave him alone. If he says something like "I don't know Spanish," they rob him.
About six weeks after Diego told us this, I decided to spend an afternoon at the caminito. The 168 bus, which comes right by my house, goes to La Boca. My friend said she knows where to get off, so off we went. 45 minutes later, I learned that the 168 is not one of the many busses that drops people at the caminito. So we disembarked, walked across a park and then arrived at the backstreets of La Boca. Moreover, we did not know exactly how to get to the caminito.
I've walked down streets, at all hours of night, that would give my mother a heart attack if she saw them. But they could not inspire in me the dread I felt in the light of day here. Strange looking people lined the street, sitting on stoops, drinking and smoking, wearing hoods that hid their faces. I saw a taxi and almost got in it to travel about 2 blocks. We moved a meter or 2 into the street, and sure enough, I heard it, "Que hora es?" I didn't respond.
2 blocks away we made it to the football stadium. There were more people here and kids kicking a ball around. The atmosphere felt marginally better, but we still weren't sure of our direction. My friend had been trying to learn English and she spoke to me in English. "No quiero hablar ingles aca," I said to her in a low voice.
7 or 8 more blocks and we made it safely to the caminito. I like it. Sure it is touristy, but they present themselves well. We sat outside with a Belgian beer and listened to a bandoneonista, not watching the third-rate tango dancers. The music had more appeal for me. Down the road, dancers danced the chacarera and zamba, which are 100 times more entertaining for me to watch. Tango, the dance, for me, is an art form to be felt; I still do not enjoy watching it. Wax figures of Eva Peron, Carlos Gardel, and others I don't recognize look over the street from high balconies. There is some nice artwork as well.
The tango dancers very overtly asked us for money, which highly offended my friend, who is from Buenos Aires. At first, they seemed to think we were obligated. After we told them that we are tango dancers, they left us alone. I think they knew that we could tell they weren't so good. Most tourists, I guess, are happy to pay obscene amounts and the dancers get used to this. It is probably quite lucrative.
As for me, I was content to overpay for the beer.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Learning Spanish and Tango
To gain knowledge, a person must allow himself to feel stupid; to gain skill, a person must allow himself to feel incompetent.
It had been a long time since I knew how a child felt. In fact I don't recall knowing how a child feels. Now I think I have a good idea. The difference between children and adults is that, while neither can effectively and consistently control their emotions, adults can use words to generate the appearance that we can control emotions. Children, lacking speech altogether or sufficient vocabulary to communicate in a given situation, resort to crying, screaming, and flailing about in frustration when they fail in communication.
Trying to speak Spanish with a limited understanding of the grammar and severely limited vocabulary, sometimes, makes me want to scream and flail about. Or at least say something in English, if only to myself.
Tango is a language as well, like any dance. In some ways, it is much more complicated than our verbal languages. There are so many aspects that either mean something or generate noise, aspects that give cues and clues to the partner one way or the other, that will be interpreted as the dancer intends them, or, more likely, in some other way.
In each of these areas, a small bit of knowledge can take a person a long way. You can certainly talk to people with a short list of the most common verbs, knowledge of their primary conjugations, and a good list of nouns gives you roughly equal competence in both adjectives and adverbs. Likewise, you can dance for weeks with a good walk, a solid embrace, and 4 or 5 simple, well-executed figures.
But you cannot say everything, and a partner is unlikely to know why it is that you're not saying certain things.
In language, dance, or any other form of communication, it is the uncertainty of meaning that makes interactions meaningful. This is the source of all laughter, for example. Even with a well-formed thought, much can be lost in the transmission. Our partner's state of mind is unknown. What was she just thinking about? Why does he say that now? Oh no, she is pulling away from me. No amount of words can account for all possible misunderstandings.
With the limited knowledge of the early stages, we are doubly disadvantaged because we don't even know what we don't know. One area of Spanish that intrigues me are the great many words that are essentially the same in english (for example, paciencia and patience, tranquilo and tranquil). I find it easy to understand others who use these words, but difficult to incorporate them into my own speech. Perhaps because I think they are easy and do not require as much work as less familiar words.
In tango, the superficial layers are relatively easy to teach and commonly learned. Perceived mastery of these figures or steps (like ochos, sacadas, boleos, etc.) can lead one to believe he knows how to dance. But knowledge of the existence of those interior layers can lead the same person to wonder why those teachers were wasting time teaching figures to beginners.
Learning in these areas, and possibly in all areas, is not linear; it is circular. We must continually come back around, retracing the same path, looking for the things we dropped along the way. And for the things we failed to notice on our early trips.
A few very early beginners have asked me what I recommend for solo practice. "Put on Carlos DiSarli and walk," I say. Each time, I have gotten a look as if I've deeply insulted them. They have done boleos in "intermediate" classes. But no one walks perfectly, and truly advanced dancers do exactly that.
Enrico, one of my current housemates, puts it this way: If you go to a beginner class for the flute, the teacher will start with how to make a sound with air and the lips; If you go to a highly advanced class for the flute, a good teacher will start with how to make a sound with air and the lips. Daniel Diaz says that after his parents bought him a bandoneon, it was six months before his teacher let him touch it.
Great dancers make boleos and ganchos look easy. The reason is that they are easy. It is all the stuff that they are built upon which is difficult: stepping with the music, balance, dissociation in the torso, hip alignment, timing the rebound, and more. The list is long. Most people don't think of these things until years have gone by, if ever. Some develop competency by chance, others come from intensive dance backgrounds and already developed them. Many compensate (sometimes quite effectively) for weakness in some areas with strength in others, but sometimes this takes its toll on the partner.
All of the layers of foundation can be quite daunting. The euphoria of quick progress in the beginning can be addictive. It provides its own motivation. Moving from not knowing any Spanish beyond "sombrero" to being able to make small-talk with people who know no English is real and measurable. As is the ability to stand apart from the completely arhythmic on a dance floor. But pessisimism is not far beyond. As we become conscious of our own incompetence, the strength of ego yields to self-doubt. Making progress, getting around that circle a few more times, becomes a matter of feeling like we are getting worse.
And sometimes we really do regress. Partly due to a bad choice of teachers, as well as the adjustment to a new place, I'm almost certain that I really got worse through my first 6 weeks in Buenos Aires. Who knows, though, maybe I picked up a few things. And my Spanish definitely did improve during that time. How could it not?
Recognizing the myriad areas that need improvement, however, isn't all bad. In fact, I find it quite liberating. I enjoy tango more with each week that goes by, and finding big and little things about myself that need attention gives me confidence that I will improve and enjoy it more, and bring greater enjoyment to my partners, in the future. Life would get boring if mastery came early.
Recognition of this phenomenon is what keeps people learning late into life. We are all good at certain things, and it feels good to do those things. We get positive feedback from others; we feel smart when the conversation shifts to our areas of expertise. But this can be a trap. To broaden the skill and knowledge bases, we need to expand our comfort zones. When we venture far from what feels natural, often times we get slapped around, and the easy thing to do is go back to what we know. Why else would our society be so averse to unemployment (even though polls show that most of us dislike our current jobs)? It is at this point when human nature must be overcome. The cost of learning is great in the beginning; the benefits are enormous but they are largely in the future. We know this instinctively; otherwise we would not plant gardens and wheatfields.
Finally, I think a lot of people find motivation in focusing on an end goal. Maybe to read a novel in a new language, or write one. Or to dance in a competition or an exhibition at a weekly practica. Or to have that one great and beautiful dancer say yes.
I am sure this works for some, but I take a different route. It is good to see what is possible once in a while but I find great value, when progressing toward a destination, in keeping my head down. That is, focusing on the present rather than the future, on myself rather than some idyllic model, on details rather than the big picture. Yes, I like to have some idea about the big picture I am painting, but I never want the final product to be to clear in my mind. If my image is cloudy it is easier for me to divert. I can still develop that picture, but I am not locked into an outcome. I am free to explore other possibilities.
The sun is there even on the darkest of cloudy days.
It had been a long time since I knew how a child felt. In fact I don't recall knowing how a child feels. Now I think I have a good idea. The difference between children and adults is that, while neither can effectively and consistently control their emotions, adults can use words to generate the appearance that we can control emotions. Children, lacking speech altogether or sufficient vocabulary to communicate in a given situation, resort to crying, screaming, and flailing about in frustration when they fail in communication.
Trying to speak Spanish with a limited understanding of the grammar and severely limited vocabulary, sometimes, makes me want to scream and flail about. Or at least say something in English, if only to myself.
Tango is a language as well, like any dance. In some ways, it is much more complicated than our verbal languages. There are so many aspects that either mean something or generate noise, aspects that give cues and clues to the partner one way or the other, that will be interpreted as the dancer intends them, or, more likely, in some other way.
In each of these areas, a small bit of knowledge can take a person a long way. You can certainly talk to people with a short list of the most common verbs, knowledge of their primary conjugations, and a good list of nouns gives you roughly equal competence in both adjectives and adverbs. Likewise, you can dance for weeks with a good walk, a solid embrace, and 4 or 5 simple, well-executed figures.
But you cannot say everything, and a partner is unlikely to know why it is that you're not saying certain things.
In language, dance, or any other form of communication, it is the uncertainty of meaning that makes interactions meaningful. This is the source of all laughter, for example. Even with a well-formed thought, much can be lost in the transmission. Our partner's state of mind is unknown. What was she just thinking about? Why does he say that now? Oh no, she is pulling away from me. No amount of words can account for all possible misunderstandings.
With the limited knowledge of the early stages, we are doubly disadvantaged because we don't even know what we don't know. One area of Spanish that intrigues me are the great many words that are essentially the same in english (for example, paciencia and patience, tranquilo and tranquil). I find it easy to understand others who use these words, but difficult to incorporate them into my own speech. Perhaps because I think they are easy and do not require as much work as less familiar words.
In tango, the superficial layers are relatively easy to teach and commonly learned. Perceived mastery of these figures or steps (like ochos, sacadas, boleos, etc.) can lead one to believe he knows how to dance. But knowledge of the existence of those interior layers can lead the same person to wonder why those teachers were wasting time teaching figures to beginners.
Learning in these areas, and possibly in all areas, is not linear; it is circular. We must continually come back around, retracing the same path, looking for the things we dropped along the way. And for the things we failed to notice on our early trips.
A few very early beginners have asked me what I recommend for solo practice. "Put on Carlos DiSarli and walk," I say. Each time, I have gotten a look as if I've deeply insulted them. They have done boleos in "intermediate" classes. But no one walks perfectly, and truly advanced dancers do exactly that.
Enrico, one of my current housemates, puts it this way: If you go to a beginner class for the flute, the teacher will start with how to make a sound with air and the lips; If you go to a highly advanced class for the flute, a good teacher will start with how to make a sound with air and the lips. Daniel Diaz says that after his parents bought him a bandoneon, it was six months before his teacher let him touch it.
Great dancers make boleos and ganchos look easy. The reason is that they are easy. It is all the stuff that they are built upon which is difficult: stepping with the music, balance, dissociation in the torso, hip alignment, timing the rebound, and more. The list is long. Most people don't think of these things until years have gone by, if ever. Some develop competency by chance, others come from intensive dance backgrounds and already developed them. Many compensate (sometimes quite effectively) for weakness in some areas with strength in others, but sometimes this takes its toll on the partner.
All of the layers of foundation can be quite daunting. The euphoria of quick progress in the beginning can be addictive. It provides its own motivation. Moving from not knowing any Spanish beyond "sombrero" to being able to make small-talk with people who know no English is real and measurable. As is the ability to stand apart from the completely arhythmic on a dance floor. But pessisimism is not far beyond. As we become conscious of our own incompetence, the strength of ego yields to self-doubt. Making progress, getting around that circle a few more times, becomes a matter of feeling like we are getting worse.
And sometimes we really do regress. Partly due to a bad choice of teachers, as well as the adjustment to a new place, I'm almost certain that I really got worse through my first 6 weeks in Buenos Aires. Who knows, though, maybe I picked up a few things. And my Spanish definitely did improve during that time. How could it not?
Recognizing the myriad areas that need improvement, however, isn't all bad. In fact, I find it quite liberating. I enjoy tango more with each week that goes by, and finding big and little things about myself that need attention gives me confidence that I will improve and enjoy it more, and bring greater enjoyment to my partners, in the future. Life would get boring if mastery came early.
Recognition of this phenomenon is what keeps people learning late into life. We are all good at certain things, and it feels good to do those things. We get positive feedback from others; we feel smart when the conversation shifts to our areas of expertise. But this can be a trap. To broaden the skill and knowledge bases, we need to expand our comfort zones. When we venture far from what feels natural, often times we get slapped around, and the easy thing to do is go back to what we know. Why else would our society be so averse to unemployment (even though polls show that most of us dislike our current jobs)? It is at this point when human nature must be overcome. The cost of learning is great in the beginning; the benefits are enormous but they are largely in the future. We know this instinctively; otherwise we would not plant gardens and wheatfields.
Finally, I think a lot of people find motivation in focusing on an end goal. Maybe to read a novel in a new language, or write one. Or to dance in a competition or an exhibition at a weekly practica. Or to have that one great and beautiful dancer say yes.
I am sure this works for some, but I take a different route. It is good to see what is possible once in a while but I find great value, when progressing toward a destination, in keeping my head down. That is, focusing on the present rather than the future, on myself rather than some idyllic model, on details rather than the big picture. Yes, I like to have some idea about the big picture I am painting, but I never want the final product to be to clear in my mind. If my image is cloudy it is easier for me to divert. I can still develop that picture, but I am not locked into an outcome. I am free to explore other possibilities.
The sun is there even on the darkest of cloudy days.
The Dance – A Novella (page one)
Most of what happens in a moment slips away, and most of that never makes its way back. While the focus often remains on what is lost, the beauty reveals itself in that which lingers. Or that which, having concealed itself long ago, emerges from memory at some unexpected, perhaps unwelcome and inconvenient, moment.
As experience slips into obscurity, human nature sends us after it, as if grasping to hold on, having failed, can be outdone by a chase in which the chased has an infinite reserve of energy. Never looking back to taunt its hunter, it simply flees into a speck, then gets washed away by the noise of all the other specks.
A moment that is beautiful in itself, short but profound, loses all splendor when its experiencer attempts to hold on. Attempts to make more of it, to develop it, to analyze it looking for that one path leading not to a dead end but off into heaven. But only luck will find that door; it is just one leaf on the forest floor and it looks no different than the rest, those that hide their dead ends amidst the belief, the illusion, that the special one is not so special, easily found and attainable to him that will seek it.
The woman from Chicago watched the dancers. She took in all the stimulus. She reflected on its relevance. What does the movement mean? And what is its connection to the feeling in the heart. She would later remark that the most obvious aspect of the dance is the movement, the variety of bodily contortions, the volume of movement packed into space and time really. But that this aspect of the art is the first to fall away from her experience of the moment.
“What does it leave behind?” he asked her. Not knowing she thought of her own experience, how dancing with, and being with, this man has robbed her of certain pleasures. Their connection, while glorious, has deadened her desire to connect with others. Not that she would wish as grand a connection as is felt when with him, but there is room for simple satisfactions too. Short love affairs never spoken of but experienced 3, 5, or 10 minutes at a time. A smile she offers to a man jogging by, knowing that it gives him a euphoric moment of pleasure, and feeling that with him, enjoying it as it washes itself away, never to return in that exact form. The intimacy of a tango, no commitment, no expectation, no responsibility to make pleasure for the other. Simply enjoyment of what is.
He had thought of this before meeting that night, this idea that love is the absence of expectations. He caught himself remembering a previous rendezvous. When they met that evening his doubts had been shattered easily by a sensuous kiss. A surprise that easily and gracefully eliminated the need for lips to say anything. Now, with an even greater feeling of doubt, he wanted that again. Knowing the setting would be as it was before, he hoped with fervor that the kiss would say the same thing. Then, as if shocked to life by the reality of the cold ocean, he loathed himself, and punished his emotions for this perfidious breach of the beauty of love.
The dance evoked sadness. In her, and in him because he felt what she did. He found his own sadness comforting, a message to himself that the connection is real. He embraced it, feeling a sense of chivalry. She found this hard to take; it added to her own despair. Responsible now for the sadness of two, she lamented the connection, feeling selfish and lethargic. It was a cycle that peaked only 4 days earlier. They spent most of that day together. On an empty beach, in an empty café, the only people in the world. She felt comfort then, happy for his existence, his friendship, his love. Now, all she wanted was to be away from him.
To this man, the cycle is well known. Not understood but known. Intuition leads him to try to draw her out of the cycle, to cheer her, comfort her, offer his aid. But intuition leads man astray as often as the wind carries a seed to fallow ground. The situation calls not for tenderness but brutality. Do not draw her out, but plunge her down. The path is inevitable; the best way to cover these steps is quickly. Ride with her, at least be willing, but do not pretend it can be avoided.
As experience slips into obscurity, human nature sends us after it, as if grasping to hold on, having failed, can be outdone by a chase in which the chased has an infinite reserve of energy. Never looking back to taunt its hunter, it simply flees into a speck, then gets washed away by the noise of all the other specks.
A moment that is beautiful in itself, short but profound, loses all splendor when its experiencer attempts to hold on. Attempts to make more of it, to develop it, to analyze it looking for that one path leading not to a dead end but off into heaven. But only luck will find that door; it is just one leaf on the forest floor and it looks no different than the rest, those that hide their dead ends amidst the belief, the illusion, that the special one is not so special, easily found and attainable to him that will seek it.
The woman from Chicago watched the dancers. She took in all the stimulus. She reflected on its relevance. What does the movement mean? And what is its connection to the feeling in the heart. She would later remark that the most obvious aspect of the dance is the movement, the variety of bodily contortions, the volume of movement packed into space and time really. But that this aspect of the art is the first to fall away from her experience of the moment.
“What does it leave behind?” he asked her. Not knowing she thought of her own experience, how dancing with, and being with, this man has robbed her of certain pleasures. Their connection, while glorious, has deadened her desire to connect with others. Not that she would wish as grand a connection as is felt when with him, but there is room for simple satisfactions too. Short love affairs never spoken of but experienced 3, 5, or 10 minutes at a time. A smile she offers to a man jogging by, knowing that it gives him a euphoric moment of pleasure, and feeling that with him, enjoying it as it washes itself away, never to return in that exact form. The intimacy of a tango, no commitment, no expectation, no responsibility to make pleasure for the other. Simply enjoyment of what is.
He had thought of this before meeting that night, this idea that love is the absence of expectations. He caught himself remembering a previous rendezvous. When they met that evening his doubts had been shattered easily by a sensuous kiss. A surprise that easily and gracefully eliminated the need for lips to say anything. Now, with an even greater feeling of doubt, he wanted that again. Knowing the setting would be as it was before, he hoped with fervor that the kiss would say the same thing. Then, as if shocked to life by the reality of the cold ocean, he loathed himself, and punished his emotions for this perfidious breach of the beauty of love.
The dance evoked sadness. In her, and in him because he felt what she did. He found his own sadness comforting, a message to himself that the connection is real. He embraced it, feeling a sense of chivalry. She found this hard to take; it added to her own despair. Responsible now for the sadness of two, she lamented the connection, feeling selfish and lethargic. It was a cycle that peaked only 4 days earlier. They spent most of that day together. On an empty beach, in an empty café, the only people in the world. She felt comfort then, happy for his existence, his friendship, his love. Now, all she wanted was to be away from him.
To this man, the cycle is well known. Not understood but known. Intuition leads him to try to draw her out of the cycle, to cheer her, comfort her, offer his aid. But intuition leads man astray as often as the wind carries a seed to fallow ground. The situation calls not for tenderness but brutality. Do not draw her out, but plunge her down. The path is inevitable; the best way to cover these steps is quickly. Ride with her, at least be willing, but do not pretend it can be avoided.
What It Means To Be Sick
Okay, so the swine flu gods got me. I don't get sick very often, but this makes two significant knockouts in about seven weeks. So with my 6-8 waking hours each of the past 3 days, I have pondered the great question of the infirmed: Why me?
Now this is no great tragedy - a week's worth of strep throat followed 6 weeks later by what really amounts to a moderate dose of fatigue. No great after-school specials started this way.
But that's the point, I think. We all spend our lives doing things, some of us are more physical, some more cerebral, but we get into a certain routine and things hum along. Getting sick, be it major or minor, knocks us off the track.
I live in a place where I can effectively pursue two goals: improve my tango and learn Spanish. Outside of that, I find little reason to be here. So with 3 days lost I found myself wanting to go home. After all, it is 80 degrees in Seattle and the fresh mountain summer air would do me good.
But no matter where I am, I get a bit of this whenever I am sick. I call it depression. To me, the physical symptoms are not nearly as relevant as the emotional ones. And those stem from uncertainty. Doubt takes over the mind when pathogens take over the body. What is wrong with me? It is a perfectly reasonable question. But there need not be anything wrong. Maybe this is just the natural consequence of sharing the earth with microorganisms. Or maybe some other god is just telling me to slow down.
Logical explanations aside, the mind still wonders. After all I live in a house with 7 other people. About 12 boy- and girlfriends come and go regularly. We all make our life in the same dirty city, but only one of those 20 has gotten sick at this time - me. They even appear immuned to my disease-carrying forays into the kitchen.
For me, sickness brings about loneliness. Don't get me wrong, I like to be alone at times; sometimes I need to be alone. What I don't like is to feel lonely.
People are nice. One person I talked to immediately started with the advice: go to a doctor, take your temperature, take lots of fluids, and on and on. All worth appreciating, but all entirely predictable. What I really wanted (but didn't have the strength to interrupt) is to say that I don't feel so good in my heart and then to hear the entirely unpredictable response.
About a year-and-a-half ago, I had a nasty fever and was on the phone with a long-distance girlfriend. I told her what I was honestly feeling at the time: "I feel like I am dying." Her immediate reaction was to laugh at me (worst girlfriend ever). I don't know what exactly I wanted - a bit of sympathy, to be told that I'm not going to die, or something else - but what I got was pure pain, pure misunderstanding, pure rejection. After all, I wasn't going to die; the suffering caused by my illness was secondary, but it magnified the heartache - the feeling that nobody cared.
We don't know much about what goes right and wrong inside our bodies. I happen to believe that better understanding in this area could really mitigate the emotional pain of physical suffering. After all, each of us has, at least once, felt worse than she has ever before felt in her life. Some reason to believe that the chances are good we'll make it through more or less unharmed could really hit the spot at a time like that. If we could find some sense in suffering; maybe we could deal with it more easily.
It was this idea that, years ago, formed my primary motivation to pursue medical school. The interviewers at the University of Washington appear not to have agreed with me. Maybe they were right; maybe there is no sense to be found.
Now this is no great tragedy - a week's worth of strep throat followed 6 weeks later by what really amounts to a moderate dose of fatigue. No great after-school specials started this way.
But that's the point, I think. We all spend our lives doing things, some of us are more physical, some more cerebral, but we get into a certain routine and things hum along. Getting sick, be it major or minor, knocks us off the track.
I live in a place where I can effectively pursue two goals: improve my tango and learn Spanish. Outside of that, I find little reason to be here. So with 3 days lost I found myself wanting to go home. After all, it is 80 degrees in Seattle and the fresh mountain summer air would do me good.
But no matter where I am, I get a bit of this whenever I am sick. I call it depression. To me, the physical symptoms are not nearly as relevant as the emotional ones. And those stem from uncertainty. Doubt takes over the mind when pathogens take over the body. What is wrong with me? It is a perfectly reasonable question. But there need not be anything wrong. Maybe this is just the natural consequence of sharing the earth with microorganisms. Or maybe some other god is just telling me to slow down.
Logical explanations aside, the mind still wonders. After all I live in a house with 7 other people. About 12 boy- and girlfriends come and go regularly. We all make our life in the same dirty city, but only one of those 20 has gotten sick at this time - me. They even appear immuned to my disease-carrying forays into the kitchen.
For me, sickness brings about loneliness. Don't get me wrong, I like to be alone at times; sometimes I need to be alone. What I don't like is to feel lonely.
People are nice. One person I talked to immediately started with the advice: go to a doctor, take your temperature, take lots of fluids, and on and on. All worth appreciating, but all entirely predictable. What I really wanted (but didn't have the strength to interrupt) is to say that I don't feel so good in my heart and then to hear the entirely unpredictable response.
About a year-and-a-half ago, I had a nasty fever and was on the phone with a long-distance girlfriend. I told her what I was honestly feeling at the time: "I feel like I am dying." Her immediate reaction was to laugh at me (worst girlfriend ever). I don't know what exactly I wanted - a bit of sympathy, to be told that I'm not going to die, or something else - but what I got was pure pain, pure misunderstanding, pure rejection. After all, I wasn't going to die; the suffering caused by my illness was secondary, but it magnified the heartache - the feeling that nobody cared.
We don't know much about what goes right and wrong inside our bodies. I happen to believe that better understanding in this area could really mitigate the emotional pain of physical suffering. After all, each of us has, at least once, felt worse than she has ever before felt in her life. Some reason to believe that the chances are good we'll make it through more or less unharmed could really hit the spot at a time like that. If we could find some sense in suffering; maybe we could deal with it more easily.
It was this idea that, years ago, formed my primary motivation to pursue medical school. The interviewers at the University of Washington appear not to have agreed with me. Maybe they were right; maybe there is no sense to be found.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Swine Flu Grips Buenos Aires Tango
La Gripe Porcine, the swine flu, has made its way into the minds of tango dancers. The winter flu season has arrived, and with it, an increase in the number of infections and deaths in Buenos Aires caused by swine flu, or whatever you want to call it.
Every day I see more people on the subway with masks "protecting" them from swine flu. Others hold a scarf or sweater over their mouths and noses. Last Thursday the Puntocero milonga, downtown, was cancelled on short notice. There is a nice free milonga 3 blocks from my house on the first saturday of the month, but that was cancelled as well. And now, the once-proud Practica X has shut its doors for the entire month of July.
School vacations have been extended by about 3 weeks, and I have heard rumors that the government will mandate cancellation of all cultural events.
At the risk of angering the swine flu god, and apart from the air of sadness that comes with observing a terrorized society, I've found some positives. Last night, I had the most enjoyable milonga experience since arriving in BsAs. I discovered Club Fulgor de Villa Crespo, which has a good dance floor (rare) and a light atmosphere (more rare). But also, while many lamented the light turnout, I found it perfect. There were enough seats for everybody, enough space to dance, and enough people to make it fun. I stayed late and slept well afterward.
One of my teachers, who has resigned herself to staying away from public gatherings, told me that, after every dance I should wash my hands and... gargle with salt water.
That's a bit excessive for me. I must admit I wash my hands more often these days but beyond that, I'll rely on my immune system and regular sleep to carry me through.
I have to wonder what it is about swine flu. I guess public health officials worry about the infection rate going parabolic, but what does the average Joe worry about? Far more people die from "regular flu," not to mentions the hundreds of other prominent dangers that surely outkill swine flu by a long shot. No one appears to be to concerned with, for example, malaria or automobile accidents.
I think that our minds are drawn to things that are new. We've lived through regular flu, and malaria. And we understand that cars in the street are dangerous, but we have outsmarted them this long. Each of us has proven that we can live in a world with all the diseases that exist in the world; but we don't yet know how this whole swine flu thing will play out. It is the uncertainty that fills our mind with dread more than the presence of certain danger.
My guess is that in a few months or a year, swine flu will be as big a problem or greater than it is today. But, except for a small number of unlucky individuals, no one will care.
Every day I see more people on the subway with masks "protecting" them from swine flu. Others hold a scarf or sweater over their mouths and noses. Last Thursday the Puntocero milonga, downtown, was cancelled on short notice. There is a nice free milonga 3 blocks from my house on the first saturday of the month, but that was cancelled as well. And now, the once-proud Practica X has shut its doors for the entire month of July.
School vacations have been extended by about 3 weeks, and I have heard rumors that the government will mandate cancellation of all cultural events.
At the risk of angering the swine flu god, and apart from the air of sadness that comes with observing a terrorized society, I've found some positives. Last night, I had the most enjoyable milonga experience since arriving in BsAs. I discovered Club Fulgor de Villa Crespo, which has a good dance floor (rare) and a light atmosphere (more rare). But also, while many lamented the light turnout, I found it perfect. There were enough seats for everybody, enough space to dance, and enough people to make it fun. I stayed late and slept well afterward.
One of my teachers, who has resigned herself to staying away from public gatherings, told me that, after every dance I should wash my hands and... gargle with salt water.
That's a bit excessive for me. I must admit I wash my hands more often these days but beyond that, I'll rely on my immune system and regular sleep to carry me through.
I have to wonder what it is about swine flu. I guess public health officials worry about the infection rate going parabolic, but what does the average Joe worry about? Far more people die from "regular flu," not to mentions the hundreds of other prominent dangers that surely outkill swine flu by a long shot. No one appears to be to concerned with, for example, malaria or automobile accidents.
I think that our minds are drawn to things that are new. We've lived through regular flu, and malaria. And we understand that cars in the street are dangerous, but we have outsmarted them this long. Each of us has proven that we can live in a world with all the diseases that exist in the world; but we don't yet know how this whole swine flu thing will play out. It is the uncertainty that fills our mind with dread more than the presence of certain danger.
My guess is that in a few months or a year, swine flu will be as big a problem or greater than it is today. But, except for a small number of unlucky individuals, no one will care.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Price Increase
The price of facturas (more or less, breakfast pastries), at the panaderia around the corner, went up today from 90 centavos to 1 peso.
No me gusta.
No me gusta.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Jobs In Buenos Aires
My friend and dance partner recently told me about her father's job. He drives a taxi. He works 12 hours per day, six days a week. He takes a 3-day vacation every December to visit his mother in Uruguay. This has gone on for thirty years. She thinks he typically takes home about 50-60 pesos (about 17 dollars) in a day. Honestly, I think she is understating his earnings but the ballpark is certainly correct. He rents a small apartment and manages to feed himself and his wife.
His daughter, my friend, works for her aunt making women's clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer, but needs to save money for tuition. She lost her last job because the place, along with her computer, identification papers, and some books, went up in flames. She quit a quality control job before that because they wanted her to lie to clients. She is a bright woman.
Last Friday, she had an interview scheduled for a job as a secretary at a company that makes pipes. The job is 6 hours a day, 6 times a week. To get there, she would need to take 2 busses for more than two hours each way, but it pays about 1600 pesos per month which is more than she currently earns. She holds the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in management from a well-regarded engineering school.
So she left her house almost 3 hours before the interview. At the 2nd bus stop, a driver told her she should take the semi-express, so she waited. After an hour she gave up and re-scheduled the interview.
Over the weekend, she figured it just wasn't worth it. Considering bus fare and the huge waste of time (not to mention that spending that much time on a Buenos Aires bus is a sure way to damage the soul), it would better to keep looking for something closer.
This is part of life in Buenos Aires. There are thousand of restaurants. They have good atmosphere, good food, good coffee at low prices. But they sit in a near-vacant state. The waiters are bored. Most of the local population cannot afford to go out for a simple coffee and croissant. But it is part of the culture, and cultural rigidity is strong here. So they have their "merienda" at home.
The local tango dancers cannot afford to take private lessons - some good ones cost as little as 20 dollars* - because foreigners drive up the prices. On the other hand tango might not even exist here - certainly it would not be as robust - if it weren't for tango tourism.
The state of the restaurant industry is a portent. I believe this place is in transition. The recent economic troubles of the world have made the current economy, depressed as it is, unsustainable. Half or more of these restaurants will be closed 2 years out. What will these people do? I don't know, but I hope something.
I have heard some bad stories about people's experience with taxi drivers, but my experience has been universally positive. I take the bus more often now because I've finally figured out how to use the bus system to my advantage. But for my first 50 or so days here I took taxis often. They are super cheap. Energy is heavily subsidized here, and the drivers don't make much money. So, for example, to take a taxi to and from a milonga (a tango dance) and pay the admission typically costs about 7 or 8 dollars.
The drivers don't get tipped here. Some locals even berate tourists for rounding up a fare payment. But I have found that taxi drivers often tip me. Why? They don't want to, or can't, give coins as change. So if I owe 10.20 I'll give the guy 12 and he'll give me back the 2-peso note rather than make change. Sometimes restaurants tip me as well, and on one occasion I was tipped at the supermarket.
Every taxi driver I've met has been very nice. They know the city, and they give me an excellent opportunity to work on my Spanish. One guy, after hearing that I was learning Spanish, gave me a 10-minute lesson on what seemed like 100 or so vulgar words.
"Soy tu professor," He was very proud.
Another, at 2AM was sure I was going home to get some action. I didn't have the heart to point out that there was no woman next to me in his cab.
I've heard about relatives in New Jersey, the good and bad parts of town, the origins of the songs on the radio, and more than one solution for the swine flu.
The people of Buenos Aires, from what I know, are overwhelmingly nice Sometimes I feel sad about the economic conditions here, but then I feel bad about feeling sad. All the people I know here have lived through markedly better times**, yet they are either happy or they make it their business not to let on otherwise.
So I spend a few minutes now and then, feeling sad or bad, then I go back to my simple life and feel, well, pretty damn good.
*Some bad ones cost $100 or more.
**Some of the tango teachers are definitely making out pretty well, but the physical state of the city they live in is distant from that of their childhood.
His daughter, my friend, works for her aunt making women's clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer, but needs to save money for tuition. She lost her last job because the place, along with her computer, identification papers, and some books, went up in flames. She quit a quality control job before that because they wanted her to lie to clients. She is a bright woman.
Last Friday, she had an interview scheduled for a job as a secretary at a company that makes pipes. The job is 6 hours a day, 6 times a week. To get there, she would need to take 2 busses for more than two hours each way, but it pays about 1600 pesos per month which is more than she currently earns. She holds the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in management from a well-regarded engineering school.
So she left her house almost 3 hours before the interview. At the 2nd bus stop, a driver told her she should take the semi-express, so she waited. After an hour she gave up and re-scheduled the interview.
Over the weekend, she figured it just wasn't worth it. Considering bus fare and the huge waste of time (not to mention that spending that much time on a Buenos Aires bus is a sure way to damage the soul), it would better to keep looking for something closer.
This is part of life in Buenos Aires. There are thousand of restaurants. They have good atmosphere, good food, good coffee at low prices. But they sit in a near-vacant state. The waiters are bored. Most of the local population cannot afford to go out for a simple coffee and croissant. But it is part of the culture, and cultural rigidity is strong here. So they have their "merienda" at home.
The local tango dancers cannot afford to take private lessons - some good ones cost as little as 20 dollars* - because foreigners drive up the prices. On the other hand tango might not even exist here - certainly it would not be as robust - if it weren't for tango tourism.
The state of the restaurant industry is a portent. I believe this place is in transition. The recent economic troubles of the world have made the current economy, depressed as it is, unsustainable. Half or more of these restaurants will be closed 2 years out. What will these people do? I don't know, but I hope something.
I have heard some bad stories about people's experience with taxi drivers, but my experience has been universally positive. I take the bus more often now because I've finally figured out how to use the bus system to my advantage. But for my first 50 or so days here I took taxis often. They are super cheap. Energy is heavily subsidized here, and the drivers don't make much money. So, for example, to take a taxi to and from a milonga (a tango dance) and pay the admission typically costs about 7 or 8 dollars.
The drivers don't get tipped here. Some locals even berate tourists for rounding up a fare payment. But I have found that taxi drivers often tip me. Why? They don't want to, or can't, give coins as change. So if I owe 10.20 I'll give the guy 12 and he'll give me back the 2-peso note rather than make change. Sometimes restaurants tip me as well, and on one occasion I was tipped at the supermarket.
Every taxi driver I've met has been very nice. They know the city, and they give me an excellent opportunity to work on my Spanish. One guy, after hearing that I was learning Spanish, gave me a 10-minute lesson on what seemed like 100 or so vulgar words.
"Soy tu professor," He was very proud.
Another, at 2AM was sure I was going home to get some action. I didn't have the heart to point out that there was no woman next to me in his cab.
I've heard about relatives in New Jersey, the good and bad parts of town, the origins of the songs on the radio, and more than one solution for the swine flu.
The people of Buenos Aires, from what I know, are overwhelmingly nice Sometimes I feel sad about the economic conditions here, but then I feel bad about feeling sad. All the people I know here have lived through markedly better times**, yet they are either happy or they make it their business not to let on otherwise.
So I spend a few minutes now and then, feeling sad or bad, then I go back to my simple life and feel, well, pretty damn good.
*Some bad ones cost $100 or more.
**Some of the tango teachers are definitely making out pretty well, but the physical state of the city they live in is distant from that of their childhood.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Keep Your Health Care, Just Give Me The Money
President Obama and his friends may want to tax employee-provided health care benefits as part of their "overhaul" of the health care system. First I reacted, then I got to thinking.
The reaction is fairly simple. What has come to be called health care simply is not worth what they say it is, and I don't want that "value" taxed as if it is income that I can use to buy whatever I choose. I'm a reasonably healthy man with a background in insurance and statistics, so I'd much rather have the money as pure salary and fend for myself on health care.
Now, of course, employers may not be willing to give me more money instead. I'll come back to this later, but for now: In most tax brackets, I would still prefer nothing to the alternative of health insurance plus tax.
Though eight years of Bush & Company, combined with a few months of Bushama, has made me long for the smallest possible government possible, I still believe that government can play a positive, necessarily limited, role in a society.
And get this, health care is one area in which this seems to be true. The two primary arguments against government provided health care are that it is socialism (implying, of course, that socialism is bad) and that a government system would be inferior to anything the free market would offer. The primary argument for government-provided health care is that health care is a basic human right. Let me address these three issues in turn.
First, health insurance, like all insurance, is socialism. Whether it is provided by the private or public sector, it is socialism by definition. Insurance is designed to pool the risk of a large group of people among which realized outcomes will be asymmetric (for example, some will get leukemia while others will not suffer from more than a hangnail), and divide the financial costs evenly among them.
So for me the "oh no, it's socialism." argument is empty even for those who are afraid of socialism.* After all does anybody really believe that if government takes over health care, that socialism will creep into the coffee-making and music industries. Besides, government control of the banking system is a much quicker path to soviet-style communism than health care could ever be.
There is a difference, indiscernable if you listen to political debate, between health care and health insurance. Insurance companies do not provide health care; they provide risk-pooling. Doctors, nurses, hospitals etc. provide health care. What the talking heads always call "health care" is really health insurance.
Second, exclusive of transaction costs, it is certainly true that a free market in health insurance would provide a better insurance product for consumers than the government. I hold this to be self-evident. However, there are huge transaction costs associated with health insurance that cannot be excluded in any honest policy debate.**
Third, I think the idea that health care should be available to everyone is noble and the sentiment is praiseworthy. It is, however, impossible. Health care is a lot of things, but it aint free. There are real costs associated with providing ANY medical service, and we cannot simply decree that our government, or anyone else, give it to us at no cost.
Anytime that anyone says that health care should be free, you should ignore everything else that that person says. She is talking about a different universe, with a different set of fundamental laws.
Continuing with the theme of the third point, present-day USA is an extremely wealthy society, and I believe that we can, at a relatively small cost, provide a limited set of health-care benefits to every human being physically present inside our borders. And I believe that we can do it through government in a way that minimizes transaction costs, making it less costly than the same service provided by the private sector.
And so, Life At The Margin's national health care proposal is this. The federal government would provide a set (Obviously there would be much disagreement about the composition of the set, but that is what political debate is supposed to be for. I never said that my solution is perfect.) of preventative and diagnostic services and treatment for a very small set of very common ailments. It would be provided to anyone who comes to one of the facilities without any type of administrative, bureaucratic red tape. And I don't mean private facilities with government paying the bills. I mean government provides the service, exactly the way the military medical system works, except with a much more limited set of services.
Keeping the set of services limited is absolutely critical. Private insurance and private providers would handle everything else with out government interference. So for example, I think things like yearly physicals, treatment for broken arms and strep throat, and initial diagnosis of any symptom should be provided in a government facility. Things like cancer treatment, pregnancy, type-II diabetes treatment and other catastrophic ailments, as well as rare disease treatment, would be excluded.
While I believe the above framework is the best path for national health care, I have observed enough to know that it is politically unrealistic. The voters want their all-inclusive single-payer system and they want it now; those who helped pay for the elections (i.e. insurance companies) want a return on their investment and they want it for years to come. The compromise is likely to leave most of us wondering what hit us.
This leads me full-circle to mild support of the tax on employee-provided health care.
Here is my reason: Employee-provided health-care is basically stupid***, and a tax on it will discourage it. As a nation we backed into this system because companies were legally restricted from offering employees more money and so had to find other ways to compete for their services; we've stuck with it to our detriment.
Efficient compensation plans are simple compensation plans: All cash across the board. Employees are often forced to join risk pools that include people with much more (or much less) risky lifestyles. Companies should use the money they spend on health insurance to increase salaries and let employees shop for their own health plans.
*Building bridges is also socialism, as is providing national defense.
**I believe that almost everybody intuitively knows this, even if you haven't thought of it as transaction costs before.
***It does make sense for some businesses to have some medical services for employees so that time missed due to illness is minimized.
The reaction is fairly simple. What has come to be called health care simply is not worth what they say it is, and I don't want that "value" taxed as if it is income that I can use to buy whatever I choose. I'm a reasonably healthy man with a background in insurance and statistics, so I'd much rather have the money as pure salary and fend for myself on health care.
Now, of course, employers may not be willing to give me more money instead. I'll come back to this later, but for now: In most tax brackets, I would still prefer nothing to the alternative of health insurance plus tax.
Though eight years of Bush & Company, combined with a few months of Bushama, has made me long for the smallest possible government possible, I still believe that government can play a positive, necessarily limited, role in a society.
And get this, health care is one area in which this seems to be true. The two primary arguments against government provided health care are that it is socialism (implying, of course, that socialism is bad) and that a government system would be inferior to anything the free market would offer. The primary argument for government-provided health care is that health care is a basic human right. Let me address these three issues in turn.
First, health insurance, like all insurance, is socialism. Whether it is provided by the private or public sector, it is socialism by definition. Insurance is designed to pool the risk of a large group of people among which realized outcomes will be asymmetric (for example, some will get leukemia while others will not suffer from more than a hangnail), and divide the financial costs evenly among them.
So for me the "oh no, it's socialism." argument is empty even for those who are afraid of socialism.* After all does anybody really believe that if government takes over health care, that socialism will creep into the coffee-making and music industries. Besides, government control of the banking system is a much quicker path to soviet-style communism than health care could ever be.
There is a difference, indiscernable if you listen to political debate, between health care and health insurance. Insurance companies do not provide health care; they provide risk-pooling. Doctors, nurses, hospitals etc. provide health care. What the talking heads always call "health care" is really health insurance.
Second, exclusive of transaction costs, it is certainly true that a free market in health insurance would provide a better insurance product for consumers than the government. I hold this to be self-evident. However, there are huge transaction costs associated with health insurance that cannot be excluded in any honest policy debate.**
Third, I think the idea that health care should be available to everyone is noble and the sentiment is praiseworthy. It is, however, impossible. Health care is a lot of things, but it aint free. There are real costs associated with providing ANY medical service, and we cannot simply decree that our government, or anyone else, give it to us at no cost.
Anytime that anyone says that health care should be free, you should ignore everything else that that person says. She is talking about a different universe, with a different set of fundamental laws.
Continuing with the theme of the third point, present-day USA is an extremely wealthy society, and I believe that we can, at a relatively small cost, provide a limited set of health-care benefits to every human being physically present inside our borders. And I believe that we can do it through government in a way that minimizes transaction costs, making it less costly than the same service provided by the private sector.
And so, Life At The Margin's national health care proposal is this. The federal government would provide a set (Obviously there would be much disagreement about the composition of the set, but that is what political debate is supposed to be for. I never said that my solution is perfect.) of preventative and diagnostic services and treatment for a very small set of very common ailments. It would be provided to anyone who comes to one of the facilities without any type of administrative, bureaucratic red tape. And I don't mean private facilities with government paying the bills. I mean government provides the service, exactly the way the military medical system works, except with a much more limited set of services.
Keeping the set of services limited is absolutely critical. Private insurance and private providers would handle everything else with out government interference. So for example, I think things like yearly physicals, treatment for broken arms and strep throat, and initial diagnosis of any symptom should be provided in a government facility. Things like cancer treatment, pregnancy, type-II diabetes treatment and other catastrophic ailments, as well as rare disease treatment, would be excluded.
While I believe the above framework is the best path for national health care, I have observed enough to know that it is politically unrealistic. The voters want their all-inclusive single-payer system and they want it now; those who helped pay for the elections (i.e. insurance companies) want a return on their investment and they want it for years to come. The compromise is likely to leave most of us wondering what hit us.
This leads me full-circle to mild support of the tax on employee-provided health care.
Here is my reason: Employee-provided health-care is basically stupid***, and a tax on it will discourage it. As a nation we backed into this system because companies were legally restricted from offering employees more money and so had to find other ways to compete for their services; we've stuck with it to our detriment.
Efficient compensation plans are simple compensation plans: All cash across the board. Employees are often forced to join risk pools that include people with much more (or much less) risky lifestyles. Companies should use the money they spend on health insurance to increase salaries and let employees shop for their own health plans.
*Building bridges is also socialism, as is providing national defense.
**I believe that almost everybody intuitively knows this, even if you haven't thought of it as transaction costs before.
***It does make sense for some businesses to have some medical services for employees so that time missed due to illness is minimized.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Back In Capricornia
Have you ever been in an unfamiliar city of 20 million people, in a taxi with a cabdriver who is guessing? This is where I found myself last weekend in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It took us an hour to go 20 kilometers through traffic, but another 2 hours to find my destination. After a while my driver got out to ask another cabbie where to go, but that guy drove away on him. When I finally had enough, I told him to drop me at a corner, but he successfully made contact with another cabbie, and I listened to them, which gave me confidence. That was a mistake. A half hour later, after talking to a third driver, he finally got me to my friend's apartment.
I felt a little bad for the guy. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, and his lack of competence appeared to eat at him. He offered to charge me zero for the trip so I gave him a little more than half and got on with my life.
The rest of the trip was super-smooth. A friend had told me to allow at least 3 hours at the BsAs airport as there would be long lines to wait in. As it turned out, check-in, security, and immigration took a total of 20 minutes. So I sat in peace in the coffee shop for 2 hours and ran through ideas of what I could do back in the USA. From Sao Paulo back to Buenos Aires, the airport process took 8 minutes in total.
I went to Brazil to see a good friend and meet his fiancee. I found a whole group of wonderfully warm and friendly people. We spent most of our time with good food and wine, chatting in English, Portuguese, and Spanish; pondering such questions as "Why don't more people use helicopters?"
Brazil seems to me a world away from Buenos Aires. Sao Paulo is much more like Chicago or San Francisco than its South American cousin. And the city and its outskirts could easily fool a person into believing he is in southern California.
On the other hand the taxi fiasco would never happen in Buenos Aires. The taxistas here will get from A to B as fast as that machine can possibly do so.
I felt a little bad for the guy. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, and his lack of competence appeared to eat at him. He offered to charge me zero for the trip so I gave him a little more than half and got on with my life.
The rest of the trip was super-smooth. A friend had told me to allow at least 3 hours at the BsAs airport as there would be long lines to wait in. As it turned out, check-in, security, and immigration took a total of 20 minutes. So I sat in peace in the coffee shop for 2 hours and ran through ideas of what I could do back in the USA. From Sao Paulo back to Buenos Aires, the airport process took 8 minutes in total.
I went to Brazil to see a good friend and meet his fiancee. I found a whole group of wonderfully warm and friendly people. We spent most of our time with good food and wine, chatting in English, Portuguese, and Spanish; pondering such questions as "Why don't more people use helicopters?"
Brazil seems to me a world away from Buenos Aires. Sao Paulo is much more like Chicago or San Francisco than its South American cousin. And the city and its outskirts could easily fool a person into believing he is in southern California.
On the other hand the taxi fiasco would never happen in Buenos Aires. The taxistas here will get from A to B as fast as that machine can possibly do so.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Obama Said What?
Barack Obama said that he is "appalled and outraged" about the situation in Iran.
Here is the statement from him that got my attention:
"And we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."
Who is he kidding? As commander-in-chief of U.S. armed forces, Mr. Obama is the most prolific purveyor of violence against innocent civilians in the world. As he stands in front of his weak-kneed press corps, American drones drop bombs on Pakistan, killing hundreds of innocents every week. Baghdad and Mogadishu are the two most dangerous cities in the world, primarily due intervention of military forces under Obama's command. And the piles of dead Afghanis grow larger and larger.
How does Obama get away with this? How can he make such a ridiculous statement without someone challenging him? Is he dumb or does he see us all as dumb? I'm starting to wonder. Why do the people who voted for change continue to support this Bush-clone?
Referring to a now-famous recent event in Iraq, he said, "I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that's a problem."
Mr. President, I have news for you: that kind of thing happens in the United States of America.
Never willing to show themselves as reasonable alternatives to the democrats, prominent members of the republican political party were jumping over themselves to condemn the Iranians more strongly, and to condemn Obama for his lack of belligerence toward Iran.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said this: "A president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is important folks; it is the essence of our government's failure to serve its people. It is the source of failure of our people to hold elected politicians accountable. The U.S. president, as well as our legislators, should never lead; they are elected to follow. Kings lead. Dictators lead. We are, in name, a representative democracy. Barack Obama should follow the will of the people. He would if we forced him to.
And if he did follow the people, it is quite possible that our government could serve as an example to others. And if the people of other countries wish to follow our lead, so be it; if not, that is okay as well.
But that is the real issue here. Obama, like all recent U.S. presidents, believes that there is one set of rules for the U.S. and another set for everyone else. But as our economy collapses and our military weakens, that attitude will soon become unenforceable. It is time for the U.S. government to leave the rest of the world alone. Let the people of Iran deal with their problems themselves, and do the same for every other country.
If Barack Obama wants to help the Iranian people, he'll stop the phony rhetoric, stop threatening them. And most importantly and most simply, he will stop the economic siege that the U.S. and our allies have crushed these people with since 1979.
Iran is actually a natural ally of the U.S. and we're hurting ourselves with our belligerence, but we hurt them more. The strategy of the U.S government since 1979 has been to punish the Iranian people because of a childish feud between elite Americans and elite Iranians. And all that this accomplishes is to tighten the grip of tyranny.
I would love it if my government could stand up and make an honest statement in support of the freedom of all people. But it cannot. It is pure hypocrisy, and Obama embarrasses every American when he delivers this drivel. Until we stop killing people, we should shut the hell up.
Here is the statement from him that got my attention:
"And we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."
Who is he kidding? As commander-in-chief of U.S. armed forces, Mr. Obama is the most prolific purveyor of violence against innocent civilians in the world. As he stands in front of his weak-kneed press corps, American drones drop bombs on Pakistan, killing hundreds of innocents every week. Baghdad and Mogadishu are the two most dangerous cities in the world, primarily due intervention of military forces under Obama's command. And the piles of dead Afghanis grow larger and larger.
How does Obama get away with this? How can he make such a ridiculous statement without someone challenging him? Is he dumb or does he see us all as dumb? I'm starting to wonder. Why do the people who voted for change continue to support this Bush-clone?
Referring to a now-famous recent event in Iraq, he said, "I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that's a problem."
Mr. President, I have news for you: that kind of thing happens in the United States of America.
Never willing to show themselves as reasonable alternatives to the democrats, prominent members of the republican political party were jumping over themselves to condemn the Iranians more strongly, and to condemn Obama for his lack of belligerence toward Iran.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said this: "A president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is important folks; it is the essence of our government's failure to serve its people. It is the source of failure of our people to hold elected politicians accountable. The U.S. president, as well as our legislators, should never lead; they are elected to follow. Kings lead. Dictators lead. We are, in name, a representative democracy. Barack Obama should follow the will of the people. He would if we forced him to.
And if he did follow the people, it is quite possible that our government could serve as an example to others. And if the people of other countries wish to follow our lead, so be it; if not, that is okay as well.
But that is the real issue here. Obama, like all recent U.S. presidents, believes that there is one set of rules for the U.S. and another set for everyone else. But as our economy collapses and our military weakens, that attitude will soon become unenforceable. It is time for the U.S. government to leave the rest of the world alone. Let the people of Iran deal with their problems themselves, and do the same for every other country.
If Barack Obama wants to help the Iranian people, he'll stop the phony rhetoric, stop threatening them. And most importantly and most simply, he will stop the economic siege that the U.S. and our allies have crushed these people with since 1979.
Iran is actually a natural ally of the U.S. and we're hurting ourselves with our belligerence, but we hurt them more. The strategy of the U.S government since 1979 has been to punish the Iranian people because of a childish feud between elite Americans and elite Iranians. And all that this accomplishes is to tighten the grip of tyranny.
I would love it if my government could stand up and make an honest statement in support of the freedom of all people. But it cannot. It is pure hypocrisy, and Obama embarrasses every American when he delivers this drivel. Until we stop killing people, we should shut the hell up.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sick in Buenos Aires
I sit in my bedroom, suffering mildly with strep throat, waiting for the amoxicillin, my immune system, or some sort of magic that emanates from the southern sky to heal me. On Saturday I started to feel sick. Sunday night I took a bus across the city to a milonga where I danced but 2 tandas before realizing I had no energy, only to find that I didn't have enough cash to pay for a pizza I had ordered. Monday night, I finally decided to walk through the downpour to the Italian Hospital.
And it was the easiest, most comfortable experience that I have ever had at a medical facility. And I don't speak their language - well.
First, on a national holiday the regular clinic was open at 7:30 PM. They asked me 3 questions: What is your name? Have you been here before? And what seems to be the trouble? Then the woman took great care to inform me that because I have no insurance and because this is a private hospital, I would have to pay 82 pesos (about 23 USD). I would have kissed her except she would then acquire my strep.
There were no forms to fill out, they did not care where I live, or who I work for, or who my primary and secondary provider are. They did not want to know if my great-grandfather had diabetes. They did not waste time by putting me on a scale.
I went to a hospital in the U.S. 2 days before leaving for BsAs. I was there for an immunization shot; the appointment was pre-arranged and specific. They measured my height and weight, my blood pressure, and my temperature. Meanwhile, people sat in the waiting room.
After paying 80 pesos (They don't make change well in Argentina, so paying 100 pesos for an 82 peso bill often yields 20 in change.), I waited about 12 minutes, saw the doctor and left. Down the street to the pharmacy, and soon I was back in bed.
I contrast this with an experience I had a few years back in Seattle. I was dating a wonderful woman who happened to be sick with strep throat. She didn't have insurance or a lot of money. So I called around to find a doctor. No one would give me any reasonable detail about how much a visit would cost. Finally I spoke with a woman at Harborview and, after I explained the basic situation to her she said, "Look, if you come here you may have to wait awhile but it is essentially free healthcare." Once there, my friend had to fill out a pile of forms, including what appeared to be a sworn affidavit about every detail of her personal finances. And yes we waited many hours for her to be seen.
She came out of the consultation in a chipper mood. "Yep, strep throat, he gave me penicillin and a pain killer. The doctor was so nice," she said, "He said he didn't really need a throat culture, but he did it anyway."
I stopped in my tracks. "You know they are going to charge you for that." I said. That didn't bother her at the time. A few weeks later the bill came - and it measured in the hundreds of dollars, including a charge for a superfluous throat culture.
That health care wasn't so "essentially free" after all.
And it was the easiest, most comfortable experience that I have ever had at a medical facility. And I don't speak their language - well.
First, on a national holiday the regular clinic was open at 7:30 PM. They asked me 3 questions: What is your name? Have you been here before? And what seems to be the trouble? Then the woman took great care to inform me that because I have no insurance and because this is a private hospital, I would have to pay 82 pesos (about 23 USD). I would have kissed her except she would then acquire my strep.
There were no forms to fill out, they did not care where I live, or who I work for, or who my primary and secondary provider are. They did not want to know if my great-grandfather had diabetes. They did not waste time by putting me on a scale.
I went to a hospital in the U.S. 2 days before leaving for BsAs. I was there for an immunization shot; the appointment was pre-arranged and specific. They measured my height and weight, my blood pressure, and my temperature. Meanwhile, people sat in the waiting room.
After paying 80 pesos (They don't make change well in Argentina, so paying 100 pesos for an 82 peso bill often yields 20 in change.), I waited about 12 minutes, saw the doctor and left. Down the street to the pharmacy, and soon I was back in bed.
I contrast this with an experience I had a few years back in Seattle. I was dating a wonderful woman who happened to be sick with strep throat. She didn't have insurance or a lot of money. So I called around to find a doctor. No one would give me any reasonable detail about how much a visit would cost. Finally I spoke with a woman at Harborview and, after I explained the basic situation to her she said, "Look, if you come here you may have to wait awhile but it is essentially free healthcare." Once there, my friend had to fill out a pile of forms, including what appeared to be a sworn affidavit about every detail of her personal finances. And yes we waited many hours for her to be seen.
She came out of the consultation in a chipper mood. "Yep, strep throat, he gave me penicillin and a pain killer. The doctor was so nice," she said, "He said he didn't really need a throat culture, but he did it anyway."
I stopped in my tracks. "You know they are going to charge you for that." I said. That didn't bother her at the time. A few weeks later the bill came - and it measured in the hundreds of dollars, including a charge for a superfluous throat culture.
That health care wasn't so "essentially free" after all.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
This... is War
President Barack Obama says he's "shocked and deeply saddened" by news that a U.S. soldier opened fire at a counseling center in Iraq, killing five fellow soldiers.
I hope Mr. Obama is saddened; I have serious doubts that he gives a damn.
As for shock, a man who is shocked at such an event has no business being Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces.
War is accumulated evil. It contains within itself every form of evil that exists in the world. When we vote for it, we get it all. It is impossible to separate the rape, murder of innocents, suicides, depression, plundering of villages, torture, etc. from the killing of so-called bad guys.
Is Barack shocked and saddened that his near-daily bombings of Pakistan, a war as yet only tacitly approved by the American populace, have killed hundreds of schoolchildren and other non-combatants. Is he saddened by the deaths of thousands of Afghanis; is he shocked by the complete lack of any strategic victory in EIGHT YEARS of war? Does he frown when he thinks about the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis or the millions whose lives have been destroyed as a direct result of the U.S. military adventure.
Had Obama followed through on his primary campaign promise - “There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately.” - this event that shocked him probably would not have happened.
I hope Mr. Obama is saddened; I have serious doubts that he gives a damn.
As for shock, a man who is shocked at such an event has no business being Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces.
War is accumulated evil. It contains within itself every form of evil that exists in the world. When we vote for it, we get it all. It is impossible to separate the rape, murder of innocents, suicides, depression, plundering of villages, torture, etc. from the killing of so-called bad guys.
Is Barack shocked and saddened that his near-daily bombings of Pakistan, a war as yet only tacitly approved by the American populace, have killed hundreds of schoolchildren and other non-combatants. Is he saddened by the deaths of thousands of Afghanis; is he shocked by the complete lack of any strategic victory in EIGHT YEARS of war? Does he frown when he thinks about the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis or the millions whose lives have been destroyed as a direct result of the U.S. military adventure.
Had Obama followed through on his primary campaign promise - “There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately.” - this event that shocked him probably would not have happened.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley Capital Raises are Failure
Last week, Wells Fargo sold $8.6 billion in common stock; Morgan Stanley sold $8 billion in stock and senior notes.
I don't mean that those two banks failed in this case. Far from it. But this is a failure for our society. A failure to do something that a free market can do effectively without even trying.
The point here is that these investors are not turning their money over to the banks because they believe in their business model; they are doing it because they believe the taxpayer will bear some, most, or all of the risk.
By propping up these broken institutions, the government is directing scarce resources away from productive endeavors.
With Bush and Obama leading the charge, the Wall St./government cabal has somehow convinced us that we need these banks for capitalism to work.
Obama and others say the banking system is "the lifeblood of our economy."
It just aint so, and we should all be thanking our maker for that fact.
The truth is that the banking system lies pretty low on the list of essential components of free-market capitalism. Certainly creativity, human productivity, entrepreneurship, and good-old trial-and-error rank high above it.
A banking system is necessary. Its function is simple: take excess resources from savers* and distribute it to competent investors*. Our system has failed to do that effectively and its natural fate is to collapse and die. Once that happens a new banking system will rise up to replace it. Until then, we stifle the attributes of our economy that make it work.
The bailout, prop-up path is doomed to fail. There is no other possible conclusion.
Furthermore, all those bankers who have been fired or are about to be may well be fantastic architects, musicians, store managers, and vacuum cleaner repairmen; they are not good bankers.
*Savers are people who do not consume all of their production. Investment is addition to the stock of real capital.
I don't mean that those two banks failed in this case. Far from it. But this is a failure for our society. A failure to do something that a free market can do effectively without even trying.
The point here is that these investors are not turning their money over to the banks because they believe in their business model; they are doing it because they believe the taxpayer will bear some, most, or all of the risk.
By propping up these broken institutions, the government is directing scarce resources away from productive endeavors.
With Bush and Obama leading the charge, the Wall St./government cabal has somehow convinced us that we need these banks for capitalism to work.
Obama and others say the banking system is "the lifeblood of our economy."
It just aint so, and we should all be thanking our maker for that fact.
The truth is that the banking system lies pretty low on the list of essential components of free-market capitalism. Certainly creativity, human productivity, entrepreneurship, and good-old trial-and-error rank high above it.
A banking system is necessary. Its function is simple: take excess resources from savers* and distribute it to competent investors*. Our system has failed to do that effectively and its natural fate is to collapse and die. Once that happens a new banking system will rise up to replace it. Until then, we stifle the attributes of our economy that make it work.
The bailout, prop-up path is doomed to fail. There is no other possible conclusion.
Furthermore, all those bankers who have been fired or are about to be may well be fantastic architects, musicians, store managers, and vacuum cleaner repairmen; they are not good bankers.
*Savers are people who do not consume all of their production. Investment is addition to the stock of real capital.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Mi Poema, En Castellano
Esa mujer tiene que tener un corazon de oro;
Ella tiene que mirarme con ojos de fuego.
Cada noche tenemos que ahogarnos en un mar de besos;
Cada manana tenemos que salir a flote en un mar de pasion.
Cuando habla tengo que oir amor;
Cuando le veo tengo que ver vida.
Tiene que bailar cuanda camina;
Tiene que jugar cuando trabaja.
Se derretiria en mi abrazo;
Se quedaria siempre en mi mente.
Si no ama todo el tiempo
Otro hombre la puede tener.
Ella tiene que mirarme con ojos de fuego.
Cada noche tenemos que ahogarnos en un mar de besos;
Cada manana tenemos que salir a flote en un mar de pasion.
Cuando habla tengo que oir amor;
Cuando le veo tengo que ver vida.
Tiene que bailar cuanda camina;
Tiene que jugar cuando trabaja.
Se derretiria en mi abrazo;
Se quedaria siempre en mi mente.
Si no ama todo el tiempo
Otro hombre la puede tener.
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