Simulating a Florida Primary January 17, 2008January 5, 2017 TRUE LOVE Alan Flippen: ‘You write, ‘If we’re just a simulation, how do you explain true love?’ Robert Heinlein addressed this in his short story ‘The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag’ and his novel Job: A Comedy of Justice, both of which are based on the world-as-simulation premise. His answer: true love is an artistic flourish by the creator of the simulation.’ ☞ And a magnificent flourish it was. Speaking of sims . . . SYMZ Seems Syms‘ symbol’s now SYMZ – and that the company has successfully delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. If that sounds a little like successfully lowering your credit rating or successfully exiting a prestigious professional society, their rationale is: a seven-figure annual saving in fees and compliance costs. The stock, at $10 yesterday, is down from $20 just a few months ago and up barely 35% in the four years since it was first suggested here (taking into account a special $1 dividend it paid out). It is in two businesses: value-priced clothing, which could get pretty badly mauled in a prolonged recession, and (by default if not design) real estate – many of its 33 stores sit on undervalued land, which is the real reason some of us bought the stock. Just how badly that hidden value may erode as America’s chickens come home to roost is the big question here. I’m not selling my SYMZ. And if I see it dip a few dollars cheaper, as people begin despairing an economic bottom will ever be reached (always a good sign), I might buy a little more. But clearly, the smart thing to do would have been to sell it at $20 first. And if things get bad enough, the stock could get a lot cheaper so – as usual – this is only for money you can truly afford to lose. FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN Gary Burton: ‘I think it would be helpful for your readers to devote a paragraph explaining the primary voting situation in these states that have been disenfranchised by the DNC. I have to say I have pretty mixed feelings about it myself. I very much want to have a voice in the selection of our candidate and feel I am being denied my right as a citizen and supporter of the party to have my vote counted. Since the Republican legislature of Florida voted to move the election date up, it feels all the more unfair to have the Democratic party choose to deny thousands of us [it’s millions of us, actually – A.T.] our opportunity to participate. Meanwhile, the Republicans are proceeding with their primaries. What’s wrong with this picture? Why should I and others like me continue to financially support the party that doesn’t allow us to vote? The only explanation I have heard to date regarding the need to punish states that messed with the DNC’s timing of the primaries lands with a thud.’ ☞ This is a very good question that requires a lot than one paragraph to answer. (Please note: This is my personal understanding, not any official Party statement. I am an interested, but not an intimate, observer.) 1. Virtually everyone outside of Iowa and New Hampshire agrees that the primary system was badly in need of change. Those first two states are simply not representative of America (are there no black people in America? no brown people? no inhabitants of the sunbelt?), and Iowa’s favored status distorts America’s farm policy. 2. Knowing this, the Democratic National Committee set about a lengthy, deliberate process to come up with something better. 3. It’s a tough business, because the only states that will really be happy are the ones that get a jump on the others. That’s because the early states get loads of attention; millions of dollars in revenue (think of all the hotel bills for staffers and volunteers and media for months on end, and all the dollars pumped in for advertising); and, in the case of Iowa, instant converts to ethanol who, before they started running, opposed it. (E.g.: ‘McCain’s farm flip: The senator has been a critic of ethanol. That doesn’t play in Iowa. So the Straight Talk Express has taken a detour.’) 4. Not all 50 states can go first. 5. It wouldn’t work for the Party Chairman just to make up a new system (‘Bang, here’s what we’re going to do’) – the Party is governed by by-laws. And even if all the 30-day notices and committees votes and such could be ignored, it would be a bad idea. The only way people can feel at least reasonably good about not being chosen to go first is if they have been part of a lengthy and thoughtful process. 6. So it was decided and broadly agreed to that there would be such a process . . . and as part of that process it came to be decided that Iowa and New Hampshire would get to keep their special positions, but that two more ‘early’ states would be added to dilute their impact and provide badly needed diversity. 7. A lot of people think Iowa and New Hampshire still have too great an advantage and that for 2012 we need to go further – perhaps some system that rotates the coveted ‘early state’ slots, and/or some system of regional primaries. There are all kinds of ideas that will be considered for 2012. 8. But for this time it was agreed to add two early states – and every state was invited to apply. 9. Michigan applied but didn’t make the cut, perhaps because, like Iowa and New Hampshire, it is a Northern state – it was the West and South that were glaringly under-represented – and perhaps because it’s pretty big. Michigan has about triple the population of Iowa and seven times the population of New Hampshire. That’s good in terms of diversity – most Americans live in populous states. But, arguably, it’s bad in terms of democracy. The idea is to have the early states be small enough that (a) even a non-billionaire upstart might be able to assemble the resources to compete; and (b) a large proportion of the electorate can actually meet and talk with the candidates face to face for extended, unscripted conversations. 10. Florida didn’t apply. 11. Of those that did apply to jump the February 5 starting gun, Nevada (this coming Saturday) and South Carolina (January 26) were selected. Both are small in population; Nevada is Western and heavily Hispanic; South Carolina is Southern and heavily African-American. 12. Everyone agrees this is not perfect. But everyone also agrees that a game needs rules – how can you have a contest without agreed-upon rules? – and this is what was decided on after an extensive, orderly deliberative process . . . and ratified by the full Democratic National Committee, including its Florida and Michigan members. 13. Part of the new rules called for severe penalties on any state that chose to ‘jump the gun.’ Without penalties, why observe the rules? There’s no practical penalty for modestly exceeding the 55 mile per hour speed limit, so most do. 14. So we adopted our rules, penalties and all. 15. Even knowing the rules (which the Republicans adopted as well) Florida’s legislature passed a bill moving up the Florida Primary to January 29. The assumption seemed to be that the parties wouldn’t dare enforce the rules against Florida, after what we had been through in 2000. (I am a Florida voter, and I promise you that, by a margin of tens of thousands, we went to the polls to elect Al Gore.) But how could the Party not? If we said to all the other states that – after that whole long process we had all agreed to – everyone had to obey the rules except those that didn’t, then other states might jump the gun, too. And indeed, seeing what Florida did, Michigan did, too. 16. It would be nice to blame all this on Karl Rove, and I’m not sure there isn’t something to that. Florida has a Republican Governor and a Republican legislature, and this may have been a diabolical plan to get Democrats fighting with each other and discourage Democratic donors in Florida from supporting the Party . . . or demoralize Florida Democrats to suppress their vote when it really counts, November 4. But it’s harder to blame this on the Republicans when all but one Democratic legislator voted for the bill. And several cosponsored it. 17. Then again, in defense of our legislators, there is this important wrinkle: Attached to the bill moving the primary up to January 29 were provisions to replace unverifiable Florida voting machines with optical-scan paper ballots. So tell me: how, after what happened in 2000, could Democrats vote against verifiable elections? 18. When it became clear the Republicans would not allow the bill to be split in two – one for verifiable elections, which we all favored, and one for jumping the primary gun – our side introduced an amendment to the bill, moving the primary up (it was held March 5 in 2004) but only to February 5, as prescribed by DNC (and RNC) rules. 19. Every Democrat voted for that amendment, every Republican, against. So the DNC was certainly sympathetic to the mess, and offered to pay for a face-saving primary of some kind to be held on or after February 5. But a full primary costs a fortune, which the DNC didn’t have; and the mini-version that was offered, with relatively few polling places, was felt by the Florida Party to be impractical – how could we tell our constituents we had protected their vote when so many would not physically be able to get to the polling places? So it’s hard to blame the Florida Party for not going along with this, much as I wish some compromise or solution could have been found. 20. So now here you are: I am making you Chairman of the DNC. What do you do? Do you say, ‘To heck with the By-Laws. Sue me – I hereby chose to disregard our Party by-laws and supersede the agreed-upon rules. But only for Florida. Well, okay, and Michigan. But nobody else!’ (Actually, the DNC was sued – for enforcing its rules. The suit was thrown out.) When I asked people this question back when there was still time to act on a brilliant solution, no one had one. It’s just an unfortunate situation. The two hopes are: One or another of our fine Democratic candidates will win the nomination by enough of a margin that the primary votes in Florida and Michigan would not have affected the outcome. At which point you invite all the Florida and Michigan delegates to come to Denver for the Convention as honored – non-voting – delegates. No one cares, because their vote wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. (On the Republican side, it’s ‘winner take all,’ so a state the size of Florida could swing the nomination. On our side, because the delegate selection is proportional, that’s less likely. Florida is supposed to have 241 delegates at the Convention. But if they were fairly evenly split among the front-runners, they would largely cancel each other out.) Come November 4, this is long forgotten. Democrats and Independents and moderate Republicans come out from all over Florida to sweep into office Democrats who want to get our country back on track after nearly eight years of heartbreaking misdirection and incompetence. As lengthy as that explanation is, it doesn’t begin to cover every wrinkle and nuance, many of which I’m sure I don’t know. But I’m confident that the DNC’s Rules and By-Laws Committee, co-chaired by my college classmate Jim Roosevelt (FDR’s estimable grandson) and Alexis Herman (Clinton’s estimable Labor Secretary) were not out to favor one candidate or another, or disadvantage Florida or Michigan. The rules were adopted long before anyone could know who would break them.
If We’re Not Real, Why NOT Give Everyone Health Insurance? January 16, 2008January 5, 2017 THE MINIMUM WAGE I thought all three Democrats were outstanding in last night’s Nevada debate broadcast on MSNBC. Did you see it? One tiny piece of it – three seconds out of two hours – was John Edwards’ comment that the minimum wage, just raised, should be higher still. That got me wondering how the wage today compares with what it was the year, say, I graduated from college. Google . . . google . . . goggle . . . It was $1.60 in 1968, equal to $9.33 in 2006 dollars and nearly $10 today in 2008. Except that it’s not nearly $10 today, it’s $6.50 . . . going to $7.25 September 1. So by September, when that final hike kicks in, the minimum wage will be about 27.5% lower, in real dollars, than it was in 1968. Most know that the Republicans kept the minimum wage frozen at $5.15 for ten years and would have kept it there today if they still controlled the Congress. (‘Good!’ I hear some of you cry.) Less frequently mentioned is that that comparison – the 27.5% drop in real purchasing power come September – is based on an adjustment for price inflation. Based on wage inflation – the increase not in average prices since 1968 but average wages – the working poor have fallen even further behind. Adjusted for wage inflation, the 1968 minimum wage was about $17 in today’s dollars, more than double what it will be in September. This is not to say we could raise it anywhere near that high now. But for those of you who believe, as I know many of you do, that even the hike from $5.15 was bad economics (but that cutting taxes on the rich and eliminating the estate tax on billionheirs is good economics), I thought these comparisons might provide additional perspective. HEALTH INSURANCE Everyone uses the figure of 47 million Americans lacking health insurance. I’m told that’s defined as Americans who had no health insurance at any time during the prior year. Google . . . google . . . google . . . I couldn’t find the passage that must exist somewhere confirming the Census Department question on which this figure is based (I’m told it is something like ‘Were you covered by health insurance at any time during the year’). But even better than Google are the readers of this page, one or two of whom, I hope, may shed light on this. But it may be that more like 90 million Americans lack health insurance either all year long or for part of the year, so, if this is true, my advice to you is: try not to be one of them, or, if you are, to need care. STIMULATION Bob Fyfe: ‘Larry Rosenblum wrote about the possibility of our being ‘nothing more than a simulation being run by some advanced species. … Further, in order to avoid simulations running simulations running simulations, it is likely that the beings running our simulation will terminate it just when we are about to run our own simulations.’ I’m not saying that I believe any of this, but here is my perspective on the possibilities: First, if the species was anything like us (the simulated species it supposedly created), then there would be a great desire to see what would happen if the simulation created its own simulation. That’s just when things begin to get really interesting. So I believe that the probability of the advanced species terminating the simulation at that point would actually be very low. Also, it seems to me that if we are indeed a simulation, and simulations can run their own simulations, that the more likely scenario would be that we would not be the ‘first’ simulation, the original created by the ‘real’ species, but rather that we would be a rather mundane middle-of-the-pack simulation, created by some other simulation. Assuming that we are the “original” simulation is akin to believing that the Earth is at the center of the solar system or that the sun is different from the other stars. In reality our solar system is just an average star in an average spiral galaxy and in a simulated environment where simulations can create their own simulations, the odds are that we would again be just average.’ ☞ If we’re just a simulation, how do you explain true love? (Oh, okay – can’t you be even a little romantic?)
Snow Day January 15, 2008March 25, 2012 It’s snowing wicked in Boston. I’m taking a snow day in sympathy. Look for me on the beach. (Don’t forget to file your fourth quarterly estimated taxes today, if you’re required to.) See you tomorrow if we get dug out.
And Here You Thought You Were Real January 14, 2008March 10, 2017 VIRTUALLY CIVILIZED Larry Rosenblum: ‘Thanks for your recommendation about Kurzweil. I listened to the program and found it very enjoyable. I think he’s probably right about technology, but, like so many other technophiles, he apparently slept through history class. I came across an interesting web page recently, related to the astounding computing power we will have in the future. It is a paper by an Oxford philosopher. The nickel summary is this: pretty soon, we will have the technology to run a computer simulation of a civilization (he uses our ancestors as a likely scenario). Given that, there is a possibility that we, in fact, are nothing more than a simulation being run by some advanced species. (Interesting possibilities about what religion means in that scenario.) Further, in order to avoid simulations running simulations running simulations, it is likely that the beings running our simulation will terminate it just when we are about to run our own simulations. He suspects that will happen around 2050.’ ☞ So . . . Second Life but not Third Life? HAPN DISAPPEARS But only because it’s changed its symbol from HAPN to INHI (and its name to Infusystems Holdings, Inc.). The stock has done badly, down from nearly $6 to $4, but our warrants are still fine (we first bought them around 32 cents when the stock was $5.80; now they’re 35 cents) and give us the right to buy the stock at $5 any time until 2011. As measured by options models, they continue to be undervalued – and, still, highly speculative. I hold mine knowing they could go to zero, but hoping they might – might! – go to $3. Bloomberg shows a large short interest in the stock – more than 6 million shares – which at first blush suggests some smart people are convinced it will fail. But maybe not. Maybe they don’t have a clue how the company will do, but see an opportunity to make an interesting bet. Let’s say you had purchased the warrants at 25 cents and later shorted the stock at $4.75. Where would you stand? You’ve locked in a $4.50 gain if the company fails and the stock goes to zero ($4.75 on your short less the 25 cent cost of the warrants); but are exposed to a maximum loss of just 50 cents if the stock goes to the moon (because all but 50 cents of what you lose on your short you would make back on the warrant.) Heads you win $4.50; tails you lose 50 cents (well, worst case, 75 cents, if when you close your position the stock is exactly $5). So unlike a normal heavily shorted stock, where a lot of people feel really confident the company is doomed in some way (or else why take so much risk?) . . . with this trade they don’t have to be that confident (because the risk is much smaller). Indeed, the sophisticated short-sellers get paid interest on their short positions, so in the three years they might wait for this to play out, they stand to make even more if the stock goes down or lose even less if it goes up. (Note that this tactic was more attractive to execute when the stock was around $5 than it is now that the stock is at $4.) Or say you’re a big player with 1,000,000 warrants you paid 30 cents for and you short only 300,000 shares of the stock at $4.50. If the stock drops to 50 cents, you make $4 on each of the 300,000 shares you shorted – $1,200,000 – less the $300,000 that you paid for the 1,000,000 warrants. If, instead, the stock jumps to $8, you make $3 million on your warrants (exercising them at $5 and selling the stock at $8) and lose only $1 million or so on your short. So: heads you make $900,000, tails you make $2 million. (If the stock rises to $5 and stays exactly there, you lose the $300,000 that your warrants cost plus $150,000 on the short sale. This combined $450,000 loss is the worst possible scenario you face. So I guess it’s heads you make $900,000, tails you make $2 million, edge you lose $450,000.) I run through all this to suggest why it’s possible some large smart investors have shorted 6 million shares of INHI. Especially when the stock was higher, there were some interesting strategies to be pursued this way. . . not necessarily because they felt sure the stock would do badly; just because they could set up a bet with good odds. That said, there are few free lunches in the market, and all the above suggests to me that it will be hard for the stock to get much above $5. Because as it gets into that range, it becomes more attractive for warrant-holders to sell short more shares to set up these bets. So for the next three years the stock could trade at or somewhat below or just a bit above $5 – with our warrants expiring worthless – only to see the stock do quite well in the months following the expiration of the warrants, once the incentive to execute these short-selling strategies disappears, and once the company has received a large influx of cash from all the people who paid the company $5 a share to exercise their warrants, thereby to cover their short sales. Then again, we could get lucky, and some big mutual fund or three could look at the company’s progress (if it should make good progress) and decide the stock is worth a lot of money, and buy a few million shares each. That could be enough to absorb any further short-selling and actually push the price of the stock up. I am not holding my breath; but, at 35 cents, I am holding my warrants.
Checking on Your Mutual Fund with Your iPhone from Costa Rica January 11, 2008January 5, 2017 FUND PLUNGE John A McInnis: ‘I wonder if you could clear up something for me and your other readers. A few weeks ago I was unpleasantly surprised to see that one of the funds I own in my retirement account, Oakmark International (OAKIX), had dropped 18% in one day. Since then I noticed a number of other funds I own have had precipitous one day drops. I have been told that this has something to do with the year-end capital gains distribution that these funds make, but I thought that the capital gains distribution was only a bookkeeping convention designed to let the IRS get its hands on gains I have not actually gotten my hands on yet. I’ve owned these funds for several years and this has not happened in the past. So, two questions: What the hell is going on here? And . . . am I screwed?’ ☞ You are not screwed. Indeed, given the tough stock market of late, your funds were wise to take some profits last year. Either the fund sent all that cash (18% of your holding) to your retirement account, or else (if you signed up for dividend reinvestment) used it to buy you more fund shares. iPHONE REBOOT TRICK A while back, I gave the iPhone mixed reviews. Update: It’s not cheap, and the Blackberry (which I also carry) is still much better for email, but c’mon: the thing is pretty great. I leave to others comprehensive reviews, but just wanted to mention three things: Visual voice-mail, as it’s called, shows you a list of the people who’ve called (by name, if they’re in your address book, or else by number) so that you can listen, call back, or delete in any order you want. No more calling a voice mail number, punching in codes, and then listening to, ‘You have . . . three . . . new messages and . . . six . . . old messages. To play new messages, press Pound Two’ . . . and then pressing #2 and being told, ‘You have three new messages. First new message, recorded today, at 5:35pm’ . . . and then finally hearing the first message, which you don’t need to hear anyway because you already talked to that caller. And so on. (Wish list: I don’t see a way to forward a voice mail to another number. That would be nice. Say Marie called and you wanted Charles to hear her message, too. Why not be able to tap ‘forward’ and then select Charles from your favorites?) Earbuds, as they’re called, plug in to the iPhone and let you listen to music and/or talk while the phone is in your pocket (or as you look through your email or check the weather or your stocks). I was slow to try this, focusing on potential cord-tangle and all manner of other vague concerns. But it’s really great. There you are listening to the life of Alexander Hamilton or the soundtrack from Across the Universe, totally lost in thought, speed-walking through the Pentagon (or someplace) . . . and suddenly (except what’s so elegant is that it’s not sudden or abrupt) the book or music fades and you hear your phone ringing. (You’d swear it’s actually ringing, and that everyone else can hear it too.) If you like, you can glance at the iPhone to see who’s calling; or you can just take a chance and take the call no matter who it is – which you do simply by squeezing a little bubble on one of the two earphone wires, around chin level. You have your conversation and then just squeeze again to ‘hang up’ – at which point your book or soundtrack fades back in exactly where you left off. It works amazingly well. (Wish list: how about a second ‘bubble’ that lets you run the song or book back or forward without having to pull the iPhone from your pocket?) If you encounter a problem with your phone, there may be a simple solution I had not been aware of. You can ‘reboot’ it, much as you’d reboot your laptop, by pressing and holding two things at once for about 15 seconds: the ‘home’ button, center bottom on the front, and the ‘sleep’ button on the top edge. I don’t know whether rebooting would have fixed the problem with my first iPhone that I had to exchange for a new one – probably not, as I assume the Apple folks tried that before agreeing to the exchange. But the other day, for the first time ever in several months of fairly heavy use, the iPhone ‘froze.’ Rebooting this way quickly got me back up and running with no loss of data. COLD ENOUGH FOR YOU? A year ago I threw propriety to the wind and touted a ‘resortlet’ that a couple of friends and I were building in Costa Rica, inviting you to click paradisebreezes.com to see it. A year later, it’s up and running and our guests seem to have enjoyed themselves. (My partners swear all the guest comments since June have been included on the web site. This policy may change if we ever get a bad one.) I’ve been shy about further touting it, in part because expensive vacations in Costa Rica are no way to grow your net worth. Better to plan a quiet week at home sleeping late and reading good books . . . In part because it’s a little embarrassing to be touting one’s own self-interest . . . And in part because I really want zero liability, legal or even just emotional, in case you go and get bitten by a snake or you slip and fall on the tile floor (dry your feet before you come in from the pool!) or, misjudging the distance, you plunge your rental car over the unguarded side of the very steep driveway – or, for that matter, rattle your brains out on the still-not-finished gravel road from the local airport. Or fall through one of the soon-to-be-replaced but still horrifyingly unsafe bridges along that road. (By next winter, the road should be like any country road in Connecticut.) Or are laid low by food poisoning; suffer a broken vertebra from a too-vigorous massage; are swept out to sea; or get buried in a mudslide. None of these things is likely, but it is both cheaper and safer to stay home. That said, the customer comments have been gratifying. In no time, you could be shooing monkeys off the deck of your four-bedroom villa overlooking the Pacific (complete with broadband that often works and flat screen TVs) . . . bird-watching in a wildlife refuge less than two miles away . . . riding horseback to a waterfall, surfing in nearby Dominical, or snorkeling through nearby coral reefs, whitewater rafting, sportfishing, zip-lining* . . . or just getting a massage out by your private infinity pool. * My partners and I have divergent marketing philosophies. ‘Zip-lining,’ I wrote, ‘involves a tremendously strenuous climb to the canopy of the rain forest, where you are hooked onto a wire – that could break, for crying out loud – to ‘zip’ from tree to tree, easy prey for whatever lives up there that wants to bite you, sting you, or peck yours eyes out. Are you out of your mind?’ This description was revised to: ‘Climb to a height of over 100 feet with your English-speaking guide and savor the beauty of this rare and awe-inspiring natural resource, while perched on the canopy of one of the primary rainforest’s ancient trees. Once you’ve had the time to observe the rainforest’s exotic birds and wildlife, you’ll fly from treetop to treetop, adding even more excitement to your adventure!’ If you go, I wish you a great time – but I wash my hands of the whole thing. (As for taking children – are you out of your mind?)
My Politics in 30 Seconds January 10, 2008March 10, 2017 PROGRESSIVE – AND PROUD OF IT Click here for the case in 30 seconds. STRESS Orval Gwinn: ‘I have twice, several years apart, had the test. Both times the results were ‘equivocal’ and the second time an exploratory angiogram was recommended, with immediate angioplasty, stent, or bypass operation depending on findings. I declined. Instead, despite warnings of fatal consequences, I started a very low fat vegetarian diet, following Dr. Dean Ornish’s book about reversing heart disease. In one month I was OK. In 6 months I felt better than I had for years. After two years my GP finally reversed his death sentence and told me I had made the right decision. Get the Ornish book. Even if you do not have heart disease, it is a fascinating story, written by a brilliant, sort of quirky Cardiologist.’ ☞ And here is his latest, just published. THE WIRE George Berger: ‘I haven’t heard you mention The Wire. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing ‘surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America,’ per Slate. There are four seasons available on dvd, so they should help get you through some of the writers strike.’ ☞ Also: HBO On Demand.
Dealing with the Stress of the Strike All I Wanted for Christmas Were My Writers Back January 9, 2008March 10, 2017 THE STRESS TEST First they shave enough of your chest to stick on eight additional nipples (only these are metal), to which wires will later be snapped as if you were an amplifier feeding the examining room’s surround-sound speakers. ‘No one told me anything about chest-shaving,’ I said, not thrilled, listening to Chapter 61 of David Baldacci’s The Collectors on my iPhone (which I’ve decided I really like). Then someone else comes to hook up an I.V. in the back of your hand, through which to inject a nuclear isotope. ‘No one told me anything about an I.V.,’ I said, my blood pressure reaching 130 over 84, trying to concentrate on Jerry Bagger, who had just had one of his goons throw the hooker out the window of Tony’s hotel room. Then, once you’ve got the Geiger Counter all staticky, the doctor comes in and starts the treadmill at a gentle incline, ramps up the speed a bit, then a bit more, all the while watching the little earthquake printout they call an E.K.G. Then you go with a lab tech to lie under some kind of machine that takes 12 minutes of pictures of your radioactive heart, during which Oliver and Annabelle (who has no idea Bagger has caught up with Tony and now knows her identity) abduct Trent to exchange for Shaw (all the while planning to retrieve Trent so that he might be hanged for treason). Then – if you’re lucky, as I was – the doctor comes back and tells you you have the heart of a 20-year old, takes your blood pressure one more time (100 over 60), and sends you on your way. Before I left, we spent a minute discussing stress, and he imparted a bit of medical wisdom I had not heard before: ‘Really, it’s not what you eat that matters so much as what’s eating you.’ THE WRITERS’ STRIKE How many times can you watch the ‘big salad’ episode of Seinfeld? (Answer: 14. After that, it begins to get old.) I really, really want this strike to end. Yet the current betting, according to a couple of folks on the edges of the negotiation whom we met over New Year’s, is . . . June. That’s when the actors might go on strike too, and management will really get serious about coming to terms. Yesterday, I suggested that income inequality, if it got out of hand, could be a bad thing; but that just how wide that inequality had to be to be ‘out of hand’ was open to legitimate debate. Picking up on that prelude . . . Andy Long: ‘I have to admit I cringe every time I hear or read about someone talk about economic fairness. In the entire history of the world, there has probably been no more than 15 or 20 minutes of economic fairness. Total. ‘Fairness’ is a euphemism for ‘I want more of your money.’ If the writers want a bigger piece of the future pie, fine but it’s not a question of fairness, it’s a question of coming to an agreement about a price at which they are willing to provide their labor and the price that management is willing to pay for it. As for the fairness or unfairness of the expired agreement, my basic position is that if writers thought the prior agreement was fair when they signed it (and I assume they did, no one forced them to sign it [except that maybe their rent was due or their kids needed to eat? – A.T.]) then that agreement was fair throughout its life, regardless of how it turned out. Finally, isn’t it amazing how often the writers bring up Fraser, I Love Lucy and Everybody Loves Raymond. Nobody ever brings up I Dream of Sheldon or My Favorite Cockroach or any of the other unsuccessful shows where the writers got paid for the script and the producers made zero. How many writers have offered to return their fees when a pilot crapped out? I understand that writers are angry that they are the lowest rung on the movie/TV show ladder but that’s because they’re the most easily replaced.’ Chris: Petersen: ‘I don’t know how to feel about the writer’s strike. At least Ken Levine gets 19 cents from American Airlines. I design products for a living. When my products are sold and used, I get nothing. There are plenty of people out there that get nothing when their work is used. So I don’t feel that Ken or the other writers are entitled to payments long after they have finished their job unless they have assumed financial risk.’ Jeff Cox: ‘While granting that 19 cents is a ridiculously small check for anything and also granting that Mr. Levine wrote television that is better than most, the overall quality of television is so bad that I would still favor leaving the writers on strike forever.’ Hats off to (writer) James Surowiecki of The New Yorker for this lucid perspective on the writer’s strike – and the dynamics of strikes generally. It concludes: . . . [S]trikes . . . often turn more on questions of fairness than on strict economics. Fairness doesn’t matter much in conventional economics, which assumes that, if you and I can make a deal leaving us both better off, we’ll make it. But, in the real world, if the deal seems unfair to me I may very well reject it, even if doing so leaves me worse off. The quintessential example of this is the so-called ultimatum game, where participants offered a share of a ten-dollar bill by a fellow-participant will actually turn down the free money if they think their share isn’t big enough. In the same way, a capuchin monkey who’s being rewarded for working with another monkey will often refuse to participate if she sees her partner get a better reward. And in a series of experiments run by the economists Simon Gaechter and Ernst Fehr people prove willing to pay in order to punish those who act unfairly. Readiness to pay a price in order to enforce an idea of what is right is part of what keeps sides from settling: writers accept the loss of paychecks because they believe they deserve a cut of the revenue from their work, and producers accept the loss of business because they believe that TV shows and movies are their property. The paychecks and the profit-and-loss statements may indicate that the writers and the producers should be able to resolve their dispute quickly. But in labor relations the bottom line isn’t always the bottom line. ☞ Remember Michael Ovitz, who left Disney after a year with a $140 million settlement a few years ago? Well, management and boards of directors understand: talent is expensive. His contract was the product of a negotiation. That’s all the writers are doing, and for what I would guess will amount to a lot less than $140 million for all of them combined. (As I understand it, the writers want 2.5% of the income from Internet downloads of their stuff, leaving 97.5% for everyone else.) Some believe there is a certain talent required in writing a TV show capable of delighting millions of people – not that anyone would argue it rises to the level of talent you’ll find in the executive suite. Arguably, the writers are doing no more or less than Ovitz did in negotiating his contract with Disney; and Disney, et al, should be just as tough in looking out for the shareholders’ interest as they were in negotiating Ovitz’s contract. Which I would argue was not so very tough at all.
I’m Radioactive! January 8, 2008March 10, 2017 No, seriously. As you read this, I will be scurrying like a hamster, with some kind of nuclear pellet inside me to make my heart glow – a ‘stress test’ – the thought of which, just hours away, has me only mildly stressed. What has me very stressed is not being allowed to eat. I graze; so suddenly shutting off my natural flow of clover for twelve hours is a thud to my cud. And the notion of actually having to be someplace at nine in the morning – not just awake, mind you, but clothed and physically elsewhere – let’s just say I need to go to sleep immediately. But that I have found ‘urgent sleeping’ to be as unlikely as winning a bet when you actually need to. Plus, who can sleep when, finally, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are back on the air? Which brings me to the writers’ strike. But, first, the writer’s strike brings me to: THE GINI INDEX Imagine a society where one citizen makes all the income and all the others, none. Such a society would have a Gini Index of 100 – whereas the Gini Index of a society where everyone had equal income would be 0. According to this (which does not account for the last few years of increased U.S. income inequality) we are at 45 . . . significantly more egalitarian than Namibia (71) or Bolivia (61), but significantly less so than Sweden (25), France (27), Germany (28), Holland (31), Switzerland (33), the U.K. (37), India (33), Canada (33), Australia (35), Israel (39) or Ghana (30). Equality of income is not, per se, a good thing. Indeed, it is likely to be a bad thing, because it removes incentives that spur productivity, prosperity, and feed the happiness that comes from dreaming and then, oft-times progressing toward that dream (if only with the pay raises that accompany seniority). But when things get too unequal, people get angry. At just what level, and in what circumstances, that anger is justified, or becomes dangerous, is open to differing points of view. Case in point: the writers are getting angry, while the TV executives – and some of you – don’t see it as justified. I have to go to sleep now, but come back tomorrow for some thoughts (mostly yours) on the writers’ strike. * WA-MOOPS Needless to say, I feel terrible having suggested this one to you, and FMD as well. My hope is that both will recover – but it’s by no means guaranteed. Here is an encouraging assessment of WM, posted a couple of weeks ago before the dividend was cut from 56 cents to 15 cents.
Winning the Popular Vote January 7, 2008March 10, 2017 TWO MOVIES Just a reminder not to miss Charlie Wilson’s War. And now – also based on a true story – The Great Debaters. I’d tell you more, but my favorite thing is to go to a movie and NOT know what it’s about. IMPARTIALITY John Bakke: ‘The Corrente essay you linked to Friday is an interesting read, albeit unpersuasive. But it really appears to me as though you are pointing readers to it under entirely false pretenses, ‘enthusiastically neutral’ notwithstanding. It’s equivalent to push-polling.’ ☞ You’re right. It was an error in judgment. I linked to it because I thought it was really interesting. But – as it does, clearly, have a point of view that disfavors one of the candidates – I shouldn’t have done it. (And have removed it.) I remain enthusiastically neutral among all our fine Democratic candidates. Speaking of whom . . . AN ENCOURAGING WAY TO LOOK AT IOWA James Musters and others: Total Iowa Voter Turnout (approximate) 356,000 Percentage of total vote: 24.5% Obama 20.5% Edwards 19.8% Clinton 11.4% Huckabee S/HE WHO GETS THE MOST VOTES WINS? Now, THERE’S a Novel Idea There’s one good thing about the Electoral College. Imagine a recount – tough enough to do for a single state, but imagine, in a very close election, having to do it for the entire nation. Not a trivial concern, I think, especially when we still haven’t secured our voting machines (see yesterday’s Sunday Times Magazine cover story). Still, Maryland just passed a law that would – once enough other states to total 270 electoral votes had passed similar legislation – assign its votes in the Electoral College to the candidate who won the national popular vote. A clever end run around the current system. Click here for details. KRISTOL James Hickel: ‘Slate offers this article advertised as, ‘The Left Needs to Shut Up About Bill Kristol’s New Column.’ In my opinion, the willingness of the New York Times to hire one of its own worst critics as a columnist is one of the reasons why it is probably the greatest newspaper in the English-speaking world.’
The Recycled Industrial Mesh that Holds Up Our Pouf (Whatever Pouf Is) January 5, 2008March 10, 2017 Oops. See February 5 — for this column.