Tease Your Brain Into Buying a Boat – the Ultimate Element of Ruin September 16, 2009March 16, 2017 60 SECOND BRAIN GAME This 60-second game take about three minutes to learn and then complete. It’s a teaser to interest you in sharpening your brain fitness – not that you seem in any way slow to me. Full disclosure: as long-time readers know, I own a sliver of the company that makes these products (and sells them with a 90-day money-back guarantee). The truth is, if my own brain were fitter, I’d have remembered to post these next two items late last month, when they were freshly responsive. (As you may recall, I had said something dismissive about speedboats, which led to a little nautical banter . . . and, separately, we had been talking about “how to know how much to bet,” which led to a book recommendation. Sound familiar? No? Well, here they are anyway, three weeks delayed.) DON’T BUY A BOAT Bill B: “Speaking of boats . . . reading your chapter on what to do if you inherit a million, or better yet, two (fortunately I did!), and advised, emphatically, ‘Do not buy a boat.’ For me, no further explanation was necessary, as I have been around boats all my life, and know how expensive and maintenance extensive they are. . . . In spite of your advice, I bought a boat! It has been a joy to live aboard my 56-foot motor yacht for the past twelve years, and I wouldn’t have missed it. But, alas, your words come back to haunt me when I am writing checks to maintain, insure, and pay slip rent for it. I figure it is at LEAST twice as expensive as living ashore comfortably, but I am stuck on the lifestyle even though it is vastly more expensive than even I imagined. I jokingly advise friends who have large boats to never add up all the costs, for they will want to sell immediately. When I tell people I live on a boat they almost always comment what a relief it must be not to have to pay property taxes. Believe me, I would much rather pay property taxes! . . . I do not regret the decision I made years ago. The pleasures of boating are well worth the cost as long as you can afford it comfortably. Lately, however, I have been keeping a close eye on my (floating) housing budget. One thing I did not consider when I purchased the boat is what a letdown it will probably be to move ashore again. I try to discourage my nieces and nephews from becoming too fond of boats.” PLAY MONEY Stephen Willey: “Until we were barred in 1979 from Resorts International, Bally’s Park Place and Caesars in Atlantic City, I used to play blackjack with the late Ken Uston and others. He, you might already know, was a stock trader and vice-president of the Pacific Stock Exchange before becoming a full time card counter. Anyway, Edward O. Thorp from MIT [the subject of the book you recommended, Fortune’s Formula] was indeed the grandfather of counting and his theories were further developed by Stanford Wong (not real name), Lawrence Revere and Ken Uston. One of the most critical concepts was called the ‘element of ruin’ factor which we continuously needed to calculate as our bankrolls fluctuated in order to determine our maximum bet size. Despite our advantage over the house in the long run, if we bet too much, we still might end up bankrupt if short run fluctuations went against us. What we called the ‘element of ruin factor’ is what you call ‘playing with money you can truly afford to lose.’ ”
How Network News Fails Us But first . . . September 15, 2009March 16, 2017 …(third estimated tax payment due today)… here’s the form MOVIES Fun, fun, fun: Inglorious Basterds (if you’re not more than normally horrified by violence), In the Loop (if you don’t mind laughing until you hurt), Taking Woodstock (if you lived through the Sixties). BOOKS Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America by Helen Thorpe. Not their fault that their parents entered the U.S. illegally. Yet the author does come to understand, if not share, the views of Tom Tancredo, the former Congressman and 2008 Presidential candidate who would deport millions of illegals (and does not accept Darwin’s theory of evolution). Malcolm Gladwell says “Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature.” Read a review here. PARS Well, you win some and you lose some. Yesterday, it was announced that PARS’s drug failed to beat the placebo. The stock – that I had hoped might hit $2 or $4 or even $6 – dropped from the 29 cents where I first suggested it in July, let alone the 41 cents or so where I continued to suggest it, to 18 cents yesterday. Better than zero, but then it’s only Tuesday. The little basket of three baby drug stocks I suggested someone might bet on with money she could truly afford to lose has failed to make us in any way rich. AVNR did report marginally good results that briefly doubled its stock – but it fell back too fast for many to take big gains and is now a little lower than when we started. My guru is unexcited by its prospects. JAV failed to score and the stock dropped a bit, but has some other stuff in the pipeline. We’re holding on. If you had put $1,000 into each of these three, you’d probably have about $2,000 now, unless you were nimble with the AVNR, and all I can say is that – having bought more than $1,000 worth of PARS myself – I’m sorry it didn’t work out. That said, it was nice to see BZ up tenfold, and the BZ warrants up 24-fold, since being suggested last October (after having previously been suggested much higher, so only on the last purchases would you be sitting on these gains) . . . and to see the NAQ warrants close at 90 cents, up from 27 cents as noted August 11 (again, having been purchased previously at higher prices). But in case you can no longer truly afford to lose whatever funds you may have been playing with here – sell. And even assuming it remains play money, it’s always a good idea to sell enough so that, from here on, you’re essentially playing with “the house’s money.” BLAME THE MEDIA Things were different when my friend Bryan Norcross was running the news department of a network-affiliate decades ago. Were the news still reported today as it was back then, 70% of Republicans would not have believed Iraq attacked us on 9/11. And only a true lunatic fringe would have believed “that Barack Obama is a noncitizen brought here by people who hate this country and had the foresight to plant a birth notice in a Hawaiian newspaper 48 years ago, just in case they ever needed it” (to quote Gail Collins’ wonderful column). I asked Bryan to elaborate for us: JOURNALISM HAS LEFT THE BUILDING By Bryan Norcross This past Saturday’s network TV news programs led with coverage of the protests in Washington earlier that day. Each network’s story – handled by seasoned reporters – was substantially a compilation of inflammatory statements by people in the street and behind the podium. The accuracy of the statements was not important in determining which ideas were included. If you were provocative or clever, you got on TV. One guy’s complaint was about the “communism that’s in Washington, DC.” A woman on CBS said that the president’s “agenda is actually to destroy this country.” A guy from New York blamed Obama for Chrysler’s pulling his Jeep franchise. A woman was upset about the Muslims in the government (a clip deleted from the online version of the story). Senator DeMint from South Carolina misquoted the president. The problem is this: people expressing inflammatory and provocative opinions, and making mostly inaccurate statements is NOT news. Even worse, replacing real news coverage of the rally with a compilation of vitriolic personal sentiments is detrimental to viewers’ understanding of the complex issues facing the nation. The protest march would have been an excellent opportunity to shed light on the reasons the people interviewed were boiling over with emotion, fear, and mistrust. Did their fear come out of zealotry, ideology, or simply misinformation? Wouldn’t a discussion about the man’s fear of communism make good TV? Where do ideas like that come from? Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on the rich? If so, Eisenhower was an extreme example of a communist president. What did the guy who lost the Jeep franchise think would have happened if Chrysler had simply died without the government-led bankruptcy process? I would like to know. Maybe he has a point, but maybe he doesn’t. We’ll never know because the stories didn’t cover the cause of the fire, just the flames. In fact, from these reports, we don’t even know what’s burning. There is no doubt that crazy people saying crazy things makes good television. Sane people saying inflammatory, provocative things can also be good television. Both belong on the Leno show, not the evening news without follow up and explanation. Art Linkletter had a segment in his show decades ago called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” What the kids said wasn’t news either. In the cases above, a reporter challenging the statements about communism, the Chrysler bailout, or the Muslims in government, to understand the root of those opinions, would have made good television too, and it would have been enlightening. Dealing with the depth of the emotion on both sides of the issues of the day is, in some ways, as important as the issues themselves. Thirty years ago I was a news manager during a time of major change in the local news business. We dressed up the presentations, picked up the pace, added stories on a wider range of topics, had great ratings success, and made the mature journalists of the era extremely nervous. In time, however, even the most seasoned reporters came around to the understanding that style and substance can coexist in the same news presentation. Adding production values did not compromise the fairness, completeness, and accuracy of the news. Good storytelling can include a dash of spice, as long as it doesn’t confuse or mislead the viewer. We learned that some production or story-telling techniques produced a more visceral response in news viewers. People better remember and attach more value to stories that keep them interested. It’s an attribute of humans that can be exploited when news stories are crafted, but there is no requirement that completeness and accuracy be abandoned when these modern production values are employed. Unfortunately, news coverage today has too often degenerated, as Saturday’s network stories demonstrated, into all production, no content. The marchers’ aggressive assertions of opinion and emotion were not leveraged to illuminate a complex subject, but instead, solely to create a visceral viewer reaction – exactly what the capital-J journalists of the 70’s were afraid of. When Walter Cronkite ended his newscasts with, “and that’s the way it is,” he meant, “you now have knowledge of, understanding of, and perspective on the issues we presented, to the best of our ability.” Perspective being the most important, and the missing ingredient in Saturday’s reporting. Without perspective, a journalist’s story can be true, but can never be accurate. Any news report that concentrates on the shrillest voices, by definition, lacks the perspective necessary to paint an accurate picture of the events or the issues involved. Cronkite would have covered the 20 screaming people at an event involving thousands; but if they were crazy, he would have said so. The only institution in our society that can inform the uninformed, correct misimpressions, clarify complex topics, and provide a forum for honest and responsible debate is the media. Even we neo-journalists of the 70’s felt the weight of that responsibility. Many news organizations of today have gone off the road . . . and must find their way back. Only our country is at stake. Bryan Norcross President & CEO – America’s Emergency Network Former Senior News Producer and News Director
A 12-Year-Old’s Massive Stroke And How We'll Pay for It All September 14, 2009March 16, 2017 REAL ESTATE INDICATOR A friend just bought a home on Miami Beach. It sold for $1.2 million in 2007. He and his partner paid $280,000. I would guess the bottom for that particular home has been reached. MEDICARE FOR ALL Writing in yesterday’s Washington Post, George McGovern asks: “We know that Medicare has worked well for half a century for those of us over 65. Why does it become ‘socialized medicine’ when we extend it to younger Americans?” DOCS FOR REFORM Last summer, pediatrician Alex Blum wrote eloquently of his work to help elect Obama. Now, in this LA Times op-ed, he writes of a 12-year-old who arrived in his emergency room having suffered a massive – preventable – life-ruining stroke, and urges passage of the President’s health plan. HEALTH CARE IN WISE, VIRGINIA Every summer, Governor (and DNC Chair) Tim Kaine goes with his wife to visit the Wise health fair in the Southwest corner of Virginia. It gets bigger every year as the word spreads. This year, he says, he counted license plates from 16 states. People sleep in their cars, waiting all week to begin signing up Friday for free medical, dental, and optical care. The care is all volunteer (as described here) – a program like the ones they do in Africa. Governor Kaine tells of seeing all this and wondering what country we are living in. He really wants to see Congress pass the President’s plan. Bob Dole wants to see us take action as well. Remember former Senate Minority leader and 1996 Presidential candidate Bob Dole? Who helped kill the Clinton health care bill? As New York Times reported Saturday: When former Senator Bob Dole was the Republican minority leader, he helped deep-six President Bill Clinton’s health care plan. This year, Mr. Dole, 86, who left the Senate in 1996 to run for president, is working behind the scenes to help resurrect one. His motivation comes partly from experience. After his body was shattered during World War II, he underwent seven operations in veterans hospitals and three years of rehabilitation. “I had good treatment and it’s probably why I’m still around,” he said in an interview. He has been working on the issue since the 1970s, and admits now that “we probably should have passed the Clinton bill, but it got so politicized.” It seems he got a memo from Bill Kristol advising that allowing the reform to pass would kill his chances. It was just more important to defeat Clinton than to provide coverage to the millions of uninsured. Now, for so many, the key thing is to defeat Obama. So they come up with all kinds of truly crazy things (communism! Nazism!) . . . and other things not crazy, just untrue, designed to confuse and concern. (I heard Texas Senator John Cornyn on TV Saturday morning talking about the “trillions” the Obama plan would add to the deficit and hours later found myself on the same flight, from Austin to Dallas, only a few feet away. If we had been sitting together, it would have been a lively conversation. The Obama plan will not add to the deficit, let alone “trillions” – see below.) THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN Here it is (with a little copy-editing on my part): If You Have Health Insurance, the President’s Plan: Prevents insurance companies from dropping you when you get sick. Caps out-of-pocket expenses so you don’t go broke when you do get sick. Eliminates charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests. Eliminates the “donut-hole” gap in coverage for prescription drugs. If You Don’t Have Insurance, the President’s Plan: Makes it available even if you have a pre-existing condition. Creates a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – so you can compare plans and buy insurance at “group rates.” Helps low-income citizens pay for it. Offers new, low-cost coverage through a national “high risk” pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created. For All Americans, the President’s Plan: Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront. Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized. Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.<?b> Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system. Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine. Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform. HOW DO WE PAY FOR IT? There are two big costs: insuring the uninsured; improving benefits. Some of that cost we already bear – emergency room treatment that we already provide the uninsured. That cost is not added, just shifted (and perhaps reduced by handling it more sensibly). How do we pay for the rest? First, by wringing inefficiencies out of the system – see the three bold-faced items above. We devote more than 16% of our GDP to health care. None of our industrialized competitors comes even close – yet the health of their people is generally as good as or better than ours. Second, through a new emphasis on preventive care. Consider the 12-year-old boy who arrived at Alex Blum’s emergency room with a massive stroke, as recounted above. He will be a “burden on society” for what could be the next 50 years. If his mother had been able to afford to follow doctor’s orders after his first (mild) stroke, those next 50 years might well have been productive, self-sufficient, and tax-paying. Third, if needed, through taxes. There is nothing sacred about the 15% top marginal tax rate levied on $100 million-a-year hedge fund managers – when their plumbers face marginal rates well over 40% (Federal income tax plus FICA). I know Joe the plumber is desperate to see his hedge fund manager’s tax rate stay low; but does he really speak for all the other plumbers out there? And while this is an extreme example to make the point, the truth is that a very modest increase on taxes at the top – on folks who can really, truly, afford to chip in a little more, as they always used to – would be enough to make up any shortfall that efficiencies could not. But if we’re smart, efficiencies alone will do the trick.
Tough Guys September 11, 2009March 16, 2017 These Republicans are a pretty tough bunch. Who are they? REPUBLICAN GOMORRAH I may not find time to read the book . . . Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (I suffer the curse of the slow reader) . . . but this interview transcript is completely fascinating – mainly, for the backround we didn’t know on the base of today’s Republican Party, and its origins (but also for the number of times the author can insert the title of his book, Republican Gomorrah). THE FAMILY This one, Jeffrey Sharlet’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, I am definitely going to read. Get a taste of it here. Meanwhile, on a more upbeat – and more truly redemptive – note . . . RESCUING JUVENILE DELINQUENTS This lesson from Missouri suggests we truly can do better. Reports CNN: “Young people are really turning their lives around and becoming productive citizens,” said Tim Decker, director of Missouri Division of Youth Services. “We’ve redefined what’s possible in the juvenile justice system.” Learn how they did it.
Maybe It IS A Hammer September 10, 2009March 16, 2017 THE SPEECH I like the idea of guaranteed access to health insurance regardless of any preexisting conditions I may have. And without fear of non-renewal if I should get sick. And without lifetime caps if I should get very sick. I hope we do get a public option. I think the President may have allayed some fears when he explained that it would not be taxpayer subsidized. Here is one way of looking at it – a 51-second pro and con. And on the subject of death panels . . . We already have health care rationing and “death panels” – California’s Real Death Panels: Private Insurers Deny 21% of Claims. We are already denying health care to desperately ill teenagers. (Just so you know.) And now, picking up a couple of threads from yesterday . . . KRUGMAN Don Coffin: “Tom Anthony wrote: ‘A person entered a university planning to study economics. But once he got there and asked about the questions on the exams that he would face, his advisor told him not to worry since the exam questions in economics were the same every year, only the answers changed ….. so the student switched to engineering.’ Speaking as an economist . . . when I was in school we told this joke about psychology.” WHERE’S MINKSY? Don Coffin (again): “On his blog, Krugman has this to say: ‘Some fairly extensive sections had to be taken out – for example, I wanted to include material about Paul Samuelson’s 1948 textbook, which reads very well in the current crisis, but had to cut it. Hyman Minsky also got crowded out. Sorry.’ For what it’s worth, Minsky is about as Keynesian as one can get.” MAYBE IT IS A HAMMER Bill Briggs: “I believe it is a hammer. It looks to me like a long-handled sledge hammer. Also, the end of the handle only comes up to the hip of the man holding it. A shovel handle would be longer. But that does nothing to clarify what the point of this rant is. I guess it is that he takes any art as propaganda if it suits his imagination.” William A. Wood: “It’s all on the Rockefeller Center Web site. There is a detailed analysis of each piece.” ☞ Turns out, according to that web site . . . it’s . . . a . . . SHOVEL. (“One figure holds a shovel, symbolizing industry . . .”) That said, looking at it again (and again and again), I can definitely see what Bill Briggs is saying. A reasonable person – or in this case, Glenn Beck – could definitely see a sledge hammer. Maybe that IS what it is. But for the record, the Soviet hammer and sickle is a distinctive emblem – and it does not include a sledge hammer. But why are we even talking about this? Beck himself says nobody notices this 1937 “propaganda” – so if nobody even notices it, what is his point? Richard Bliss: “My favorite line in his rant: the unnamed Italian artist ‘who did a lot of the art in New York.’ If someone tells Beck that the artist, Attilio Piccirilli, also did the bust of Jefferson in the Rotunda of the Virginia State Capitol, perhaps his head will explode.” Carl Granados: “Is Glenn Beck really crazy? Don’t be so sure. Glenn wants to be number one at Fox. The only way he can do that is by outdoing the other right wing crazies on the network. At stake are additional millions of dollars in yearly salary and the power to affect votes, national dialogue, and get public officials fired for no valid reason. Is this a great country or what?”
Stay In School, Kids: You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Shovel and a Hammer September 9, 2009March 16, 2017 GLENN BECK’S WEIRDEST EVER This video is so odd, so unhinged, so . . . well, it’s one of the strangest rants you’ll ever see. But one thing is clear. A lot of it has to do with a guy “holding a hammer” – Beck points directly at a long-handled shovel, not a hammer, and then you get a close-up of the shovel, which Beck keeps calling a hammer. And because the guy’s holding a hammer (but . . . it’s . . . a . . . shovel) and another guy’s holding a sickle, it must prove that the depression-era art that oil-tycoon Rockefeller commissioned is a precursor to today’s communist/fascist progressives because it’s all “hiding in plain sight” in and around the lobby of NBC. Huh? Zac Bissonnette: “He’s saying that the shovel is like the hammer. ‘Jeff Jones? VAN JONES!! THEY’RE CONNECTED!!!’ It’s just like that. Crazy conspiracy theories based on literally nothing. I just sent that clip to the head of the art history dept here at U. Mass. with the subject line: ‘Glenn Beck, Art Historian.’ I think he will probably blow his brains out.” KRUGMAN – A GUY WALKS INTO A UNIVERSITY . . . Tom Anthony: “Krugman’s Sunday Times Magazine article [linked to yesterday] reminds me of the following story: A person entered a university planning to study economics. But once he got there and asked about the questions on the exams that he would face, his advisor told him not to worry since the exam questions in economics were the same every year, only the answers changed ….. so the student switched to engineering.” KRUGMAN – WHERE’S MINSKY? Michael Axelrod: “This is one of Krugman’s best articles and he does a good job of explaining the conundrum that modern economists are in. Unfortunately what he leaves out is crucial. No discussion whatsoever of Hyman Minsky and his instability hypothesis. While Minsky’s theory is somewhat incomplete, he gets to the heart of the matter – excessive debt and the Ponzi economy which explains what happened both in 1929 and 2008. It was obvious to me as far back as 2006 that we were going to have a Minsky Moment, and of course we did. I pretty much sold everything I had in January 2008 and went into cash and bonds avoiding the debacle (having previously sold my home in 2005 and become a renter). If Krugman disagrees with Minsky, he should tell us why, not ignore him. . . . What is a proper future macro economics going to look like? No one really knows, but I think it will be a dynamic model of some sort along the lines proposed by Steve Keen. I recommend you read Steve Keen’s blog Debtwatch and his book Debunking Economics. Keen did his PhD thesis on Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis and is writing a new book that will come out in 2011. You should also realize that Minksy and Keen are not in any way free market types. Far from it. If you read my link to Minsky you will see that. In any case, future macro won’t be some kind of warmed over Keynes if it is going to have any predictive power.” ☞ So how is Michael deployed today? “Today I am in cash, gold, municipal bonds, some corporate bond funds, and a high dividend paying petroleum fund. So far so good and have done well in the sense of surviving the storm and preserving my capital. Everything I bought in 2008 has gone up in net asset value, and I’m enjoying the double tax free dividends. . . . I have stayed out of stocks, but was tempted back in March to get back in on the basis of Tobin’s Q value for the market. Stocks were cheap. So I missed the rally, but I think we having a bear market rally and another storm will occur. Right now option ARM [mortgages] are resetting and recasting and this could lead to a new wave of mortgages foreclosures. . . . I am considering a re-deployment as I expect significant inflation within a year. This is the big question on the table – when will inflation hit? I have no faith that Bernanke can stand up to the politicians the way Volker did. Ergo inflation. . . . I’m really glad Krugman wrote his article because I hope it will stimulate discussion on foundation questions in economics. Economic theory has failed, and revolutions in thought come out of such failures. Physics hit a crisis about 1900, and we got relativity theory and quantum mechanics as a result. Failure begets progress and makes for interesting times.” THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS TO OUR KIDS In case you missed it: Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event Arlington, Virginia September 8, 2009 Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning. I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning. Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.” So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year. Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility. I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team. And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it. And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork. I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country. Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right. But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez. I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college. Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter. Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try. That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country. The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other. So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Oh, Grow Up A Must-Read from John Mauldin September 7, 2009March 16, 2017 THE PRESIDENT IS SPEAKING – COVER THEIR EARS! Some citizens are upset that the President of the United States will be speaking to the nation’s children tomorrow with the message, “study hard, stay in school.” Really? Would they also want to keep their kids from hearing the Surgeon General urge them not to smoke? Even as these patriotic parents try to protect their kids from the President of the United States, it should be noted that Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 also addressed the nation’s schoolchildren. (Yes, but – in the words of one well-intentioned if spelling-challenged observer – “BUSH and REGAN WERE NOT SOCIALIST.”) Ron Jarrett: “As silliness on the right grows to new heights, I would remind you of these words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: ‘Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.’ ” THE PRESIDENT’S POPULARITY James Musters: “From a blog called They Gave Us A Republic: ‘One of the many ways [the press] misrepresents the popularity of liberal policies in this country is by generalizing poll results. Any ‘disapproval’ of President Obama is assumed to be of his supposed leftists tendencies and coming from the right and center. But now somebody has finally looked at the cross-tab detail and discovered – surprise! – the disapproval is coming from the left, and what they don’t like is his dancing to the [Republican] tune on health care reform.’ ” Okay . . . that’s enough for a holiday Monday – it’s Labor Day! Go outside! Enjoy! But for the agoraphobics in the crowd, here’s more (which I plan to leave up as tomorrow’s column as well, because I do plan to go outside). AL FRANKEN ON HEALTH INSURANCE AT THE STATE FAIR I’m proud of this guy. Watch. HEALTH David Brooks – in his column Friday praising the David Goldhill Atlantic piece linked to here last month (“How American Health Care Killed My Father”) – recommends this just-released and important bi-partisan set of recommendations from the Brookings Institution, “Bending the Curve: Effective Steps to Address Long-Term Health Care Spending Growth.” OH, GROW UP If you don’t understand how our behavior of the last 35 years or so has led us to this pass – or what this pass is – don’t miss John Mauldin’s clear and very human explanation. We are not remotely out of the woods yet. To which I would add: Study hard, stay in school, spend less than you earn, love thy neighbor, eat less beef, and don’t let the stock market’s 50% run-up since March lull you into thinking it’s clear sailing ahead. The best things in life are free – and it’s a good thing that they are. Because, to borrow another lyric, the best is yet to come, but not immediately or easily. Really? You want more? PAUL KRUGMAN ON “SALTWATER VERSUS FRESHWATER” ECONOMICS This from Sunday’s New York Times Magazine is lengthy if you think of it as a magazine article. But it’s an amazing time-saver when seen for what it (almost) is: a complete college-level economics course in 20 minutes.
If Progress IS Slowing Down, You May Have 38 Seconds to Watch This Ad September 4, 2009March 16, 2017 LESS IMPRESSED Ted Graham: “Here is an interesting counterpoint to the Kurzweil argument of ever accelerating technological progress.” ☞ Scott Locklin’s perspective is certainly worth the read. I guess I find Google and my GPS-equipped iPhone more miraculous than he finds his. Looking out 50 years, the prospect of cheap, clean energy and what might be greatly increased (and increasingly healthy) longevity is enough to get me excited. My first Kurzweil post was titled, “Oh, Boy.” I still feel that way. PASCAL’S WAGER Ken from Traverse City, MI: “Picking up from Abe’s comment that it’s safer to bet on the existence of God, “just in case” – commonly known as Pascal’s Wager – a couple of shortcomings: 1. Which god do you bet on? There are dozens of religions. 2. Is believing based on a shrewd bet really faith? And is believing based on a selfish desire to get into Paradise faith – or wishful thinking?” ADOPTION – LEGAL IN URUGUAY BUT NOT FLORIDA Same-sex-couple adoption is about to become legal in Uruguay. But as rather neatly contrasted here (thanks James), it is not legal in Florida – even though beating your children is. MARRIAGE IN MAINE Can you find 38 seconds to watch this ad? If you like it, would you pass it on? AND DOWN IN MISSISSIPPI . . . A straight friend in Jackson writes: “Fee for lesbian couple to be honored at the Governor’s Mansion by Haley and Marsha Barbour: $3.1 million. Republican hypocrisy on ‘family values’: Priceless.” To which he appends this from the New York Post . . . NY KATRINA COUPLE FETED Four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the governor of Mississippi is honoring an Upper West Side couple who helped raise $3.1 million for a community center. Gov. Haley Barbour is feting Ellen Ratner, sister of real-estate developer Bruce Ratner, and her partner, Cholene Espinoza, today in his mansion for their work in creating the center in Pass Christian, which features dance classes, a yoga studio and the only public pool for 30 miles. Espinoza — a former pilot who was supposed to have flown aboard ill-fated United Flight 93 on 9/11 before a schedule change — personally donated $130,000 to buy the land. . . . adding: “BTW, the ‘community center’ is named for Marsha Barbour, the governor’s wife.”
Abou, Abas, Abat; Abamus, Abatus, Abant September 3, 2009March 16, 2017 WIN $1 MILLION (SORT OF.) Fun! (Thanks, Alan.) There goes the rest of your day. SAVE AT CHARLES NOLAN Take 25% off the already deeply discounted sale merchandise at charlesnolan.com with code SS25. All the white shirts are out of stock, but a lot of the jackets and shoes and cashmere scarves would look great on you. (Full disclosure: Charles is my better half.) DANGER AHEAD? Joel Grow: “Any opinion on John Mauldin’s new fund? What of his notion that we have another big downturn coming?” ☞ A market downturn seems likely and perhaps imminent – but what do I know? It’s certainly not a sure thing. Mauldin is a very smart guy, but the fund he describes expects high turnover which means the drag of transaction costs and short-term capital gains taxes. And I take it as an ominous sign that the FAQ section, when asked about the fees the fund charges, says simply “see the prospectus.” So I wouldn’t rush into this, but it could be something to explore. ABOU So I’ve been getting some mail about Matthew 25:32-46. Many of you agree that it’s not belief in God that will get us into heaven, if there is one, but rather how we treat each other. Which brings me to Abou. Not the hapless restaurateur of Seinfeld fame – this one, made famous in the West by James Leigh Hunt’s 1838 poem (thanks, Wendy!): Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight of his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, ‘What writest thou?’ – The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered ‘The names of those who love the Lord.’ ‘And is mine one?’ said Abou. ‘Nay, not so,’ Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said ‘I pray thee then, Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.’ The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names who love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.
A Place for Atheists in Heaven September 2, 2009March 16, 2017 MEDICARE FOR ALL It’s cheaper and the outcomes are better. Watch. HIGH-RISE FIRE RESCUE It’s hard to imagine an evacuation quite so relaxed and orderly, but this two-minute video is pretty much the opposite of that Steve McQueen heart-stopper, Towering Inferno. MATTHEW AND HEALTH CARE Dr. Joel Wesson: “Just in case you do not have enough to read, Help by Garrett Keizer is an extended exploration of the parable of the good Samaritan. What I got out of it was that the mercy that the Samaritan performs one time has to become the justice of a real health care system if he started finding a man beaten on the highway every five miles or every day. And that by the same logic, the justice of the health care system is a merciful act. The reason I to talk about mercy and justice is the passage from one of the Prophets, ‘Love mercy, do justice, and wait humbly on (for) your God,’ as a prescription for right living.” John Grund: “Regarding your Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 columns: John L. writes: ‘When one stands before God on that final day, it would probably be unwise to tell Him that the Government has taken over all that charity stuff and that you paid your taxes to support it.’ On the other hand, answering, ‘I worked for years – organizing, contributing, knocking on doors, talking to my neighbors – to help bring my country a fair, effective and efficient health care system for all,’ might just go over pretty well. I don’t think Ted Kennedy earned any demerits for his work for health care over the years. In a democracy, government is whatever we decide to do together. If there are any areas that should be off-limits to working on together, we pretty much decide that, too. So if a majority supports health care reform – which it seems they do – I think we should get it. And if a majority supports a public insurance option – just as it has supported public utilities and public universities to complement the private approaches – it deserves to have that, too.” Abe: “Someone once said that he would rather spend all of his life believing in God and then die and discover there was no one, than spend all of his life believing there was no God and then die and find out that there was one. Think on that. The bet is pretty easy to make if you do the thinking.” ☞ If there is a god, let alone one who keeps track of your good deeds and bad deeds, I have a feeling that nonbelievers who voted to help the less fortunate will make out even better than believers who did not.