The thread of life

Unlike in most other countries, American universities are big time landlords, who earn a lot of income from their developed real estate.

Country clubs Dorms, conference rooms, auditoriums, climbing walls, etc.  Some also own huge basketball and football venues for educational purposes entertainment.

All those expensive real estate developments have been idle since last March.  And there is very little chance that significant usage of those facilities will begin even in early 2021.

The landlords universities are in distress, and the Republican Uncle Sam couldn't care less.

My own university also has to reckon with the tightening dollars and cents.  As a result, some of us faculty, too, are bound to lose our jobs before the next academic year ends.

Should that day arrive way earlier than I had planned, I will be thankful that I was/am one of the lucky few on this planet who was able to pursue for quite a length of time what truly interested me.  Thanks to some dumb luck!

In my agitated and angst-filled younger years, I was convinced that somewhere out there were the answers to the big questions.  Somewhere.

Even in the first couple of years of graduate school, I was confident that I was on the way to the answers.

I did find the answer.  It was a non-answer of sorts.  Life is full of wonderful ambiguity.  That's it.  We have to live through it all.

Every once in a while I succumb to the temptation of the answer, but almost always I just want to breathe and drink and eat this ambiguity.  I love those damn wicked problems!

No wonder then that even with the courses I teach, I seem to always force students to think about the possible multiple interpretations. I even tell them sometimes not to expect a definitive answer from me.  I suppose my pedagogical goal, if I were to think about it that way, is that if I can help students understand that life itself is all about dealing with ambiguity, then they will know how to deal with specific instances whatever they might be.

A concern and worry that I have is that despite the high levels of literacy that humanity has achieved, there appears to be a decreasing interest in exploring and understanding and discussing the ambiguity that life is.  Perhaps that is also a reason why 63 million responded with a favorable vote when a demagogue yelled and screamed that he alone had all the answers,

The following poem by Oregon's own William Stafford is how I want to end this note on the delightful pursuit of ambiguity:

The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

The day after tomorrow ... are we ready?

First, an excerpt:

Has the contribution of the modern world of finance to economic growth become so critical as to support remuneration to its participants beyond any earlier experience and expectations? Does the past profitability of and the value added by the financial industry really now justify profits amounting to as much as 35 to 40 percent of all profits by all US corporations? Can the truly enormous rise in the use of derivatives, complicated options, and highly structured financial instruments really have made a parallel contribution to economic efficiency? If so, does analysis of economic growth and productivity over the past decade or so indicate visible acceleration of growth or benefits flowing down to the average American worker who even before the crisis had enjoyed no increase in real income?

Reading this, you might think that I excerpted it from an essay in The Nation ... Well, it is not.  It is from Paul Volcker's piece in the NY Review of Books.
Rightly, Volcker reminds us about the crisis that is more than merely about banking and finance:

We are not a small country highly vulnerable to speculative attack. In an uncertain world, our currency and credit are well established. But there are serious questions, most immediately about the sustainability of our commitment to growing entitlement programs. Looking only a little further ahead, there are even larger questions of critical importance for those of less advanced age than I. The need to achieve a consensus for effective action against global warming, for energy independence, and for protecting the environment is not going to go away. Are we really prepared to meet those problems, and the related fiscal implications? If not, today’s concerns may soon become tomorrow’s existential crises.

We give them Obama, they don't hate us anymore

If Barack Obama wasn't an off-beat enough name, how about Wyatt Cenac? He is, of course, one of the "correspondents" in the Daily Show. Watch this hilarious "report":

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Global Edition
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The wisdom (ha ha) of Greenspan

I guess the only credit he deserves is for cautioning against "irrational exuberance." That was during the go-go-internet years of the mid-1990s--they already seem like a few hundred years ago! If only he had smarts to think about the horrible ways in which mortgage and investment bankers were inflating assests and egos; on the contrary, he was an ardent supporter of sub-prime mortgages.
Over to Bill Fleckenstein: Alan Greenspan was recommending adjustable-rate mortgages in February 2004 -- just as short-term rates were making their lows. Then, in a speech on April 8, 2005, he extolled subprime lending:
"With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. . . . As we reflect on the evolution of consumer credit in the United States, we must conclude that innovation and structural change in the financial services industry have been critical in providing expanded access to credit for the vast majority of consumers, including those of limited means. . . . This fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers."

His term ended, and Ben Bernanke took over. Bernanke was famous for his "savings glut" thesis--"the past decade a combination of diverse forces has created a significant increase in the global supply of saving--a global saving glut--which helps to explain both the increase in the U.S. current account deficit and the relatively low level of long-term real interest rates in the world today."

Even as Bernanke was touted as a potential replacement for Greenspan, this is what Daniel Gross wrote:
The savings-glut meme changes the terms of the conversation about global imbalances. It's not our fault that we rely on foreigners to fund our desire to spend in excess of our resources. Au contraire. Our extreme consumption and failure to save become something of a virtue. Somebody has to keep the world's factories humming and absorb all the products made in Japan, China, and elsewhere. And until the rest of the world becomes More Like Us in its consuming habits, the imbalances are likely to persist.
The savings glut may be an accurate and subtle take on the world's economic imbalances. But less subtly, it minimizes the impact of the potentially destructive monetary and fiscal policies pursued by the U.S. over the last five years. It also lays the responsibility for change squarely on the backs of foreigners and makes a virtue out of what appear to be our own failings. No wonder Bernanke is so popular at the White House.

And, ironically enough, it is Bernanke trying to manage a liquidity and credit crisis. So quickly we burnt up all those savings, eh? Well, as Bernanke, Paulson, and the Congress pour billions more down this sinkhole, let us turn to The Onion for the best report of all:
"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."