The Darkness Within This is no time for negativism. This is the time for us all to stay positive and optimistic that life will go on, that our species will persevere, and that the kindness of the human soul will prevail. When we saw Saudi Arabia rear up on its hind legs to push the oil production limits up at great expense to the price of their black crude, we were secretly encouraged. We all…
Handy Brad Now that we’ve moved in and mostly gotten our stuff placed and staged and generally winnowed down to manageable proportions, there are several small projects that need doing that seem either a bit beyond our capabilities and that we don’t want to bother brother-in-law Jeff to do. I would never undertake anything electronic in the house without first consulting Jeff, but I think it’s safe to say that he is perfectly content…
Fear and Greed The markets are all the talk of the town this week in this and every town. It is not about a a bunch of market participants going paranoid out of extreme forecasting anxiety. As I heard Rachel Maddow say this evening, the markets are merely acting as a window on the rather extreme impact that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is starting to have on the world economy. Let’s take a quick survey. We…
A Century in Provence I recently stumbled upon a story about Jeanne Calment, the French woman who dies in 1997 at the extremely ripe old age of 122 years. That makes her the longest living human by almost three years compared to 119-year-old Sarah Knauss of Hollywood Pennsylvania (she died in 1999). That means that Calment has held that record worldwide for twenty-three years. That’s quite an amazing accomplishment in an age when longevity is…
Staging the Next Stage We are blessed with several friends who seem to enjoy being of service to Kim, and by extension, to me. They like helping her pack, unpack, organize stuff, sort out her clothes and other stuff. For two weeks we had Oswaldo here and that was a pleasure. Every time I turned around he would be doing this or that quite tirelessly and with no complaints. I actually think he likes staying…
Battery Math Today I went to a battery fair here in Escondido. I was invited by Baker Electric, the premier electricians here in Southern California, who installed my solar system last year. They were joined in this extravaganza, replete with free donuts and mimosas and great swag (umbrellas, string backpacks and notebooks with pens) by the strong and mighty Tesla, the dominant maker of home batteries. Naturally, I had to drive to the fair in…
The Kids Are All Right There is a movie by that name starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. It’s about a same-sex couple (Bening and Moore) who have two children who were the product of each of them plus a common sperm donor (Ruffalo). It’s a fairly contrived story that might possibly exist in a few real life situations, but is unlikely to represent the issues faced by a broad swath of…
A Dangerous TV Table How easy should you make your life? I am never quite sure how I feel about that issue. There is a fine theoretical argument that says that struggle is the grit that makes for a better life. But then that’s all very theoretical. Who would make their life harder when they can make it easier? Not very many people I know. And how exactly does one discount that future “better” state…
Beaten by the Market I am spending more and more time these days working as an expert witness in investment management cases. One thing keeps coming up over and over again and that is the value or lack thereof of active management versus passive management. In simplistic terms, for readers who are not financially-focused people, the simple issue is whether people can consistently beat the market or whether the market will always dominate and make…
The Art of Doing Father/son scenes always mean a lot to me. It may be because I had so few, if any, with my father, or it may because I try to do so many with my sons. Obviously the two are connected, but I still find they drill deep with me. Baseball seems to be a common landscape for these interactions given its prominence as an aging, but still inter-generational common ground. The first…