Where in the World is Tony?

Just finished ‘The black Swan’. It makes an interesting point that events can vary greatly from the norm, and this variance can often be bad (stock wipe-out) or good, serendipitous book sales. Of course, the latter only occurs when the outcome exceeds expectation. Here I mean expectation based on output of resources, not some dude in a fluffy arm-chair with nothing ventures, hence the absence of gain corollary. In ‘The Black Swan’, there was even a section on book sales versus output of expectations. I thought of this when I saw the following article on the $5 Million advance for the next book by the author of ‘The Time-Traveler’s Wife”, which I read and enjoyed. My question is, with $5 million already laid out, what are the odds this does well enough to beat expectations?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/books/11niff.html?hp

It’s funny how and when something actually moves you. I have never been a fan of the over-the-top pomp and stagecraft and politics. When I worked for Kerry, the only times I ever tuned out was when some pol started to speak, be it on a conference call or in person. I know I am atypical, but it is just not the way I am moved. So when I watched Obama win, and then get inaugurated, I felt it a little, more so at the latter. However, it was Beyonce singing at the Presidential Ball that did it for me. I just saw it yesterday, when she sang ‘At Last’ by Etta James. Even though the event was hyper-scripted, the look that she gave to them as she said those words was in no way scripted.

It said something deep and profound about struggle and perserverance and discrimination and suffering and finally getting to where you want to be in a way that no words or images had done so for me, prior to the look she gave.

As a liberal who never supported Bush, even in his post 9/11 halcyon day on 90+ % approval rating, Obama does feel like my President, even though I did far less to help him get elected than I did for Kerry. (Which, in a way, really sums up my motivation since the minutae of Bush’ destruction was a much more palpable force in my life than the words of Obama) But, after seeing that look in Beyonce’s eyes, I am ready to recognize that maybe, just maybe, he is a bit more her president than mine. As someone who is trying to include everyone and be somewhat bi/post-partisan, I doubt Obama wants anyone to feel this way, but it is ok with me that it means more to a black person to have Obama as president than it does to me. You earn these kind of things through suffering, and black people have done far moe of it than my lilly-white ass.

P.S. I am still waiting for my Jewish candidate, and I don’t count Lieberman…he is a grade-A douche.

I feel that there is a bit of a bubble her, regarding what is happening around the world. Real pain just hasn’t reached me yet, I am just scared. I, like everyone else, hopes it just misses me, magically. That I am, by random chance, lucky enough to miss the storm, but I highly doubt it. It is a weird and powerless feeling. All I can do, is not succumb to fear, to not not spend. But then, if I am the only one, I am foolish not to curtail my expenditures. Who knows. I guess I just feel that it is important to record something of my general feeling, before the other shoe drops, as it were.

It just seems so ridiculous that basic decency and common sense were flushed down the toilet recently by those in charge, leading to this feeling that we are over a precipice. I just really worry about the people I know who have no safety net at all, from not having been fortunate like me to having wealthy relations to not personally making more of an effort to make sure their own personal habits contribute to their safety (save something). I think of my boss, who has been here ages, for a long time was a DINK, a has nothing in the bank to show of her time. What happens to people like her?

I really wish I believed the Conservative mantra that people know best, and the less regulation the better. Clearly they don’t, but I hate that others have to regulate. I am so grateful to my father and the values he imparted on me, which I hope one day to impart on my kids. When did restraint and sobriety and delayed gratification become such silly passe ideas?

I am feeling guilty today. On my day off, I sat around, slept, ate and generally watched my Indonesian maid clean my home. Wait. Right there, just after the first line, I have made two lies. My door was closed, and I was asleep (both precluding my actual viewing) and she is not my maid, nor is it my house, and finally, nor is it my mess she is cleaning. In my old age, I have become a bit of a neat freak, and only wish some of my current proclivities would rub off on the owner of said home. But anyway, she is here, she is cleaning and there is something perverse about the cost of it.

To deny her the right to be here is silly and pointless. Unlike so many knee-jerk liberal reactions, I recognize the advantage of this work for HER. She can make far more here than back home. In fact, in what is the common arrangement, when her employer gives her time off, most maids moonlight as housekeepers, earning $10 Sing an hour, roughly $7 US, or right about the minimum wage. Of course, if she were kicked out, if someone had the stupid reaction that this situation is ‘unfair’ to her, everyone would suffer. She would be back home, earning far LESS than her wages now, with higher surrounding poverty, less hope of helping out her family, and I might be cleaning my own place. Since I currently earn roughly $75 Sing an hour, a weekly 4 hour cleaning has quite a high opportunity-cost.

My point is not to give a basic lecture in econ, which I am NOT qualified to do, but to talk about the hidden cost, the cost to Betty, and if I am honest, maybe to me. The effects of being raised by a maid, and spending one’s whole life ensconced in such a reality are prominent in her, and many other Singaporeans, to be frank. The two most prominent are the profound inability to do anything, or certain things at least, and there is the arrogance of wealth, and the associated negative corollary of judging the poor, where wealth becomes a short and simple way of judging a person total value (incorrectly obviously).

These are two short, and cheap shots certainly not capable of standing up to any sort of even the most minimal intellectual rigeur, but here they are. My point is, that there is a real cost to having the Bettys of the world be the way they are. I don’t have any great insight on how to measure them, but I am sure you can measure the cost, in civic virtue, humanity, missings in saved opportunity costs born by sheer ignorance, who knows. I guess this rambling and pointless aside is that just because it is hard to measure some costs, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Truthfully, I was thinking of this in relation to my work. In repeated conversations, they seem unable to capture the cost of people not signing up a second time, or the cost of morale when full-time staff is replaced with part time mothers. (Replacement due to the inability to attract employees, not an explicit cost-cutting policy)….or maybe it was when…two days ago…Betty asked me to show her how her own washing machine worked…which she has had at least since I got here….two years ago

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12429421

There are three things McCain should do, according to this article:

1) Talk about economics, and how Obama doesn’t have much experience. Granted it is a page right out of a good prtion of the Republican rulebook to attack an opponents strengths, but McCain needs a counter message to do so. With 13 days to go, it’s a little late on that front.

2) Talk about the dangers of one party rule. Heh. It is definitely true. I agree. One party rule means you truly can get things done, and the Republicans definitely don’t want that. See Mr. Kristol’s 1993 comment on why Health Care Reform couldn;t be allowed to pass. Of course, the problem with a sophisticated argument is that it requires a sophisticated voter….and we all know how well those lines work for Dems (sophisticated ideas), so good luck with that.

3) Talk about how Obama has never opposed a Dem sacred cow. Ummm….probably not the most effective line when your own brand is trash.

If this is what the folks at the Economist say is McCain’s best and only shot….well….see you on election day

Stolen from Mankiw: The answer, is, not so many….around 43 to 45% of people, according to his data, pay no tax, irrespective of who wins.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-pays-income-tax.html

I would love to get a further look at this data…love to…as in theoretically, but not actually willing to do any of the leg-work. I would be interested in two things: what number of rich people don’t pay much (and what is their annual income); and the number of poor people and their potential liabilities

I know this is a conservative site, Mankiw’s, not mine, but this graph just seems to vacuous. After all, might not a rise in the number of people who fail to pay taxes be linked to a rise in people making a shit wage? Everyone pays taxes in Australia, last I was there. Of course, minimum wage is $15 AU an hour, probably more by now.

There seems to be all this rhetoric about people not being in the system, not paying taxes. Just a quick FYI…there IS an alternative. Have people earn more than abject wages in basically unlivable conditions and then you can tax them!

http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=301

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/mccain-the-media-money-and-montesinos-and-obama-too/#more-3160

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/133035/59/1022/632587

I can not remember reading a more powerfully brilliant and depressing book. What made the story so effective was the indifference that the main characters battled against. Their whole existence is just out on a marginal parcel of reality which the rest of their world would love to ignore, and they do. Everything about this book is emotionally crushing and powerfully traumatic. The lack of hope and joy in their lives is beautifully, if painfully, crafted.

To me, this is what brilliant science fiction writing is about. The lack of reality is there, and is ever-present in the struggles the characters go through, but it is merely used to tell a story. The best science-fiction books are the ones where the e fantastic element is used to tell a human story. In this story it is used all right, to depress and make you question the humanity of people.

Truly a powerful, if frightening book. I think everyone should read it. I just hope they are prepared for what they are about to encounter. It is no pretty. It is brutal and savage, but I will never forget it, ever!