On the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall, Martin Wolf has a thought provoking commentary in the FT:
Similarly, at a global level, radical reforms must be made in the financial and monetary systems. To put it bluntly, the banking system has been gaming the taxpayer on an intolerable scale. This must end, in one of two ways: the sector must be made subject to the market or become a heavily regulated ward of the state. Again, the curbing of huge credit bubbles must be an integral element in the formation of regulatory and monetary policies. Finally, the dependence of the global monetary system on the currency of an over-indebted superpower is neither desirable nor sustainable.
Powerful words, that barely need translation. The basis is 1- The banking system HAS BECOME PARASITIC 2- They must be nationalized or allowed to fail. "Free Market" is an illusion. 3- The world reserve currency cannot be only the dollar since the FED will print away its over indebtedness.
I would go one step further, the FED may have stabilized the current mess but truth be told, the more I learn about "money" the more disturbed I am by what the FED is. A cartel of private interest with unlimited access to the public purse by way of controlling the printing presses. It is an alien scenario.
I first heard this song waiting for carpool pick-up in my Volvo SUV☺ Not very nice to mothers are you Bowling For Soup? In cheesy recent pop, we much prefer Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom (has got it going on)” thank you very much. While I did (and still do) enjoy a lot of 80s music, I was also happy to put that decade behind me—no snakeskin miniskirt, boyfriend, or Duran Duran concerts to wax nostalgic about there.
My memories of the high school in the 80s have a lot more in common with Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep than “The Breakfast Club” or “Sixteen Candles.”
So it is not without irony that I find myself shopping for an 80’s theme party at H&M, where clothes from that decade seem to have made a comeback. They are playing “Blister in the Sun,” a female-vocalist, Euro-pop version that lacks all the angst of the Violent Femmes original. I score a pair of leatherette leggings, fuchsia satin top and black Members Only-style jacket. Paying for these clothes, wearing rather conservative and uninspired “bourge-y” sweater, slacks and Ferragamo handbag, I’m sure the register girl at H&M thinks I’m schizophrenic or have a whole alternative night-life as a street-walker.
After the H&M experience, I feel the need to explain to the 20-something sales-girl at Sephora the objective behind my request for shimmery fuchsia eye shadow: “I’m buying this for an 80s party” meaning “I don’t normally have this bad taste.” The sales girl with the dyed black hair and nose ring (who definitely was not born earlier than 1980) is impressed. “Una fiesta, anos ochenta, que guay!” She explains this to her gay male sales associate with the Clark Kent-style glasses. He’s impressed too. “Una fiesta ochentera! We wish we were going.” Are the 80s suddenly cool again, even for people too young to remember that decade?
Actual items of clothing or accessories worn by Nathalie MF in the 80s
1) Baggy sweater and leg warmers 2) Stirrup pants 3) Jellies shoes 4) Neon socks 5) Shirts with shoulder pads 6) Large hoop ear-rings 8) Stonewashed jeans with zippers at the bottom of the leg. I babysat many hours to save up the $50 for that pair of Guess jeans. 9) Overalls 10) Catholic school-girl plaid skirt, white shirt with Peter Pan collar, knee socks and penny loafers--until my transfer to “The John Knox Institute” which didn’t have a uniform, but did have a strict dress code 11) Lots of Laura Ashley floral skirts and dresses. Embarrassing but true. I spent a lot of time ironing yards of floral fabric to perfect this look. 12) Bermuda shorts and argyle knee socks. 13) Kelly green and electric blue eye-liner 7) Pouf-dress for prom 14) Total write-off year? 8th grade: braces, bad Farrah Fawcett haircut, put on a few pounds, but did not grow taller, had chicken pox the summer before, which was not good for skin, almost failed Algebra…
Then vs. Now
Favorite High School Reunion depiction—30 Rock Episode where Liz Lemon goes back to suburban Philadelphia for her 20th reunion: their private plane gets stranded in the bad weather and Jack accompanies her. She says nobody will believe he’s young enough to be their classmate and he counters: “Rich 50 is like middle-class 37.” She remembers being a nerdy outcast, but they all remember her as being mean, sarcastic and intimidating. She plays spin the bottle and winds up with Jack. They not only don’t kiss, he decides her classmates are right about her.
Sure I was: Nerdy and sarcastic, but most definitely not intimidating.
Happy I grew up then because….no cell phones, messaging or Internet. The stupid things you said and did were confined to throw-away notes or your high school yearbook--not broadcasted, mass-distributed and memorialized in the ether.
Moved on to the 90s for:
Curtis Sittenfeld “Prep” fame-whore/narrow-miss media humiliation
Graduated from college in 1994. Pitched my failure to find a job, combined with large number of interview opportunities to Rolling Stone writer for their “Gen X column—looking for the first job episode.” Used winning lines like “I discussed this with my grandmother and her friends and they said “Honey, we just don’t know what to tell you. When we graduated from college, we joined the Junior League and started playing bridge’;” “I used to write about Personality and Artistic Theory, now look at me, I’m writing about evaporators and batch digesters;” “I picked which college recruiting meetings to attend based on the quality of their buffet spread;” “I failed my interview for a derivatives sales and trading position at a large multi-national bank. I don’t think it mattered so much that I didn’t know what a derivative was…it was the moment I discussed my senior thesis on Samuel Johnson’s theories about being un-able to enjoy/live-in the present because we are constantly fixated on a past or future, which is either far worse or impossibly idealized compared to the ever-vanishing present…where The Head wrote me off as not possessing the driven, goal-oriented Derivatives personality.”
Almost (sort of, not) briefly Infamous
The article never got published and I got three good meals out of this (including one at an upscale restaurant!) on Rolling Stone’s tab.
Will never be representative of my generation because
I actually know most of the lyrics to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’s “Cover of the Rolling Stone”…
I have been palling around with Marxists. I know, I shouldn't. I feel like the odd duck... a multi-millionaire, reading modern marxist utopias. The Marxists underground still exists, it is even experiencing a bit of a revival. They feel even emboldened by the current soiled diaper mess western ultra-liberal capitalism has created.
Obviously choosing to be a Marxist economist wasn't a fast pace track to academic success. Truth be told, the main reason I relate, is that they are the only ones modeling banks and modern fiat money in a way that makes any sense to me.
(Main conclusions basically state that interest bearing instruments, a la bonds, are detrimental to a society's economy when said economy is not growing at a brisk pace)
But mostly I think some old Marxist conclusions, such as "Banks are pigs that are detrimental to society", are worth dusting off. They should be revisited in light of the current abuses of ultra-liberalism and the banking disgrace it has engendered, where those that caused the most pain, reap the most rewards. Free markets self-regulations, fairness and other bollocks.
Anyway... enough digressing. I was reading a paper by one of my favorite academics these days, Trond Andresen. You can find the paper on "Utopia/Dystopia" here. Handle with care, modern Marxist utopias are not for the faint of heart and mostly take root in science fiction ... The relevant passages to the OSS topic are
Another objection is “why should people at all work in/with factories and manufacturing plants when they instead can do all this more meaningful and/or entertaining stuff?” The answer to this is twofold:
• A minority of people is deeply fascinated by tinkering with technical processes, and gradually making them run even better. And they are not very interested in interacting with people as the central point of their job.
• Pride: The select few that control the utopia’s manufacturing plants and process industry are the persons enabling society as a whole to enjoy its very high living standard. They know it, and the others know it too
These factors have been already identified as driving forces behind Open Source. Open Source is done by geeks fascinated with infrastructure and plumbing. Yes, I did take pleasure in solving complex problems. There is a certain pride in being a alpha dog amongst alpha dogs. I always got off on that. Most of you also do. This need to create, even for free, for the sake of creating or showing off will always remain, in a monetary society or not. The profit motive isn't always the motive.
A final point in this section about a long-term utopian scenario, is “can we get there gradually”? Ignoring the controversies on the political left about “reform versus revolution”, I will here suggest that a modern market economy may (at least in theory, assuming that persons/parties with the political will for it is in power) be gradually changed in the direction of the utopia, by – among other things – carefully selecting activities that are “ripe” for being made public and cost-free for the users. Such selection can be done based on at least one of the following criteria being fulfilled for the product or service in question:
1. Limitless consumption is no problem, capacity- or environment-wise (example: local phone calls, Internet access). (This is the sole – and therefore unrealistic – premise of Marxian “higher-stage communism”.)
2. Consumption is due to its nature inherently limited or rationed (example: schools, hospitals, funeral services, local public transport but not long-distance travel).
3. Neither, but attitudes have changed, so that people voluntarily abstain from over-consumption of a certain good/service.
Hmmmm, are modern marxists completely underestimated? They have also laid out a clear reason why we were succesful in OSS. It was just a low hanging fruit. Is OSS's success, the clear first sign of a "higher-stage communism"? Afterall, limitless consumption of bits is harmless, production is low cost and work is play as per the first quotes. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" could definitely sum up how goods move around in the OSS communities: a few produce according to their abilities, the mass consume according to their needs. What may not apply or simply be obvious in industry that are "people intensive" becomes a plain truth in software.
Yet, a part of me shuts down when I realize this is making sense. What is wrong with me? After all, I spent most of my short professional life, making sure we made money at OSS and monetized our success. I still feel passionately that outstanding individuals should get rewarded in OSS, how "Ayn Rand" of me, how so 1990's!. That we would get paid for producing software, that we would market goods in order to make a living and beyond seemed like a foregone conclusion yesterday, it stills seems so today. I have not compromised on that point. And I am obviously very grateful for the luck we have had and in no way would I change what we have done with professional open source for some vague promise of a better tomorrow. I am still a realist at heart?
But are they incompatible belief? Can you be a communist in a monetary society?? In that light, isn't professional open source, a socialist utopia that embraced making money? More on the topic of monetary modern marxism soon.
My husband and his friend both assume that another friend of theirs is quite a hit among the ladies. Apparently high school and college were good times for X. “Can you imagine that they used to call him the 'Devastator'."
The irony is that neither my husband, nor his friend, bothered to ask actual women, including their own wives, what they think of X. The man in question is nice enough looking, but I haven’t spent much time thinking about him. The truth is that all above-average looking people are simple abstractions to me, unless they’ve written, said or done something that particularly piques my interest.
I don’t relate too well to the (outward) absence of obvious flaws in other people—like being too nice or too beautiful. No doubt this stems from an instinct to preserve dignity. One wonders if the unnaturally beautiful or virtuous might be applying their own (higher) standards to us: aka “could use an extra hour of treadmill every day,” or “needs to use more age-defying facial moisturizer” or “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.”
Even worse, if I suspect that an above-average good-looking person spends a lot of time improving or maintaining their physical appearance. Extreme self-discipline also makes me uncomfortable—seems too much like a self-mortification fetish. I, myself, last tried a diet in 2005—the South B(i)tch ™, which is exactly how carb-deprivation made me feel. Every time I’ve made an effort to diet or exercise more, I’ve lost the same five pounds, which immediately come back--since I haven’t been willing to make a Permanent Lifestyle Change. I do love walking and hiking, for the pleasure of these activities, not because they are connected in my mind with Self-Improvement. The irony is that all these men who spend hours buffing up in the gym would probably get more female attention if they did something like join a cooking class or book club or learn to dance.
On the self-improvement note, I recently received an email inviting me to a book signing by a former high school classmate who has written a book of lists to help people cope with those life-changing events—buying a new house, getting married, having children, getting divorced, dealing with death, and even the impossibly improbable like the World Trade Center Bombing on 9-11. I thought about this. I make lists too. This gives me a convenient sense of accomplishment, while enabling me to further procrastinate from the tedious things I mostly don’t want to do. I put things in neat stacks or star emails in my in-box. My rationale is that if something is important enough, somebody will remind me to do it and it will then pop back to the top of the list, and eventually I’ll take care of it.
Are women less judgmental about physical appearances than men? I thought about men who would not fall into the category of Somebody Whom Other People Consider Exceptionally Attractive that I would find interesting, like Salman Rushdie, for instance. I loved The Enchantress of Florence. What sort of woman, I wonder does a sensitive, deep writer-type like Salman Rushdie find attractive? Wife number four, Padma, model, celebrity chef. She's beautiful and she can cook, what went wrong there? Apparently, she wasn’t supportive enough of his career. What could the source of the “connection” he feels with most recent girlfriend, Pia Glenn be? Oh wait, that didn’t work out either…because he couldn’t get over Padma. He may write like an angel, but he appears to have the emotional maturity of a 16 year-old…
The interesting thing about getting older is that, for most people, it’s a great equalizer. Apparently X has been going to pick up his children at their school, and noticed that the high school girls in their plaid mini-skirts and knee socks still look cute, but they don’t give him a second look. However, he feels that his appearance is quite appreciated by these girls’ mothers. Sorry “Devastator” you’re cougar bait now.
I don't know if it is because it is autumn but I always seem to go back to the deep techno sound when October weather hits. Something about the melody and hard beats.
I have always loved Detroit Techno. It is funny how little most americans know about Detroit Techno. To them Detroit is a city living in 3rd world squalor. To me and most europeans of my age (40) Detroit is the birthplace of electronic music. When mop-rock was still all the rage in most inland US, the Detroit DJ's were touring european clubs and were blown away at 3000 kids dancing to inner-city black techno music. I remember sharing a cab with a journalist that was going to take pictures of Derrick May at his club, I was headed to the club myself for an afterparty during the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in 2003. He asked "who is he?", I explained just how influential he had been to the world electronic music scene and bla bla bla... the guy seemed genuinely confused, he was from Detroit and had never really heard of him, he was just there to take pictures. I was truly dumbfounded.
Anyway, nowadays, one of the artists that I think is most in line with what I consider Detroit Techno is "DJ Bone". He has been around for a few years. The stuff he does is really good. The label is called "Subject Detroit" and it features Rennie Foster, which I remixed last year. The sound is hard. Aggressive even. But in true Techno fashion after a few listens it starts sounding like a lullaby to me. This is a compilation of recent (and no so recent tracks) on Subject Detroit. Hope you like it.
Playlist: Music- DJ Bone Minimal- Matias Aguayo- Marcus Rossknecht mix Alias- Aux 88 R.I.D.E - DJ Bone Good Time Charlie - Rennie Foster Break It Down - Alekxis Jaina One More Tune - DJ Bone Sin City - DJ Nasty Structured Music - Stephen Brown Belt of Orion - Rennie Foster Dead or Alive - DJ Bone Hot LZ13 - Rennie Foster Beauty in Decay - DJ Bone Change (Acapella) - DJ Bone Crusin Down 7 mile - DJ Nasty Flying Object - DJ Nasty Cause of Action - DJ Bone One Way Out - Mark Williams Platform 9 3/4 - Alekxis Jaina
“I moved back after five years, and nothing had changed. It was like re-discovering old friends.” The two French women and I were talking about the Spanish magazine “Hola” and the cast of characters that regularly grace its pages. In Spain, these people are called “Los Famosos.” Outside of Spain, with two or three exceptions, nobody has heard of them. The fact that three foreign women living in Spain, with respectable educations and otherwise challenging intellectual preoccupations and jobs had become aficionados of Hola! was intriguing, to say the least.
My Spanish mother-in-law explains it this way—“It’s a mental vacation. I can read the same article a second time and not even realize I’ve read it before.” Hola! was started in Barcelona, in the 1940s to focus on “la espuma de la vida”—(poorly translated by me) as “the frothy side of life.” Someone once told me it is the largest circulation magazine in the world. I have not verified this. What I do know is that Hola! pays people for exclusives and that many of its regulars earn all of or a decent supplement to their income selling “exclusivas”.
The Hola! formula never wavers: the photographs are authorized by the subjects and, to the extent that such a thing is possible, are always flattering. The call-outs inform us that the Hola’s cast of characters are “ready for love”, “in love”, “deceived by love”, or “recovering from love.” “So and so is thinking about getting pregnant”, “is pregnant”, "offers us exclusive photographs with her beautiful new baby.” These people give us exclusive tours of their homes, discuss their deceptions, tragic losses, projects and aspirations.”
Sus Majestades Los Reyes
At the top of the Hola! pantheon are their Majesties the King and Queen; their two daughters, the Infantas (my French friends agree there is the nicer looking daughter and “la moche”—the ugly one); the heir, Principe Felipe, who usually looks very dignified; and his brunette Barbie wife, Leticia; and the grandchildren. Their Highnesses are in Hola! by grace of who they are and tolerate the media attention with a certain bored “noblesse oblige.” Unlike the British Royals or the Princesses of Monaco, the Spanish royal family generally behaves itself and doesn’t offer much in the way of juicy scandals. This makes them less entertaining than the sub-deities of Hola, who make a concerted effort to maintain their status as regulars in its pages.
The Woman Who is More Noble than Everybody
People who know about Spanish history will tell you that among the Grandest of the Grandees of Spain, are the Albas. The Duquesa de Alba is so noble that if she were in the same room as the Queen of England, the Queen of England has to give her precedence. This is because back when the Queen of England’s ancestors were backwater Hanoverian electors, The Albas were Somebody’s. When Spain ruled the Holy Roman Empire, the Duque de Alba was at the center of things, suppressing rebellions in the Netherlands. He was immortalized as a bogeyman for later generations of Dutch children: “If you’re not good, the Duque de Alba will get you.” One of the Duquesa de Alba’s ancestors may have been the model for Goya’s “Maja Vestida” and “Maja Desnuda.”
What does the Woman Who is More Noble than Everbody look like? She has a distinctive white person’s Afro of frizzy gray hair and a face that sports the plastic surgery Masque of Death—facial skin pulled tight and immobilized by Botox, the Surprised Eyes, lifted up and pulled at the corners, and the Joker Mouth, stretched wide and tight for a perma-smile on the sides, offset by the puffy Collagen Lips. The Duquesa de Alba has an affectation for “hippie chic” clothes that might be in the closet of your teenage daughter. Occasionally, she has a health crisis and is wheeled into the front page of Hola! with mini-skirt hiked up around her waist and wild pattern stockings on her frail legs. The Duquesa de Alba has a “novio” or boyfriend. He is her son’s age and has some sort of time-punching, civil-servant job. Before her current novio, she had a second husband, a former Catholic priest, named Jesus. Real toffs debauch their Jesuit confessors. Before that she was married to some nobleman who fathered her five children.
When the Duquesa has a health crises, which happens more frequently these days since she’s getting on in age, her novio wheels her around and otherwise appears attentive to her needs. Hola! is very interested in the progression of her relationship with her novio. The Duquesa’s children are also interested in the progression of her relationship with her novio. If this relationship progresses too far, it’ll cut into their inheritance. None of these children appears to have done anything interesting with their lives besides appearing in Hola!
Tita Cervera—dite la Baronesa Thyssen
Tita Cervera also sports the plastic surgery Masque of Death, but instead of the grey Afro, she has a blond beauty shop “do”. Her wardrobe tends to Couture and is more restrained than the Duquesa of Alba’s (when you’re born Very Noble, you don’t need to make such an effort). I don’t know who Tita Cervera was but apparently she likes Art. At some point in her life she married Lex Baxter, an American actor who played Tarzan. Baxter was as a Stepping Stone. Thanks to him, she got a villa called Mas Mananas (More Tomorrows) and an introduction to the better sort of Society. In Society, she met a rich old German, called the Baron Thyssen, who inherited lots of things and also liked Art. Tita Cervera married the Baron, and became a Very Great Lady, or at least a very rich one. At some earlier point, she had a son. Nobody knows where he came from, but the Baron Thyssen adopted him. The Baron Thyssen finally had the good taste to die and leave Tita Cervera with lots of money and lots of Art. Tita Cervera had the good taste to make sure the Baron left a lot of this Art to Spain, so now you and I can go look at it in the Thyssen Bornemisza museum.
Tita Cervera has a son who looks a bit like a Spanish redneck—or maybe that’s just the rockero wardrobe and all the tattoos. He appears a lot in Hola! with his wife and their son, giving exclusive tours of their villa in Ibiza. Apparently, his mother doesn’t like his wife very much because she demanded that her “grandson” submit to a DNA paternity test. I guess that’s publicly calling your daughter-in-law a whore. Much ado about the DNA test, but the grandson passed. I think the only reason the son and daughter-in-law put up with Tita Cervera is because, otherwise, they’d have to give up their villa and get real jobs.
Tita Cervera may have the last laugh. She either adopted or genetically concocted (lots of speculation here) twin daughters. All we know is that she got them from some birth mother/rental womb rental womb out in California. Now we see lots of photos of the beaming Tita Cervera with her (not-so-cute) twin toddler daughters. Apparently it’s not just enough to triumph over the physical indignities of aging, but the limitations of childbearing as well. In the process, you can show up your ungrateful oldest son and his trashy wife.
Isabel Preysler, or How to be a Successful Ex-Wife
Isabel Preysler used to be married to Julio Iglesias and is the mother of some of his children. I think she also married a succession or combination of the following: Political Bigwig, Captain of Industry and Member of the Nobility. I can’t keep track. Since they didn’t have the good grace to leave her a widow, she divorced them or maybe they divorced her. My mother-in-law has a theory that powerful men like to be collectors, so they seek out women whose CV lists the names of many of their peers. She also says that La Presyler is rumored to have a special trick of passing out during the er, “little death.” Powerful men must really go for that too.
Isabel Preysler either has a better plastic surgeon than these other women or has the good fortune to possess the holy trinity of aging well—good skin (likely due to her Asian ancestry—she’s Filipina), good bones, and not putting on weight. My mother-in-law adds a commentary here based on the Spanish expression: “Las mujeres se enjamonan o se aparchimientan.” (With age) Women either become ham-like or parchment-like. She also offers some consolation for those of us who might be leaning in the ham direction. Subcutaneous fat does one have one advantage. It smoothes out your skin. The Hams can always console themselves with the fact that they’ll have fewer wrinkles than their Parchment friends.
La Preysler’s age-defying looks serve her well because she is one busy woman. In addition to posing for Hola!, she appears in print ad campaigns endorsing various products. Twice a year, she travels over to the US and takes a picture with George Clooney to promote Porcelanosa. There was some disagreement among the French people at the party as to whether Porcelanosa is a line of “chiottes” aka plumbing fixtures, or tiles. I think the tiles won out. To be fair, la Preysler isn’t the only one. Once you come to Europe, you realize how many “serious” American actors supplement their income here pimping out various products. George Clooney is also the face of Nespresso coffee and Hugh Laurie did a big Schweppes Campaign.
Isabel Preysler has one successful son, Enrique Iglesias, and a few other children who don’t appear to do much of anything besides appearing in Hola!
Carmen Lomana in “The Rich Also Cry”
I used to wonder what Paris Hilton would look like in her 60s. Now I know. She’s going to look like Carmen Lomana. Actual Hola! readers may wonder why I included a B-lister like Carmen Lomana. They may not even know who Carmen Loman is. That is because they haven’t seen Carmen’s YouTube video hit “The Rich Also Cry”—“Los Ricos Tambien Lloran”. Unlike her younger counterpart, Paris Hilton, Carmen Lomana’s video does not involve any physical exertions. Thank God! Carmen’s Chilean industrial engineer husband had the good taste to die at 49 and leave her a very wealthy woman. Her male-servicing days are over, thank you very much. What does Carmen Lomana do in her life/video? She shops, trys on clothes and shares her opinion about La Crisis. Researching Carmen Lomana on the Internet, all I learned is that her cleavage is a “feat of engineering” and that she wears a lot of Couture. Her interview with the journalist includes such gems as:
“Do you have lots of closets for your clothes?”
“I don’t have closets, I have rooms?”
“What do you do with your time?”
“I don’t know. What do you do? I get up at nine, I take my breakfast in bed. I spend an hour there reading the papers. I look at my agenda. I take calls from my bankers and lawyers to discuss business. I plan my day. I have a doctoral candidate who’s writing a thesis on me. That’s the ultimate luxury.”
“Carmen, are you feeling the Crisis?”
“Not personally, but it affects you…seeing my friends…people who have lots of assets but don’t have “dinero cash” to go to the supermarket…I mean those that were always poor, you know--the ones that beg--they’re used to it…but it’s tragic to see somebody who used to have a job in reduced circumstances.”
“Are you doing anything for La Crisis. For instance do you go to mercadillos (flea markets)?”
“Well, I do try to shop less, out of political solidarity. I’m wearing things that I haven’t worn in five years, and you know what? They still look great"…”Mercadillos?” You mean like those ones in the villages? Oh I love them. I’ve never been, but I’m sure they’re great.”
Trying to make sense of the current markets can lead to schyzophrenia.
On the one hand fundamentals that triggered the financial crisis haven't changed one bit. The housing market is still in the doldrums. Banks are still sitting on piles of rapidly deterioting toxic shit. The banking system is still bankrupt. Occident is drowning in debt. Some call for a biblical debt jubilee, but really inflation is taking care of that for us.
On the other hand we are now experiencing the impact of QE. Or "printing money" by the federales and the Chinese, who print money tit-for-tat to keep RMB in line. QE as a simple effect, it makes all USD numbers go up. This makes the dollar worthless so that from the outside, FX sees a constant or shrinking US economy. This is pure monetary inflation. But will the stability afforded be enough to mend the economy?
But it even looks like "recovery", "end of recession". But is it just inflation with recession. Of course, the "numbers" say there is no recession, because the numbers go up. All that matters is that markets are going up. What started as a monetary spark is now looking like a bona-fide ponzi fire rally, where momentum investors pile on. The Federales wanted stability. They get a bubble.
But really are we just in the midst of the biggest government led bubble? Back in April I wrote about the government wanting us out of cash, bullying us into buying shit with QE. It is the very definition of a sucker's rally but really who am I to fight the government? I feel like a sucker for doing the smart thing?
So my trades reflect my schyzophrenic understanding of the economy, monetary policy and the markets. On the one hand I buy puts on equities to reflect a bearish view of autumn, on the other I sell puts on commodities to reflect a bullish view on those. I stand ready to reverse these trades. I don't know what I am doing, really. I am buzy investing. I am a little scared. The panic button is not far.
