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BOOMERBUSTER
OLD CELLO
Sunday, August 15, 2010
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OXYMORON MAVERICK ECONOMIST CARTOON MISE EN SCENE
Picture a bull (maverick) riding a bear (Economist). They are both very large, and enraged.
This team together should read Oxymoron, but the bull alone should read 'Oxy' and the bear alone 'Moron'. They should suggest to existing readers (of whom there are none), that this team is a take-off on the Maverick Executive mounted atop the Economist in previous cartoons.
They are in the midst of a race course coming directly toward the viewer, ala Manet's painting of the scene for example, with horses and jockeys on either side, near the finish line at lower periphery and one side edge of scene.
This race should also resemble a charge of jockeys in a more than normally violent competition with one another to reach the finish line first.
Elizabeth Butler nee Thompson's famous painting, Scotland for Ever (Attack of the Scottish Highlanders) a scene from the Battle of Waterloo, might also be referred to, for the dramatic element, but it brings the action a little too close.
Further, there should be some elements of 'dirty tricks' among these jockeys, and bull/bear, and riders, against each other, a sort of war of all against all, which is not present in Butler's painting, or Manet's.
(Additionally, for the really inspired persons out there, Sir Michael Howard put this image, Butler's painting, on the earlier cover of the PB edition of his monograph, War In European History, a highly recommended short work.)
The teams might be identifiable by some country initials, European ones, only the few biggest players identifiable in the foreground.
In the background, the edge of a stadium. In the immediate foreshortened upper corner, a large looming hand, only, holding aloft a flag stick. The flag, not the hand, reads "The Invisible Hand".
The caption above, 'EU at Longchamp: Picking Winners'.
The caption below: 'Laissez Faire Church Service'
This team together should read Oxymoron, but the bull alone should read 'Oxy' and the bear alone 'Moron'. They should suggest to existing readers (of whom there are none), that this team is a take-off on the Maverick Executive mounted atop the Economist in previous cartoons.
They are in the midst of a race course coming directly toward the viewer, ala Manet's painting of the scene for example, with horses and jockeys on either side, near the finish line at lower periphery and one side edge of scene.
This race should also resemble a charge of jockeys in a more than normally violent competition with one another to reach the finish line first.
Elizabeth Butler nee Thompson's famous painting, Scotland for Ever (Attack of the Scottish Highlanders) a scene from the Battle of Waterloo, might also be referred to, for the dramatic element, but it brings the action a little too close.
Further, there should be some elements of 'dirty tricks' among these jockeys, and bull/bear, and riders, against each other, a sort of war of all against all, which is not present in Butler's painting, or Manet's.
(Additionally, for the really inspired persons out there, Sir Michael Howard put this image, Butler's painting, on the earlier cover of the PB edition of his monograph, War In European History, a highly recommended short work.)
The teams might be identifiable by some country initials, European ones, only the few biggest players identifiable in the foreground.
In the background, the edge of a stadium. In the immediate foreshortened upper corner, a large looming hand, only, holding aloft a flag stick. The flag, not the hand, reads "The Invisible Hand".
The caption above, 'EU at Longchamp: Picking Winners'.
The caption below: 'Laissez Faire Church Service'
RE PREVIOUS PATENTS ARTICLE POST R & D AT HP AND MR HURD the back story article
This is more like it.
'Dumbly cutting costs'.
That makes some sense.
Yet, with the system we have got, and the way intellectual property is appropriated, used to say 'liberated', who can blame someone for thinking R & D spending doesn't help ' longterm competitiveness ' (oxymoron) that much, anymore?
'Dumbly cutting costs'.
That makes some sense.
Yet, with the system we have got, and the way intellectual property is appropriated, used to say 'liberated', who can blame someone for thinking R & D spending doesn't help ' longterm competitiveness ' (oxymoron) that much, anymore?
Saturday, August 14, 2010
RE GAC AND THE GREAT GULF AMERICAN REAL ESTATE MARKET
Just a few words, of a journalistic sort, regarding my charming uncle, the late R J Thomas.
He had been a lieutenant colonel in WW II apparently, so he was not really a slouch, as individuals go.
After the war he hooked up with an outfit out of Allentown Pennsylvania, known as General Acceptance Corporation. Apparently he held several high executive posts with GAC, including Director of Personnel, and others which my mother, (the only knowledgeable family left) remembers. I recall getting a ride in their corporate jet back in the 60s; we actually flew over Washington I believe, en route to Florida. They lived in a split (4) level, in a fancy subdivision outside Allentown, surrounded by corn fields. He used to have a rather full glass of scotch with his rather large cigar.
He was so talented that he could swizzle the ice cubes, floating at the top of the glass with the index finger of the hand itself holding the glass, while of course gesturing with the cigar in the other hand, at the same time.
He used to go around the house in the early morning in full length pajamas and a fancy silk lapelled and cuffed smoking jacket, with cigar, looking very much like Winston Churchill, as well as Robert Macaire. They were all three rather plump.
GAC became a holding company, and had investments and subsidiaries of all kinds, all across the country. My uncle worked closely with the son of the founder, a young Yale graduate, after the war.
They were not, early on, into real estate, but had made some name for themselves as a diversified 'turn around' holding company.
They eventually acquired Gulf American Land Development Corporation, a very large, fraudulent, land sales organization, run by the Rosen brothers, out of Miami, who had come down from Baltimore, which in effect became a subsidiary, GAC Properties.
This entity continued the fraudulent practices of its predecessor while now a part of my uncle's holding company.
Needless to say, it did not turn out well for any of them.
Previous real estate posts contain references to articles on the land deals they conducted, in many states, until they went bankrupt in the 70s.
The story is really emblematic of both corporate America, and regulatory America, together.
He had been a lieutenant colonel in WW II apparently, so he was not really a slouch, as individuals go.
After the war he hooked up with an outfit out of Allentown Pennsylvania, known as General Acceptance Corporation. Apparently he held several high executive posts with GAC, including Director of Personnel, and others which my mother, (the only knowledgeable family left) remembers. I recall getting a ride in their corporate jet back in the 60s; we actually flew over Washington I believe, en route to Florida. They lived in a split (4) level, in a fancy subdivision outside Allentown, surrounded by corn fields. He used to have a rather full glass of scotch with his rather large cigar.
He was so talented that he could swizzle the ice cubes, floating at the top of the glass with the index finger of the hand itself holding the glass, while of course gesturing with the cigar in the other hand, at the same time.
He used to go around the house in the early morning in full length pajamas and a fancy silk lapelled and cuffed smoking jacket, with cigar, looking very much like Winston Churchill, as well as Robert Macaire. They were all three rather plump.
GAC became a holding company, and had investments and subsidiaries of all kinds, all across the country. My uncle worked closely with the son of the founder, a young Yale graduate, after the war.
They were not, early on, into real estate, but had made some name for themselves as a diversified 'turn around' holding company.
They eventually acquired Gulf American Land Development Corporation, a very large, fraudulent, land sales organization, run by the Rosen brothers, out of Miami, who had come down from Baltimore, which in effect became a subsidiary, GAC Properties.
This entity continued the fraudulent practices of its predecessor while now a part of my uncle's holding company.
Needless to say, it did not turn out well for any of them.
Previous real estate posts contain references to articles on the land deals they conducted, in many states, until they went bankrupt in the 70s.
The story is really emblematic of both corporate America, and regulatory America, together.
GENETICALLY MODIFIED BEETS: REGULATION BY LITIGATION
FOOD SECURITY........................
QUESTION: GIVEN HOW THINGS HAVE GONE WITH THE DEPENDABILITY OF THE LAISSEZ FAIRE PRIVATE SECTOR, HOW DOES ANYONE FEEL ABOUT LEAVING IT (food security) IN, SAY, MONSANTO'S, OR SOME OTHER COMPANY'S HANDS, GOING FORWARD?
They have to make all those quick profits, like the car makers (GM) post earlier today, or Wall Street will give them a spanking!
Multimillionaire executives can take this 'whipping boy' status pretty well, because they get all that money.
Re whipping boy status, that might be a great mise en scene for a cartoon someday!
QUESTION: GIVEN HOW THINGS HAVE GONE WITH THE DEPENDABILITY OF THE LAISSEZ FAIRE PRIVATE SECTOR, HOW DOES ANYONE FEEL ABOUT LEAVING IT (food security) IN, SAY, MONSANTO'S, OR SOME OTHER COMPANY'S HANDS, GOING FORWARD?
They have to make all those quick profits, like the car makers (GM) post earlier today, or Wall Street will give them a spanking!
Multimillionaire executives can take this 'whipping boy' status pretty well, because they get all that money.
Re whipping boy status, that might be a great mise en scene for a cartoon someday!
RE FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND THE MOSQUE
Rather than mouth current religious ideas, one has to look at the context of the original decisions, hundreds of years ago, and their context, given a weak heterogeneity of religious exiles and colonists here for other reasons, and the hundreds of years of religious wars they and their ancestors had lived;
religious 'tolerance' was what modern political people were reduced to because the alternative was often, even among the multiplicity of purely western Christian sectarians, not survivable.
And contrast it with what even an ideal scenario might have looked like, back then;
and contrast that with the dramatic political and religious changes America has gone through;
and contrast that with the dramatic changes the world around the US has gone through, and has come to look like, politically and religiously;
and contrast that with the history of Islam, and its relations with Western Europe,
to begin to decide how to proceed.
The conflicts between the orthodox and muslims, in Eastern Europe, does not bode well for religious 'toleration' between Islam and the US, going forward.
Certain types of religious belief are compatible, loosely, or at least reconciled, after a long struggle, with separation of church and state; others are not.
Why invite disaster?
How many mosques are there in, eg, Japan?
Two: Fukuoka, and Kobe. Until 09, there was only one, Kobe, apparently.
religious 'tolerance' was what modern political people were reduced to because the alternative was often, even among the multiplicity of purely western Christian sectarians, not survivable.
And contrast it with what even an ideal scenario might have looked like, back then;
and contrast that with the dramatic political and religious changes America has gone through;
and contrast that with the dramatic changes the world around the US has gone through, and has come to look like, politically and religiously;
and contrast that with the history of Islam, and its relations with Western Europe,
to begin to decide how to proceed.
The conflicts between the orthodox and muslims, in Eastern Europe, does not bode well for religious 'toleration' between Islam and the US, going forward.
Certain types of religious belief are compatible, loosely, or at least reconciled, after a long struggle, with separation of church and state; others are not.
Why invite disaster?
How many mosques are there in, eg, Japan?
Two: Fukuoka, and Kobe. Until 09, there was only one, Kobe, apparently.
RE A PUBLISHING MIRACLE DETROIT TURNED AROUND OVERNIGHT
No big political or economic changes having been accomplished, except to lay off, pare down, bail out, and bankruptcy, the industry.
Now pundits say they are producing for the long term, turning a profit, yet no real Wall Street changes of attitude re the short term approach to their, and all others', securities. No big changes in their basic 'competitiveness', etc.
How can this be, you might ask?
Answer: A publishing miracle, much like Medjugorje, or something like that, a religious miracle, a sighting.
Now pundits say they are producing for the long term, turning a profit, yet no real Wall Street changes of attitude re the short term approach to their, and all others', securities. No big changes in their basic 'competitiveness', etc.
How can this be, you might ask?
Answer: A publishing miracle, much like Medjugorje, or something like that, a religious miracle, a sighting.
RE EDITORIAL RE GERMANY ECONOMIC GROWTH
The PPP must be a different animal, over there.
Maybe it also has to do with only having 16, instead of, say, 50, states?
Remember Ben Hur?
How many horses pulled Judah Ben Hur's chariot against Messala?
Question:
Isn't even 16 still way too many, going forward?
Not that a small number is, by itself, necessarily dispositive; there are notable counterexamples with only one. (France has only one state, with multilocal reps to parliament.)
Put it this way, a necessary but not sufficient condition for dominance, is constitutional elimination of a multitude of semi independent, 'dynastic' in their way, checks-or-balances-driven, regional states.
Most uninformed, and conservative, often liberal too, Americans
(it hardly matters, middle of the roaders too, they are all more or less uninformed)
want to go 'back' (1776) to 'states' rights'.
Question:
If that were so good, why then not counties', 'the Crown' no longer a 'threat', or say, individual cities', rights, as paramount, as even better?
Why not then direct democracy referenda, to eliminate the bad, old, big, state governments, keeping good local free market citizens down and back?
Otherwise, those good, hard working, laissez faire individuals would undoubtedly flourish, in the global marketplace without bad state or federal government constraints.
Coincidentally, there are hundreds of local, city/city, city/county, or county/county, etc., 'rivalries' around the country, mainly torrents in teacups, that have been mainly good only to distract their denizens from bigger picture political and economic problems, and to enrich the pockets of local print media.
I won't name any names. I was going to say something like, 'you know who you are'.
But, unfortunately, you probably don't.
Often, these local rivalries are driven, behind the scenes, by rivalries between big regional or national power, telecomm, or media, or whatever, providers, usually well endowed private companies. Often a sign of this situation is the naming rights exercised by these powerful entities, so that locals know that good corporate citizens are all around, helping them.
Maybe it also has to do with only having 16, instead of, say, 50, states?
Remember Ben Hur?
How many horses pulled Judah Ben Hur's chariot against Messala?
Question:
Isn't even 16 still way too many, going forward?
Not that a small number is, by itself, necessarily dispositive; there are notable counterexamples with only one. (France has only one state, with multilocal reps to parliament.)
Put it this way, a necessary but not sufficient condition for dominance, is constitutional elimination of a multitude of semi independent, 'dynastic' in their way, checks-or-balances-driven, regional states.
Most uninformed, and conservative, often liberal too, Americans
(it hardly matters, middle of the roaders too, they are all more or less uninformed)
want to go 'back' (1776) to 'states' rights'.
Question:
If that were so good, why then not counties', 'the Crown' no longer a 'threat', or say, individual cities', rights, as paramount, as even better?
Why not then direct democracy referenda, to eliminate the bad, old, big, state governments, keeping good local free market citizens down and back?
Otherwise, those good, hard working, laissez faire individuals would undoubtedly flourish, in the global marketplace without bad state or federal government constraints.
Coincidentally, there are hundreds of local, city/city, city/county, or county/county, etc., 'rivalries' around the country, mainly torrents in teacups, that have been mainly good only to distract their denizens from bigger picture political and economic problems, and to enrich the pockets of local print media.
I won't name any names. I was going to say something like, 'you know who you are'.
But, unfortunately, you probably don't.
Often, these local rivalries are driven, behind the scenes, by rivalries between big regional or national power, telecomm, or media, or whatever, providers, usually well endowed private companies. Often a sign of this situation is the naming rights exercised by these powerful entities, so that locals know that good corporate citizens are all around, helping them.
Friday, August 13, 2010
RE SOME ECONOMISTS, WITH MAVERICK ENTREPRENEUR EXECUTIVE QUARTERBACKS IN THE SADDLE: SARATOGA CARTOON HORSE SEASON: TEAM PLAY
RE THE ARTICLE, NYT,
"IN SARATOGA SPRINGS, CATERING TO THE HORSE SET"
We won't worry about the food issue right now..........
MISE EN SCENE FOR A CARTOON
PRELIMINARY SKETCH:
THE MAVERICK in competition AT SARATOGA
Why not show a cartoon, a propos "the Season", with a few of our favorite cartoon individuals, cavorting ensemble AT SARATOGA?
The BP CEO was embarrassed on his yachting outing 'while Rome Burned' so to speak, why not, also, this?
Let's say that the EQUINE 'economist' is doing all the, ostensibly, 'heavy lifting', even though his 'quarterback' RIDER, so to speak, and quite ironically, is none other than the inimitable "Maverick Executive", say, whip in hand?
The Maverick might also look rather 'Presidential', and the trusty steed might resemble, say, Bernanke, or even Krugman, for the moment, a little.
I am going to have to leave the fleshing out of some of these hilarious concepts for future posts, but I am sure you can already see,
just as at the end of say, Casablanca, Rick (the Maverick Executive Entrepreneur) and Louis (The Economist Horse), cantering leisurely off into the rainy distance,
'I can see this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship'.
One might also wish to quote Laslow's famous line, "Welcome back to the fight,..." but that is not on the cards........
"IN SARATOGA SPRINGS, CATERING TO THE HORSE SET"
We won't worry about the food issue right now..........
MISE EN SCENE FOR A CARTOON
PRELIMINARY SKETCH:
THE MAVERICK in competition AT SARATOGA
Why not show a cartoon, a propos "the Season", with a few of our favorite cartoon individuals, cavorting ensemble AT SARATOGA?
The BP CEO was embarrassed on his yachting outing 'while Rome Burned' so to speak, why not, also, this?
Let's say that the EQUINE 'economist' is doing all the, ostensibly, 'heavy lifting', even though his 'quarterback' RIDER, so to speak, and quite ironically, is none other than the inimitable "Maverick Executive", say, whip in hand?
The Maverick might also look rather 'Presidential', and the trusty steed might resemble, say, Bernanke, or even Krugman, for the moment, a little.
I am going to have to leave the fleshing out of some of these hilarious concepts for future posts, but I am sure you can already see,
just as at the end of say, Casablanca, Rick (the Maverick Executive Entrepreneur) and Louis (The Economist Horse), cantering leisurely off into the rainy distance,
'I can see this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship'.
One might also wish to quote Laslow's famous line, "Welcome back to the fight,..." but that is not on the cards........
THE FED RED HERRING Scylla Charybdis CARTOON
Krugman seems to make some important points.
Nevertheless, speaking of eg Japan, here's a mise en scene for a Bernanke cartoon:
Bernanke is Odysseus, navigating his stultifera navis , a small sail boat, between two rocky cliffs, but they aren't merely cliffs on either side, they are enormous high mountain ranges marked China, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Indonesia.
Scylla/Inflation sits at the nearest precipice to the little craft on one side, reaching down with tentacles dangerously close to Odysseus, the craft tipping dangerously and almost smaller than Bernanke himself, at center, bottom.
Just to the other side of the craft from Scylla, a large whirlpool CHARYBDIS, marked also DEFLATION, mountains rising up on that side of the illustration to the edges of the paper, the craft almost being sucked down into it the whirlpool.
Huge trees growing on the mountains, all mountains each labelled also, as well as countries' names mentioned, "MERELY EXCESS CAPACITY".
The caption above:
STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS
THE CAPTION BELOW:
STRATEGIC PARTNERS ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
One might also point out, as Japan scholars (not me!) have long mentioned, it is a fundamental mistake to try to compare Japan and the US, even on so, apparently, 'fundamental' (not) a level, as that of 'economics' (pseudo discipline). SAY APPLES AND ORANGES, pace Posen.
Nevertheless, speaking of eg Japan, here's a mise en scene for a Bernanke cartoon:
Bernanke is Odysseus, navigating his stultifera navis , a small sail boat, between two rocky cliffs, but they aren't merely cliffs on either side, they are enormous high mountain ranges marked China, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Indonesia.
Scylla/Inflation sits at the nearest precipice to the little craft on one side, reaching down with tentacles dangerously close to Odysseus, the craft tipping dangerously and almost smaller than Bernanke himself, at center, bottom.
Just to the other side of the craft from Scylla, a large whirlpool CHARYBDIS, marked also DEFLATION, mountains rising up on that side of the illustration to the edges of the paper, the craft almost being sucked down into it the whirlpool.
Huge trees growing on the mountains, all mountains each labelled also, as well as countries' names mentioned, "MERELY EXCESS CAPACITY".
The caption above:
STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS
THE CAPTION BELOW:
STRATEGIC PARTNERS ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
One might also point out, as Japan scholars (not me!) have long mentioned, it is a fundamental mistake to try to compare Japan and the US, even on so, apparently, 'fundamental' (not) a level, as that of 'economics' (pseudo discipline). SAY APPLES AND ORANGES, pace Posen.
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