America Anonymous.

Last night I went to a panel discussion about a book that my friend Brian is doing publicity for, America Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis.  In case you don't know him, some of you may remember feeling inadequate after reading his article about gay marriage in Massachussets in the NYTimes Magazine.  Anyway, the book is a good and interesting read and if you need a bit of a sneak preview, there's a piece that Benoit wrote for the Times last week about his sex addiction.

"I never kept my addiction secret from guys I had relationships with, and I was surprised by how little it seemed to faze them. When I told one boyfriend, he said, “Oh, aren’t all guys sort of addicted to sex?” It was only when I cheated on them for the third time, or slipped out of bed while they were sleeping to have phone sex with a stranger in the kitchen, that the seriousness of my addiction sunk in for them."

10 Days.

The countdown starts: 10 trading days left in 2008, a crazy crazy year, which I can't wait to put to rest and reminisce about in retrospect.  Meanwhile, there is an explosion of stories which I'd like to revel in, if I only had more time.  So instead, my three greatest hits:

The shoe thing.  As an amateur political observer, I can never endorse such a primitive display of disagreement.  Immediately after the incident I would have only expressed amusement over the fact that it had happened.  But thinking about it now - after a few more days of reactions - I think there is more to it.  It is increasingly  clear to me that of all the protests and criticisms that had been raised against Bush and his presidency, this is the one that has the best chance of sticking in our collective consciousness.  So now, with the president on tour to define his legacy - I mean, rewrite history -  this will go down in books as a permanent reminder of the outrage and disgust felt by many about him and the war in Iraq.  As a side note, I had long wondered about the weird complicity of the mainstream media and their inability to subject Bush to much direct criticism.  I always explained this in three ways: (1) media culture in the US - obsessed with the illusion of objectivity - does not allow journalists to offer much sharp criticism of the President (on the other side of the Atlantic journalists make it their business to tear politicians to shreds at every occasion); (2) this presidency was such an utter failure that journalists want to avoid talking about the obvious, and (3) to protect their own egos in the face of major cognitive dissonance ("we elected this guy, after all..").  Now, finally, it seems like the videos of the shoe incident - and the related narrative of the journalist expressing his disagreement over the occupation - are lending the news reporters a rare chance to both make fun of and criticise their commander in chief - innocently.  And oh so many are.. over and over and over again.

The lazy investor thing.  I'm not talking about the scandal that is Madoff - rather, I am talking about people who invested in him.  While I can appreciate the lure to a wealthy individual (greed, whatever), what baffles me and makes me outraged is people who had no business investing in a hedge fund - no matter how lucrative it seemed - like charities and foundations who put the majority of their funds into a black box with no accountability or risk controls - and who are now having to close.  Seriously, that is criminal.  Madoff himself was just riding a wave of stupidity and incompetence.

The weird Latin American bankrupcy (even though it has no real reason to) thing. Delicious, like a true latino soap opera - including some cross border drama.  Go read about it here.  

Lastly, on a lighter note, a fun (actually not really fun, and not really light, depending on your point of view) article about drinking in NYC.   I say it's pretty off purely because of the author's own sobriety and age.  But the whole premise of the "Proof" blog is .. pretty interesting, if quite schizofrenic (consider this vs this).

Good night.

Robot.

Ezra Klein has a good post up about surgical robots,  a topic I have briefly touched on here with a similar general conclusion.

Writing and thinking about robots has reminded me of a good piece of trivia - the origin of the word robot.  It was introduced by a Czech writer Karel Čapek in a play RUR.  It is derived from the Czech work "robota", which means "labor".  Incidentially, anyone remotely interested in science fiction should read his books RUR and War with the Newts if only to see how much of the current science fiction was concieved as early as 1920.

Blue-State Fox.

"I think—you know, I pay very close attention to what the independent media are saying and what bloggers and others are saying, and I think what—a sort of disturbing trend is that we have sort of blue-state Fox emerging, where people are, you know, sort of treating Obama in a different way than they would treat Bush or anyone else in power. And I think—remember, when Bush first took power, there was a tremendous outcry over all of these old Reagan hands that were being brought back in and the neoconservatives and others.   I mean, I think the time is now to call the question on the involvement of some of these people, that this is the precise moment when this kind of journalism matters, when we have to remind people of the history and the previous policies implemented by the people that are at the center of Obama’s foreign policy team right now, because we’re going to be living with these people for the next four years running the show. And I think it’s incredibly important to be all over this right now, before they’re named."

Abso-freaking-lutely.  Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now!, his piece on the topic here.  Incidentially, their review of potential Treasury Secretary suspects, here, is pretty critical of Geithner, who seems to be getting the job:  

Geithner, I think, yeah, maybe he would be marginally better, but if you look at the deal he initially did with Bear Stearns and JPMorgan, there are a lot of critics of that who say he was had. He was negotiating with Jamie Dimon, who sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank along with Geithner. And he’s—Geithner is considered to have been hoodwinked in that deal, because the New York Federal Reserve ended up mainly getting worthless subprime mortgage securities in return as collateral for the nearly $30 billion it put up. It’s already recorded a paper loss of $2.7 billion. And he outsourced the management of the collateral to BlackRock. Now, it’s probably just a coincidence that also as part of the—one of Geithner’s main advisers is John Thain, who was CEO of Merrill Lynch before it was swallowed up by Bank of America, and it’s probably just a coincidence that Merrill Lynch owns a 49 percent stake in BlackRock. And what this really represents is, you know, the old boy network. The Federal Reserve Banks are in many ways just Wall Street clubs. And so, I think Geithner himself would not be that good of an appointment, you know.

Well, at least he's good looking.

Not That Special, After All.

"Americans, indulging this month in our national pastime of unparalleled exceptionalism, need to rejoin the reality-based community. Pride is one thing. But telling ourselves that the Obama story could only happen in our country, in our time? That's hooey."

Good article over at Slate. 

Monday Morning Kristolism.

Republicans and conservatives today face a similar challenge to that of 1976. A hawkish foreign policy, social conservatism and middle-American populism aren’t the problems. Those elements, as embodied on the Republican ticket by John McCain and Sarah Palin, produced a respectable 46 percent of the national vote — in the midst of an economic meltdown, with the Bush administration flailing and House Republicans rebelling and the Republican ticket lacking any coherent economic message... 

... I don’t see why conservatives ought to defend a system that permits securitizing mortgages (or car loans) in a way that seems to make the lenders almost unaccountable for the risk while spreading it, toxically, everywhere else. I don’t see why a commitment to free markets requires permitting banks or bank-like institutions to leverage their assets at 30 to 1. There’s nothing conservative about letting free markets degenerate into something close to Karl Marx’s vision of an atomizing, irresponsible and self-devouring capitalism.

Actually, both relatively reasonable statements.  I agree with the former in the sense that Obama's victory should not be over-interpreted as a dramatic seismic shift in the electorate since it took the trifecta of an epic meltdown in the financial markets, historically low approval ratings of the incumbent and Caribou Barbie.  As for the latter quote, that is something I would expect from Krugman, not from one the most vocal conservative commentators.  Ah, how things are changing.  Column here.

Viral.

We are about to make history for the second time in a month.  The first time was last Tuesday, with the election of the first African-American president.  The second historic moment is the protests happening all around California and now one coming to a city hall near you at 1:30pm EST this Saturday.  Read about the genesis of the explosive grass-roots movement here.  Many commentators are detecting something big is happening: see examples here, here and here.  

Visibility is what we need and visibility is what we're getting: among others today's op-ed in NYTimes by Savage, special comment by Keith Olbermann, Judge Judy, Joy Behar subbing for Larry King on Friday.

I am still not exactly sure what the end game is here or what can be achieved in the near term, but people getting up to take a stand in massive numbers is an accomplishment enough.  See you at the Mormon Temple tonight.  Whoopi will be there.  Please please please, be civil. 

PS.  This is my 100th post on EatReadPlay, so here's a little cheer to that!

Monday Morning Kristolism.

Democrats are getting ready to take control of every branch of the government and Bush is all but ready to flee the White House and start working on his autobio comic book.  But don't despair - that does not stop neocon wisdom of Bill Kristol setting liberals' heart rates to healthy elevated levels every Monday morning.  Consider this desperately cynical nugget, with regards to what Obama said about the dog:

Here, in a few sentences, Obama did the following: He deepened his bond with every dog lover in America. He identified with every household that’s tried to figure out what kind of dog to get. He touched every parent with a kid allergic to pets. He showed compassion by preferring a dog from a shelter. And he demonstrated a dry and slightly politically incorrect wit by commenting that “a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.” Not bad. It could be a tough four or eight years for conservatives.

What a strange scary place his mind must be, where discussing a dog is automatically assessed as a strategic political move.  Either way, it is good to know what truly moves Kristol.  On a related note, he concludes with the following:

And it wouldn’t hurt for Governors Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and the other possible 2012 G.O.P. nominees to begin bringing some puppies home for their kids.

Spare the poor dog, she is not even a remote possibility.

Voting Your Pocketbook.. And Other Election Myths.

Having some fun with the CNN exit polls.  

If anyone tells you that:

Rich people vote Republican - tell them that 52% of those earnings over $200K/yr voted for Obama, versus 46% for McCain.  To put this in perspective, for someone earning $250K/yr, this is a difference of $10K in after-tax income.  Turns out, above some income level, people are quite fine with spreading the wealth around.  

Gays vote Democrat - they do but not as overwhlemingly as one would expect: 27% of them voted for McCain.  I can only guess this was because neither one of the candidates had a strong vocal position on the gays either way.

Clinton would not have done as well as Obama did - quite the opposite.  52% of those polled would have voted for her and 5% wouldn't have voted at all, effectively giving her 56% of the vote, or a 12% lead over McCain.  I am guessing this stat is duly noted by Hillary.

Autopsy.

The argument I was making about McCain's loss implicitly in this chart and more explicitly in this entry is echoed by WaPo's Krauthammer today:   

In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.  In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.

The column proceeds to point out the non-exogenous factors, ie the mistakes that McCain made:  suspending the campaign and the Palin pick.  Indeed, the chart supports that - note the uptick in Obama "shares" on September 26th.

Just something to consider as we are making conclusions about what Obama's victory says about the American spirit, American democracy, American dream or any other noble power people seem to be invoking these days.

Stunning.

According to one study, one in seven women who served in Iraq and Afganistan reported "sexual trauma" during their service.  I suspect in cases like this there is some underreporting, so the real incidence is probably much higher.  In case that statistic isn't ourageous enough for you, read this article from the Nation or listen to this interview from Democracy Now!

This bit makes the whole operation sound like a bad episode of MASH.

Horton wonders what the 200 Justice Department employees and contractors stationed in Iraq do all day, noting that there has not been a single completed criminal conviction against a US contractor implicated in a violent crime anywhere in Iraq since the invasion. "We have a complete process in place for solving military criminal violations when soldiers commit crimes, but for the 180,000 employees of private contractors over there, there is nothing," says Horton.

Are You Racist?

Turns out I am, a tiny bit.  Find out here.  And read a related article here.  

Naked Sushi Model

Funny thing:  I worked with this girl back in my investment banking days.  

With the crumbling down of Wall Street, should I expect to see a naked sushi model in my neighborhood sushi joint?  Bodega?

The Misbehaviors

Capitalism, it turns out, is dead.  According to the narrative that is rapidly growing roots in the collective consciousness, free markets are not the magic they were cranked up to be.  At least Alan Greenspan seems to have concluded that.  

On the back on that admission, David Brooks' column in NYT echoes a theme I have written about a few weeks ago here, but goes a step further and takes it to the level of policy.

My sense is that this financial crisis is going to amount to a coming-out party for behavioral economists and others who are bringing sophisticated psychology to the realm of public policy.

As I continue thinking along that path of reasoning, I have to wonder what will this shattering of the market axiom mean for all of us?  After the crash of 1929 and the Depression we saw the economic philosophies of Marxism rise to prominence in many countries around the world.  Have we come full circle?

Growing up in post-Communist Slovakia, I was a part of a young generation that was never fully indoctrinated with the theories of Marxism and Leninism.  Anxious to be as western as possible, we embraced the ideas of the free market like a religion.  Capitalism was cool, it was the only way to be.  Today, as I listen to Greenspan, and read more about behavioral economics, I am increasingly aware that what may have previously seemed like an axiom was really just a doctrine.  Maybe it is right, maybe not, but still nothing more than a doctrine. 

  

READ: Russia Endorses Obama

An interesting piece of news that is making its way around European press and will probably hit the US media with a splash (only to be turned into a new fear-mongering clip by the McCain campaign): certain Russian officials expressing preference for Obama.

In the words of Konstantin Kosachyov, Russian Duma's foreign affairs committee:

"McCain got his political formation during the Cold War, he dedicated most of his life to the fight against communism. It's clear that to this day he still thrashes along that front without seeing any real difference between the Soviet Union and modern Russia."

"Obama doesn't differ particularly in his beliefs about Russia from the Republican candidate, but he is a young politician, without prejudices and so, more ready to take on a new proposals and approaches."

He couldn't have said it better, though a small part of me wishes he didn't, for Obama's sake.

READ: Taking a Peak

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria, former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin makes me feel good about the kind of leader that Obama would be:

ZAKARIA: People talk about a crisis and how it's going to test the next president. Well, you've been watching, in a sense, a crisis that is testing Barack Obama already, the financial crisis. You've been in on a number of meetings where he has formulated and decided what his position is going to be, what he would do if he were president -- all that kind of thing.  Describe what Obama is like in those meetings.

RUBIN: I think he's remarkable, Fareed. I first met him about four years ago through a fellow who had worked with me at Treasury -- my chief of staff at Treasury -- who had been on the Harvard Law Review with him.

And then after Hillary dropped out, I got very involved with Barack. And they're a small group of us -- Larry Summers, Laura Tyson, Paul Volcker, in some measure Warren Buffett, and a few others a little bit more intermittently -- who have been very involved with him. And I would say that we probably talk with him once a week perhaps, either on the phone most of the time, or occasionally in person.

And each time he does the same thing. He says, "I want to put all politics aside. I want to put the campaign aside, and I want to really focus on what's happening."

And it is a remarkable thing for somebody to do in the middle of a campaign. He has tremendous seriousness of purpose. He is very bright, as we all know.

He thinks, he makes decisions very much like President Clinton did. He wants to get all the factors on the table, and then he weighs and balances them, and tries to judge what the probabilities and the tradeoffs are.

And he's very much the leader of these discussions. He is the leader of his own economic team. I think he's really and truly terrific, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: How would he -- but he seems very different temperamentally from Clinton.

RUBIN: He's different temperamentally, but he's very similar in the way that he approaches decisions. He recognizes the inherent complexity of issues, and he's very much focused on trying to get in front of him all the considerations, including the views of those who disagree with him. And then he's very much a weigher and a balancer.

You know, temperamentally, it's interesting. They are somewhat different, but they both have a sense of humor. Obama has a very good, sort of ironic sense of humor. And they're both very similar to work for, in the sense that they're engaged, they're interacting.

And I don't think that Senator Obama cares whether you're a 35- year-old who's sitting at the table, or you're double that age and much more experienced. What he cares about is the substance that you bring to the discussion. And that's exactly the way President Clinton was.

To address a potential source of skepticism about this testimonial, later in the interview Rubin says: "I'm not going back to Washington."

READ: Oh, the Euros.

Gotta love the coverage of the US election in Europe.  Perhaps not surprisingly, every major European paper has a dedicated section on their website. 

On the right, a picture from the series at Le Figaro called "Cliches of the Campaign".  

A bit more serious - and written in a language I can read and understand - is this forwarding looking article from the UK Telegraph.  

READ: The Halloween Mask Poll

Forget the Gallup Poll - if you want to see who will snatch the White House on Nov 4th, you have to look at halloween mask sales!

Or so this site claims.

Something tells me, the real winner this halloween will be Sarah Palin.  

[Hat tip: Chicago Sun Times]

READ: If The World Could Vote

From The Economist .. the overall result not terribly surprising, though there are a few head scratchers:  Cuba - Leaning McCain?  Iraq - Strong McCain?  Slovakia - only "Leaning Obama" country in the EU (as opposed to "Strong Obama")?  Huh?

READ: Health Care and Baseball

Today's NY Times op-ed by Billy Beane, Newt Gingrich and John Kerry is a good example why it is pointless if not dangerous to discuss an issue as complex as healthcare in short format.  They try to make the case that the problem in US health care system is the lack of evidence-based decision making. 

Studies have shown that most health care is not based on clinical studies of what works best and what does not — be it a test, treatment, drug or technology. Instead, most care is based on informed opinion, personal observation or tradition.  It is no surprise then that the United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care compared to almost every other country in the world — and with worse health quality than most industrialized nations.

The implication seems to be that other countries spend less on their health care because they are much better at determining what works and what doesn't, which strikes me as somewhat misleading.  Other countries spend less on healthcare per capita than the US simply because they either cannot afford to or do not want to.  And their outcomes are better on average simply because their healthcare system is more equitable.  The best care in the US is still by far the best care anywhere; the problem is just that fewer and fewer people are able to access it.

I am not saying here that evidence-based medicine is not the right way to go.  I just don't think we should be expecting magic.  There are many serious structural problems in the US health care and lack of data and evidence is only one of them and cannot be addressed in isolation.  

More practically, however, even if we agree that evidence-based medicine is what we need more of, I struggle to see how that can be achieved in the disjointed system of US health care where decisions, financing and delivery of care all exist in their own silos.  The authors suggest:

Working closely with doctors, the federal government and the private sector should create a new institute for evidence-based medicine. This institute would conduct new studies and systematically review the existing medical literature to help inform our nation’s over-stretched medical providers.

However, that seems a touch idealistic.  A lot of review and evidence already exists and is routinely ignored both by payors and providers alike.  Take the example of surgical robots which cost $2 million a piece, have questionable comparative quality outcomes, yet hospitals are tripping over each other buying them and not because they believe the robots are such good medicine.  When I talk to hospital CEOs and CFOs they often express downright hate for the robots.  They cost a lot, they lose money on every procedure they perform, yet - to stay competitive - they know they need to have one.  In a competitive market place there is always the temptation if not actual incentive to do more with more fancy technology, no matter what the evidence says.  

In fact, I am almost starting to wonder if the real argument here is that unless payments, care and decisions are somehow centrally coordinated, we can't ensure they will be both appropriate and economical.  And that, ladies and gentlement, is how this blogger would make an argument for government-run healthcare.  Or as McCain would probably put it, socialism.  Boo!!