It All Fits Together!

I happened across this post in an economics blog recently. So there is such a thing as "behavioral economics", which attempts to get real with the view of participants in an economy as "rational agents". In particular, it looks at cognitive illusions, which have been discussed in this blog here, and here, among other places. Hmmm, both these posts reference the book "Inevitable Illusions", by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, but apparently I read it before I started blogging, I can't find a summary/review. It is a very good book on the subject of cognitive illusions, and an easy read.

So maybe there is some hope for economics after all! Here is a behavioral economics reading list.

Evidence for Kardashev Type III Civilizations!

Ha ha, just kidding. This is just for fun, and to post nice picures of unusual galaxies.

I have been saving astronomical pictures I like from APOD, HEASARC, ESA/Hubble, and Bad Astronomy for about 6 years now. The number is now ~1800 pictures. Most of the ~600 pictures in the Extragalactic folder are galaxies or clusters of galaxies. I was looking through these the other day, and, with an extremely overactive imagination, discovered several examples of Kardashev Type III civilizations!

Shields On!

This galaxy (NGC 4651) looks like it is sending a jet out the front that is then creating a shield around the galaxy! For offense or defense?

This galaxy is around 26 Mpc (megaparsec, around 3 million light years) away, on the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster. There does not appear to be any other nearby galaxy that could have caused the jet as a tidal effect.

When One Shield Is Not Enough!

OK, there is a galaxy nearby (NGC 470) to cause gravitational tidal effects, but, what, 5 concentric rings and 2 sets of extended shields??? Too much for tidal, must be a very paranoid civilization!

This galaxy is NGC 474, around 30 Mpc away, and is called a shell galaxy. There are not many of these, but I think that more sensitive telescopes will find more. The two galaxies together form Arp 227.

Nearby is another galaxy (NGC 467) also with faint shells. Here's a pic of all 3 galaxies:

This was featured in APOD here.

What Is This???

It actually has a name: Hoag's Object. But it doesn't have an NGC number or appear in any other catalogue of galaxies -- because IT IS SO WEIRD!

So maybe a bar instability cleaned out the space? Hard to believe that has only happened once -- no other galaxy looks like this one. Normal ring galaxies are formed when one galaxy punches through the center of another, like these two examples:

Notice how messy they are. And note that the entire ring shows lots of bright blue new star formation regions, created by the gravitational shock wave that the collision sent through the target galaxy's disk. Hoag's Object, on the other hand, has only what looks like a faint spiral arm running through the ring. Additionally, redshift data shows that the ring and the core are at the same distance and not moving relative to each other.

APOD has featured Hoag's Object 4 times, most recently here.

It just ain't right! Must be an advanced alien civilization! But, what are they building???

A Project Gone Bad

Yes Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) produce duel lobed radio emission (magenta) from jets perpendicular to the rotation of the massive central black hole. But the filaments? And the spirally stuff? And the dark clouds? Must be evidence of an extremely aggressive Kardashev Type III project gone horribly wrong.

This is actually one of my favorite galaxies of all time. NGC 1275 is the largest galaxy in the Perseus Cluster (Abell 426). It is around 73 Mpc away. Even at that distance, the Perseus Cluster is the brightest extragalactic X-ray source in the sky. There have been several great pictures of NGC 1275 since Hubble went up, and I still can't figure what the hell is going on. Here's more pix, the latter 2 with overlays taken in non-optical wavelengths:

Here is the central part of the Perseus Cluster with NGC 1275 on the left:

So, will our galaxy someday support a Kardashev Type III civilization? I guess I hope so. Just get human civilization through the next 30-40 years and we'll be ready to get right on it!

Good News! Good News!

On Monday I finished Steven Pinker's latest book: "The Better Angels of Our Nature", subtitled "Why Violence Has Declined", 829 pages. It took about 3 weeks to read. It is amazing to me that, even retired, there were 1-3 day stretches when I did not read any of the book. So much other interesting stuff to read online, yay economics!

In the first chapter of the book, he lays out what he's going to do:

1. He's going to convince us that all types of violence have been declining precipitously, with curves looking like reverse hockey sticks.
   
2. He's going to explore explanations for this fact.
   

So chapters 2-7 have chart after chart after chart of statistics showing that all forms of violence -- interstate wars, civil wars, genocides, and inter-individual violence such as murder -- have been going down, down, down, particularly since the end of World War 2. There is of course also an encyclopedia of all the forms of violence that humans have invented -- very chilling to say the least.

One interesting point, someone might object, but what about the genocides we still have going on? The word "genocide" did not even exist until the war crime trials after WW2. Throughout most of history, genocide was basically "OK". Now, we still have them in decreasing numbers, but we recognize them as bad.

We forget how, prior to say the US Bill of Rights, cruel and unusual punishments were the norm rather than the exception. There are some chilling descriptions of instruments and techniques of torture. And, while we may have stepped backwards somewhat in now justifying torture, at least it is now generally considered to be bad. We forget that public executions used to be festive events to which you took your children. And that dueling, bear-baiting and other blood sports were also very popular.

The thing that Pinker finds to best correlate with the declines is the invention of the printing press, and the Enlightenment that followed. He also speculates that part of the reason for the Middle Eastern Islamic countries' backwardness is that they banned Arabic printing presses well into the 18th century for a variety of reasons.

Also during this time, the Rule of Law, implemented by strong central governments (named Leviathan by Hobbes) became stronger and stronger as true national governments were created. And "gentle commerce" also had a civilizing effect.

The final chapter of this section, chapter 7, looks at the Rights Revolutions: from Civil Rights for blacks, to Women's Rights, to Gay Rights, and to Child and Animal Rights. Each one learned strategy and tactics from the earlier ones. I've been so pleasantly surprised at how the whole Gay Rights thing has just kind of passed a tipping point and now seems to be pretty much a done deal -- except of course for red state foot-dragging, which I am sure will continue indefinitely.

Ha ha, he defines a scale of societies that goes from Western European to blue states to red states to 3rd world dictatorships.

Other interesting FFTKAT:

• Most of the "icemen" found preserved from 10s of 1000s of years ago have some kind of injury likely inflicted by another human.
  
• The notion that medieval knights were anything vaguely resembling chivalrous is totally disabused.
  
• Prior to World War 1, there was much writing and sentiment on the nobility of war and martial virtues. A lot of these writers were Romanticists. The senseless carnage of WW1 put an end to that.
  
• The 60s did represent a step backward in decreasing violence as many societal strictures were loosened. But things started moving in the right direction again in the 90s. The Romantic movement of the late 19th century was also a step backward.
  
• Pinker disagrees with the "Freakonomics" theory that violence started downwards 18 years after Roe vs Wade because there were far fewer unwanted (male) children born to enter their violent years at age 18. Several other statistics show that the math doesn't work.
  
• Pinker feels that the protection of children may have gone too far. He seems to have enjoyed dodgeball as a kid, and is sorry that is now mostly being banned :-(
  
• Surprising to me, since the 90s people have mostly quit spanking children.
  

Chapter 8, "Inner Demons" looks at the causes of violence behavior in the human mind. Firstly, there is the Moralization Gap. We all have horribly myopic vision in conflicts: both sides completely overestimate their offense and hurt and completely underestimate their culpability in the situation. This is why Leviathan and the Rule of Law are so important. They introduce a 3rd party, i.e., The Law, to view things impartially.

Getting into actual brain structure, we are shown:

• the Rage circuit;
  
• the Seeking system -- I think this would formerly have been the Pleasure system;
  
• the Fear circuit;
  
• the Intermale Aggression or Dominance system. These 4 systems are in all mammals.
  
• the frontal cortex, which receives input from the components of all 4 systems above, and also has some control over these systems.
  

Next, a fine list of roots or types of violence, which engage these systems in varying ways:

1. Predation. Violence as a means to an end.
   
2. Dominance. Not confined to just males.
   
3. Revenge. Lots of discussion of The Prisoner's Dilemma here. Also a discussion of practical steps to end long running real world conflicts.
   
4. Sadism. Apparently an acquired taste??? Torturer's initially want nothing to do with it, but grow a taste for it???
   
5. Ideology. This is the one that really drives the body counts through the roof. The Nazis, the Communists in Russia and China both killed millions or 10s of millions.
   

Finally this chapter dismisses the notion of Pure Evil. The atrocities that occur can be explained without invoking any such concept.

Chapter 9, "Better Angels", looks at the parts of our mind and culture that control and mitigate the sources of violence in the previous chapter. These are:

1. Empathy. Pinker says that the recently discovered mirror neurons don't really play that big a part here. FFTKAT, "empathy" the word has only been around since 1904, and didn't really start meaning "sympathy" and "compassion" until the 1940s
   
2. The expanding circle of sympathy: from kin to babies, fuzzy animals, to the needy.
   
3. Self-control. It's actually a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. And it can become tired from its being used. Self-control and deferred gratification are strongly correlated with every measure of individual success.
   
4. Oxytocin -- the "cuddle hormone".
   
5. Moral sense; this is one of the more interesting discussions, see below.
   

On moral sense, the modern Western view sees as the most important moral issues fairness, justice, the protection of individuals, and the prevention of harm. The older, religious approach had lots of other issues as well: loyalty, respect, obedience, asceticism, and regulation of bodily functions like eating, sex and menstruation.

Three different organizations of moral concerns are presented. The first by Schweder:

1. Autonomy -- the rights of individuals;
   
2. Community -- the responsibilities of the individual to tribes, clans, families, etc.
   
3. Divinity -- the world has a divine essence, so we must protect bodies from degradation and contamination.
   

The second organization by Haidt splits #1 and #2 above into 2 categories and renames #3, for a total of 5:

1. Fairness/Reciprocity;
   
2. Harm/Care;
   
3. In-group Loyalty;
   
4. Authority/Respect;
   
5. Purity/Sanctity.
   

Pinker likes best the 4 relational models of anthropologist Allen Fiske -- note, order different than 1st 2 systems, with each model being more advanced than its predecessor:

1. Communal Sharing or Communality; resources, ceremony, myths shared; oxytocin based.
   
2. Authority Ranking; your basic hierarchy/pecking order; testosterone based.
   
3. Equality Matching; tit-for-tat and the silver and golden rules; based on many high order brain functions.
   
4. Market Pricing/Rational-Legal; civilization and the Rule of Law.
   

Fiske attributes the increasing civilizing of the world on the older, hormone-based models being increasing replaced by the the newer, higher order function models.

So regardless of the grouping, morality consists of following the rules and conventions of that domain. Weird is the case where you apply one relational model to a resource ordinarily governed by another. Rather than being perceived as wrong, it would be perceived as shocking or disingenuous -- "like a diner thanking a restaurateur for an enjoyable experience and offering to have him over for dinner at some point in the future (treating a Market Pricing interaction as if it were governed by Communal Sharing)." Taboos come from resources that are considered sacred, which may not be traded for anything -- like someone offering to buy your child. Three kinds of tradeoffs:

1. Routine -- occurring within a single relational model;
   
2. Taboo -- pitting a sacred value in one model against a secular value in another;
   
3. Tragic -- pitting 2 sacred values against each other, i.e., Sophie's Choice.
   

Politics is reframing Taboo tradeoffs as Tragic tradeoffs. And political ideologies are defined by which relations are emphasized. Liberals only care about Fairness/Reciprocity and Harm/Care; conservatives care about everything.

Pinker discounts any recent biological evolution in the decline in violence. The Warrior Gene hypothesis -- that a low activity version of a gene that controls MAO-A (which breaks down neurotransmitters in the brain) makes people more violent -- is shown to be pretty weak.

The Flynn Effect -- that IQs have been increasing by 3 points a decade for as long that they have been measured -- is identified as a helpful influence. Studies of it have shown that the increase is mostly in abstract reasoning. 100 years ago, people would refuse to think abstractly -- they were too grounded in the real things around them, in their farms or villages. Plus, the average person now understands and uses dozens or 100s of abstract concepts that used to be confined to academia. Pinker wonders, could there be a moral Flynn Effect?

Ha ha, a study is cited that shows that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives. Well, of course!

Finally, chapter 10 (phew!). Factors that have not contributed to decreasing violence, or that could have increased violence but did not are discussed. Then there is a big discussion with the Prisoner's Dilemma transformed into the Pacifist's Dilemma. At face value, preemptively attacking your neighbors wins, game theory-wise. The factors opposing this: Leviathan; gentle commerce; feminization (women in more positions of power); the expanding circle of sympathy (books really help this, and surprisingly fiction more than non-fiction); and the increasing use of reason.

He finishes up refusing to make any predictions for the future, but the outlook is definitely one of optimism. So, as in the title, good news! I highly recommend this book. Despite its length, it really is a very easy read.

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Almost 2 months without a blog post, what a slacker I've been. Well, we've been having a beautiful mild summer, highs mostly in the high 70s to mid 80s. So I've had lots of nice walks and bike rides. In addition to the 61 mile ride on July 4 in Raleigh, I did a 70 mile ride with my friends Tim and Ed on the Little Miami Bike Trail a few Sundays ago.

This past Sunday I did a 50 mile ride (49.8). It was longer than I expected, I made a wrong turn east of Georgetown. I was on Crumbaugh Road, which I had not planned on, and I'd stopped in the shade at the top of a hill to try to check the map on my phone -- which I have trouble using when biking because of the outdoor light and no reading glasses. I heard 2 male voices talking and thought, "I'll ask them for directions". They were in a small apple orchard and seemed surprised to see someone walking a bicycle towards them. They gave me directions (left at the end onto 460 to the Georgetown bypass), but the funny thing was, one of them was Graham Rowles, who coached my son Adam's U-14 soccer team and was active in LYSA for the years I was (and beyond). First soccer run-in I'd had in a while, I used to get them all the time.

Just after turning off of Newtown Pike onto Johnson Mill Rd, saw this interesting dam. I'd never seen one constructed like this.

But, there are really two reasons that the blog is late:

1. I had been anticipating the new Charles Stross novel so much, and then didn't really like it that much. What to do?
   
2. I read my 1st evolutionary psychology book in quite a while: Stephen Pinker's latest, and it was 829 pages. Generally an easy and very informative read, but still, 829 pages is a fair amount. But, finished yesterday, yay!
   

So, first, the new Stross novel is "Neptune's Brood". It is set in the same universe as his earlier "Saturn's Children", but 2500 years later. Like the earlier one, it has no (biological homo sapiens) humans in it, just our android children.

One of the reasons I was psyched for this book was the fact that most of its plot centers on economics, which, along with music, has been my avocation since I retired. And there is some interesting stuff there. First, 3 kinds of money:

• fast money, aka cash;
  
• medium money, aka stocks, mutual funds, etc;
  
• slow money, which is what is used to fund expansion to new star systems. It takes years to cash, as it must be validated by both the issuer and a certifying agency, both in different star systems, with no FTL communication.
  

There's also the realization that slow money represents a form of Ponzi scheme. I think I've mentioned that at some level, all investments are Ponzi schemes. If nobody wants to buy your investment, it's worthless. So you have to keep bringing new money into the system.

The heroine of the book is a nun/accountant/historian. She's an expert on financial scams, particularly those involving the development of FTL travel, which does not exist. She's looking for a "sister" of hers who has gone missing, possibly with a legendary financial instrument. The search takes her to interesting places and includes a run-in with pirates/insurance agents/branch bankers. It is the normal inspired zaniness you expect from Charles Stross.

So I think the 1st thing that kind of disappointed me was the heroine. She is definitely a "hero with feet of clay", who soldiers on and won't give up her quest -- but still, just somehow too timid in outlook.

And the 2nd disappointing thing was the ending. I think everything got wrapped up, but, still it seemed to end too abruptly. I reread the last 20 pages and still felt that way. But, I have found this to not be uncommon in Science Fiction.

So of course, I highly recommend the book. I probably need to get a little less information on future content I'm interested in to avoid getting myself over-anticipating a release.

I think I'll cover the Pinker in another post.

Music Input / Music Output

Wow, stuff going all the way back to April!

• Overhover, "Time Capsules II", 2012. Another Brooklyn band -- that playlist is getting long. Fairly nice tunes, not particularly memorable. 3 stars.
  
• Iron & Wine, "Ghost On Ghost". Really singable, enjoyable songs. 4 stars. Need to check out more of his material.
  
• Flaming Lips, "The Terror". These guys have gotten so conceptual. This sounds like a soundtrack. Lots of noises. There is also a track "The Terror (Full Album), 54:58 long -- hmmm, the other tracks total 46:46, so not just them all played together. 3 stars.
  
• Phoenix, "Bankrupt!". Seems a bit more ethereal in the arrangements than earlier work. No really memorable songs. 3 stars.
  
• Fitz & The Tantrums, "More Than Just A Dream". Motown lives. Really catchy, danceable tunes, great arrangements, really like the vocal duo. 4 stars.
  
• Little Dragon, eponymous (2007) and "Machine Dreams" (2009). So I went back and harvested the 1st 2 albums by the swedish/african american techno R&B group. The more I listen to these the more I like them. The grooves are so sparse but compelling. 4 stars for both. I shuffle play my 4 star and up playlist fairly often. And both of these, I thought, I will be happy when any of these songs come up.
  
• Vampire Weekend, "Modern Vampires of the City". Nothing jumped out at me from this, except for finding the vocal synthesizer used on "Ya Hey" to be somewhat annoying. But, the more I'm listening to it, the more I like it. So, 4 stars.
  

That brings us up to the middle of May, time to go to Europe!

On the output side, For the last 2 months I have been one of the hosts of the Tuesday Night Rock n Roll Party @ Henry Clay's Public House, on Upper across from the old courthouse. Here's the FaceBook group if you want to join and get invitations every week. Joining me in hosting are Brent Carter on guitar and vocals, Logan Lay on bass, and Evan Strippelhoff on drums. David Ponder, a most excellent vocalist and guitarist, filled in for me when I was Europe and for Brent once -- nice to have him in the mix.

Maybe trying to play a little less blues. A couple of decent turnouts, one really slow night. Some good new people who I'd never played with have been out. Need to get some of those back.

So with this every Tuesday, Blues Jam at Cheapside Wednesday and Jammin' at Paulie's on Sunday, getting a lot of playing in. Sometimes I play real well, other times not so much so. I'd feel that with this much practice, the trend is hopefully upward.

New Classical Economics Reminds Me Of Creationism

My study of Economics proceeds. I would by and large say I am pretty discouraged by what I am finding.

Last week I finished reading "Keynes The Return Of The Master" by Robert Skidelsky. (Note: many edits/revisions to this post, it still misses much of what it could have communicated, but it's getting old and needs to ship.) Skidelsky is considered one of the greatest living Keynes scholars, having written a 3 volume autobiography. He is also a coauthor of "How Much Is Enough: Money And The Good Life" which I greatly enjoyed and harvested much wisdom from and posted about here.

So this book reviews (New) Keynesian vs (New) Classical economic theory, and then explores how Keynesian ideas could have helped prevent the Great Recession, and could help get us out of the Great Recession.

Classical economic theory is pretty scary. It still adheres to the 18th century principles of Adam Smith: that free unregulated markets will always be the best economic system. So we should all trust "the invisible hand" to make everything work out in the long run.

It reminds me of Creationism because it is not a science that gathers data, creates and tests hypotheses, and graduates the successful ones to theories. Just as Creationism starts with the answer -- god created everything -- and then seeks to filter and warp data to get to that answer, classical economics also starts with the answer -- free, unregulated markets are the best -- and works backwards from there.

The framework this creates is, well, bizarre. Or to quote Skidelsky, "To the non-economist they will seem mad". Economics is basically about equilibriums, particularly between supply and demand. To that we add:

• the rational expectations hypothesis (REH). This says that all the agents in a market -- buyers, sellers, workers -- will always act rationally to further their own best interests. This implies things such as, workers will immediately be willing to work for less as soon as they see that the demand for their labor is dimished. Yeah, right. It also implies that all the agents have perfect knowledge of everything. It has as a cousin the "wisdom of the crowd" thinking we now see re the Internet.
  
• real business cycle theory (RBC). Originally Classical economics denied that there should ever be boom or busts. It added the idea of business cycles where something changes, like oil prices, regulations, or weather, or a new invention comes out, creating a shock to the system, with a boom or a bust until the system regains equilibrium.
  
• the efficient market theory (EMT). This says that "shares are always fairly priced" -- again ignoring partial information and time lags. Risk management models are based on this, and are modeled with Gaussian bell curves -- which ignore the possibility of "Black Swans" -- events 10 or 20 sigma (standard deviations) off of the bell curve mean.
  
• Say's Law which says that "the supply creates its own demand". I guess this implies "marketing is king".
  
• the Arrow Debreu model assumes "that all trade takes at one unique point. ... Time only featured in the form of 'futures markets'". This seems like a very elegant simplification to make the math easier, but, saying that at each instant in the history of an economy, its entire future is predefined seems nonsensical.
  
• Open, efficient markets will create full employment.
  
• The latest New Classical thinkers use Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE models) as their workhorse. Gots to figure out how to code me up some of those ...
  

According to Shidelsky, New Keynesian economics uses a lot of the same concepts, but then tacks on Keynesian concepts. So let's move on to Keynesian economics.

• All markets have uncertainties that cannot be predicted by equilibrium models.
  
• Agents will hold rather than invest or spend money when high levels of uncertainty make them afraid. This goes into models as LM: Liquidity/Money.
  
• Risk is measurable, uncertainty is not.
  
• Following the crowd is a strategy that diminishes uncertainty.
  
• Government regulation can help manage uncertainty.
  
• While Classical economists believe that slumps should be combatted solely by the central banks increasing the money supply, Keynesians also believe that direct government stimulus (spending) may be necessary. This assures that the money doesn't just get created, but also get spent. Re what is going on now: the Fed has increased the money supply by a factor of 3, but mostly the money is just being hoarded.
  
• Say's Law is repudiated. The current Great Recession is attributed to a lack of demand, which Say's Law says should not exist. Demand problems, which can be acerbated by agents' uncertainty making them save rather than spend, are the root of busts, rather than supply problems.
  

Shidelsky sayes New Keynesians attribute market failures -- booms or busts -- to "asymmetric information". For example, in the 2008 meltdown, the traders, ratings agencies, and other insiders knew that the CDOs (Consolidated Debt Offerings) were crap, the people they were selling them to absolutely didn't.

Ahhh! I had forgotten about this. The stick figure cartoon that completely explains the subprime crisis! Subprime => sublime!

Another thing that is completely ignored by classical theories is that in our globalized era, capital moves around much easier than labor. Labor does move, as view immigrants in lower (or higher) paid jobs worldwide, but it's a lot harder to physically move your person, and possibly your family, than it is to do an international funds transfer. So the labor market must adapt to changing conditions much more slowly than the capital market. Which makes (New) Classical models === shit.

The next section of the book talks about Keynes. I guess I'll have to read a bio at some point (it would join Albert Einstein and Harpo Marx on the list of biographies I've read -- I've never been much on them). He didn't like math. He believed in economist intuition, pretty scary. He got his experience with economics as an investor. He fairly successfully managed his own, his friends, and some institutional funds. He was political and a persuader, like Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz are today. He died young, age 62 (says the 62 YO man), in 1946.

So now, let's look at history according to, which school of economics was winning.

1. From the 18th century until the Great Depression, Classical economics ruled.
   
2. Keynes formulated his ideas and published them during the Great Depression. Keynesian principles, in the form of the Bretton Woods agreements, were used to build The World Order after World War 2. But in the 70s, the Keynesians pushed too hard for government control and regulation. Additionally the stagflation (high unemployment and inflation both, which is not supposed to be possible) of the late 70's gave more ammunition to the conservatives.
   
3. The New Classical domination begins in the 80s, with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher deregulating everything, busting unions, and otherwise trying to regain the classical ideal of completely free, unregulated markets. Milton Friedman ("the gnome of Chicago???") was the intellectual leader of the New Classical economists. An additional factor that is mentioned: the fall of the USSR and the general failure of Communism took the pressure off of Capitalism to appeal to the working classes. So the capitalists basically then put the pedal to the metal.
   
4. The Great Recession now has New Keynesians on the upsurge. Particularly since the predictions of the New Classical economists -- notably hyperinflation from the 3x money expansion that the Fed has done -- have been completely wrong, while the predictions of the New Keynesians -- notably that austerity measures in face of a weak recovery would throw countries back into recession -- have been mostly right.
   

Skidelsky then compares the periods 2 and 3 above. In general, he finds that the economy did much better during period 2. Interesting that there were no recessions (GDP annual growth less then 3%) in period 2, while there were 5 recessions during period 3. Period 2 had average GDP growth of 4.8% versus 3.2% in period 3 -- 50% greater growth rate before "greed is good" became ascendant. Unemployment was also lower, 4.8% versus 6.1% Meanwhile, income and wealth inequality have skyrocketed in period 3, with the 1% now holding 40% of wealth, while the bottom 40% of Americans have less than 1% of the wealth.

Keynes was actually as much of a philosopher as he was an economist. He thought that economy, wealth, and money were only means to the end of achieving "the good life". Instead we have:

Today, wealth increase is the only goal that Western society has to offer.

And:

Jesus Christ said, "It is harder for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." -- one of his teachings that has been universally ignored since the advent of Protestantism.

OMG, the number of times I have thought about all those Escalades lined up, waiting their turn to try to drive through the eye of a needle! So sad that irony is completely lost on modern evangelical christians :-(

Keynes thought that capitalism would be phased out once its work was done; that there'd be plenty for everyone; and that we'd all have 15 hour work weeks. People of his time simply could not imagine the greed and the selfishness that would become sanctified from the 80s onward.

Part of this is in the nature of money. I can look at my possessions, and make a judgement, "I have enough of those". With money, it's harder. It's hard to know that you have enough money to last to the end of your life, given that you are (rightfully) afraid to rely on Social Security to take care of you in your retirement.

Ha ha, Keynes preference was for

arranging our affairs in such a way as to appeal to the money-motive as little as possible, rather than as much as possible.

Keynes also rejected economic Darwinism. Interesting too, he predicted that our modern system of huge corporations and mega-banks would be much more liable to shocks than the older individual investor model, which does seem to be the case.

Similarly, the New Classical economists have stated that the new forms of derivatives, of which CDOs are one example, help to create a "perfect market", where every type of trade imaginable can be made. And they further claimed that this "perfect market", with every form of asset interconnected with every other, would provide greater stability against shocks and bubbles bursting. Instead, it did the opposite: one component went bad and brought the other components under stress as well.

Which reminds of a thought I've had re the massive failure of the ratings agencies (S&P, Moody's and Fitch). They had no math, but you would think that, when creating an investment vehicle from multiple components, the rating cannot be greater than that of the lowest rated component. Instead, I think they basically did the opposite: use the rating of the highest rated component. These guys are getting sued and fined pretty heavily, but as with everything about 2008, there will be no criminal charges. Here is an in-depth article on the failure of the ratings agencies by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone.

An interesting point: Canada pretty much sailed through the 2008 crisis. No banks had to be propped up. Why? Because banking in Canada is not such big business as it is in the US and UK, such that Canadian banks did not have the political clout to get themselves deregulated. So they could not partake in the type of risky behavior that caused US and UK banks to fail.

So going forward?

1. Break up the big banks. Now that the mega-banks know that their failures will be covered by the federal government (i.e. our tax dollars), they are back to the same risky behavior and wealth-extraction-quick schemes that led to the 2008 collapse.
   
2. Put back in place some version of Glass-Steagal, which separated commercial and investment banks and insurance companies.
   
3. Require banks to have more reserves and less leverage.
   
4. Help with the growing inequality by more heavily taxing "unearned" wealth, particularly via estate taxes.
   
5. Wealth in the US has to quit going so much into the pockets of the 1% and into investment in new businesses, products, and infrastructure. Everyone is uncertain and sitting on their money (keeping it liquid) instead of buying and investing.
   

There is a weird note towards the end of the book. Skidelsky proposes changing how undergraduate economics is taught, to make it much broader, and he proposes splitting microeconomics from macroeconomics for postgraduate study. Seems to me like that will take a long time to make a difference with current problems. But, as I said at the start, Economics as a science or discipline certainly does not impress me as it is now.

Seems like I've tried to cover a lot of the topics of this book, but I have just scratched the surface, and have, I am sure, incorrectly summarized some of the points. But surprisingly, this is not a long book and is a fairly quick read. It was the best overview of economics that I have read so far. So I do recommend it highly.

To summarize:

• Classical economics => free markets good, government bad. And, as this is a conservative formulation, of course feel free to ignore any and all data to the contrary. Government attempts to affect booms and busts always just make things worst. The Great Depression and the Great Recession were both caused mostly by there being too much money and credit in circulation, which created bubbles that popped.
  
• Keynesian economics => uncertainty exists, free markets are imperfect and will go through booms and busts, government money policy and stimulus spending can help with these.
  

So what is it that discourages me? The (New) Classical models, with their end-of-time predictability, seem completely bogus. It's funny, my hero, Paul Krugman, I think in the prefix to "Fix This Depression Now", since it's the only book of his I've read, says somewhat, "I wanted to study psychohistory, like Hari Seldon of the Isaac Asimov Foundation novels -- and economics is as close as I could get."

So what is really lacking to me is sociobiological concepts. As I see it, bubbles are driven by herd behavior. Something starts trending up, and everyone rushes to get onboard. And then, when bubbles pop, herd psychology pushes everyone to sell, sell, sell, even if they're losing money.

But, Consumer Confidence numbers are published. Are Business Confidence numbers also published? I'll have to research that. Those could easily fit into models to try and measure uncertainty.

But instead of realistic sociobiology in economics, we have explicit anti-science -- how can we prove no matter what, that free and unregulated markets are the best, regardless what of all available data says?

OK, back to the books, study continues ...

A 4 Dimensional Picture

The reviews said that "The Shining Girls", by Lauren Beukes was a scary, creepy, great read. I commented on her 1st novel here and on her 2nd novel here. This one is quite a bit different from those. I bought it in hardcover at Joseph-Beth because it sounds like a good vacation book to share.

The book is indeed as good as the reviews suggested. It's about a serial killer in a time traveling haunted house who kills young women from the 1930s to the 1990s. For each victim, we get a little bit of their life story in their unique decade before the gruesome and disturbing murder scene. The heroine -- the one who got away, but who is now kind of a freak because of the horrible scars he left her with -- is believable and sympathetic in her pain, and the supporting characters are good too.

A lot of the details of the time travel go unexplained. The chronology of the story jumps around across 7 decades. At the end, you are left with a 4 dimensional picture that to me was elegantly complete and better with the lack of details.

I left the book in Florida, to scare one of my daughters or daughter-in-law when they visit. Definitely recommended, 4 stars.

Addendum: I just finished "Salvage And Demolition", by Tim Powers. This is a novella in clapbook form I picked up from the library. It also was a nice, simple time travel tale that bites its tail and vanishes like the Beukes story does. A nice quick read.

I also recently liked the movie "Looper". I think it's maybe the best time travel movie I've seen, not sure why. But again, it is a pretty 4-d picture.

End This Depression Now!

The title of this post is also the title of the 2012 book by economist Paul Krugman (my hero). It is hard to believe that the Great Recession, which Krugman is calling a Depression, has been going on since 2008 -- so long that you can write books about it. In the book Krugman calls for Keynesian government spending as the only way to get us out of the long term and potentially permanent elevated unemployment which, as of now, is the main thing wrong with the economy. The Fed cannot do anything more to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates because they are already essentially zero. So now it is buying up bonds, mortgages, and anything else it can to try to stimulate growth.

Unfortunately, business and the banks seem to be happy to sit on this money and not create jobs. And meanwhile, conservatives follow the deficit red herring to our undoing. When the economy is slumping, you do not practice austerity and try to reduce deficits; you do that when the economy is booming. According to Krugman, the stimulus package of early in the Great Recession was too small by at least a factor of 3.

Meanwhile, in recent news:

• the world's most famous Excel spreadsheet error invalidated the scholarly paper by Reinhart and Rogoff which (wrongly) concluded that growth suffered if a country's debt/GDP ratio exceeded 90%. With the data corrected, there is no correlation found. This paper was used world-wide to justify austerity policies.
  
• Most Austerian/Austrian economists have been predicting hyperinflation since 2008. But the Fed has tripled the amount of money in circulation, and inflation remains at 2% -- lower than Krugman thinks it should be.
  
• Latest figures show deficits shrinking faster than expected.
  
• Germany is talking about going from austerity to stimulus.
  

So the austerity proponents are back on their heels. Not that it matters to the TeaBaggers in our congress -- they are notoriously oblivious to that thing we call Reality. We'll hope for the best -- a sensible congress in 2014 -- and keep our fingers crossed.

Krugman points out a possible reason that the business community wants austerity rather than than stimulus, from an essay by economist Michael Lakecki in 1943.

As long as there are no routes back to full employment except that of somehow restoring business confidence, he pointed out, business lobbies in effect have veto power over government actions: propose doing anything they dislike, such as raising taxes or enhancing workers' bargaining power, and they can issue dire warnings that this will reduce confidence and plunge the nation into depression. But let monetary and fiscal policy be deployed to fight unemployment, and suddenly business confidence becomes less necessary, and the need to cater to capitalists' concerns is much reduced.

So it's about maintaining the power of business over public policy. And this is a great power. As Chomsky points out, no political party in the U.S. ever seriously opposes business. I mean, look at the Obama administration's "Too big to prosecute" attitude towards all the criminals in banking who apparently will never have to do any jail time, and will get to keep their $100Ms in bonuses. And, since everyone's 401-K's are so heavily invested in the stock market, we all want business to do well. But, as with their seemingly insatiable appetite for wealth, leaders of business seem to also have a healthy appetite for power. You've got to have power to make sure you can keep those channels of obscene wealth open, right? The money must flow!

Part of the reason that neo-Keynesians like Krugman get so much right is that Keynes got so much right.

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.
-- John Maynard Keys, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

I think that this gets back to Economy of Plenty concepts. Business and the rich want to fight it because they like their current power. But is poverty anything other than political? To quote Matt Tiabbi, in this excellent article:

Here's a quick and easy rule: any time any politician, pundit, TV talking head or self-proclaimed financial expert starts comparing the U.S. federal budget to anything other than the U.S. federal budget, that person is automatically full of shit and should be instantly voted off the conversational island, if not outright beheaded.

So when simpleton congressmen compare the US government and its debt to a family spending too much, or a corporation going bankrupt, they are dead wrong -- because the US government can print money, and the others can't. It is a fundamentally different animal, and simple-minded, wrong analogies definitely don't help anyone understand the problems or the possible solutions. And, possible solutions definitely include an Economy of Plenty

Finally, here's someone else trying to stop the stupid deficit tunnel vision that has greatly impeded the world's recovery: Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Clinton. Here's a post of his talking what the real problem facing us now is: jobs.

3 Novels

Heading into My First European Vacation, I finished 3 genre novels.

"Scratch Monkey", by Charles Stross. This was the 1st novel of most excellent sci-fi author Charles Stross. It was available for download I think 18 years ago (at his book signing in Lexington last year, Charlie said 17 years ago), and I got the key from him by email, but never read it. It is available now for free here. So I finally got around to reading it. Surprisingly, many of the concepts that he exploited later are present here. But, very uneven pacing, and somewhat confusing plotting, and a depressing ending. Still, if you're a fan, prolly worth a (free) read. 3 stars.

Next read "Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1-5)", by Hugh Howey. This got some press as being stories that were originally self-published as e-books, following which the author refused normal publishing channels after they became successful. It is a post-apocalypse dystopian world. The plotting and pacing are decent. No really new concepts of any type. 3 stars.

Finally, read, "Hide Me Among The Graves", Tim Powers. This is a straight-up sequel to his 1989 novel "The Stress of Her Regard", which featured Byron and Shelley fighting rock-based life-form vampires in Switzerland. The vampires are now in England tormenting later literary figures. I have always loved how Powers invents his own completely unique versions of magic, souls, vampires, the fisher king -- unique and quirky. For example in this one, there is the street sweeper who, if you offer him very odd payment terms, can sweep up your footsteps so that the vampires lose track of you.

Still tho, this seemed somehow to be pretty much by the numbers. At time the plot seems to be arbitrarily prolonged by dumbass actions of upper/middle class British twits. But, this won't stop me from reading Power's next, and next, and next books. 3 stars.

The Dumbass In Europe

Last August, our youngest daughter and her husband started 2 year contracts teaching 2nd and 3rd grade, respectively, at the American International School of Zagreb (Croatia). So we went to visit them. As their school is still in session, we figured we would just visit with them for a weekend, and spend a week before and after vacationing in Europe.

I had been to Europe 3 times before all on business: once for 3 days to Chamonix, France, at the base of Mont Blanc, for the users conference of one of our software distributors; once to London and Bristol, England -- my meetings in London were cancelled for 2 days, so I did get to do some sightseeing there; and once to Bristol. My wife had been to Europe -- Munich, Bavaria, and Venice -- for a week with some of her family ~25 years ago.

At the top of both my and my wife's bucket lists was: Paris. So on Saturday, May 18 at 3:30, we flew to Paris via Detroit, arriving at 8 am Sunday morning at Charles De Gaulle airport. We took a cab to our hotel (56 euros), the Hotel Eiffel Turenne. The room was tiny but the location was fabulous: on the Avenue de Tourville 1/2 block from the Ecole Militaire metro stop on the #8 metro line. That is also the southeast corner of the Champs du Mars -- two large blocks of former parade grounds, now park. At the center of the northwest boundary is the Eiffel Tower.

The nice lady at the hotel gave us a recommended walk: up the Champs du Mars to the Eiffel Tower; across the Seine to the Trocadero; then to the Arc de Triomphe; then down the Champs Elysses to Avenue de Winston Churchill; then between the Great and Small Palaces (museums) over the Alexander V bridge; then by Invalides (church) and back. It was a great walk, around 4.4 miles. The Arc de Triomphe is in the middle of a huge rotary that is called the Charles de Gaulle Etoile (star). 12 streets meet there, arranged very close to geometrically correct, with a 30 degree angle between. The Champs Elysses is amazing: 8 lanes of traffic with 20 yards of sidewalk on both sides. You wonder, where did all this space come from and you learn, in the 19th century they did indeed tear down large parts of the city to make way for these ultra-broad avenues. Also striking was the trees lining the Champs: 40-50 feet tall but squared on the sides and tops like hedges?!?!? There were also very pretty small public plantings. I remember one at Avenue de Franklin D. Roosevelt that had blue and purple wildflowers highlighted by white tulips.

We lunched at a place called Tribeca in the Rue Claire district, which was just a couple blocks north of our hotel. This was lots of street vendors selling all kinds of stuff. We had a list from a friend of our Brooklyn daughter who lives in Paris of restaurants to try, but we wound up mostly eating in cafes near the hotel or the place we were visiting. I had escargot twice -- excellent! -- lamb chops twice, shrimp twice, veal, mussels. Nothing very fancy at all, but all very edible.

At that point we'd had enough walking, so we hopped on a tour bus and rode around -- in the cold rain. It rained every day we were there, and temperatures were 45-55 degrees -- chilly! Being the dumbass I am, I went without a coat! So Tuesday I gave up and we bought me a jacket at an Adidas store on Champs Elysses.

Every place we were in Europe, black locust trees were in full bloom. That puts the climate about 3 weeks behind Lexington.

Monday we got up early and did the Louvre. 8 line to the 1 line on the metro -- we really found the Paris metro easy to use, and my wife had bought a Paris Pass thingy that included a 5 day metro pass. The Louvre is huge -- by far the biggest museum I've been in. After a couple of hours, we decided to go for The Biggies and call it a day. So we saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo and called it quits. We then took a boat ride on the Seine. Interesting views of the city.

Tuesday we got up early and did the Musee d'Orsay. The Louvre is the old stuff, Musee d'Orsay is the new stuff. Great impressionist collection on the 5th floor, Gaugin and Van Gogh on the 2nd floor. Lunch at a cafe across the street from the museum, then rode the metro to Champs Elysses to buy my jacket. Then we took the metro to Montmartre, and climbed up the last of the hill to the Espace Dali, which was small but had some nice Dali sculptures, and went into the Basilica of Sacre Couer, which has some beautiful architecture.

Wednesday we got up early (I'm noticing a pattern here -- but getting there 1st thing in the morning the lines were minimal -- later in the day they got very long) and took the C train 20 minutes southwest to Versailles. Did the indoors in the morning (Lifestyles of the Rich, Famous, and Decapitated), and the outdoors in the afternoon. Mercifully the afternoon was sunny and mild. We ate at Helio's Pub in Versailles. I had mussels mariniere. Interesting, very low garlic, mostly diced shallots and parsley in addition to the white wine. The waiter had been raised right by his mom to like heavy metal. He got busted by the manager when he put on some Rival Sons -- modern metal -- for us to hear.

Thursday we slept late, yay! We took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and went up to the top. Great views down the 12 avenues. Then we took a tour bus to Ile de la Cite and saw Notre Dame. The area around Notre Dame was definitely the most touristy we found in Paris. I bought myself this fine Paris Metro map t-shirt for gigging.

We finished up with walking on Ile de St. Louis -- east of Ile de La Cite. Again very touristy, lots of quirky shops. The guide books said they had great ice cream there, and we'd wanted to have a crepe. So we had a late afternoon snack at Les Fous de l'Ile of bertillon ice cream (chocolate) on a crepe. The bertillon ice cream was almost like icing -- very rich. Les Fous had a fabulous collection of pictures, sculptures, and other art forms representing chickens.

We discussed a couple of times going to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night, but we'd done so well in avoiding long lines that we decided against it. We did walk the 1-1/2 blocks to Ecole Militaire to snap a pic.

Paris was, at the time, the most beautiful city I'd ever been in. The food was good. The Metro was great and easy to use. My wife and I both got to speak some French. The people were uniformly friendly and helpful.

Friday we took the metro back to CDG (9.5 euros for 2 tickets) for an 8:30 flight to Zagreb. So great to get to the baggage claim area and see our daughter there waiting for us with a big grin on her face!

We took a cab to their apartment. It is huge! A great big living room and two huge bedrooms, a central entry foyer, a smallish kitchen, 1-1/2 baths. And right on the #14 tram line.

We then went to see Christie's school. We got to meet her class -- so cute, and they all love Miss Christie so much! We dropped into Ian's classroom too.

That evening we dined with Christie, Ian, and 3 of their coworkers at a restaurant overlooking Zagreb named Sestinski Lagvic. Getting there we had the 1st of only 2 snafus on our trip: the cab driver taking us there followed his GPS the wrong way over and around a mountain instead of the direct route. So a 30 kuna cab ride became 160 -- and that was with him turning the meter off 3/4 of the way. He refused to take less, so we paid it. 5 kunas per dollar. So not optimal, but not so bad in the greater scheme of things.

The restaurant was beautiful with a great view. Here's the party: Christie is next to her mom.

So the traditional Croatian dinner was: cheese; roasted vegetables; and big plates of meat. I think we had beef and rabbit, maybe? Very little seasoning, but there are dishes of ivar (sp?) -- a fairly bland red bell pepper and eggplant mix -- to use as a sauce.

Saturday we took the trolley to downtown Zagreb. At the central square (with the statue) there was some marketing-type thing going on with women racing in high heels -- ugh. The open air market was great, tons of fresh food. We wandered around, and the high point for me was encountering the Nikola Tesla statue.

That evening we ate at a somewhat more upscale restaurant called Trilogiya. The changed their menu daily depending on that the chefs found shopping at the market that day. I don't remember what I had but it was quite a bit tastier than the night before.

Sunday Christie and Ian rented a car and Ian drove us to Rovinj on the Adriatic Sea on the Istra peninsula. It was (of course) rainy as we left. At one point we came through a tunnel and said "Look at those pretty white flowers" -- but it was snow! But finally, we came through a tunnel near Rijeka on the coast to bright sunshine and a beautiful day.

We walked around the peninsula that makes up most of Rovinj, climbing tiny winding streets up to the church at the top. Here's the view from the north side.

Here's a tiny, winding street.

Here's the Rovinj assault team.

Then we had lunch at a great restaurant named La Puntulina. We ordered a cold seafood appetizer plate and it came out with 8 kinds of seafood, all very tasty. Ian had a mussels mix that I snitched some of -- there was one type of mussel that was closed until you pulled out a little key-like section of shell, after which you could open it -- we didn't figure it out until the waitress showed us. I had a warm octopus goulash dish, very good. Then Ian and I chilled in a cafe while Christie and her mom shopped.

After the drive back to Zagreb, we had dinner at Christie and Ian's neighborhood restaurant, Pivnica Mlarnica. I had a mixed grill, good sausages and more meat! From Zagreb on, meat was pretty much what was for dinner.

Zagreb was quite a change from Paris. Downtown Zagreb had some old architecture, the rest had that soviet bloc look to it. The people seemed dour, particularly the older ones. You were not to raise the issue of their civil war when they fought the Serbs to exit Yogoslavia in 1993. And I felt like I was able to understand basically 0 of their slavic language. No common roots you could discern. Da and Ne for Yes and No. Hvala for Thank You.

Christie and Ian had started one class in Croatian but had a horrible teacher. They are trying again, but I'm guessing they'll have learned enough Croatian to be useful just about when it's time to come home.

Monday morning, Christie and Ian took us to the train station, and we caught a 7:30 train to Vienna. What a pleasant difference it is to travel by train. You find your car, you stow your bags, the train leaves. At some point a conductor wanders through and stamps your ticket, and border patrol (for Croatia and Slovenia) come through and stamp your passport. No standing in line for bags or security, emptying pockets, getting frisked, etc. Zagreb to Vienna was 6.5 hours. I booked it 1st class to see the difference. I think we actually liked 2nd class better (on the leg from Vienna to Prague). We had a compartment to ourselves with a door that closed. 1st class had bigger seats, but it was in an open car -- with only 1 other passenger. Both trains had a food car, with the standard coffee machine, and food in plastic bags.

But, bad news, after the 6.5 hour train ride, I had 4-5 hours of landsickness. The rocking of the train pretty much like the rocking of a boat, I guess. After drinks, dinner, and sleep, it was gone, but, still, this implies I probably cannot sleep on a train without risking weeks of landsickness afterwards :-(

Just over the Austrian border there were snow-capped mountains to the west.

In Vienna we took a cab to Lindner Hotel am Belvedere -- 20 euros I think. The hotel seemed very new and was very nice. It was 3 short blocks from the entrance to The Belvedere, an old palace turned into a museum. Lots of Klimpt, who was Austrian, good stuff. Very nice fountains, which were turned on -- the fountains at Versailles had all been turned off. That evening we ate at a somewhat upscale place named Huth. Great appetizer, stewed beef heart -- sliced very thin in a mushroom sauce with small morels. I had some big morels from the Mountain Mushroom Festival a few years ago -- 4-5 inches long -- and I didn't particularly feel they were worth the price or the trouble. These were about 1 inch long, and gave a mouthful of tangy mushroom goodness, delicious! My entree was calf's liver, which was OK.

That night we had tickets to the Mozart Orchestra at Musikverein Golden Hall. It was the only thing playing while we were in town. 30 pieces, with a baritone and a soprano for the operatic pieces. Mostly single pieces and songs -- the most they did of one thing was 2 movements of a clarinet concerto. Then "Blue Danube Waltz" and an audience participation hand clapping thing at the end. Pretty popish, but I enjoyed it, and the hall was beautiful.

Tuesday we slept a little late and then walked through the Botanical Gardens of the University of Vienna, which were also around 2 blocks from our hotel. We lunched at a local corner cafe -- I ordered the lunch special, which turned out to be a ribeye with some veggies. We then took a bus tour of the city. I didn't pick a very good one. We saw a bit of their old city, then headed to a panoramic vista location, and then switched to a boat and cruised on the Danube. Also got to go through a lock that lowered us 4 meters to the level of the Danube Canal. The tour left us off in the central city. We'd been having a running joke that I kept identifying domes as astronomical observatories. Here is an actual observatory dome on the canal in Vienna.

We walked back to the hotel via the city park, which was pretty, and saw some outdoor, basketball court-sized soccer fields with some intense games going on. We ate at a restaurant on the way, I had wiener schnitzel -- dry as always -- but it came with german potato salad that was excellent. Later the bartender at the hotel was giving me tips on how to make good german potato salad like that.

1-1/2 days was not near enough to do Vienna justice. It is also a very beautiful city. I got to speak a little German. And we were back on euros again.

In Paris and Zagreb, there was no tipping. There was no place for a tip on credit card slips. Vienna was back to tips. But at the small restaurant where we had lunch, the waitress said "that's too much!" The next restaurant told us 10% is the max you're supposed to do there. At the next stop, Prague, it was tipping again, at 15%.

Another oddity in Vienna was this: at our lunch in the neighborhood restaurant, when the waitress came to tally our check (die rechnung), she opened our bread basket and asked how many pieces of bread we had eaten. We were then charged for those. Similarly, in Prague I think, the bill came with 2 euros for "couvert" -- basically a cover charge, to cover bread, water, or you just sitting in the restaurant!

Wednesday morning we took a cab back to the train station and caught a 8:30 train to Prague. It was a 5 hour trip. In the Prague train station, I got Czech korunas from the ATM -- 20 per dollar. Plus we found the taxi stand easily -- in Vienna we came out the wrong entrance of the station or something and wandered a few blocks in a circle before we found the cabs.

We took a cab to the Red Lion Hotel -- 285 korunas. This near the top of the hill across the river from the Old Town, and around 2 blocks from the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral that dominates the Prague skyline. So that afternoon we walked around St. Vitus. It is truly impressive. It looks bigger than Notre Dame on the inside. It was only completed in the 19th century.

We were supposed to meet my old friend/WRA Pavel Platchky for drinks, but he stood us up. So we ate at the Red Lion. I had smoked pork (== ham, duh), with red and white cabbage and very good potato gnocchi.

Thursday we wandered down the hill and crossed the Charles Bridge -- statues on both sides very 30 feet -- into the Old Town. It is amazing. Domes, spires, statues, paintings, frescos everywhere. Absolutely beautiful, it beats Paris. After a while you kind of go, OK, enough already, and then you see more awe-inspiring architecture.

After getting worn down by mid-afternoon, we took a cab back to the Charles Bridge and wound up in the Kampa Park restaurant looking over the Vltava River -- which was up 1/2 meter at the time, and flooded a couple of days later. Hunh, website says the restaurant is currently closed due to the flooding. I had a wild garlic soup with black trumpet mushrooms and parmesan that was delicious. But, with the bad weather, their patio was closed, and they were booked solid for dinner, so they kicked us out.

We went back up the hill, where the people at the Red Lion refused to recommend another restaurant to us ?!?!? ("eat here again"). We did hook up with Pavel for dinner at a restaurant a few doors up the hill, it was nice to see an old friend.

So Paris held the mantle as Most Beautiful City for only a week. Prague has much more striking architecture. The area of Prague we were in and Old Town were completely tourist traps: restaurants, cafes, shops, thai massage, nightclubs, theaters. Coming back up the hill one night we hear just a drummer playing, mostly bass and tom toms, and it's coming from a club with 6-7 very provocatively dressed young women standing out front smoking, and a fire eater performing inside to the music.

Prague is Pinochio's home town? There were lots of marionette shops, and the Marionette Theatre was performing "Don Giovanni".

And lots of tourists. Big Japanese tour groups. Menus were in Czech, English, German, Russian, and sometimes Italian. But the city is so beautiful that you don't care, it seems right for it to have worshippers from all over the world.

Czech was another slavic language. Ano for Yes, Ne for No. After 2 days I was still struggling to remember that Thank You was Dekuji.

Friday morning, May 31, I got up at 4:30 to take a cab to the airport for a 7:10 flight home via Paris and Detroit. Here begins trip snafu #2. Prague was completely fogged in. We left 2 hours late and missed our connection in Paris. They put us on a flight 2.5 hours later, not so bad. We left Detroit 1 hour late waiting on crew. We got to Lexington and circled for 1/2 hour while they tried to move an airplane with a flat tire that was blocking the runway?!?!? Never heard of that before! Of course, they finally give up, fly us to Cincinnati, and bus us back to Lexington. So we get home at 1am instead of 5pm, and our bags don't get here until late afternoon the next day. But we did make it home.

So overall, weather was lousy, cold and rainy, but it was nice when we did the gardens at Versailles, and when we were at Rovinj on the Adriatic. I think 4 countries in 2 weeks is probably 2 too many. Of course most of the people there speak English, but we both seemed to want to make some effort to learn a little bit of their language, and 2 days is not near enough, particularly for slavic languages. So I think we're likely to target romance language countries, particularly French-speaking, in the future.

Money management: best was my Capitol One credit card, which did straight-up currency conversions with no fees. Good was my ATM which came through the Shazam system and appeared to be doing pretty much straight up currency conversions as well. Bad was AAA, which charged us 8% for euros to take over there, and the currency place in Detroit, which charged 15% and $7.95 to convert our euros back into dollars -- ugh. Also good was our hotel in Prague, who changed euros into koruna at the going rate with no fees.

Drinking in Europe: in Paris they had martinis on the menus -- I guess they put Vermouth in them, they didn't taste right and were very small. No bourbon in Paris at all?!?!? The place in Versailles had Wild Turkey and Four Roses. Mostly drank red wine there. In Zagreb, red wine or beer. The Croatian and Bosnian red wines we had were very good. In Vienna, white wine and beer -- I started having a beer with lunch there. And the 1st beer on some menus was often a weiss beer, yum! Unbelievably, our hotel bar had Maker's Mark, Bullit, Blanton's, a couple other bourbons, and Sazernac rye. In Prague, mostly drank beer as well.

The 2 weeks went by quickly, and we were both glad to get home. It will be interesting to see what our next travel destination is. Maybe St. Martin in February? We'll see, I guess.

Sharia Law Comes To Kentucky

Letter to the editor submitted to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Sharia Law Comes To Kentucky

I had thought that conservatives were worried that somehow Muslim Sharia Law was going to gain a foothold in the US. I personally was not too worried about this; I could not conceive of it actually happening.

However, recently, conservative members of both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly have overridden Governor Beshear's veto of the Religious Freedom Act, which allows someone with a “sincerely held religious belief” to defy state law. Compliance with Sharia Law is a "sincerely held religious belief" for conservative Muslims. So it seems to me that such Muslims are now allowed to claim that Sharia Law overrides Kentucky law.

Surely I'm missing something here. Can one of the legislators who helped pass this horrible law please point out the flaw in my logic? Or has Sharia Law indeed come to Kentucky?

We'll see if they print it.

Update, 2013-05-09. Just got the verification call from the Herald-Leader, they are going to run it.

AI Generated Fiction

I read "Constellation Games", by Leonard Richardson. Probably the wierdest first contact novel of all time. The aliens show up, a couple dozen races of them hanging together in an anarchistic confederation. Instead of landing on the White House lawn, they just start exchanging emails with individuals and dropping presents on peoples' lawns. The progagonist is a game developer, game reviewer and gamer. He and is pals are so over the top, you say, "no way". But then, I think about some of the gamers I know, and I see the pictures in the paper of the local steampunk cosplayers, and I'm forced to conclude, "way".

So our hero sets out to play and review 15 million year old alien games. Hilarity ensues, but the world does get saved in the end. The love interest -- the hero's (girl)friend of years -- is oddly touching, with a really different existential outlook. Overall, a very fun read. 4 stars.

I then read 2 books I spotted in the library: volumes 6 ("Metal Swarm") and 7 ("The Ashes of Worlds") of the Book of the Seven Sons series by Brian J. Anderson. Man, I blogged reading volumes 4 and 5 over 6 years ago, February 24, 2007. This is about as heavy duty a space opera as you can imagine: 5 alien races, 2 races of robots, several human groups. There are at least 30 narrative threads, maybe more than 40. Chapters are generally 2-4 pages, so it keeps moving and you keep turning the pages. Note, the books are about 450 pages each for 3150 pages total, so my 100 pages per narrative thread heuristic is probably not too far off.

But, trolling alert, the writing is just so bad. In 2007 I described it as "sophomoric". So many wrong or unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. So many extraneous sentences. And his bad guys, particularly, are all like "bwahaha, I love dismembering humans and seeing their blood splatter because I love dismembering humans and seeing their blood splatter". So, mercifully, I am done with him. He has another set of Dune followups written with Frank Herbert's son, I believe that I will never read them, yay! Which brings us to the title of this post. If I were to be told that Brian J. Anderson was actually an AI fiction generation program, I would not have a problem believing that. The writing is that formulaic and stilted.

Finally, I read 2 books by Saladin Ahmed: "Engraved on the Eye", a short story collection, and "Throne of the Crescent Moon", nominated for the Hugo Award this year. These were easy reads, and somehow, I guess that I have some fondness (I would not have thought so) for "The Arabian Nights"; the Islamic/Arabic overtones seem very familiar, although the constant religious overtones did get very slightly annoying at times. But a good story, with the old ghul-hunter, his dervish swordsman assistant, and a young woman who is a were-lion.

I've always been fond of the early (unsuccessful) attempts at science: magic, tarot (for characterizing experience), astrology (for characterizing personalities). I liked here when he off-handedly mentioned the 8 elements: sand and lightning, water and wind, wood and metal, orange fire and blue fire. So 3 forms of earth and 3 forms of fire, definitely different.

Anyway, both are easy and fun reads, 3 stars.

Music I/O

No new music for December, January, and the 1st 3 weeks of February. I think that the new Mumford and Sons came out but I decided they wanted too much for it. Odd. But then things got back to normal.

• Jamie Lidell, eponymous. I think the 4th album I have from this British DJ turned R&B singer. Great stuff, great dance music. 3 stars.
  
• Gold Panda, "Lucky Shiner", 2010. I think I got from my oldest daughter Erica tweeting. Instrumental electronica/dance music, I like it much better than most instrumental albums. Definitely catchy tunes. 3 stars.
  
• Passion Pit, "Gossamer". I think Amazon recommended. Nice tunes, and I really like the different vocal textures of the male and female vocalists. 4 stars.
  
• Young The Giant, eponymous, 2010. I think Amazon again. Nice tunes, maybe a little too commercial at times. 3 stars.
  
• Atoms For Peace, "Amok". Thom Yorke of Radiohead's super band. Very listenable, Mr. Yorke's style is totally evident. 3 stars.
  
• Idiot Glee, "Life Without Jazz". 5 track EP by Lexingtonian James Friley released by the local Hop Hop Records. These are very good songs, but the vocals really don't work for me. I think there are intonation problems that they try to hide with a lot of reverb, and I don't think it comes off. Too bad, because the songs are good. 3 stars.
  
• Matt Duncan, "Soft Times". Another Lexington artist, he follows his fabulous 7 track first release with 12 great songs. Seriously pop arrangements, sunny, horns, it is a great sophomore effort. 4 stars.
  
• Jimi Hendrix, "People, Hell & Angels". Whoda thunk it, a new Hendrix album? Unfortunately, nothing much very memorable at all. 3 stars.
  
• David Bowie, "The Next Day". Wow, 17 tracks, and really not a weak one. Bowie has still got it. But, most of it very energetic, edgy, and anxiety producing. So 3 stars, except for "Where Are We Now?", which I really like and have worked up and gets 4 stars.
  
• Bob Dylan, "Blood On The Tracks", 1975. This was a $2.99 special. The songs I knew off of this were "Shelter From The Storm" and "Tangled Up In Blue". The other 8 tracks are pretty mediocre. They grew on me some after more listens. Plus this is one of Dylan's crappy vocals periods (did he have good vocals periods?). 3 stars.
  
• Dido, "Girl Who Got Away". Very easy listening, nothing really really catchy. 3 stars.
  

That brings us through March. Two new albums so far in April are still sinking in.

On the music out side, I feel like I get more comfortable performing all the time. In descending order of pleasedness, I am by and large pleased lately with my rhythm guitar playing, singing, lead guitar playing, and bass guitar playing. Last Sunday played at the jam at Paulie's Toasted Barrel, which goes from 4-8, and did a set of 6 songs. Then Tuesday night played 2 sets of 4 songs at the Electric Jam at the Henry Clay Public House. Then last night at the Wednesday Blues Jam at Cheapside I played 6 songs on bass behind the excellent Brent Carter -- and got to sing harmony on "Why Get Up", "That'll Be The Day", and "Thunderbird" -- and then got another 5 songs at the end on guitar and lead vocals. A little more of a crowd there, I think some Keeneland people, and it was a beautiful warm night.

Tuesday night was the last night for the Tuesday night jam. Jairaj Swann, bass player extraordinaire, had several reasons for not continuing to host the jam. So last night I talked to the owner and he was amenable to me hosting it. I talked to a good young bass player and drummer who were interested in continuing as well. So we'll see. Probably 1st time I'd try would be May 7, if nobody jumps on it before then. If I do it, I think I'm going for The Tuesday Night Rock & Roll Party.

Three Novels

I read three novels in the last week or so.

First, "Ship Breaker", by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is set in the same future dystopia as "The Drowned Cities" discussed here. It also has in a supporting role the half-man Tool who was one of the lead characters of "The Drowned Cities". From where Tool is, this seems to be before the other novel. I mentioned that this is being distributed as a Young Adult novel. The protagonist is indeed a teenager; he helps rescue the beautiful plutocrat "princess" and maybe wins her heart. Potentially another YA component: he has serious issues with his father. In fact, that relationship is so dark that I would not recommend this book for young teens.

Bacigalupi has made himself the master of this future dystopia, where the rising seas have vastly disrupted civilization and Monsanto rules the world. It is a chilling vision that he portrays. The narrative arc of the story is simple (single threaded), the pacing is good, it is an easy and enjoyable 336 pages.

Man, one thing I don't like about ebooks is how hard it is to figure out how many pages are in the book. I usually have to go to Amazon or B&N. I wish they would fix that.

Second, "Bitter Seeds" by Ian Tregillis. I think this was a $2.99 special I saw in the TOR blog. Basically, engineered, electrically powered Nazi superheroes fight British warlocks invoking elder gods in the Spanish Civil War and WW II. The story is told with narratives from both sides. It is well written and is a definite page turner. There is a sequel out and a third one due to be released this month. I will definitely read those. 352 pages. Amazon sez it is Tregillis' debut novel -- definitely a good start.

Third, "A Time Of Changes" by Robert Silverberg. I'm not sure how I picked this one up. Probably on sale and I thot, I haven't read Silverberg in a while, and I've been enjoying his stuff for 40 years, let's give this a try.

Then found it is a 2009 reissue (with a new preface by the author) of a 1971 release. I don't remember reading it then which is surprising because I was reading all of Silverberg in the 70s.

The story is of a planet whose culture/religion is based on complete abnegation of the self. Using first person pronouns is "talking dirty". The protagonist rebels against this, catalyzed by his meeting an Earthman who introduces him to a drug that allows people to share minds. You can't love others until you love yourself. The catchphrase of his new movement is "I love you" which you would never say under the old system.

Kind of fun to go back to the hippie ideals of the 60s -- taking drugs and opening up to others lead to a world of peace and love, yay! Of course, it didn't really work out that way, but, it was still fun to revisit those days of heady hope. 304 pages.

Understanding Power

I finished reading "Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky" (2002), Edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel, 416 pages. This is a collection of some of Noam Chomsky's seminars and discussions from the time period 1992 through 1999. I started reading a few weeks ago and was going through it rather quickly before spending a (very pleasant) weekend with my wife and my middle daughter in Ithaca, NY, and then the following weekend spending most of my time watching the NCAA basketball tournament.

Chomsky's speaking style is extremely straight-forward and understandable. At one point he dismisses a lot of modern intellectualism for using fancy words to obfuscate easy concepts as a form of self-aggrandization. He has done a lot of reading including lots of formerly classified government documents.

The first thing that is most striking about the book is how, 15-20 years before the Occupy movement, he has dead on anticipated their arguments. And in the end, it doesn't come down to republican vs democrat or liberal vs conservative, it comes down to class war: rich and powerful and of course doing every possible to keep it that way vs poor and powerless -- or as he says, "superflous population", who are not involved in producing profit. The 1%, or the 0.5% who own 50% of everything via the stateless multi-national corporations, are clearly who is in charge.

It was striking too when he talks about the (never ending) "War on Drugs": incarceration of inner city blacks for drug use or dealing on the street, while in the 1980's $260M in drug money was being laundered by US banks annually, with never a thought of prosecutions or jail time. And here we are 20-30 years later, and now HSBC alone is laundering close to $1B a year in drug money, and still there are no criminal prosecutions, no jail time -- "Too big to prosecute". Similarly, in the 1980's, studies showed that 90% of the chemicals being exported by US companies into Latin America were going into drug production. Were there any investigations or prosecutions of US chemical companies and/or their executives and their bonuses? Of course not! "War on Drugs" my ass!

It's kind of hard for me to try to summarize this book, there is so much there. I've known about Chomsky, the Father of Modern Linquistics and a Linguistics professor at M.I.T., since I was there 40 years ago. I'd always kind of dismissed him as being kind of on the lunatic fringe of the left. But, now that I finally read his words, he is just thinking simple thoughts, drawing simple conclusions, and speaking the truth of these.

Eight years ago (surely not!), I read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". I blogged about it at the time, I thought it was leftist-slanted to the point of being unbelievable at times. I had pretty much none of that reaction reading the Chomsky. So I wonder if Chomsky's thinking is actually better, or if I have just evolved that far to the left in the last 8 years? Since I quit working so much and finally retired, I definitely have more time to think about and get involved in politics, and, I think ever since the Tea Party started I've been moving left rapidly. Funny, the Zinn and the recommendation on Chomsky, and "Occupy World Street" before that, all came from my oldest daughter Erica. We seem to be sliding to the left together. She has been very active with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Sandy and I am very proud of her.

The Chomsky book starts with a discussion of how the US and to a lesser degree the European press are locked into the narrative of "the US is the good guy always starting the peace process" vs "the US is the world's foremost terrorist state; it has not been attacked since 1812 but still manages to invade someplace (basically defenseless) every year or so; and the entire world is scared shitless of it". I had to agree how, every time we start a war with some poor chump, there's always "evidence" -- which no one can verify then or later -- that we've been attacked or are going to be attacked, and we all get called on to support our troops, and, damn it, it's hard not to get sucked in. But, how many times can they keep doing this? I wonder if Obama will be able to complete his 2nd term without invading somewhere.

There's some LOL stuff on the semantics of the mainstream press. A "moderate" government is defined as one that "follows U.S. orders". A "radical" government is of course one that "doesn't follow U.S. orders". See also "terrorist state".

Meanwhile, he gives many examples of cases where maybe 1 courageous reporter finds out that, say, Saddam is willing to get out of Kuwait peacefully, but then basically no newspapers will carry the story. Once the drums start beating, no one want to be a "traitor". He also talks very believably about how reporters and writers who don't want to follow the narrative that their editors want wind up having to find a different career. Because newspapers are businesses, and their main customers are not their readers, their main customers are their advertisers, who are mostly businesses. And the main point here is that, the Republican and Democratic parties are not really different parties, they are just factions of the same party that has ruled the US for the last 150 years or so: the Capitalist Business Party. It's the same message of Occupy, that US domestic and foreign policy are both completely determined by what is best for corporate business interests.

There is a thread that runs through all the sessions: are the corporate interests so entrenched that it is hopeless? Or can people organize and get things changed? In general, he says, keep plugging, keep the faith, keep organizing, have hope. And he also points out where there has been progress. For example, the fight against the popular Sandinistas in Nicaragua had to be done via clandestine operations rather than outright invasion because the public would not support invasion. It comes back to, the people in power will listen to the rest of us if we get loud enough to scare them -- otherwise, they could care less. Discouraging tho that in the 10-20 years or so since he talked about this, the situation seems to be continuing to get worse rather than better. But, still, what choice do we have but to keep fighting the old lizards? Every person in the world has the right to live.

One of his contentions that was new to me was that the US defense budget has for 60 years been about channelling tax dollars into the development of new tech, that can then be exploited by business. I guess that makes sense, the Internet came from DARPA, and that's probably true of the majority of non-medical tech as well. So this is yet another subsidy for business and the rich, as is the NIH budget on the medical side.

I didn't come away with a clear feeling for, why do our .01% rulers want to kill the social safety net so much? It costs much less than the entitlements of the corporations and the rich. I think what he said on this was by suppressing the general populace they are suppressing rivals for power. Hungry children don't grow the brains they should, so they stay an underclass, available as labor if necessary, otherwise they can be held in the prisons (for nice profit margins).

Also interesting, Britain used to have General Welfare and Corn laws up until the 1840's, which basically guaranteed food to everyone. Those got repealed to force people to go to work in the new factories of the Industrial Revolution. This was also when general public education started, to give workers the limited literacy they needed to work in a factory.

I also did not realize that, just as oil has been the crux resource of the 20th century, the crux resource of the 19th century was cotton. The Industrial Revolution started with textiles for clothing.

He also debunks The Great Man Theory, which I've talked about before, in answer to a question about, what about the need for Great Leaders, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King? His take is, these types show up late in the process to take the credit, when most of the real work was actually done by 1000s of nameless, faceless feet on the ground. The standard narrative of The Empire pushes The Great Man Theory to disempower the average person, who is actually who makes the change happen. I couldn't agree more.

Similarly, he has great mistrust of the intellectual class. On the political left and in US labor unions, there is a leader class that wants to hobnob with the capitalists and hand down decisions to the rank-and-file. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There have been very few actually socialist and democratic movements in history. The Spanish Anarchists in the 1930's were one. And at the start of the Russian Revolution, there were workers' councils and coops before Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks took over and instituted state-controlled capitalism aka Communism.

There are many, many more details and facts in this book. It is an easy, easy read. I read it in 16 hours (thank you for that data point, KoboReader). I strongly recommend it. Now to check out what Noam's been up to lately. Wow, here's his Wikepedia page. 84 years old, still going strong. FTW!

Hmmm, reading the Wikipedia article, the start 3rd paragraph in the section on politics may well be the base principle of all Chomsky's anarchist politics:

Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified.

Back in the book, he also says at one point that he was a horrible organizer, so he wound up being a writer. I can identify with that. I made phone calls for Obama in 2008 and hated it. I've never been much on meetings or crowds, so I can't see myself getting involved there. Plus, this seems like Yet Another Thing that it would be more appropriate for me to leave to the younger people. Well, maybe I'll find my niche to contribute eventually (I certainly don't consider myself a writer). For now at least I can still do $$$.

Hah, I should point out how, in passing, Chomsky mentions modern sports as the "circus" part of "bread and circuses" that our plutocrat masters provide to keep us distracted from how much they are fucking us. How many NASCAR owners (Romney's "friends"), NFL and NBA team owners are members of the plutocrat class? All, maybe? Now, if we could just get them to give everyone "bread" to go with the "circus". Still, I love University of Louisville Cardinal basketball! Go Cards!