The Things That We Are Asked To Give Up

So, as I am devoting all my energy and time to finishing the first draft of another book, I have been following with lashings of sorrow, pity, dread and the merest splash of schadenfreude developments in Europe. Germany, which seems to be cracking under the weight of a full load of so-called refugees, Sweden, ditto, Brussels, where the concerned citizens appear to be too frightened to continue with a protest march against fear, and the governing authorities appear to be more concerned about the legendary anti-Muslim backlash than the certainty of Islamic terror unleashed in some European or English city.

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Poukisa Mwen Te Ale An Ayiti

After 240 years of relative quiescence, at 4:53 PM local time on Tuesday 12 January 2010 the Enriquillo fault system ruptured near 18 °27′ N, 72 °32′ W in an M 7.0 earthquake, followed by numerous aftershocks, mostly westward of the mainshock hypocenter. Institutional functionality, or the lack thereof, in Haiti prior to the earthquake was such that there was no local seismometer network in place, so nuances of slip in the 2010 earthquake involving several associated faults have had to be inferred from kinematic models.
The Enriquillo fault itself forms the boundary between the Gonâve Microplate and the Caribbean Plate, but seismic activity along it is driven by collision with, and subduction of, the North American Plate. The entire fault system may have begun a new cycle of large earthquakes similar to those of the 18th century, in which case there will be several more such events with significant effects in Haiti and the Dominican Republic through, very roughly, 2080.
Around half the entire US population donated money for Haitian earthquake relief in 2010. I may not have been among them, but as initially recounted in this forum in April of 2011, I was drawn into restoration work in a computer lab and fixed-wireless network in Petit-Goâve, and have subsequently assisted in similar efforts in Musac (Mizak), La Vallée-de-Jacmel. Paging through the visa section of my passport, I now find an astonishing number of red ENTRÉE and blue SORTIE stamps from the Ministere de l’Interieur et des Collectivites Territoriales / Direction de l’Immigration. My God, I’ve been down there 16 times. What was I thinking?
Something like this …

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On This Texas Independence Day

What I’m feeling for the GOP is a kind of disinterested sympathy, punctuated with schadenfreude, the disinterest arising from never having been a Republican, the sympathy from the GOP identification of a plurality of my close friends uniformly horrified by what is happening and the schadenfreude from the abrupt collapse of three-plus decades of pharisaical social conservatism. Turns out that eventually enough of the electorate whose resentment you’ve been stoking figures out that it’s a waste of time and fastens on to something else, something that matches their actual resentments a lot more closely.

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Why I am not worried about President Trump appointing judges.

[While I was finishing this post, I saw the terrible news that Justice Scalia died. God rest his soul. The GOP Senate majority should not permit President Obama to replace Justice Scalia, and should slow-walk any appointment he may make until after January 2017. That empty seat will be and should be a campaign issue. It raises the stakes considerably for the next President.]

The other day a friend asked me: “what kind of judges would Trump appoint?”

I responded:

“They will be the best, the smartest legal scholars we have, people who know the Constitution up and down, the whole thing, and especially our second amendment, which no one will touch, not while I am President, the second amendment is sacred, and they will be outstanding judges, judges who will be fair, but also do justice, and keep our country safe, so that criminals like the guy who killed Kate, beautiful Kate in San Francisco, people like that will go to prison for a long, long time, or back to Mexico, where they belong, if they are here illegally. And the judges I appoint will follow the law carefully, and they will always do what is good for America.   And I know some of the best people in the country who will advise me on which judges to pick, great lawyers, great trial lawyers,  and I know lawyers who are great negotiators, the best in the country, some of these guys are  killers, not nice guys, but tough, smart, incredible lawyers, and legal scholars, from top law schools, the best law schools, and they know who the best people are, not necessarily people you have heard of, but the best, and we will appoint amazing judges. Trust me, the American people will be very proud of the judges we pick.”

This is of course a spoof of Mr. Trump’s speaking style.

However, a little research discloses that my satire was pretty close to what he actually said when he was asked this question:

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In Defense of Wall Street A**holes

Long time Democrat turned Republican Donald Trump, who as a business titan relied more than any of his opponents on “Wall Street” funding, decisively won the Republican primary. In sharp contrast, socialist Bernie Sanders decisively won the New Hampshire Democrat primary by attacking his opponent’s Wall Street ties. Trump supporters apparently believe that the way to deal with Wall Street a**holes is a bigger a**hole who will negotiate much better deals, whereas Sanders supporters believe that “Wall Street (a synonym for the entire US financial system) is a fraud” requiring major extractive surgery.

Most people within the NY financial community including the numerous mid-town asset management firms agree that many Wall Street players were a**holes during the sub-prime lending debacle leading to the 2008 financial crisis, but surely the Sanders pitchfork brigade wouldn’t travel uptown. This may explain why among the thousands of books and articles written in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the Occupy Wall Street movement, Wall Street hasn’t defended itself and has found few defenders willing to go public.

Truth be told, Wall Street has always attracted more than its share of greedy a**holes. But historically they discriminated against the less profitable investments in favor of those that had the highest return potential relative to risk. This represented the brains of a heartless US capitalist system. Defenders of capitalism correctly argue that it is the only economic system at the base of all human economic progress, however unequally distributed. Progressive critics argue for greater equality, the poor made poorer so long as the better off are equally so (although this is not the way it is typically represented).

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