Last Year of the Decade

This is a difficult time of year.  I normally feel tremendous pressure in the last few weeks of the year to frantically see how many films, books and musical performances I can catch up on to be able to weigh in on those things.   This year, I freely admit that I was a bit reclusive this year, especially with respect to films so my usual year end summary will have a little different twist to it this year, since my authority as a music and media critic is severely limited.

Winners-

The American Worker.  Despite fears of a global slowdown, unemployment in all categories remains at a half century low.  The impact of the trade wars has not damaged the American worker, and many businesses are having difficulty attracting skilled workers.  Real wages are up and more workers are willing to change jobs.  Labor participation rates are up after an extended period of stagnation.  The strong labor market is being widely experienced.  African American and Hispanic unemployment are also at historic lows.  The state of the U.S. labor market will make Trump very tough to beat.

The American Investor-  The S&P 500 was up over 30% this year, confounding the Doom Crew.  Since Paul Krugman predicted that the markets would never recover from Trump, the market is up approximately 40%.

Tulsi Gabbard.  Gabbard is the only politician outside Trump that is willing to push against the establishment and core of her own party.  She single handedly destroyed the candidacy of Kamala Harris, forcefully took on Hillary Clinton (eliciting dark jokes about her impending suicide), and did not vote for impeachment.  There are plenty of points of disagreement with her, but you have to admire her chutzpah.

Losers-

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg.  His company introduced a line responsible for two tragic airline accidents, and then pushed deadlines for re-introducing the 737 Max, forcing the FAA to publicly chastise the company.  American Airlines flight attendants said they wouldn’t fly in the plane and the whole episode raised issues about the cozy relationship between the airlines and their regulator.

Adam Neumann and SoftBank.  Neumann walked away with a $1.7 billion “golden parachute” after We Work’s initial public offering failed, and the company announced layoffs of thousands.  SoftBank bailed out the company after it came close to missing a payroll and astonishingly announced, “The fund now recognizes that the public markets are looking for businesses with a path to profitability.”  Duh.

These two spectacular flameouts beg the question of whether you would ever fly in a 737 Max or put any of your retirement money with SoftBank.

Nike, the N.B.A. and the Vatican- All three genuflected in front of the Beijing regime.  Pope Francis gave the Chinese government a voice in the selection of bishops in China.  Oh, how we miss JPII.

Notable Deaths-

There were a number of notable deaths in 2019: Doris Day, Ginger Baker (of Cream) Toni Morrison, Harold Bloom, Caroll Spinney (Big Bird), Bart Starr, Valerie Harper and Paul Volcker among them.

But the most notable and surprising death may have been The Phillips Curve.  The Phillips Curve was a widely accepted relationship between the unemployment rate and the inflation rate.  The Phillips Curve would predict a much higher inflation rate, given and unemployment rate of 3.5%.  There are various theories of why inflation is so subdued, especially considering trade restraints that many would have would have added to inflation.  Yet inflation is hovering around 2%.   I think we can have a memorial service for the Phillips Curve.

New Words-

Two of the public intellectuals that I follow coined new words.  Deirdre McCloskey coined “innovism” as a better descriptive term than capitalism.  Daniel Pipes coined the term “civilizationist” to counter the term “nationalist.”  So I decided to follow suit and coin a few of my own:

De-networking- Much has been written about the importance of networking to advance your career.  I have taken a contrary position and have asserted that de-networking, that is dissociating yourself from individuals that are a waste of time and/or a drain on your time and resources can be even more important than networking.

Wantrepreneur- A wantrepreneur is someone that has suffered a career disruption or layoff and is going it alone as a “consultant” or in a loose confederation with others in an “eat-what-you-kill” arrangement, or someone in the gig economy.  In either case, it is someone that hops right back to a corporate job once an appropriate opportunity presents itself. 

Nerdgasm- The exquisite pleasure and heightened sense of stimulation one feels when fully engaged in certain intellectual pursuits.  A Nerdgasm can occur during a book fair, lecture series, new museum exhibitions or opening a brand new book that you’ve been lusting after for some time.

Finally, here are my Best of 2019-

Books

Fiction- Property by Lionel Shriver.  This collection of short stories and a novelette center on property ownership.  Shriver is a brilliant writer as well as a steadfast foil to the woke literary community.

Nonfiction- Lake of the Ozarks by Bill Geist.  Geist’s book is a timepiece, a trip down memory lane as he recounts summer working at a summer camp in the Lake of the Ozarks.  This book is best read in the late summer on the back porch with a glass of wine and the cicadas chirping.

Film- Never Look Away.  This is the best film I have seen in a decade.  A young artist is caught between the soul crushing regimes of the Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Its three hour length nearly scared me off but the film never dragged.  Screenplay, acting, music score were all superb.

Musical Performances- Zepparella.  With great apologies to violin virtuoso, Itzhak Perlman (see documentary Itzhak), this Led Zeppelin tribute band had me transfixed.  This high energy, young, all female band was perhaps the best tribute bad I have ever seen.  Perlman was wonderful but Zepparella was loads of fun.

All in all, 2019 wasn't a bad year.

Bloody Fall

This week my post will be short and somber.  While many of us are getting ready for the holidays, this autumn has been an awful and brutal one for three families that have experienced the unimaginable.

Take a good, hard look at these three pictures.  They are young, beautiful, and vibrant.  Their personalities sparkle in these photos.

And they are all gone.  Taken from us.   Brutally and viciously.  One in New York.  Two in Chicago. 

I don’t know any of them, or their families.  My only connection is that I know the places where each one died.  I know the 7-11 where Akiera Boston was shot.  I have parked in the garage where Ruth George was strangled.  And I have walked the staircase in Morningside Park where Tessa Majors struggled up before she died.  I have been to all those places. 

All three died this fall. 

Look at those faces.

Each one killed,  each more heinously than the next. 

Akiera was 16, and a cheerleader at Simeon high school.  Simeon has a very good public school football team.  Akiera should have had the time of her life, cheering and watching her classmates win football games.  Instead, someone drove up beside the car she was in, fired shots at her boyfriend, missing him but hitting her.  Akiera didn’t get to cheer at one game this fall.   To my knowledge, Akiera’s murderer has not been caught.

Ruth George, 19, a sophomore at UIC was sexually assaulted and strangled in the UIC parking garage by a thug out on parole with an armed robbery conviction.  Ruth was a kinesiology major, and by all accounts, a sweet and caring young woman.  She had previously ignored the suspect’s catcalls.

Perhaps the worst—if there can be such a thing--- was Tessa Majors.  Tessa Majors, a freshman at Barnard, was confronted by three assailants in Morningside Park that wanted her phone and she fought back.  One assailant slashed and stabbed her.  She struggled up the staircase and died.  Two of her assailants were 13 and 14 years old.  They are looking for a third as of this writing.  13 and 14.  Children killing children.

Each one of these news stories punched me in the gut, even though I have no personal connection to any of them.  I can’t imagine the parent receiving that phone call that their daughter is never coming home again.  My heart just aches for each of them.  Three different girls of three different races bright and cheery, just taken from us.

Taken together the murder of these beautiful young women triggers a myriad of questions.  What kind of society are we becoming?  Why can’t we protect these young women?  Who failed them?   Police protection?  The schools they attended?  The criminal justice system?  The parents of the perpetrators?   Something is terribly wrong with a society that cannot protect girls like this. 

Are we so consumed with criminal justice reform that we are willing to accept this as collateral damage?  Do we really believe in Nancy Pelosi’s admonition that in each human there is “a spark of divinity?”  I don’t think there is any divinity in the thug that shot Akiera or the beast that strangled Ruth or even the young punks that stabbed Tessa. 

Please, look at these pictures.  And look again.  And tell me what you see.  And give me your thoughts on how we failed these young women and their families.  How do we keep these soulless animals from our girls?

And just as I drafted this, another 16 year old girl was shot and killed in Little Village here in Chicago. Her picture is posted below the rest.

What have we become?  Why can’t we protect these precious girls?  4 families are going to be without them this holiday season.

I am sick at heart.

Why I Am A (Sometimes) Populist

Daniel Pipes published an opinion piece in the Washington Times recently entitled Why I Am Not a Populist (www.danielpipes.org/19157/why-I-am-not-a-populist).  In his article, Pipes takes issue with the populist movement.  He opens his essay with, “Populism has made great strides in the West.  But it is misguided, and I greatly hope it fails.”  Pipes goes on to discredit populism and instead places the lion’s share of the blame on the Left.  Indeed, his closing line in his essay is, “So, be smart and oppose the Left, not the elite.”

When the State gets too remote and unaccountable to the people, populism bubbles up.  Brexit was a populist reaction to the unaccounatability of rule makers in Brussels.  In the U.S., it was regulators accountable to no one prescribing rules about toilet tanks, mortgages, microwave wattage, vaping and such.  For a time, the hottest job in America was “Chief Compliance Officer.”  When COMPLIANCE is the goal of a corporation, you know that things need to be shaken up.  Part of populism is hacking back on the thicket of regulations and spending more time answering to customers rather than bossy, self-important government bureaucrats.  What Dr. Pipes misses is that in certain industries, the corporate elite on the right actually LOVE bureaucrats.   The bureaucrats keep the small, agile competitors pinned down and smothered with rules and regulations.

Populism seeks to address fundamental imbalance in the economic system.  Even uber-capitalist Cliff Asness observed that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street had a great deal of overlap in the things they were complaining about, even though one movement was from the right, the other from the Left.  This became more pronounced when the government backstopped Wall Street, preserved the net worths and bonuses of the bankers, but let Main Street get foreclosed out. 

One of the most striking memes was one that said:  We send our kids to fight wars in the Middle East. They (John Kerry, Joe Biden) send their kids to Ukraine.  It gains the most traction when children of the elite skirt consequences of bad behavior or gains unfair advantage and is especially operative when those that gain advantage do so solely out of political connections.  Barack Obama piously announced that “at a certain point, you’ve made enough money,” then a few years later bought an $11.7 million home on Martha’s Vineyard.  Hunter Biden, by all accounts is a ne’er do well, yet was able to raise a $1.5 billion fund from the Chinese and land a board seat on a Ukrainian energy company.  Outside the government elite cashing in,  populism also gains momentum when we learn that the rich were buying their kids’ way into elite schools, and when the captain of a failed business like We Work walks away with $1.7 billion package as thousands of employees are laid off.

No discussion of populism would  be complete without mentioning China.  The conventional wisdom among conservatives was that once China got richer, a middle class would bubble up and demand more freedom and more democratic structures in China.   As recently as two years ago, Nobel Prize winner Eugene Fama was still asserting such things.  The opposite occurred.  China has become more totalitarian and more militarily assertive.  China has stolen our intellectual property, killed our youth by flooding our streets with fentanyl, hacked our government personnel files, enabled North Korea’s nuclear program, manipulated its currency, and became militarily assertive.  Meanwhile, private equity bought up companies, stripped them and shipped the jobs to China.  As I often say, “free traders don’t steal each others’ stuff.”  The populist movement allowed us to stiffen our backs vis-à-vis China.  Traditional conservatives were content to wait patiently until China changed its behavior, which grew worse.

Populism pushes back against social norms that are being violated.  While the U.S. was ready to accept marriage equality, it was not ready to accept transgender people in the military, in women’s locker rooms, competing athletically with women and girls and “drag queen story hours” for children.  It is a reaction to schools banning Christmas cards, daddy-daughter dances, and Halloween celebrations.  It rejects safe spaces, trigger warning and blaming all ills on the “patriarchy” or “colonialism” or “white privilege.”  For it is middle aged white males that have suffered an increase in mortality rates after years of decline, mostly due to alcoholism, drug abuse and suicides.  Populists lets P.C. criticism bounce off and object to objectionable things (like unfettered abortion until the moment of birth) while conservatives tiptoe around these issues.

Populism defends national sovereignty and opposes open borders.  Populists are willing to challenge conventional wisdom about immigration and ask hard questions traditional conservatives will not ask.  Globalists, like London mayor Sadiq Khan assert that terrorism is “part and parcel” of urban life.  Angela Merkel recently asserted that limits on free speech would be needed to ensure a cohesive society.  Populists, after events like the London Bridge attacks and Pensacola attacks last week whether Islam is fundamentally compatible with the West, and whether training Saudi pilots is a good idea.  Likewise, working people take umbrage with handing out free education and health care to people that came here illegally.  Why should I have to work overtime and delay my retirement so I can pay for the education of kids from Guatemala and pay for their health care?  What about me and my kids?  Populists will at least ask these questions.  Populists intuitively understand that the globalists are working diligently to erode the nation-state, and thereby make their voices irrelevant, and are willing to oppose the “abolish ICE” crowd.

In my view, the two most pivotal moment of the 2016 campaign came when Hillary wrote off Trump supporters as “deplorables” and when Trump declared at the 2016 Republican National Convention, “I am your voice.”  The Democratic party had not only forgotten them, but held them in contempt.  The Republican establishment had protected its wealthy base with the bailouts following the Great Recession.  This left a wide opening for the somewhat semi-populist Donald Trump. 

Is populism guilty of being ham-fisted and  of offering simplistic responses to complex problems as Dr. Pipes asserts?  Sure.   Does the leftist elite bear a disproportionate share of the blame for general discontent among our citizens?  Absolutely. Populists do oversimplify and misdiagnose.  Donald Trump’s views on the coal industry and manufacturing are simply not borne out by the facts.  But I believe that Dr. Pipes has underestimated some of the forces involved in the rise of populism.  I do not believe it is simply a left/right problem.  It must be seen in light of economic forces, social norms and our identity as a nation and as a people.  

I don’t think Dr. Pipes needs to worry about populism “succeeding.”  It will burn itself out in time. He is correct in that it is brash and cloddy and grows tiresome like the loud drunk at a party.  In the meantime, however, populism is serving a very useful function, especially in this time when the Left has gotten bolder and more ferocious (e.g. the Squad), populists stand up to them in ways that traditional conservatives could never bring themselves to do.  Populists should be viewed as offensive linemen in football.  They do some of the inglorious blocking and work that others don’t have the stomach for so that conservatives and libertarians aren’t overwhelmed by the Left.

Dr. Pipes, I think,  underestimates the wrath of common folks against the political elite.  In Great Britain and in the U.S., the political elite have become distant and unresponsive to the will of the electorate, and, indeed, sometimes openly contemptuous of it.  In the U.K., years of wrangling and calls for a second referendum have ground Brexit to a halt.  Here, the political elite have worked frantically for 3 years to unwind an election.  With traditional watchdogs like the press and the ACLU safely turned into propaganda arms for the Left, the vast majority of common working people begin to feel that there is no one advocating for them. Populists move in to that empty space.

Fear not, Dr. Pipes.  Populism won’t be permanent.  It simply pops up at certain times when it is needed.  And that time is now.  Then its inherent flaws will be its undoing and it will go away.

Old Age Ain't What It Used to Be

Our society is being transformed.  Sure, we have had the civil rights movement that ended Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination.  The Women’s Movement and Title IX opened the doors in the professions and sports for women.  The LGBT movement (even with its excesses) resulted in marriage equality and other accommodations for gays and transgender people. 

But last week, there were a few news items that signaled that there is a new movement afoot.  When considered together, these anecdotes say something about our society, culture and demographics.

The Gray Movement is bursting forth. 

First, NBC news reported on Shawnee Service Center in Wilmette where two men in their 80’s have been working together for 60 years…. and have no intention of retiring. (https://www.nbcchicago.com/on-air/as-seen-on/senior-mechanics-lifelong-friends-565559342.html).  This story caught my attention as I have been noticing more and more people working well past the usual retirement age.  Chicago attorney Fred Lane (who I have had the pleasure of getting to know and occasionally playing golf with) still does mediations and arbitrations and teaches a clinic in the same.  He is north of 90, still vibrant and engaging and a deadly accurate golfer, especially around the green.  Film maker Clint Eastwood shows no signs of slowing down, with his latest film to be released this month and the prolific Eastwood is 89.  Many musicians are still touring.  Mick Jagger is 75 and the Rolling Stones still put on a good show.  I saw Alice Cooper a couple of years ago, and he hasn’t lost a step.  It is not surprising that our political class is aging out as well.  Donald Trump is 73 and two of his rivals, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are 77 and 78, respectively.  I predict that within a decade, this nation will be led by an octogenarian.  We are seeing more people continue to practice their trade into their September, October, and November years.

In another news item last week, an intruder broke into the home of an 82 year old woman in Rochester, New York (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/24/us/82-year-old-bodybuilder-grandma-intruder-trnd/index.html).  The poor sot made a bad life decision.  It turned out that the woman, Willie Murphy was a trained powerlifter, and she literally turned the tables on the 28 year old intruder,  grabbing a table and beating him with it until the table broke.  She jumped up and down on him and squirted shampoo in his eyes and dragged him out of her house.  “Don’t mess with Willie,” one of her friends said.  More and more people in the later stages of life are staying physically fit and are fully capable of defending themselves.  I couldn’t help but giggle while I watched the news clips of the incident and was in awe as they showed some clips of Willie weight training.

And finally, there was the story of 83 year old Hattie Wiener of Hell’s Kitchen, NY.   “Tinder Granny” as she is known, has led a very active and colorful life, to say the least—a life that would have made Mae West blush.   She apparently had a long history of hooking up with young men on Tinder and having a series of one night stands.  But, alas, Hattie has announced that she’s finally tired of the cougar mill and is finally ready to settle down with one man (https://nypost.com/2019/11/27/83-year-old-tinder-granny-ready-for-love-after-decades-of-one-night-stands/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow).  One can only hope that she was practicing her catting around safely.  While I don’t advocate Weiner’s lifestyle, she is demonstrating that she is very much alive, and it shows that our sexual lives don’t necessarily have to turn off at age 65 either.  In Japan, the sex industry is changing, too.  The Wall Street Journal reports that older men are hiring young women, not necessarily to have sex with them, but just to lay next to them and keep them company. 

These stories all splashed across the media this week.  Western and Asian societies are aging and our demographics are changing.  It is also the case that lifespans are increasing (except in the U.S. for middle aged white men).   These anecdotes are illustrative of the reality of those changes.  Many of us are making different life choices--- to live fuller lives in every respect as we age—professionally, physically, and yes, sexually.   These people are showing us how to run through the tape.

The Gray Age is here.

Inclusive Mania

Words matter.

I applauded historians Daniel Pipes and Deirdre McCloskey earlier this year because they have attempted to bring new words into common usage that more accurately describe what is actually going on.  Pipes has been using the term “civilizationist” to describe the resistance of the former Eastern Bloc countries to massive Islamic immigration in lieu of “nationalist,” which has taken on the taint of fascism since WWII.  McCloskey has been advocating the use of the term “innovism” rather than “capitalism” since it is innovation and the freedom to innovate rather than the accumulation of capital that is responsible for the spectacular increase in wealth since the middle of the 19^th century.  Innovism is a more accurate description of what actually happened.

Unfortunately, 5-10 years ago, the words “inclusiveness” and “diversity” have infected our language from the Left.  Gradually, these terms became so ubiquitous that they became sacred in meaning.  Companies and law firms that formerly spent hours and hours agonizing over how to differentiate themselves in the marketplace now all boast in a very undifferentiated way about their commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.  

And make no mistake, when Progressives use the term “inclusiveness,” they mean that that considerations of gender, race and ethnicity are valued more highly than any other attribute.  Efficiency, effectiveness, skill and experience level are all deeply subordinated to notions of “inclusiveness.”  Even in positions in which health and safety are a priority concern.

Inclusiveness is being codified into our society in many ways.  Many large companies now even put that commitment into their vendor contracts as an obligatory term that the vendor must comply with…. on the par with on time delivery and product warranty.  In Illinois, public companies must report diversity information to the Secretary of State (an earlier version of the bill mandated that public companies must have a woman and a minority on their board).

There are reports that search firms are being told not to even talk with potential white male candidates.  One senior manager at a large financial institution intimated to me, “If you are a white male, you basically can’t get a job with us anymore.”  Skin color and gender considerations are everything in some corners.   The obsession with inclusiveness caused an Evanston school cancelled \\Halloween because the holiday celebration wasn’t deemed “inclusive” enough. 

I thought that religion and high academics could escape the worst of this absurdity.  Two years ago, I attended a program at The University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Center, the nesting place of Nobel Prize winning economists, and the director spoke about academic excellence and the desire to attract the best PhD candidates in the world.  He said nothing about inclusiveness or diversity.  Just excellence.

But even The University of Chicago is beginning to be brought to heel.  Robert Zimmer’s Welcome Letter to incoming students devoted to entire second paragraph to “inclusiveness.” 

Today we address another critical commitment of the University: to having a community that is open and inclusive to all segments of the nation and the world, which in turn amplifies the nature of our intellectual environment. We often refer to the University as an intellectual community, and it is important to recognize both components of that expression--that we are defined by a commitment to an ambitious and challenging intellectual environment, and by a sustained effort to build a community in which this environment can take full shape. In that context, we reaffirm in the strongest terms the University's values of openness and inclusion, and our dedication to welcoming people of all backgrounds and nations.

Now, of course, Zimmer tried to redefine the term to avoid the common parlance.  But no matter. Once you start adopting the terminology of the Progressives, you are trapped into playing their game on their terms.    Sadly, the bastion of free speech and academic excellence is beginning to bend to the will of the Progressive dictates.   The University of Chicago is EXCLUSIVE by definition, not INCLUSIVE.   It does not exclude by race, gender or sexual orientation, but it certainly excludes those that are not of deeply serious intellectual depth and caliber.   Zimmer may mean one thing, though.  Progressives mean another.

Similarly, religion by definition is exclusive.  It is a club with a particular belief system that prescribes a particular set of behaviors for its adherents.   Several months ago, Pope Francis, the globalist pontiff, used the word “inclusive” to describe the Church.   Even for the leader of the Catholic Church, “inclusiveness” trumps theology. 

Progressives attempt to coerce all institutions into adopting their language and demonstrating or claiming “inclusiveness” is how you avoid their wrath.  But it is highly context dependent and in some instances—religion and high scholarship, where it is a perversion to even use that word.  Zimmer and Pope Francis were wrong to even include it in their messages.  Sometimes the situation calls for just the opposite.  The use of that term in those cases were acts of appeasement.

Business (and Law) Must Step Up--Now

The U.S. economy has been in an uninterrupted expansion for a decade.  Unemployment is at a 50 year low.  The stock market is at record levels.  Inflation is tame.  Gas prices are subdued. 

Yet American capitalism is under assault like never before.  The entire Democratic slate is promising bigger, more expensive, more intrusive government that hands out more stuff and promises more restrictions on our lifestyles (except abortion, of course).  From “Medicare for all” to the “Green New Deal” to free college and/or student loan forgiveness to a “wealth tax” and raising taxes on the “wealthy,” the Democratic platform, if implemented would mean the end of the innovative, flexible, growth oriented American capitalist model as we know it, to be replaced by something between a nanny state and out-and-out Communism.  Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Communism seams to have sprouted back up again, led by Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, despite an economy in which people are doing pretty well.  Most troubling, surveys show that young people have a positive view of socialism.

There are many causes for this, I believe.  The echoes of the financial collapse of ’07-’08.  Our education system and media outlets are staffed disproportionately by left leaning people.  

But business leaders and leaders in the legal profession themselves are failing us with their behavior.  At a time when we are having to re-make the case for capitalism, it seems that every day, the press is full of stories of why business cannot be trusted to function in a lightly regulated environment.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, We Work is the poster child for why resentment toward capitalism has grown.  Ordinarily, Americans don’t care if market trend setters and disrupters get rich.  It’s the whole risk/reward formula which underpins capitalism.  But when the business fails spectacularly, and the owner still walks away with $1.7 billion (that’s billion with a “B”), there is something fundamentally flawed with the system.  The American capitalist system encourages people to try…and fail… without ruining.  But when the owner of a failed business gets rich while thousands get laid off, that’s when resentment really breeds.  Even uber-capitalist Cliff Asness (head of the hedge fund AQR Capital Management) noted that there was considerable overlap between what the Tea Party people were complaining about and what the Occupy Wall Street people are unhappy about.  A system that permits someone like Adam Neumann to get incredibly wealthy on a scheme that dissipated, rather than created, value has to be questioned.

Likewise, the airline industry is now under scrutiny and giving the mantra “profits before people” some credence.   Boeing’s debacle with the  737 Max  and Southwest’s  difficulty with the FAA over used aircraft it has acquired (Southwest cannot show the FAA that proper maintenance had been done on the aircraft acquired) raise the issue of “regulatory capture,” that the government agency charged with oversight has too cozy a relationship with those in the industry.  The upshot is that the industry players have at least given the appearance that they may be willing to cut corners and put profit ahead of safety---- directly feeding the liberal narrative.

Last week, Under Armour revealed that it was under S.E.C. investigation for pulling sales forward to pump up current quarter earnings and browbeating retailers into taking product earlier than they’d like.  Google announced that it was entering into a deal with Ascension Health under which Google would obtain patient identifiable data (exploiting a HIPAA loophole).

What was almost amusing about these instances was the public statement issued by these companies.  Southwest asserted that it was a “paperwork issue not a safety issue.”  Right.  Under Armour asserted that it was “common industry practice.”  The excuse that everybody does it usually gets worn out by the teen years.  And Google’s assertion that it was going to use the patient data to improve health care is almost laughable.  We have learned that we can’t trust the F.B.I. not to leak data.  Will you trust Google?

In the law, Gordon Caplan, co-head of Willkie Farr, a prestigious law firm, will do time in prison for his role in the college admissions scandal.   Lawyers have a special role as officers of the court.  Already, the perception is that children of wealthier professionals have a leg up in college admissions.  But when the co-head of a large law firm is caught openly bribing school officials to get a child admitted, it really feeds the narrative that the fix is in. 

These are but three egregious examples that illustrate some of the worst behavior, and they confirm the fears of average people that the deck is stacked.  Adam Neumann is laughing all the way to the bank while his company goes down in flames and people lose their jobs.  Boeing and Southwest raise suspicions that regulators are in the hip pockets of business.  That leaders in the legal profession are caught up in the college admissions scandal confirms fears that the privilege has no boundaries.

There is no guaranty that capitalism in the U.S. will survive.  Its image was sullied by the Great Recession and we are one election cycle from AOC, Bernie and Warren taking a wrecking ball to a system that has enriched us all over the past 200 years.  If it is to do so, it needs better spokespeople and a better P.R. push.  And most importantly, we need its leaders to exhibit better behavior.  Otherwise, our future may start looking more like Venezuela’s.

Just Kids

Let me tell you what I did last weekend.

On Saturday, I joined a friend of mine and attended the local high school playoff game, where Loyola beat the undefeated kids from Glenbard West in a nail-biter 28-27.   Coached by former N.F.L. player John Holecek, Loyola came back twice from 14 point deficits to prevail late in the game after intercepting a pass and then taking it in for the last score.  I marveled as the team overcame some early miscues.  Nearly dominated in the first half by a bigger team with a better record, Loyola battled back to advance in the state playoffs.  The kids wowed the crowd with crucial plays, which including a state record tying 99 yard kickoff return for a touchdown, set up perfectly and then the returner turned on the burners and outran his opponents.   Later, wide receiver Matthew  Mangan made a marvelous one handed catch along the sidelines and stayed in bounds to give Loyola a crucial first down (https://twitter.com/LAFootballAC/status/1195020189571657729?s=09).  His catch would have made the highlight reel at ESPN for any N.F.L. or Division 1 college game.  It is easy to forget that these are just 15, 16 and 17 year old kids as John Holecek routinely turns teams that lack true Division 1 scholarship talent into state champions.

On Sunday evening, I attended a performance at Northwestern’s Beinen School of Music entitled “Bach Glory,”  where I was again treated to a stunning performance of Bach’s Cantatas by some wonderful young musicians.  Now, although I love music of all types, I have an untrained musical ear.  But if I closed my eyes, I could not tell the difference between these kids and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  The geeky looking kid with the unkempt curly hair in the back filled the hall with the sonorous sound of his cello.  The gawky female violinist in the front played with pure passion.   And the beautiful young flutist in her long, black gown mesmerized the audience with a Bach Cantata.  Both the male and female vocalists filled the hall with their clear, rich voices.  The program was equal to anything I’ve seen at orchestra hall, and I was simply amazed when I considered that these musicians are only a couple of years out of high school.

For a total of $14 over the weekend, I was able to see some of the best performances that young people could give.  In the worlds of athletics and music, I saw kids play with focus and passion, and I understood the hours and hours of work and practice that went behind these performances.  I was truly amazed at what these kids could do.   Both musically and athletically, I was treated to a display of talent at a very high level.

It was weekends like this that give me a great deal of hope for the future and why I was so appalled with the Newberry Library Drag Queen Story Hour program.  The Newberry website boasts that  Drag Queen Story Hour "gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models."  It does nothing of the sort.  These people aren't role models for anyone.  Do you really aspire to have your child grow up to be Muffy Fishbasket?  

The young athletes at Loyola and the musicians at Beinen are the right role models for little children.  They are engaged in healthy, wholesome endeavors, toiling day after day to perfect their skills.  We need to support them and nurture them in those endeavors and those are their performances are the ones we should be taking our young children to see and emulate.  The Newberry Library and its board of trustees should be ashamed of themselves.

Leave the Kids Alone

I’ve singled out The Newberry Library as one of the cultural treasures of Chicago.   Along the The Poetry Foundation and the newly opened American Writers Museum, the institution rounds out a triad of cultural and literary importance in a city with a great literary tradition.

I have attended several programs over the past few years, including a celebration of Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago,” a one-act play “Back of the Yards,” a performance by the choral group Schola Antiqua, and a celebration of Melville which was kicked off by a presentation by author Nathaniel Philbrick, who wrote In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex—the story inspired Moby-Dick.  The Newberry followed with a 26 hour Moby-Dick read-a-thon which I participated in.

In my view, the library had successfully transformed itself from a dusty old building that housed records primarily for folks that were interested in esoteric geneology and Chicago history projects to a vibrant, relevant intellectual center that had inventive staff creating interesting programs to draw the public in.

I was ready to become a member finally, and enlarge my involvement with the institution.

But then I saw that The Newberry Library allowed itself to be hijacked by the radical end of LGBT and gender bending advocacy by allowing Drag Queen Story Hour to be presented at the library.    For those of you that are unfamiliar with it Drag Queen Story Hour is being pushed at public and private libraries all around the country, and is aimed at children aged 3 to 8 to “celebrate the ‘gender fluidity’ of childhood (I reject the notion that childhood is gender fluid), and to expose them to “role models.”  In at least one case, more was exposed than was bargained for.  In another, it was discovered that one of the drag queens was exposed as a child sex offender.  At an event in Minneapolis, a drag queen “accidentally” exposed himself.   At yet another, a drag queen sang lyrics containing profanity and provocatively began to remove clothing while dancing.   This looks more like grooming than an educational experience to me. 

I was tempted to attend the November 2 Drag Queen Story Hour just to see with my own eyes what went on and to record my observations.   But I actually exercised some judgment and assessed that the presence of an older male alone in the back of the room, I would be the one that would be viewed as the weirdo in the room.

Drag Queen Story Hour with Muffie Fishbasket at the Newberry, “captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models.  In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people present as they wish, where the dress up is real.”

I challenge the premise that these gender confused readers are glamorous or positive or that they should be role models at all.  What proportion of parents would actually like their kids to grow up to be one of them? 

I want to know exactly how this all fits in with The Newberry Library’s mission as an “independent research library dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge, especially the humanities.  The Newberry acquires and preserves a broad array of special collections research materials relating to the civilizations of Europe and the Americas.”    What’s worse, is that the library is having not just one but four of these events.   Why is The Newberry having anything to do with this gender blurring and sexualization of children?  Drag Queen Story Hour represents a departure from all their other programs and speaks volumes about the judgment of the leadership of The Newberry Library and its board of trustees.  If the Newberry wanted to do a child focused program, it could have chosen to do something with Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jane Adams or E.B. White.  But no, it went with Muffy Fishbasket.

With Drag Queen Story Hour, the Newberry Library is coming dangerously close to promoting and advocating child grooming.  It has permitted its programming and premises in an entirely inappropriate way and in no way consistent with its mission to a fringe advocacy group hell bent on normalizing the abnormal.  Would the Newberry similarly expose the children to the joy of  pole dancing?   Would they entertain a pro-NRA program for pre-teens on firearms safety?  Would it permit itself to be used for a pro-life workshop?  

So, at the end of the year, my charitable checks will be mailed elsewhere and I urge my readers to object and withhold support from the Newberry. 

In the words of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, “Hey, teachers.  Leave those kids alone!.

We [Used to] Work [But Not Anymore]

I begin with a disclaimer.  I am neither a venture capital professional nor a real estate professional.  I do not pretend to be able to pick out the next new disruptive wave in business and I do not find real estate intrinsically interesting.  Nor have I done a deep dive into We Work’s financials.  And I did not really begin to follow the We Work story until last week.

But I have cleaned up dozens and dozens of corporate messes, and helped fix or restructure scores more, and the We Work and Adam Neumann drama immediately captured my attention. 

Because we’ve seen this movie before.

Theranos Rerun.

As I began to dig into the articles, I was immediately struck by the parallels between Adam Neumann and We Work and Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. 

-        Holmes and Neumann both built a religious cult based on grandiose claims, a persona and signature “look.”  Holmes mimicked Steven Jobs, down to the black turtleneck.  Neumann had his high school stoner look, complete with shoulder length hair.  Theranos employees complained that they knew where Holmes was in Jobs’s biography by the quotes she was spewing out.  Even her voice was manufactured.  Neumann brashly wished to be the first trillionaire and bragged that he was “going to lease more space than they [JPMorgan] do.”

-        Holmes and Neumann had a significant other that was involved in the business.  Elizabeth Holmes had “Sonny” Balwani that was the enforcer, threatening employees with legal action if they divulged “confidential” information (whether it was confidential or not).  Neumann had his flaky wife Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, former actress and Adam’s “strategic thought partner” or, as I call her “Chief Proselytizing Officer” who put out vacuous mission statements for the company, like this treasure from the company’s S-1 “We are a community company committed to maximum global impact.  Our mission is to elevate the world’s consciousness.”  Take a cleansing breath and you could almost smell the incense burn.   Her startup WeGrow is being shuttered.

-        Most importantly, each gained the admiration of one or more respected individuals from the Establishment that lent credibility.  Holms had George Schulz; Neumann had Jamie Dimon as his personal banker.  Each got someone credible to “fall in love” with them that provided air cover for their mismanagement (and in Holmes’s case, outright fraud). 

-        Each was an ego maniac that retained tight control over the company.  Holmes did it through threats.  Neumann did it with his manipulation of stock ownership.

Neumann took the Theranos playbook, tweaked it a bit and managed to extort $1.7 billion from Softbank.  Holmes was not so fortunate.  She will go to trial next year on fraud charges and her law firm quit because they haven’t been paid.  Holmes committed fraud by manipulating data.  Neumann (thus far as it appears, manipulated only the desires of his lenders and investors.

 What went wrong at We Work?  

My conclusion is everything.  We Work was a MASSIVE failure in several areas.  In the dichotomy of Steven Kaplan at the Booth School of Business, was this a failure of the horse or the jockey?  I believe it was both on a massive scale.  It was a failure of diligence on the part of J.P. MorganChase.  It was a failure corporate governance (Neumann engaged in a myriad of suspect insider transactions).   It was a failure of balance sheet management—servicing long term obligations with short term cash flows was a built-in structural failure.  (See Sam Zell’s comments.   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-33_A_YsWg)).              

 Ironically,  in yesterday’s WSJ, SoftBank announced that it was going to examine the corporate governance in its portfolio companies.  Talk about locking the barn door after the horses got out.

Why the We Work  scares me.

-        Jamie Dimon has reputation of being one of the best risk managers in the country.   Dimon earned his reputation at Citi by sidestepping the Long Term Capital Management debacle.  He further cemented his legacy during the financial crisis of ’08 and talked about “fortress balance sheet.”  Yet J.P. Morgan jumped in on this one with both feet.  They were in the equity, debt and the investment banking portion.  Dimon “fell in love.”  This leads to two important questions.  If Dimon can get taken, who else?   If J.P. Morgan can do a pratfall, what else is out there in these financial institutions?

-        Worse, We Work gives legs to Elizabeth Warren’s view of the world.  Once of the basic premises is that successful risk taking is rewarded and that this rising tide lifts all boats.  Neumann managed to disrupt the lives of some 4,000 people (and in the end had to delay layoffs because he didn’t even have the cash to pay their severance) and dissipated billions of dollars in wealth and yet managed to pocket a cool billion, land a $200 million consulting agreement and had his personal debt refinanced.   This is a terrible sign that something in the capitalist system is amiss. Even capitalist purist Cliff Asness posted, “It [We Work] will pass.  But, this story, hopefully briefly, makes me see some of the appeal of socialism.”  Frankly, I am surprised that Elizabeth Warren hasn’t picked up on the We Work story.   It is a real black eye not just to the banking, real estate and venture capital markets, but, I think, lends legitimacy to the complaints of Warren, Sanders, AOC and people of their ilk.  If I were on Warren’s campaign committee, Neumann would be featured in our campaign ads.

-        We Works also bolster’s one of  Peter Thiel’s assertions that innovation has slowed dramatically, that we innovate in bytes and not stuff.   There have been businesses that have married technology to an old line business--- Dominoes comes to mind.   Neumann tried to create an illusion that you could defy financial constraints by bolting space maximizing algorithms and a cultish corporate culture and failed spectacularly.  We Work also provided evidence to support Theil’s claim that there is just too much money around that funds don’t know what to do with.  And that leads them to “want to believe” instead of applying a healthy dose of skepticism.

After all is said and done, Neumann’s empire crumbled when his company’s story was scrutinized by the market rather than just the wise ones at Softbank and JPMorgan.

There is wisdom in crowds.

Lies and Deceits

I think I found one of the problems.  Along with not having a particular fondness for the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th Amendments to the Constitution (Kamala Harris last week wanted to take away Trump’s ability to Tweet and Beto wants to take away your AR-15), progressive politicians definitely have an aversion to the 10 Commandments, many of which still form the bedrock of our Judeo-Christian society.  I’m hardly an Evengelical Christian, but the 10 Commandments have pretty much stood the test of time and whatever your theological bend, you have to admit that they form a pretty good set of guidelines for human behavior.  Progressives seem to be bent on waging their campaigns and messages as if Commandments IX and X didn’t exist at all.  Remember those?  Thou shalt not bear false witness and Thou shalt not covet Thy Neighbor’s Goods.  Coveting thy neighbor’s goods is the platform for each and every Democratic presidential contender this year.  But what bothers me most among politicians and the media is the propensity to bear false witness….and bear no consequences for doing so.

·        ABC News- A week after using film from an artillery range in Kentucky claiming it was Turks shelling Kurds, ABC news still hasn’t explained how this happened, much less meted out any consequences.  In finance, putting out false financial statements may land you in jail.  In the law, similar behavior will lead to a malpractice suit (same as medicine) and you may lose your law license.  But in today’s world of journalism, false statements and patently misleading images are met with shoulder shrugs, even one as blatant as this one.

·        Similarly, earlier this year, several news outlets misleadingly framed the pictures of the kids from Covington to make it look like they were mocking an elderly Native American, when in fact it was the Native American that instigated the contact.  Nathan Phillips, a known rabble rouser, also lied about his Vietnam service.  The damage was immense, as the social media mob descended on these kids.  The kids have sued several media outlets and celebrities, who are all taking cover under the 1^st Amendment.  So far, no consequences.

·        Christine Blasey Ford most notoriously profited by her unsubstantiated claims against Brent Kavanaugh, as a GoFundMe account permitted her to take nearly a cool million for her efforts. 

And most recently, a guy named Max Stier claimed he was at a frat party with his pants down and his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.  The “victim” has no memory of this ever taking place.  Yet the NYT reported it anyway.

·        It has been mostly the Left lobbing these charges at the Right, but now they have begun to turn on each other.  Hillary Clinton, with not a shred of evidence, claimed that Tulsi Gabbard is being groomed by Russia to be a third party candidate.  Tulsi, refusing to back down, fired off a flurry of tweets at Clinton, labeling her the “Queen of Warmongers.”

·        Former presidential candidate and Utah senator Mitt Romney engaged in a bit of sleight of hand himself, deploying a pseudonym on Twitter to broadcast his views and to criticize President Trump.  At least Gabbard doesn’t hide in the bunker of anonymity and is uninhibited about expressing her views.  She is pretty far left of my views but in a head to head contest with Romney or Kasich, I’d lean toward Gabbard.

We are accustomed to politicians spreading falsehoods and making misleading statements, but our democracy depends on journalists to tenaciously dig for the facts and to exercise quality control over what they publish.  And even politicians need to be called out for making such slanderous statements as Hillary did against Tulsi Gabbard.   And whatever disagreement you might have with Gabbard’s policies, at least she stands behind her positions and stands up to those that spread falsehoods.

Whose Team Are You On?

I stopped trying to maintain a separate sports blog some time ago.   Keeping a weekly blog on other topics was enough, I thought.  But over the last several weeks, I find myself drifting into the topic again, especially that sports has found itself at the intersection of politics and economics.

I’m talking about the N.B.A.

Last week, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, a favorite N.B.A. team in China tweeted out a fairly innocuous message, “Fight for Freedom.  Stand with Hong Kong.”

In an earlier era, had someone transmitted that message about the Hungarians in 1956, the Czechs in 1968, or any country of the former Eastern Bloc in 1989, the country would have closed ranks around him and similar messages would have cropped up all over.

But this is globalist, multicultural, progressive America 2019, and the social justice warriors have taught us that America is an evil an oppressive force in the world, or so Steve Kerr, Stephan Curry and Gregg Popovich tell us.

Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morley, quickly deleted his tweet, and offered an apology for having offending the Xi regime worth of any statement ever given by a hostage, “I did not intent my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event.  I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives.”

Daryl, it’s not complicated. It’s not complicated at all.

Our eyes have been opened.  They have been opened to the hypocrisy of all of you, that wore “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” t-shirts protesting an incident in which those words were never uttered, and you blathered on about free speech in support of Colin Kaepernick.  But now, as Chinese police quell the breath of freedom in Hong Kong with truncheons and tear gas, suddenly you are mute and apologetic.

Kerr is perhaps the worst of the woke N.B.A., lashing out at Trump, muttering about AR-15s, and mumbling about human rights abuses in the U.S., while his Chinese puppeteers put people in re-education camps and beat and jail protesters.  None of that happens here.

The N.B.A.’s partner in this, Nike (famously ditching the Betsy Ross sneakers last summer) rushed to remove Houston Rockets gear from Chinese stores because they were “offensive” to the Chinese authorities.  The N.B.A. then complied and ordered their players to refrain from press conferences.

The face of the N.B.A., LeBron James claimed that the GM of the Rockets was “misinformed” on China.  I’ll bet the Chinese might even have a spot open for Daryl Morey in one of their re-education camps.  Did LeBron think Xi was kidding when he said that any attempt to divide China would result in “crushed bodies and shattered bones?”

I note with irony that Jamestown, the first colony in what would become the U.S., the colonists endured incredible risks, hardship and starvation to gain their liberty.    In the new James world of the LeBron type, liberty is deeply subordinated to personal profit.

I fixed my Nike golf shirt this summer by having a Betsy Ross flag sewn over the swoosh emblem.  I will not watch another N.B.A. on T.V. or attend one in person, even if the tickets are free. 

And I have a simple message for dolts like Lebron, Kerr, Curry and Popovich.  The most important thing you need to know about team sports is which team you play for. 

You’ve chosen.