Wild Is Esperanza

Esperanza Spalding live in San Sebastian July 23, 2009 playing Wild is The Wind. Some of my other favorite versions of this song were done by Ahmad Jamal (here), Barbara Streisand (here) and Nina Simone (here).

What I particularly like about Esperanza's version is the lengthy bowed introduction. If you don't know the song really well, it's hard to hear what she's doing. Just relax, listen and let her surprise you when the song starts. I love this approach to Jazz (the standard Jazz format, play the song, improvise, play the song and out) is pretty confining. I'm glad she's breaking the mold.

What Do Jazz Musicians Play At Nobel Ceremonies?

On the video above, the bass player is Esperanza Spalding, the drummer is Lyndon Rochelle, the Pianist is Leo Genovese, who is currently touring with Esperanza. This is a live performance in Norway at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony. She was selected to play in the ceremony in 2009 by Laureate Barrack Obama. This song is "Espera" from her Esperanza release.

Esperanza Spalding at Austin City Limits

Watch Esperanza Spalding / Madeleine Peyroux on PBS. See more from Austin City Limits.

Last night, Esperanza Spalding made an appearance on Austin City Limits, televised on our local PBS channel (WHA-TV). If you missed it, get a sample in the video clip above. Then you'll be taken to the PBS site, after another commerical (I guess it's not commercial-free TV anymore--who cares, if we get to see Esperanza), for the entire performance! Even if Jazz isn't your music, the visuals at Austin City Limits are great!

Esperanza also played at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies and was selected by Laureate Barack Obama. I'll follow up with that performance in a future post.

Paul Ryan Did It Again!

In an earlier post (here), I pointed out that Paul Ryan, R-WI, was the premier philosopher of the right wing and to anoint presidential candidate Newt Gingrich with this title was a great disservice to Rep. Ryan and to my home state. And, to prove my point, in the video above Mr. Gingrich comes out in support of the new Wyden-Ryan Medicare Plan (here). The video and Rep. Ryan's intellectual achievements should make clear who is the real intellectual power behind the porcelain throne.

Not to pick at details here, but Rep. Ryan's original plan for Medicare (in his brilliant Roadmap for America's Future 2.0) was surely the best way to destroy the only existing form of single-payer health insurance in the U.S. and rid the country of any European or Canadian predispositions to socialized medicine. The original analysis convincingly argued that the real reason Medicare is in trouble is not because Seniors are getting something they don't deserve (a sly sop to the left wing) but because health care costs are rising faster than anyone would have thought back in 1965 when Medicare was founded (read the history here).

From this brutally honest analysis, Rep. Ryan concludes that the simple answer is to shift the costs back to Seniors who have plenty of slack left in their over-generous Social Security checks to cover the rising cost of health care. With one intellectual flourish, the problem was solved.

Unfortunately, the howls of protest from the AARP forced Rep. Ryan to bastardize the intellectual edifice of the Roadmap and convince (here's that power behind the throne again) Rep . Ron Wyden, D-OR, to endorse the bastard child (a softer version that allowed Seniors to stay in Single Payer and, foolishly, not subject their golden years to the whims of the health care market).

Honestly, can't anyone appreciate intellectual elegance? Simple solutions such as Single Payer where payments are capped and health care providers are required to take Medicare patients without discrimination, are simply too ugly when compared to the elegance of invisible-hand solutions. At least Rep. Ryan can take pride in his intellectual achievements.

Neoliberal Crisis, Globalization, Austerity and the Transfer of Debt from Private to Public Sector

A great Italian economists and colleague of mine, Ricardo Fiorito (Ricardo spent a few years in residence at the University of Wisconsin) has suggested (here) that we think about the work of Stephen D. King who wrote a recent article in the Financial Times (here) and also wrote the book Loosing Control. The article in the FT was entitled "The eurozone deal will fail".

King's basic point is that Austerity is no guarantee of lasting economic and financial stability. Much more is at stake and it has to do with the positive and negative aspects of Globalization. There are severe imbalances in the World economy. Current account surpluses in Asia (think China) and the EU (think excess German savings) are having the effect of fueling speculation (hot money moving quickly in and out of countries and the financial fuel for excess debt). Another Wisconsin alumnus, Calla Wiemer has made the same point in a Wall Street Journal Editorial Don't Revalue the Yuan yet. King points out that the West has borrowed too much and now the debt has been transferred to the Public Sector. The consequence will be a long period of austerity that will damage the West.

Here are some of the questions King goes on to ask in Loosing Control:

• We are entering a period of competition for scare resources (think commodities such as oil and grain), a competition between the developing world (Brazil, Russia, India, and China the BRICS) and the West, a competition the West has not had to face in the past. What will be the result? Resource access and ability to rig markets has been essential historically to Western development.
• Why have financial markets become unstable? Has the pursuit of inflation targeting by Western monetary policies become a source of instability?
• If globalization is a triumph of market forces, why are we seeing a resurgence of state capitalism (think China)?
• Economic success in the past owed much to mass migrations. What will the affect of Western anti-immigration policies be especially when free flow of capital is allowed? Economic theory requires that all factors of production move freely for comparative advantage to work.
• Does reform of the international monetary system along the lines of the Eurozone offer a blueprint for monetary reform or a lesson in neoliberal catastrophe?
• Why has inequality increased substantially in the West? What does it have to do with Globalization and unequal income distribution between countries?
• We have reached an unprecedented level of sophistication in economic analysis. Why did economists miss the financial crisis?

As Ricardo has noted, there is a lot to think about in Stephen King's work. A first step would be to step back and view what's happening right now in the world system from the standpoint of globalization.

Santelli's Bad Math: Is The Household Really Bankrupt?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today on CNBC, commentator Rick Santelli presented the US Federal Budget as if it was your average American household. The conclusion was that the household is bankrupt. What's wrong with this math?

Family Income $ 23,100

Money Spent $ 36,140

New C.C. Debt $ 13,030

Outstanding Debt $151,140

Total Budget Cuts $ 385

The figures come from the US Debt Clock (here) and are taken from, in order, US Federal Tax Revenue, US Federal Spending, US Federal Budget Deficit, and US National Debt. Total Budget Cuts must have come from some other source.

Now, take a minute and ask yourself "What's missing from these numbers?" Think back to the last time you took out a loan. Unless you had a liar loan (stated income loan), the bank asked for a listing of your assets. On anything but Credit Card (C.C.) loans, you put those assets up as collateral to secure the loan.

Deficit Hawks such as Rick Santelli conveniently forget to include the assets of the United States when evaluating the country's credit worthiness. Think about the National Parks, the Federal highway System, all the buildings, property and vehicles owned by the Federal government, etc. Attempts to estimate that figure have been made (here) and the asset number is usually larger than the outstanding debt, meaning the country is solvent.

Current solvency does not mean that our country's debt level or it's projected growth rate is not problematic. It does mean that Santelli has left something important out of his presentation.

Karrin Allyson Moanin'

I recently heard Karrin Allyson sing Coventry Carol on DirecTV's Sonic Tap Music Channel 815. The cut is from the Concord Jazz Christmas CD. What caught my attention was Karrin's vocals and the guitar player (not sure, might be Howard Alden). She seems to like to work with guitarists, as in the clip above, and the musicianship of the entire ensemble always seems great.

Honorable Jon Corzine Granted Papal Title, becomes Count du Monet

Under Italian law, noble titles can still be given by the Pope (here). Unfortunately, papal titles have not been granted since Pius XII granted titles to John McCormack and Rose Kennedy. However, it is rumored that the practice will be revived for Jon Corzine given his strong support for European Sovereign debt and his heroic performance before a Congressional inquisition (video above). It's also expected that Corzine might be able to make the 2.4 trillion Euro Debt of Italy disappear in the same way he made $1.2 billion in investor funds disappear at MF Global (here). Even though the scale of the Italian debt makes the MF Global shortfall seem small, Corzine is rumored to have said that he was "...up for the challenge".



The noble title to be conferred on Corzine, Count du Monet, was derived from the Mel Brooks movie History of the World Part I (video clip above). Corzine has always been a Mel Brooks fan.

Paul Ryan, Man of Ideas

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is typically labelled as a "man of ideas" within right-wing circles. Gingrich, however, can only be considered a second-rate thinker when compared with Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. The depth, subtlety and audacity, I hope you will see, of Ryan's thinking has no equal.

Recently, Ryan suggested (here) that the President of the United States be given line-item veto authority. Now, some critics have called this "fakery" (here) because the US Supreme Court in 1998 has already ruled that only a constitutional amendment, not Congressional action, would be able to give such power to the US President (read the entire history here). However, Ryan's ability to out-think and even seduce his intellectual inferiors is really remarkable. Even Russ Feingold, ex-senator, D-WI, has endorsed Ryan's proposal (in the video above). I honestly can't imagine Russ Feingold agreeing with anything that Newt Gingrich would say, but Ryan presents a whole different level of persuasive reasoning.

The Governor of the State of Wisconsin (currently, Republican Scott Walker who realizes that the Wisconsin veto is his secret weapon) enjoys a "quirky" form of the line item veto which has been called the "Frankenstein" veto (here) since it allows the entire intention of legislation to be rewritten with creative editing. So, Wisconsin's experience (here) is quite revealing:

[The Wisconsin line item-veto]... has been used primarily as a tool of policy choice and partisan advantage rather than of fiscal restraint. Based on the Wisconsin experience, the author suggests that a presidential item veto could well be used largely as a resource to gain partisan leverage in pursuit of the President's policy agenda.

Paul Ryan has the intellectual subtlety to reason away his home State's experience with the item veto and bamboozle his intellectual inferiors into drinking the Kool-Aid of fiscal restraint. Gingrich simply does not have this level of intellectual fire power.

Gifts Not To Get Golfers

Since the holiday season is coming and the golfing season is over (at least in Wisconsin), one of my correspondents suggested I pass along an article from the Wall Street Journal titled What to get a Golfer for the Holidays: And What Not To--Stores Are Full of Dumb Gifts He or She Will Never Use; Why a Sweater is Better. For example, pictured above are gifts not to get: Exploding Golf Balls, Golf Club Cooler Caddies, Old Golfer's Towel, Lucky Strike Golf Bowling Game (?), Morning Putt Coffee Mug and Pens shaped like golf clubs. Who buys this stuff anyway? Read the article for better ideas...

Conditionality, Corporate Welfare, and Compensation

Spectrum Brands (stock symbol SPB) recently received a $4M forgivable loan from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. WEDC is a public-private partnership that promotes governor Scott Walker's "Wisconsin is Open For Business Message." The question for this post is whether the $4M was a good investment of taxpayer money?

SPB is a highly leveraged holding company that picks up orphaned consumer brands and tries to bring them back to life. SPB hasn't had a great track record and recently emerged from bankruptcy in 2009. An old video above tells the story. None of the CNBC anchors are with the network anymore and neither is Chairman and CEO Kent Hussey. To emerge from bankruptcy, Hussey noted that the restructuring took out 42% of the population of the company (does this mean jobs?). They still had $800 M in debt out of an initial $1.8 B. Mr. Hussey retired from the company in June 2010. My analysis of their common stock price history (here) doesn't suggest a very bright future.

One interesting aspect of the deal is that the $4M forgivable loan is actually less than the yearly salary of the current CEO, Dave Lumley, who took home total compensation in 2010 of $7.3M (here). Now here's my suggestion for the WEDC: follow the IMF's lead (here) and, instead of offering forgivable loans, provide contingent credit lines, the contingency being that loan amounts are matched by commitments of executive compensation. So, if SPB wants a $4M loan, Mr. Lumley would match that $4M out of his compensation leaving him $3.3M as his yearly compensation.

Now maybe this is an impractical suggestions and maybe $3.3M is not enough salary for a top executive of a highly leveraged holding company. I'm not sure exactly what the senior executives of SPB do to deserve multi-million dollar compensation but this statement from Anthony L. Genito's, SPB's CFO, in the Nov 16 Q4 2011 Earnings Call (here) provides some idea:

As I've said previously, based on the level of NOLs [Net Operating Losses] we expect to be able to utilize, we do not anticipate being a U.S. federal taxpayer for at least the next 5 years. We will, however, continue to incur foreign and a very small amount of state taxes. Cash taxes are expected to approximate $45 million to $50 million for fiscal 2012.

Evidently, evading state and federal corporate taxation in addition to pilling up NOLs is one of the ways senior executives earn their compensation. Another contingency might be that the company pay substantial State taxes during the period they obtain the loan.

Open Letter To Obama

On November 28, 2011 Leon G. Cooperman, billionaire investor, Goldman Sachs alumnus, Chairman and CEO of hedge fund Omega Advisors, wrote an open letter to President Obama (here). The headline quote was "But what I can hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare'".

You can read a detailed analysis of the letter here. I can't really add a lot to this analysis. It is hard to see from my vantage point in Wisconsin how Obama is responsible for the right-wing attack on public sector unions and how this is anything other than class war. However, putting that aside, I do agree with Mr. Cooperman that President Obama is using the wrong strategy.

In a CNBC interview this morning, Mr. Cooperman said that it was all about "jobs, jobs, jobs" and in the letter said "Capitalism is not the source of our problems, as an economy or as a society, and capitalists are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be. As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products..." etc. etc

OK, if capitalists are touting their job creating abilities and the US has an unemployment problem, challenge them to put up or shut up. The usual complaints are not standing in their way: (1) taxes are at the same level they were during the Bush years, (2) unions have been largely destroyed or are about to be completely destroyed by the right-wing attack on public sector unions, (3) interest rates are at historically low levels and (4) corporations have loads a cash on their balance sheets. If the President's attitude is holding capitalists back, then he should simply change it. Now, what are your excuses?

Oh, wait, there's that pesky problem of aggregate demand and a collapsed housing market. There is just no demand for the goods capitalists are hawking and the average person's largest financial asset, their home, is unsalable in the current market. As Mr. Cooperman notes in his letter, "I cannot blame you [President Obama] for the economic mess." He doesn't say who he blames, but whoever those people are it should be their responsibility to fix the mess they created. I would lay that challenge at their doorsteps.

Sonny Rollins, Last Jazzman

There was a great interview tonight on the PBS News Hour with 81 year old Jazz Sax player Sonny Rollins (here). On Sunday, he will be recognized at the 34th Kennedy Centers Honors ceremony in Washington, DC. In the regular interview, Sonny Rollins said that he was (1) an unschooled primitive player, (2) not yet satisfied with his playing, that's why he keeps at it, (3) when he performs, he trys to empty his mind so that improvisations can "pop out" in surprising ways, (4) jazz is a medium that can absorb all the other idioms, and (5) I may be the last jazz player of an era but my music will live on.

In the extended interview (above) he talks about his relationship with other Jazz greats, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, etc. Interestingly, he commented that the reason Miles Davis turned his back to audiences when he played was that he was shy.

In the clip above, Sonny Rollins is on tenor sax, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Yoshiaki Masuo on guitar playing Alfie's Theme from 1974. I particular like that he had a guitarist in the group!

Seven Strings Are Better Than Six

There was an interesting article in today's NY Times by Joe Nocera (here) talking about the career of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molasky. For the last five years they have been playing the Cafe Carlyle in New York City and they are finally getting some critical notice. The video above is of John Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit.

What is interesting to me is the musical history of John Pizzarelli, his father Bucky Pizzarelli, my guitar teacher Roy Plumb and guitarist George Van Eps who taught both Bucky and Roy. Here's the family tree:

The interesting link between all these guitarists (except me) is that they played seven (rather than standard six) string guitars. The seventh string allowed them to run a base line along with the standard harmony. From the clips in this posting you can hear, I hope, that these guitars sound much fuller and richer than the standard six string.

There is not a lot of information available on Roy Plumb; if you type in "Roy Plumb Guitar" or "Roy Plum Guitar" in a Google search (here) you will find other lists of his students. His Masters Thesis at the University of Wisconsin "The influence of the lute and guitar on musical texture and idiom of Renaissance keyboard literature" was published in 1961 (here). He went on to become an arranger for Frank Sinatra and later returned to Madison to teach guitar in a studio above Patti Music on State Street. I took private lessons from him in the 1970's. I'm not sure whether or not he is still alive and have been unable to find an obituary listing. When I took lessons from him, he always seemed in bad health and had particularly bad eye sight. He once played seven string for me but the guitars appeared to be unavailable when I was taking lessons.



I met Bucky Pizzarelli once in the 1970s at a dinner club in New York where he was performing. His advice to me "There are tons of great guitarists in New York who you have never heard of and who aren't working regularly. Don't come out unless you're asked!" I have to say, that was great advice.

It is a little hard to listen to George Van Eps in the clip above. Guitarists will be knocked out by the chordal improvisation. For non-guitarists, compare this to the standard guitar solo, maybe Barney Kessel, which doesn't harmonize every note. Barney Kessel was also a student of Roy Plumb.

The clip above is actually a pretty good lesson on guitar improvisation and harmony! Barney played a six string guitar.

I have many more stories about Roy Plumb. Possibly if I can find a little more information about his life I'll do another blog posting.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) In The Bible Belt

A colleague of mine at the University of Tennessee, Jon Shefner, was recently interviewed by the Knoxville News Sentinel (here). Jon studies the interaction of economic policies and how global populations advocate for change, specifically the link between austerity and protest. Government programs are essential to the survival of many working people. Closing those programs down when most needed, during an economic downturn, in order to shift income back to corporations, is the preferred right-wing solution (even when government programs had nothing to do with the economic crisis).

Jon became interested in OWS after studying austerity and protest in Latin America.

OWS is a logical extension of his earlier work, except now the austerity protests are happening in the hegemonic center of the world system.

Jon's comments to the Knoxville News Sentinel were basically that we should be paying attention to both OWS and the Tea Party Movement. However, the howls of "protest" from readers (here) suggest that he might have touched a raw nerve in the Bible Belt.

Christine Lagarde "Speaks the Truth"!

In case you missed the interview on 60 Minutes tonight (here), Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, made a number of interesting statements: (1) Compensation in the banking sector is "obscene," (2) the banking sector needs more regulation since it is capable of doing so much damage, (3) my brand is "truth telling."

Lagarde was a noted antitrust and labor lawyer (read her biography here). Her economic philosophy is described as "liberal," but from her comments I would say she was a pragmatist. One can only hope that having someone who was not trained as a neoliberal economist at the head of the IMF might make a difference in how the institution conducts itself. Time will tell.

Is "Snuck" a Word?

Conan can gloat over finding "snuck" in the dictionary (Jennifer Garner, in the video above, told Conan O'Brien that "snuck" was not a word), but "sneaked" would have been a more traditional usage (here). Is a little slap on the wrist from Jennifer Garner really that hard to take?

Sturgeon Bay Fog Horn, Not The Sound I Remember

This is a great video shot in 2009 from the sand beach just south of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, Sturgeon Bay, WI. The video was shot from the beach of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Nature Preserve. Toward the end of the video, if you listen carefully above the wind noise, you can hear the fixed fog horn at the end of the ship canal. There is some controversy over whether or not the fog horn is still in use but at least it was still being used in 2009.

The fog horn sounds different from the one I remember hearing back in the 1950's. The current fog horn sound has been described as "a cow about to croak," probably by someone with farm experience. The sound I remember was a low, deep "Beeeeeeeee-Ohh, Beeeeeeeee-Ohh," a low musical fifth. At the end of the video above the camera pans around looking South along Lake Michigan. The log cabin my father and his brothers built, Shady Nook, was about 300 yards down the beach, very close to the ship canal.

The cabin still stands but has been substantially altered since the 1950's. The beach and the old road in front of the house have also been eroded away to their present location. My father and his brothers sold the cabin when a neighbor to the North built a large, modern home on the adjoining lot. The house was built very close to the log cabin and, in my father's words, "ruined it." The area is still beautiful and a substantial sand beach remains.

The View From Cana Island, Door County, WI

Since you can't all be here...

Film Review: Inside Job

I just viewed Inside Job, an award winning documentary about the late 2000 Financial Crisis. The film starts as an indictment of Wall Street and the US Political System. It ends with an indictment of Academia and the Economics profession. Neoliberal corruption of US institutions runs very, very deep.

The film makers also produced a study guide (available here). I particularly liked the interviews with Raghuram Rajan, an economist who saw the financial crisis coming in 2005 and a sweating economist, Glen Hubbard, one of President George W. Bush's economic advisor (currently Dean of the Columbia Business School) and architect of the 2003 Bush Tax cuts, who did not see the crisis developing.

Paul Ryan and the Theory of Income Inequality

Paul Ryan, R-WI, is a conservative philosopher and theoretician of the first rank and it's a real challenge to get the best of him intellectually. He makes a very strong defense of US income inequality using the following theoretical framework.

Neoliberalism and free-market fundamentalism lead to income inequality. Rewarding people in the upper income distribution increases economic growth. Growth generates jobs. Jobs then reduce income inequality. In the economics profession, the role of income inequality in creating economic development is called a Kuznets process (or Kuznets curve) named for the economist Simon Kuznets who studied the empirical foundations of economic growth.

The Pew Economic Mobility Project makes a little different analysis, exploring the link between economic mobility and income inequality (you can read the executive summary of their report here). The video below provides a quick summary of their research.

The theory underlying the PEW mobility research can be summarized with the following directed graph.
Economic growth creates absolute mobility (in terms of the video, everyone is moving up the income escalator). However, economic growth under certain conditions (neoliberalism) blocks individuals from moving up the escalator as they enter on the bottom (relative mobility). In the view of the PEW researchers, the lack of relative mobility is "destroying the American Dream." The result is the type of class conflict that Paul Ryan accuses Democrats of inflaming.

Clearly, Rep. Ryan sees neoliberalism creating absolute mobility and endorses the rise in income inequality (declining relative mobility) because he thinks it feeds back to create growth. In a globalized world system, however, growth may not feedback to the benefit of the working and middle classes.

What seems evident from the late 2000 Financial Crisis is that income inequality leads to the concentration of cash looking for a high-rate of return. Financialization leads to the risky investments necessary to provide high rates of return. Risky investments eventually create a financial crisis which, to some extent, reduces income inequality. The extent of the reduction, however, still leaves the majority of high and low income individuals at the same place in the income distribution.

Rep. Ryan does not mention the financial crisis (and neither does the Pew Center video). However, both the Great Depression and the 2000 Financial Crisis both occurred at secular peaks in US income inequality. The conjuncture of high inequality and financial crisis must be more than a coincidence.

In the audio above, economist Greg Mankiw's gives his explanation of the growth in US income inequality. He does bring the late 2000 Financial Crisis into his discussion.

BMW Clean Coal (?) Ad Wins Green Tweener

I wonder if the Coen brothers did BMWs "clean" diesel ad (above). Looks a lot like the Coen brothers "clean" coal ad (below). In any event, both deserve a Green Tweener Award.

...or maybe, even better, another Coen brothers "clean" coal ad:

UW Police Chief Responds to Concealed Carry on the UW Campus

Here is UW-Madison's response to the new concealed carry law in Wisconsin:

UW Madison Students, Faculty, & Staff,

When Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law goes into effect on November 1, 2011 all weapons will remain prohibited in UW Madison buildings. If you see a person who is not a police officer in uniform carrying a weapon in a UW Madison building, call 911. As allowed by law, persons with licenses will be allowed to have weapons in parking areas and on the grounds of the university. However, do not assume a person has a license. We recommend you think “safety first” and if you err, please err on the side of calling police. Our police officers are trained to react appropriately to those legally or illegally carrying weapons. As always, call UWPD if you see suspicious behavior or someone with a weapon on UW Madison property.

Thanks,

Chief of Police Sue Riseling

Associate Vice Chancellor

UW Madison

I wonder how the NRA will react to the new UW Policy? My guess is that they will consider it harassment. I also wonder whether the NRA has thought about what will happen the first time a concealed carry permit holder pulls a gun in self-defense and is shot by a police officer who assumes they are the doer?

Financial Crisis, Stimulus and Regulation: Next Time Won't Be Different

In spite of the smack down from Rick Santelli (CNBC's "freaked out white man") Ezra Klein, a financial columnist for the Washington Post, recently wrote an excellent piece (here) on the Late 2000 Financial Crisis (also known as the Subprime Mortgage Crisis). Klein's article argues that there is never the political will to either (1) impose strong enough regulation to prevent financial crises or, (2) once the crisis has started, provide enough stimulus to bring the economy back to full employment.

One particular quote from the article caught my attention:

It is never possible for the political system to do enough to stop them [financial crises] at the outset, as it is never quite clear how bad they are. Even if it were, the system is ill-equipped to take action at that scale [once the crisis has started].

If Klein is accurate, the theories of Keynesian intervention and of central bank control of the economy are fundamentally wrong--something to think deeply about at a possible libertarian moment in US politics.

Driven Crazy By Golf

The video above is a very funny piece by trick shot artist J C Anderson lampooning instruction based on The Golf Machine (TGM). TGM is based on a book by Homer Kelley (here). Some of the concepts in Stack & Tilt methodology came from TGM (here), in fact you can look at S&T as a simplification of TGM.

Reading through Kelley's book is almost impossible. Every rule of good writing (see George Orwell's rules here) is broken repeatedly. Kelley was an engineer and took an engineering/physics approach to analyzing the golf swing. What he did continues to fascinate people trying to understand the golf swing, but getting through the book is no easy matter.

I once remember reading that the American engineer Buckminster Fuller (Bucky Balls, the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car) had been driven crazy by the industrial revolution (if you want to read and understand more about Buckminster Fuller, there is a great website here). Possibly the same could be said about Homer Kelley and golf. Both Homer Kelley and Buckminster fuller did such solid and useful work and have so many committed followers that we really can't overlook their accomplishments, no matter how it is presented.

S&T vs. RST at Address

One of my correspondents recently asked me to take a look at an article titled Stack and Tilt Golf from a Biomechanics Viewpoint (RST). There has been a lot of comment about the biomechanics of S&T vs. the perfect golf swing (for example, here). I cannot comment on biomechanics but, for myself, if some athletic movement is producing pain or outright injury, I'm just not going to keep doing it. If the movement is just activating weak or little used muscles producing soreness, I'm willing to keep going if the athletic movement is producing good results.

The RST (Rotary Swing Tour) article looks at five aspects of S&T vs. RST: (1) address, (2) ball position, (3) takeaway, (4) impact and (5) follow through. Before looking at each criticism, a few general points. RST theory (here) assumes that there are two basic swings that can be mastered by any golfer: RST and RS1, for rank amateurs. I disagree with this premise. Its very clear from the S&T book (here) that address, ball position, takeaway, impact and follow through are actually variables that can be manipulated to produce a particular ball flight or to fit the body confirmation of an individual golfer (GolfTec put my swing up against Ernie Els and Tiger Woods here, really). The RST article goes on to analyze Aaron Baddeley's version of the S&T swing as if it was the S&T swing. Moreover, Baddeley's variant, while he was still using it, departs from the canonical S&T swing in ways that he could have modified within the S&T framework.

Starting with address (in the graphic above), we have Chuck Quinton doing the RST setup on the left with Aaron Baddeley on the right. Baddeley is standing further away from the ball and he is balanced on the balls of his feet (yellow line) rather than over his ankles (red line). The RST swing recommends balancing through the center of the ankles provides more rotational freedom.

The graphic above shows Mike Bennett and myself at address. The address position looks very similar to RST except our torsos are flexed forward rather than the arched back position of RST. From the book (p. 46):

Your torso from the downtarget view should be flexed forward, toward the ball, but your spine should not be in a straight line. Your spine should curve forward slightly, or tilt progressively more from bottom to top, so tat your neck is angled more toward the ball than your lower back. This rounding of the spine serves two purposes. First, it allows your shoulders to roll inward and your arms to pinch against your torso., Second, it tilts your head downward so you can see the ball without straining to look out the bottoms of your eyes.

I've tried the straight-line back position advocated by RST and found it unnatural and uncomfortable. I found this out for myself well before being introduced to S&T. Obviously, for some golfers, the straight-line back position works well. Many tour players look perfectly comfortable in this position. It's one of the variables you can manipulate.

In future posts, I'll deal with ball position, takeaway, impact and follow-through.

Think Different

A Moment of Silence for Steve Jobs

...lest we forget the startup sounds of the Mac SE.

Steve Jobs: Love and Death

In his 2005 Stanford Commencement address (video above and transcript here), Steve Jobs said that "You've got to find what you love" and "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Since 1969, I have worked on every type of computer platform (Supercomputers, mainframes, minicomputers, graphics workstations, IBM PCs, Macintosh, etc.). I must say that the only platform that was fun to work on (rather than just hard work) was Macintosh. What an extraordinary compliment and achievement in a world where everything was supposed to be cool.

A friend of mine who was a graphic artist sent me the following note today:

Reading about Steve Jobs' death tonight I recalled my introduction to Apple, and to the Mac, in your office, circa 1988 - if memory serves, you had set a Mac up for me to play with. After 30 minutes I was dazzled, and I have been ever since. I just wish I'd bought stock. In our household we have 2 laptops, 3 desktops (2 inactive but they're still sitting around) 2 iPhones and several iPods. Just today at work I downloaded an ebook to my Touch. It was so easy.

I'm still in love with the stock (here), the computer, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and future products yet to be invented. Steve Jobs, 1955-2011, RIP.

Prohibition vs. Regulation

I just finished watching the three-part PBS series Prohibition by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Prohibition in the United States officially began with the Volstead Act in 1919 and ended with its repeal in 1933 during the Great Depression. The images of the period captured in the PBS documentary were nostalgic, compelling and fresh (many I had never seen before). The video above gives a preview of the series.

The timing of the series, right after the current Great Recession, makes the analogy pretty clearly. One of the interesting points made at the end of Episode 3, made by Daniel Okrent (Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition), was that under Prohibition it was easier for anyone to get a drink then after Prohibition when drinking was regulated--an interesting history lesson in the importance and benefits of regulation.

Another interesting point made by historian Michael Lerner involved the unintended consequences of heavy-handed legislation. Prohibition was the "grade school, college and graduate school" of organized crime in the US, the effects of which remained long after Prohibition had been repealed.

I also enjoyed to comments of Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Domesticating Drink): "One could argue that it was not simply drink that was domesticated in this decade but men as well" (p. 7).

Right Wing Fixation on Fertilization

The NY Times ran a comprehensive article today (here) that explores the important role of the world's forests in controlling CO2 emissions and global temperature. The causal diagram below summarizes the article (click to enlarge).

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning enter the atmosphere where the greenhouse effect increases global temperature. At the same time, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are absorbed (Co2 sequestration) by the oceans and by the forests. Co2 fertilization increases the growth rate of the forests, but wild fires, insect infestations and water deficits created by global warming decrease forest biomass as does outright deforestation and poor forest management techniques.

The article details how the right wing has latched on to C02 fertilization to argue that global warming (if it really exists) will benefit the planet. Unfortunately, the forces reducing forest growth are overwhelming the CO2 fertilization effect.

In addition to being sinks for carbon emissions, the forests and the oceans provide biodiversity (fish, animals and plants) that are threatened by ocean acidification and forest die-off. The article concludes that we cannot count on natural feedback effects to control climate e.g., there are limits to how many trees we can plant on the available land as a way to absorb Co2 emissions. The only option is to reduce CO2 emissions.

Right Wing Social Security Scare

Let's be honest: the right wing has been trying to eliminate Social Security since it was first enacted during the Great Depression. In the video above, Henry J. Aaron makes a few great points: (1) the argument that Social Security must be reformed because people are living longer only applies to the wealthy who are living longer and who do not need Social Security--working people's life expectancy still remains relatively short, (2) Social Security payments are very modest, really not enough to live on in retirement, (3) the system is currently not insolvent (there is no crisis and David John of the conservative Heritage Foundation was caught out with his own version of the facts here) and (4) the future of the system could easily be made sustainable by eliminating the income cap on Social Security taxes.

I would make the further point that wage earners paid their Social Security payroll deduction on the assumption that they were buying social insurance for retirement. The right wing is willing to break that social contract on the simple grounds that they and their wealthy contributors don't want to pay up.

Somax Sequence: Stage 4

I have used video analysis from the Somax Performance Institute in past analysis of Tiger Woods (here) and Arnold Palmer (here). Somax golf swing theory is detailed in their book, The Efficient Golfer. What's really interesting about their golf theory is the emphasis on the correct sequence, an idea that would be a useful addition to Stack & Tilt theory.

Once at the top of the backswing, the Somax sequence involves (1) starting the downswing with the left knee, (2) then the left hip, (3) then the left shoulder, (4) then the hands, and (5) followed lastly by the clubhead.

Stage 4 interests me because it involves moving the hands backward (see the arrow above) rather than down toward the ball, increasing wrist cock and width. Since casting is a problem most golfers (including me) have a problem with, Stage 4 should prove useful. For me, it's something to work on for the next few days.

One thing that not emphasized in Somax theory is ground loading (here) and the S&T standup (here). These ideas could be usefully added to Somax theory as a Stage 0 in the graphic above. It's also useful to compare the Somax graphic (above) with Arnold Palmer's position at the top (here and here). The Somax Institute feels that Palmer had a extremely efficient golf swing but he is far more bent over and ground-loaded (his head has moved downward slightly) than their model. Experimenting with ground loading (and unloading using the S&T standup) should not really interfere with the Somax sequence since it happens in another dimension.

Whitney Promo Ad Wins Golden Tweener

A great social faux pas advertisement for the computer age.

Experience Using the Long Putter

I have been having trouble with putting this year. Partly, it's because I'm playing on greens that have wildly different speeds. I seem unable to adjust my putting stroke quickly enough during a round to compensate. On fast greens, I start taking too short of a backswing. On slow greens, I keep leaving putts short. I'm sure there are lots of solutions to this problem but the one I have chosen is to switch to the long putter.

I have had a long putter for at least a decade after reading an article by Scott McCarron. It worked well for about a month (all new golf equipment works perfectly for the first 40 days) but then I began "looping" the putter (in a figure eight) and gave it up.

After dusting off the putter again and watching a few instructional videos, I realized that McCarron's approach to the long-putter was probably not the best for me and that other options were available. Three issues turned out to be important: (1) whether to use the shoulders when making the swing (McCarron rocked his shoulders), (2) the right-hand grip (McCarron used a conventional putter grip rather than the claw) and (3) where to anchor the putter on your upper body (McCarron anchored to his sternum but the butt of the club can be anchored anywhere from the chin (!) to the belly button--lots of room for experimentation).

First let's look at two videos of Adam Scott who has turned around his golf game using the long putter. Scott bends over a lot, anchors the club fairly high up on his chest, rocks his shoulders and uses the claw grip.

All these elements can be seen clearly from the face-on video. Scott's use of the claw was particularly interesting given an article on putting by Dave Stockton (here). In Stockton's Step 3 ("Skip the Practice Stroke"), he talks about using the right hand to help visualize the speed for the putt (like throwing a ball underhanded), a movement that is very similar to the claw.

The video above details another approach to the long putter. In this approach, the shoulders remain fixed and the putter is swung with a pendulum motion, again using the claw. Which approach: Tour Player or Golf Instructor?

After some experimentation on the practice green, it turned out that the fixed-shoulder, pendulum approach proved better (dramatically better) for me. Notice also that since I'm a stack and tilt guy, I have a little more weight on my left foot (just slightly). I can use a much longer, more fluid stroke that doesn't seem to change as much between fast and slow greens and I can hold my follow through without recoiling after hitting the ball. All-in-all, a big improvement for me.

The World According to Australians

Following up on an earlier posting (The World According to Americans), here is an upside-down map of the World using the Hobo-Dyer projection. Evidently, it is favored by the Australians, according to a correspondent from South Africa--a country equally as elevated in the upside-down World.

Since I find myself unexpectedly blogging about cartography, a neighbor of mine in Door County, WI has a unusual story: he served as a cartographer both in the British army during World War II and the US Army during the Korean War (my guess is that he was rudely surprised coming to the US after WWII and being drafted again, although he did have quite valuable skills).

Why Medicare Is In Trouble

Listening to the Washington debate about Medicare (here, here, here, here, and here) one would think the program is in trouble because it's a government entitlement program that is handing out free health care to underserving freeloaders. And, if that is the problem, then the solution is to privatize the program (according to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI in the video below).

First, Medicare is not an entitlement program, it is a social insurance program that people pay into during their working years so they can have health insurance in retirement. The only sense it which it is an entitlement is that we are entitled to the care that we payed for with our payroll deductions. It is an insurance program because some people will need more care than others even though there have been relatively equal contributions.

Medicare, however, is in trouble because payed-out benefits exceed collections. This problem could be solved in two ways: increasing payroll deductions or decreasing payouts.

On the payout side, Medicare is in trouble partly because of private sector billing practices. The DHHS Inspector General released a report last December documenting Questionable Billing for Medicare Outpatient Therapy Services. The graphic above, from the report, shows the "high-utilization" counties, counties that supply up to eight times the level of services per beneficiary and thus services about eight times the level of payment for services.

Of these counties, Miami-Dade is the worst having "the highest average Medicare payments per beneficiary among the high-utilization counties and the highest total Medicare outpatient therapy payments in 2009." The higher payments are not going to produce better health for Medicare patients but are going to increased physician payments and higher executive salaries in the private health care sector.

Privatization will only make the problem of over-billing worse. And, strangely enough, all but one of the high-utilization counties is in a state with a Republican governor.

The World According to Americans

Here's a pretty self-explanatory graphic from the Mapping Stereotypes project (here for a detailed listing of stereotypes by country). It was presented in the first lecture of History 120: Europe and the Modern World, 1815-2010 to lots of nervous laughter from the class.

Arnold Palmer Turns 82

Yesterday, Arnold Palmer turned 82. In honor, the Golf Channel played the full 1960 Masters Tournament coverage (the first part starts above) which was Palmer's second (he also won the 1958 Masters). Looking over Palmer's record (here) produces an interesting list of great (Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Raymond Floyd, Johnny Miller) and probably forgotten (Dow Finsterwald, Doug Ford, Bob Goalby, Gay Brewer, Doug Sanders, Johnny Pott, Dai Rees, Billy Casper, Mason Rudolf, Gene Littler, Lionel Hebert, Gay Brewer, Gardner Dickinson, Deane Beman, Orville Moody, Gibby Gilbert, etc.) players that he beat.

From the "probably forgotten" list I have a story about Bob Goalby. I was walking in to the Thursday round of the Greater Milwaukee Open by the players entrance (the tournament stopped allowing entrance here a few years later) when a car pulled up along side me and the driver said "Get in". I hesitated, the driver looked familiar but I couldn't place him.

He said again, "Come on, get in," so I did.

Before we got to security at the players entrance, the drive said "Do you recognize me?" I said, "You look familiar, but..."

He said "I'm Bob Goalby" and I wish I could have said "Sure, you lost to Arnold Palmer in the 1959 Oklahoma City Open Invitational in 1959 by 2 strokes," but I didn't find that out until reading Palmer's record a few minutes ago!

In any event, "Thank you, Bob Goalby for a free pass into the GMO!" Bob was there to see his nephew, Jay Haas, play.

Back to the 1960 Masters, I had a flood of reactions to the coverage: (1) Palmer certainly was a physical specimen compared to the conditioning of most other players (Doug Sanders would say that "the heaviest thing he ever lifted was a skirt"), (2) the wristy putting styles are shocking by today's standards, (3) the caddies cleaned balls by rinsing them in their mouths (who knows what kinds of carcinogens they were putting on the greens then) and of course (4) it's amazing how far Plamer hit the ball with persimmon woods and balata balls.

In honor of Arnold's birthday and his achievements in golf (particularly introducing today's modern, power game), here's an analysis of Palmer's swing (above) by Wanye DeFrancesco with a very interesting comparison to Dustin Johnson swing and lots of discussion about the left wrist position.

In New Email to Constituents, Ron Johnson Defines Insanity

Today, I received a wonderful email and video from my US Senator, Ron Johnson, R-WI. After hearing president Obama's Job's speech the other night (here), my first thought was that Ron Johnson would set me straight on what to think about the president's oratory. And, today he did, invoking Albert Einstein to label the speech "insanity". From Johnson's email to me:

As Albert Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." On Thursday night, I was saddened to see President Obama's latest government stimulus program fits this definition to a tee.

Now these are really novel thoughts that didn't occur to me while listening to the President's speech so I decided to watch Senator Johnson's video (above) for more enlightenment. And, to my surprise, it wasn't your typical bag of gassy political euphemisms but a very specific set of points from Senator Johnson's "pro-growth" agenda.

Now, Senator Johnson does get off to a bad start talking about, in Paul Krugman's words, the confidence fairy (businesses won't do anything unless they are 100% confident about everything that will happen in the future, forever). Even though whining about "confidence" is just playing to right-wing dogma, it did help me understand why entrepreneurship is dead in the US. And, Senator Johnson did quickly move on to explain to me what he wanted to have confidence about.

He and other business leaders (Senator Johnson always points out that he ran a plastics business) have now been very clear about what they want:

1) A credible plan to limit spending and the size of government. Evidently, the huge amounts of money spent on foreign wars, the war on terror and other Bush administration expansions of the Federal government must come to an end immediately. Who can disagree with this proposal?

2) A Regulation Moratorium. We have also solved all the problems of lax regulatory oversight during the Bush administration that created the Subprime Mortgage Crisis so we can now be sure that the private sector will never do anything unethical like liar loans or robo-signing again. I'm relieved that our government has acted so quickly to create a responsible regulatory environment.

3) Tax reform. The tax cuts enacted by the Bush administration must definitely be reformed. US corporations pay one of the world's lowest effective tax rates (maybe Somalia has a lower effect business tax rate). Businesses exploit massive loopholes enacted by congressmen and senators who are in their pocket. Millionaires and billionaires pay less taxes as a percentage of their income than the workers who clean their toilets. Bravo, Senator Johnson. This has to change.

4) Federal Hiring Freeze. The large expansion of the Federal government related to the War on Terror and the military adventures of the Bush administration (TSA agents, CIA agents, military personnel, defense contractors, etc.) should definitely be rolled back.

5) Budgetary Reform. This is really pretty simple. Any budgetary item that returns any money whatsoever to individuals who make less than $250,000 per year (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Social Security, Aid to Widows and Orphans, etc.) should immediately be eliminated. In fact, all forms of social welfare should immediately be returned to the private sector through a new Department of Corporate Welfare.

6) Create a Sunset Committee that will eliminate harmful laws and regulations. As a start, lets consider any legislation passed by the New Deal or the Great Society for immediate sunsetting. Some of these laws have been on the books for almost 100 years! For example, the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking was passed in 1932 and repealed in 1999. It's repeal had a great effect on increasing business confidence that banking deposits could be used to make risky bets on the subprime mortgage market.

Well, that was all very enlightening but I guess I'm still a little confused by the insanity argument and by allowing the private sector to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe Senator Johnson's next email will help me think this through.

J. G. Wentworth Commercial Wins Golden Tweener Award

Congratulations to J. G. Wentworth on their unique, award-winning commercial that breaks almost all advertising fundamentals to use opera singers to communicate its message to an audience that has absolutely no interest in opera. In case you have trouble understanding the lyrics:

A:

If you have a limited intelligence

And you need cash now

Call J. G. Wentworth

877-CASH-COW

877-CASH-COW

(repeat with small variations on "limited intelligence")

B:

We've screwed thousands

And we'll screw you too

Give us your cash

And we'll know what to do

(repeat A)

IT'S YOUR MONEY AND WE NEED IT NOW!