Trek in the ParkJuly 25th, 2010 Saturday evening I attended a quintessential Portland event, Trek in the Park by Atomic Arts, where the troupe puts on an original Star Trek episode in Woodland Park in NE Portland. The episode that they reproduced on the lawn of the park was Space Seed, where Khan was introduced into the Star Trek lexicon. The thespian Ryan Castro amply handled the role of Khan, originally played by Ricardo Montalban. His mannerisms were perfect: the slow diction, the shaking muscles, the over-the-top masculinity. I was immediatly brought back directly to that the episode, complete with a live laugh track. I would recommend anyone on Portland to go there, but get there early as it sells out quickly.
Coal Catastrophes, Oil Spills and ObamaApril 30th, 2010 Oil continues to spew into the ocean from the broken rig. Residents gather on the shore, ready to fight the black liquid as it creaps toward land, it's viscous body ready to cover birds, clams, and little kids. The reality of the deep sea drilling begins to set in, the dangers, the complexities, the chances of what can transpire. Its the world that we've created, complex beyond our wildest dreams, requiring us to drill five miles down off shore in order to satisfy our insatiable dependency on energy. And I sit here, typing on my computer, contributing to the need of energy. Each watt that trickles into my computer came from somewhere, far removed from my house, piped and wired across the state and countries to arrive at my door. How much longer can it last? The easy fuel long since spent. The deep digs and even deeper drilling to pilfer other energy sources from the earth. Companies trying to keep costs low while extraction costs rise, higher and higher. Safety begins to wane in lieu of profits. Miners die in collapsing mines. Oil workers perish in rig explosions. And our system can't handle the catastrophes as before, because we have gotten larger and denser, creating larger and larger catastrophes which affect more and more people as the population has crept everywhere. We can't escape anymore with land becoming more and more of a premium. Hopefully, Obama and others learn that the additional drilling is a fruitless endeavor. We will run out of oil, and the increased drilling offshore only means more catastrophes waiting to happen, with less and less resources ready to handle the mess that may ensue. Capitalism and CommunismFebruary 21st, 2010 Setting expectations was one of the downfalls of communism, and I can see the possibility of it becoming the downfall of capitalism as well. It strange that two disparate systems could be able to collapse for the same reason, especially when the problem with communism was over-domination by the government and a stifling of the truth. With capitalism, it seems to be an over-domination by the stock market and corporatocracy with a stifling of the truth. The expectations that I am referring to in communism, specifically in the USSR, was the fixing of agricultural prices by the communist party. The government set the prices so that all of the people could afford food. The problem was that farmers could not produce the food at that price. Instead of working hard to produce food at a loss, the farmers started not producing and purchased goods on the open market. They pretended that these goods were the ones that they actually produced. This allowed them to hit their production quota set by the government. The problem is that the Russian model assumed that these farmers were actually producing food, and they were not. The lack of production caused food to start disappearing from shelves, and this helped hasten the demise of the communistic system. The truth in this situation was that farmers could not produce items at that cost, so the cost structure had to change, but the government was reluctant (or couldn't) because much of the population may have not been able to afford the cost of food. And now in my capitalist country, US, I see similar type of expectations being set on corporations and companies by shareholders and investors. These companies are expected o produce a certain profit each year, showing a particular kind of growth. This expectation is fine at the beginning, but in a recessionary environment, this is not possible. When everything is going down, a company producing the same amount is an anomaly. They can cut costs considerably by firing workers, but I doubt companies were running at that much inefficiency that they could fire 20% of their workforce. It seems that such cost cutting measures will work for the very short term, like running your car without doing any of the regular maintenance. The problem is that this won't work for the long term. Once these companies lose momentum, they will have a hard time restarting the car. The small problems that could have been avoided with an adequate workforce becomes a major problem that requires more money to fix (if it is salvageable at all). Unless the companies start hiring soon, which I don't see in the foreseeable future, we can expect them to start breaking down. It won't be immediately (you can run your car for a while without maintenance) but when they do, all of those numbers that stayed high (even though the environment says that they can't be that high) will soon be high without any production from the company. It will be pure paper profit. Then, capitalism will look the same as communist Russia, the corporations will be showing that they are producing lots but the shelves will be bare. Greed Gone BadFebruary 10th, 2010 Greed, a game based on the idea that executives pump up their company only to give themselves a fat severence upon their dismissal, held much promise after I had played it with three people. Unfortunately, the game came to a standstill when we had five players, an analysis paralysis, combined with over complexity in making the efficiency engine work. This game ended a wonderful weekend of gaming in Eugene at the Eugene Game Gala, hosted by Lorna and friends. It was a lot of fun, and included a variety of games:
Cognitive DissonanceFebruary 3rd, 2010 Can we ever convince people that their ideas are incorrect? The answer is usually NO, even if it seems obvious that they should so the error of their thinking. It is not because people are stupid, though at times, some definitely act stupidly. The truth is that the mind is prewired to cause these sorts of problems. Problems in seeing your personal beliefs as being incorrect. One problem is commitment and consistency. People want to appear consistent. If they have been fighting for a cause for a long time or have been part of a group for a long time, then they will not change their beliefs easily (if at all). This is especially true if they were committed to a cause that was found to false. This brings in the second factor of self-justification. People need to justify their actions when they experience a cognitive dissonance. In simple terms, acognitive dissonance is when the person's attitudes, beliefs, feelings, or actions conflict with another of these. For example, a person dislikes washing dishes (a feeling) but is doing it anyway. The person has to either justify it by saying, I'm doing it because my friend cooked a meal, or maybe by saying that if I don't do it then I'll have to eat of dirty plates. These thoughts help to balance the belief with reality, thus allowing the belief or feeling to be valid, while the truth is the opposite. The interesting thing about these mechanisms is that they can be used together to manipulate people and to get them to join a cause. Consistency is used by salesman with the foot-in-the-door technique: get the person to say yes for little things and then they will start saying yes to larger items. The second is used by many organizations such as fraternities, the military, and non-profits. The military and fraternity through the hazing that occurs during the initiation into the groups. This hazing results in the person liking the group more than if they had not been hazed or forced through such rigorous entrance activities. The non-profits act in the same vein by paying people so little that they feel that they must really be liking it or else they wouldn't be doing it. Which brings me back to the original question, once people has developed their beilefs, is there any way to change them? I think not. Stock Market DroppingJanuary 22nd, 2010 The DOW Jones dropped two percent today, making a 500 point loss for the week. One heading was "Stocks sink again on Obama's pushback on banks", which is anachonistic since the dropped started Wednesday, a day before Obama's announcement. It's probably not true, like most headings on finance websites. On the other hand, whenever threatened with regulation, banks have the ability to throw the financial system into a recessionary mode by removing credit. A good example is the Panic of 1837. But this time, it could be different, the heading could be right. People are selling stocks due to the regulation, and not the profit taking or the Chinese influence as others have postulated. Lets say it is Obama. Since Obama is in both camps, that of the bankers and that of the angry populace, I don't know how one could blame him except for trying to bring consensus. I remain hopeful that he will bring the change, not that he can do much with how much negative momemtum has been built over the past 30 years by ignorant leadership in my country. The disparity between the classes has gotten out of control. The middle class and poor have been left in the dust, making 5-7% on their pensions and 401k's, while the wealthy is increasing 10% or more. There is no way for them to keep up. And the funniest part to me is that much of the middle class and poor vote for policies that leave them worse offf. I don't get it. The world has a way to balance itself. For as the discrepancy grows, power laws come into play. We will enter the great disappointment for many in upper echelon as they find that many of them must lose out as few in the very top shoot drastically upwards. This will cause the competition toget fierce. This has to happen if the bottom moves further from the top. This situation doesn't bode well for the ones who just want to live without having to work 80 hours per week. They will be forsaken, unless they give in, or unless the figure out a smarter way to live. It's the smarter way that many should be working on right now.
First Post in 2010January 17th, 2010 After ending a wonderful 2009, I'm very excited about 2010. The par was set high the last year: Being a best man at my brother's wedding and taking my dad for a round of golf at Pebble Beach. This year will be sent against the backdrop of an economy that could go either way. There is a chance that it could sustain its recovery. There is a chance that it will stay the same as now with no recovery. And then there is my bet, that we slip back into a serious recession. Why the gloom about the economy? I see the continuation of the deleveraging for companies, as they unwind their debts. This can only cause a deflationary cycle. We will see asset prices decrease, in somethings like houses and rent. We will also see a boomerang affect on other items, things that will go low and then shoot upwards as inventory run out and production requires at least a certain price level to produce at all. And lastly, we will see certain items increase, like the price of certain commidities such as gold, wheat, soy, and oil. We are close to max capacity and demand for these will far outstrip supply. (Though oil may go down at the beginning of the year while the oil that has been stored in ships comes onto the market). The main goal over the next year financially will be too avoid taking on debt and to stock money away. Now that I've got on this rambling about the economy, I might as well keep going, with the trouble that the government is in, since it has to spend more money to prevent the recession while having less tax revenue. It has to run a defecit, which is not a bad thing, except that there are a lot of people who will bet against the US dollar which will cause additional stress on US treasuries, and a possible financial collapse of the US. It is a very small chance, 1%, but it could happen. Other times, I think that our country would make it through this predicament, but now it is so divided and full of greed, it will be hard. The ones who need to lead don't have the money. The ones with the money and in control are too worried about their own finances instead of the world, which is what we need to think about now. We are now global, and smaller solutions won't help.
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