November 2016: Two Recent News Items

     The hardest part of writing this letter was choosing a title. Usually, when I cover a few, unrelated topics, I call it a Potpourri. Given on the topics is about the 75th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, potpourri just sounded too light and frivolous. While this is the November Letter, it was only started in November and finished in December.
     A new years resolution will be to be more timely in 2017.

     Whitechapel Bell Foundry: I have written a few times about how we lament the closing of school, store, facrory or other institutions that iconic in our lives. We have warm memories about these kinds of places. We can rekindle those memories by visiting these places again. Some visits are annual, such as homecomings at schools and holiday seasons at department stores.
     But, economic conditions and demographics change. These places close. We feel bad, we feel like part of ourselves are diminished in the closing. Our memories are on their own and cannot be refereshed by a visit.
     I feel bad when places I have never seen, been meant to, close. Today, I felt something new. I am feeling bad about the closing of a place I have never heard of… until today.
     A short article in the Wall Street Journal reported that Whitechapel Bell Foundry was closing. This foundry which has made both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell is closing and the business is being sold. Whitechapel claims it is the oldest manufacturing enterprise operating continuously on the same site.
     Alan Hughes is the great-grandson of the man who bought the company in 1884 was quoted in an interview in Spitalfields Life: “The business has been at its present site over 250 years. So it is probably about time it moved once again. We hope that this move will provide an opportunity for the business to move forward.”
     This company has made bells for centuries. Their largest customer has been the Church of England. Their bells are in use in Westminster Abbey, St. Alban’s, and other famous churches. They have made original bells, patched and repaired them over the years, and then replaced them.
     They had a great year in 2015. Business was up 27% but the sales and manufacturing leadntimes are amazingly long.

Bell projects take a long time, so churches commit to new bells when the economy is strong and then there is no turning back. We are just commencing work on a new peal of bells for St Albans after forty-three years of negotiation. That’s an example of the time scale we are working on – at least ten years between order and delivery is normal. My great-grandfather visited the church in Langley in the eighteen nineties and told them the bells needed rehanging in a new frame. They patched them. My grandfather said the same thing in the nineteen twenties. They patched them. My father told them again in the nineteen fifties and I quoted for the job in the nineteen seventies. We completed the order in 1998.

     The lead times are indeed long. 43 years of negotiations?! A minimum of 10 years in the sales and delivery cycle? How do you plan in a business like that. I am quite certain they are not using Sales and Operations Planning.
     They are certainly a make-to-order shop. It would be cool to see how they make the kind of large bells the churches mentioned would buy. The challenge of getting a clean and sound casting is a must. I cannot imagine how they finish and tune the bells and how long it takes from start to finish to produce a large bell.

The Liberty Bell

     My last thought is about the Liberty Bell. The huge crack in the bell bothered me from my grade school days. Clearly, it was a defective product of this historical foundry. Supposedly, the mix of metals used made the bell too brittle. Given the excessive lead time and all, perhaps, the US should consider asking them to fix or replace it. If it takes them up to 43 years to sell a project, the warranty ought to be 200 – 300 years.

     Fading Infamy: This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surpise aerial attack using fighters and dive and torpedo bombers on the American Naval and Army bases in Hawaii. The US was caught completely off-guard and the attack was a rousing and complete victory for Japan. The casualties were staggering and a blow to the American government, and people.
     President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech on December 8th that was broadcast to a stunned nation huddled aroud their radios.

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. ~ Historyplace.com

     Roosevelt’s words resonated: a day that will live in infamy. As a result of this attack that began at 7:55 am and lasted only 75 minutes, the United States entered World War II. On December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. A few days later, December 11, Japan’s Axis allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the US. This was still the days when countries declared war on each other when armed forces were deployed.
     I remember clearly growing up around a generation of adults in their forties and fifties. For them, Pearl Harbor was a very big deal. Beause of them, it became a big deal for me. The big difference was that I did not live through it. I did not experience it. My view of the event is second hand. For my children and grandchildren, it will not be much more than an historical event perhaps a significant historical event. The way they look at is probably the way I look at the sinking of the Lusitania. It was huge in its day but the memory has faded.
     When I was born, there were still WWI veterans around. If they were 18 – 25 when the US entered the war in 1917 when the US entered the great war. They would have been in their 60’s in 1960 when I first really became aware of such things. Many TV shows in the 1970s featured the occasional plot line where the last of those veterans showed up for a reunion and were alone all their comrades had passed.
      As this was the 75th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, veterans that were actually there are all in their 90s. Sadly, but naturally, as that generation of Americans passes, the Day of Infamy will still be noted but not in the same way. The same is said for all thoses huge days in history. I am seeing it happen with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. It is even happening with 9-11.
     The Wall Street Journal had a couple of very good articles commemorating the day. Robert R. Garnett, a professor of English literature at Gettysburg College noted in an Op-Ed piece, Aboard the USS Arizona – Dec. 7, 1941:

Only minutes after the attack began, a Japanese bomb hit the Arizona, triggering a volcanic explosion in the forward magazines. The ship broke in half and quickly sank. Almost 1,200 sailors and Marines, including all 21 musicians, died. 

We sleep peacefully in our beds at night, it has been said, because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf. But few of the sailors on the Arizona were rough men. Many were homesick young recruits, 18- and 19-year-old boys from rural and working-class America. One bandsman had enlisted the year before at 16. Arizona’s dead remain entombed in their sunken ship, America’s most poignant war memorial.

     We need to read articles like this to remember how many died in that 75 minute attack (most of the Pearl Harbor movies did not have to condense time very much at all). 2,400 Americans died at Pearl Harbor. Half of them were on the USS Arizona, the sunken hull of which is both tomb for those killed and a war memorial.
     A neverending debate about the Pearl Harbor attack concerns just how much the US knew about an impending attack and we might have done about it. A related discussion is about how, on that fateful day, we were caught so flat-footed. There had to be a scapegoat. But, I was not aware of who they were. Sure, I have seen the various movies. Having watched a few of these movies, it seemed to me that there was plenty of blame to spread around both in the State and War Departments.

The USS Arizona sinking

     Thanks again to the WSJ, my primary news source these days, there was a December 2nd article, The Admiral Who Took the Fall for Pearl Harbor. Admiral Husband Kimmel was the Commander of the Pacific Fleet at the time. Per the article, earlier in 1941, President Roosevelt himself had referred to Kimmel as “one of the greatest naval strategists of our time.” Within ten days, this four star admiral was relieved of command and reduced in rank by two stars to Rear Admiral. He retired from the Navy in 1942 and spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name and reputation and have his rank restored. Upon his death in 1968, his family took up the cause to this day with no real change.
     Kimmel’s army counterpart was a three star general, Walter Short. He was in charge of the Hawaiian command and thus shared in the responsibility with Kimmel of defending the islands. Roosevelt assigned a special committee, the Roberts Commission to investigate what happened at Pearl Harbor. The conclusion was dereliction of duty for both Kimmel and Short. Like Kimmel, Short was relieved of command and reduced in rank by one star. He also retired in 1942 and passed away in 1949.
     Both men wanted a court martial to better be able to defend themselves and their actions before the attack. Both were refused. In 2000, a nonbinding Senate resolution was narrowly passed exhonorating both men.
     Kimmel was portrayed by Martin Balsam in Tora! Tora! Tora!. Jason Robards portrayed Walter Short. In the film, they both were in total shock after the attack.
     Pearl Harbor marked the US entry into World War II. If I ever visit Hawaii, I will go to the USS Arizona Memorial.

November 2014: Food Replicators and 3D Printers

     Caveat: This letter is about what was once science fiction and now seems possible. Therefore, there are a lot of video links in it and, thus, is best read on a PC or pad, if you want the full experience. 

     Since I was a youngster, I was fascinated with a kind of space age alchemy. Alchemy like turning lead in gold in Medieval times alchemy? Not exactly, I did say space age alchemy. I remember seeing television shows like Lost in Space, Star Trek, and other movies that I cannot recall. Sometimes, when the crew was being social, they would go to galley or dining hall for something to eat. They would go to a voice-activated vending machine of sorts and tell the gizmo what they wanted to eat. After a few seconds, some flashing lights, and perhaps some space-age beeps and blips, presto change-o, the food was ready in the dispenser. One could ask for a steak medium rare with mashed potatoes and, voila, the machine would make it. Not only would the machine make it but would deliver it on a plate in a presentation that one might expect from a fine restaurant. 

     These machines would make all kinds of foods almost by magic. Not only could it make human food from hot dogs to spaghetti and meatballs but it could make alien food too. Let’s say you had a bulgy eyed lizard skinned Zerloffian from Harmol Solar System. Your guest wants some Feldjgis smothered in Glamixinas? No problem for our Veg-o-matic Pi Squared. Just tell the machine what your guest wants and it will serve it lukewarm or frozen depending on his or her mother made it. The machine never said no and it never seemed to malfunction or be out of anything. It was amazing.   

     There was never any explanation of how it worked or where the ingredients came from. We were supposed to be OK with the fact that it was space-aged or magic. After all, we were conditioned to expect miraculous things from the future! Being fascinated with this bit of science fiction, I was curious how it worked and when we might start seeing these machines in our school cafeterias and our homes. It would be pretty cool. I assumed that it used any form of matter or materials as an input and that the science and technology inside the machine was so sophisticated it could take trash and turn it into crème brûlée!

     Since this machine could turn anything into anything we wanted to eat, it stands to reason that another machine could be made to convert any trash into energy. This was, of course, shown as a possibility in Back to the Future 3 or 5… or was it 1. The time traveling DeLorean took any kind of trashy input and turned it into nuclear energy. How perfectly splendid! All we have to do to get there is, simply, to invent the flux capacitor, dilithium crystals, flubber, and the 3D printer. Come to think of it, these miraculous machines of the future should even be able to do old-fashioned alchemy i.e. turn lead into gold.

     I wonder what that would do to the price of gold? I wonder what that would do to the value you place on gold. That will have to wait for some future letter.
     The gizmo on the Star Trek franchise of TV shows and movies was called a Replicator. Thanks to YouTube there are several examples of how this fascinating item performs. Witness this from one of the more recent Star Trek TV series. This version of replicator is more magical than most. Want a glass of ice water? It creates it out of nothing in a most fashionable glass. Want pan-fried catfish? No problem. The Replicator creates a most stylish presentation including plate, silverware, a slice of lemon and sides. It is amazing.
     Of course, even with something so advanced, flexible, and diverse as a Food Replicator, humans will become jaded and not want to wait. We will expect the machine to read our minds. Certainly, there will be occasional computer glitch that can be mildly irritating depending on just how hungry one is. All in all the Food Replicator is an amazing bit of science fiction that hopefully will be one of the greatest inventions ever!
      There are some that claim the future is now and 3D printing is the answer. Hmmm, we have seen movies made about the flux capacitor. The entire Star Trek brand is fueled by dilithium crystals, which make warp drive possible. We all know how cool flubber is. What then are 3D printers?
      There was a report on National Public Radio supports the claim that the future may be much closer then we think: NPR Story. It seems that the US Army is seriously dabbling with 3-D Printers to create food that is engineered for each single soldier. We are going to print food? How do you print food?

     There is a higher tech twist to this project the Army researchers are working on. Per the NPR story:

Imagine soldiers who are strapped, head to toe, with sensors that measure if they're high or low in potassium or cholesterol. 

"We envision to have a 3-D printer that is interfaced with the soldier. And that sensor can deliver information to the computer software," Oleksyk says. "And then they would be able to have either powdered or liquid matrices that are very nutrient dense, that they have on demand that they can take and eat immediately to fill that need."

     The quote is attributed to Lauren Oleksyk, a food technologist who is leading this project. It is pretty impressive. Basically, the US Army wants to have a machine that will make a variety of energy and nutrition bars for soldiers on the battlefield. The goal is to have the bars customized to each soldier in terms of both nutrient content and, I suppose, flavor. It would consider if the soldier is diabetic, lactose intolerant, dehydrated, or any number of conditions.

      These “printers” will take the various ingredients specified by soldier’s sensory input, add flavors, some based nutritional goo that will probably needed to hold the concoction together, mix them, apply heat if necessary, press the bars, cool them if necessary, coat them (think chocolate), and finally wrap-up them. I do not suppose this entire process pushing the start button until the bar is dispensed will be anywhere as quick as the Star Trek video showed.

      The future is now… sort of. There are a variety of 3D Printers available on Amazon.com. They range in price, and let’s assume capability relative to price, from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. There is even a 3D Printers & Supplies Store on Amazon. The site even provide an explanation of what 3D Printing is:

3D Printing, also called additive manufacturing, is the process of taking a digital model of an object of any geometric shape and creating a three-dimensional (3D) solid object replica. A 3D printer uses rapid prototyping, a pre-production process that allows manufacturers to scale a model using computer-aided design (CAD) data, or modeling software. A solid object is created using layers of various materials such as liquid, paper, powder, or metal that form a series of cross sections. The additive process automatically fuses the joined layers to create the object. Using a 3D printer filament, commonly supplied in various colors on spools, the 3D printer is able to create a smooth extrusion, creating a shape form as the material comes through the nozzle.

Commonly used in manufacturing, machining, automotive, construction, medical, and architectural industries, 3D printers are applicable to a wide variety of fields. Education, engineering, and jewelry-making professionals also use additive manufacturing. Manufacturing, in both industrial and remote areas, can utilize this technology. For example, if new machinery is required, new machined objects can begin to take shape in minutes. Material savings can be measured in decreased material waste during the manufacturing process.

     A Dremel 3D Printer costs $1,264 on eBay and only $999 on Amazon. Here is a video of it making a simple frog. Another video shows the Top 5 Best 3D Printers To Buy USA. So, they produce plastic parts that can be used as toys, prototypes, and perhaps even replacement parts depending on the kind of material used in the extrusion process. If we want to think big, there are folks working on building houses using 3D printers (this is also a great video to introduce 3D printing). It seems we are at the dawn of something with great and unlimited potential.

     Of course, the printer has to follow a plan. A detailed digital drawing is needed to print the simple frog and an even more detailed drawing is needed to print an entire house. With regards to the house, it is not exactly clear exactly how much house is printed. Is a big persons Little Tyke house? Does it print the plumbing and electrical wiring? I am guessing that the foundation still has to be dug and poured the old fashioned way? How about the roof? Are the shingles printed onto the roof or is that another process? These are all “small details” that need to be worked out. 

     Let’s get back to food. It seems like nutritional meal bars are probably coming to a military unit near you. What if you want tad something a bit more satisfying like a burger or a pizza? Not to be outdone by the Army, NASA has invested in the 3D printing of food. They began with pizza. Here is an article and a video of the first foray in this technology. They chose to make pizza. Notice the printer has three nozzles: one for dough, another for the sauce, and the third for cheese. The result is pizza but, frankly, it did not look too appetizing. For now, we should let the Army do their thing and invent the best meal replacement bar they can. Maybe these 3D bar printers will available in stores and vending areas and will be exciting as the high tech Coke machines that provide virtually every product they sell. 

     If you watched any of the 3D videos, it is clear we are nowhere near the Star Trek food replicator. There might be some decent applications. But there is nothing on the horizon where we can walk up to a machine and order anything we want and have it served quickly and in a presentation we might only find in a high end restaurant. This is what I would love to see.
     I have no clue how such a replicator would work. But, I have always had a notion of how I think, or wish, replicators should work. In my vision, a replicator makes everything from a base food powder or slurry. Really awesome technology would then transform the base into the desired finished food at the perfect temperature. The finished products would be placed on in a bowl or on a plate, depending on the kind of food ordered, and dispensed. My version of the replicator would not necessarily, as in the Star Trek version, replicate the plates and silverware. The plates would be in a hopper and silverware would be in bins next to the replicator.
     There are probably many obstacles to ever seeing such a food replicator in the near future. First and foremost would be the whiz-bang technology that would transform the base food goo or slurry into any kind of vegetable, meat, fish, legume, grain, pasta, libation, and condiment conceivable. Given we had the technology, the next question is would the process be time and cost effective? Such a transformation might require much more energy than it would actually cost to buy and prepare the real food the machine is replicating. In the movies, the replication is instantaneous. There is a microwave like convenience to these replicators. The replication transformation might take as much time as to prepare the same meal using real ingredients. Lastly, many people are railing against genetically modified foods. I cannot imagine what these folks would say about replicated food even though the machine in my imagination would be generically equivalent to the best natural foods ever experienced.
     If by chance this concept comes to fruition, I have a phase two in mind. In the follow-up, a preprocessor would be added that would allow any form of matter to be put into the replicator. It would transform the “stuff” into the base food slurry. We could dump table scraps into the replicator. We could put all our household refuge. It could be pretty amazing.
      Why stop here? Eventually, we should be able to replicate food simply from energy. As we will have to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels and migrate to something close to what I will call safe fusion, we may have unlimited and cheap energy available.
     There is another reason why we may need this kind of replicator technology sooner rather than later. There was an article in the November 17, 2014 USA Today, that reported that the demand for chocolate could exceed supply as early as the year 2020. This shortage is due to a variety of reasons that includes global warming reducing the growing regions, a disease effecting cacao yields, increased demands for chocolate from China, and cacao producers deciding to grow more profitable crops e.g. corn and rubber. Of course, if supply goes down, prices will go up. When prices go up, more growers may want to cash in and most likely the market will adjust to a new equilibrium. Needless to say, as the world population increases we will run into more and more shortages. There are similar reports that coffee production areas are also shrinking due to climate reasons. It is predicted that supply will not be able to meet demand for this commodity as well. Replicators will be needed to cover these shortages and provide people with the full litany of products they value and enjoy.
      After we get this replicator gizmo going we turn our attention to creating the transporter and the Wayback Machine.

November 2012: The Patina Lifestyle

I was having breakfast with a friend earlier this month.  We are both turning 60 in 2013.  We were discussing the reaching of this next milestone in our lives.  We talked about the physical changes involved in aging.  We talked about wrinkles and liver spots.    We talked about losing hair where we really want it and... the sprouting of hair in places where it is most unwelcome.  There is also the graying of the hair everywhere.  Actually, at this point it is pretty much gray.  There is the need for glasses and both of us are teetering on the edge of needing hearing aids. 

We talked about our parents and the foibles they are facing.  We laughed about how they can drive us crazy.  My friend wondered if and when our children will look at us in the same light.  I suggest to him that they probably already see us in some combination of being old, slowing down, losing it, and driving them crazy. 

Everyone is concerned about looking good.  Looking good often includes looking youthful.  For many, this concern has become an obsession.  There are those that color their hair.  Many of us workout and fight to stay trim.  If they can afford it, cosmetic surgery is not out of the question.  Faces are lifted.  Tummies are tucked.  Stomachs are banded.  Eyes are lasiked. 

We talked about how we would never do most of these things.  First, we were not that vain or that obsessed.  Second, we cannot be bothered with coloring our gray and thinning hair.  It is an expense that we prefer to avoid and a routine we could easily do without.  Lastly, we decided the wrinkles and other markings of age have been earned.  They show our age.  They show our passage.

Interestingly, there is a good market for fashion and furnishings that have an old and well-worn look about them.  We no longer buy brand new blue jeans that take a really long time to break in and then they last a really really long time.  Today, we buy blue jeans that are already broken in.  They are pre-washed and look worn.  They are more comfortable and we pay more for them than denim that has not been pre-washed. 

Oriental rugs have long been popular.   Really fine rugs can be very expensive but they can easily last over a hundred years.  Today, however, there is a market for very old really worn almost threadbare rugs.  These rugs are extraordinarily expensive.

The same applies to a certain class of furniture.  Sure, you can buy a brand new leather chair or couch in which the leather is uniform in color and looks perfect.  The chair or sofa over the years will gradually wear get that Ralph Lauren "life well lived" look.  Why wait?  Again by paying a premium, we can buy a chair and couch that are brand new but look fifteen to twenty years old. 

We realized that people want to look young but will pay a premium for this weathered and aged look.  Well worn is well admired.  We thus decided to choose another word for the graying and wrinkles that come with age.  Why should we value this in our clothes and furnishings but not in ourselves?  We decided to use the word patina.  That is what we look for in aged and worn leather.  Why not embrace our own patina that naturally comes with our age.

My Parents:  My parents, Aram and Manoushag, take great care of themselves.  They eat well and exercise.  They both look great in their 80s.   They embrace this lifestyle and it has paid off for them.  My father had an aortic valve replaced on June 25 of this year.  It was quite a serious surgery.  His surgery and recovery went very well simply because of his lifelong focus on health and fitness.

They do not try to hide their age at all.  They embrace a simple lifestyle.  My mother has never colored her hair.  My dad simply shaves his head.  They are not obsessed with trying to look younger.  They are dedicated to taking care of themselves.  They eat right, they get plenty of rest, they exercise, and are committed to this simple and effective way of life.

As a result, they look their age.  They are good looking at their age.  They look good but they do not try to hide their age.   They have wrinkles.  They have the blemishes and spots on their skin that are inevitable.  We were with them over the Thanksgiving holiday and I had to admire how good both of them looked.  My Dad particularly looked dapper to the point where he could model for octogenarian fashions. 

There are many other people who are doing the same thing as my parents.  I am always bringing up my friend Ara Topouzian.  I am certain that just before getting to this paragraph, he is licking his chops to chastise me on another rambling bambling letter.  So, to diffuse him, let me note that while Ara is more like me, his father, Armen, is exactly like my parents.  He embraces the same simple lifestyle and has achieved the same wonderful results.

My parents and Armen have that patina of age I am talking about here.  It is indeed a lifestyle.  It is an economical lifestyle to boot.  They are an example that I know I should follow.  It must also be noted that my parents and Armen are not unique.  There are countless number of people who do the same.  Maybe, quietly, it is a movement that is growing:  The Patina Lifestyle.

Bridget Bardot vs. Joan Rivers:  I have always been fascinated by Bridget Bardot who turned 78 this past September.  Of course, I was fascinated with her when was a sex kitten in the 1950s and 1960s though I only really noticed in the late 1960s.  What fascinated me the most, however, was her decision to retire in 1973 at the age of 39.  She understood that her youth was fading and wanted no part in trying to prolong it.  I think she was also tired of the constant attention and handling.  She was tired about being obsessed over by fans and her managers in the industry.  She also wanted to focus on her real passion that developed at that time:  animal activism. 

As her intensity and dedication to animal activism increased, she paid less and less attention to her physical self.  She was most definitely a pin-up girl in her modeling and acting heyday.  In her retirement she became the poster child for what famous actors and actresses of yesteryear look like today.  These comparisons are always popping up on the internet and the most striking, negative, comparisons are highlighted.     In one sense, compared to her days of being called a sex kitten, she looks horrible.  From another perspective, she has just let nature take its course.  After years of being poked, prodded, curled, coifed, dyed, colored, and made-up, it is apparent she simply no longer cares.  Bridget Bardot has jowls and a wrinkled neck.  Her hair is always unkempt and, if colored at all, is always showing roots.  It is hard to believe that it is the same woman who personified the term sex kitten. 

She opted for patina and only cares to focus on her cause.

Joan Rivers is the exact opposite of Bridget Bardot.  Joan Rivers has had so much plastic surgery that her before and after photos are equally dramatic.  Instead of going from sex kitten to grandma, Joan Rivers has gone so-so looking to bordering on the ridiculous because the skin on her face is so taut. Her looks are exaggerated.  Her face has been pulled back so much, she looks windswept, no, wait, hurricane-swept. 

What does it matter really what Joan Rivers or Bridget Bardot do?  Everyone is free.  We are free to spend all our time looking young and youthful or we can spend all our time doing something else.  We are after all living in parts of the world that are for the most part tolerant and free.

OK.  Bridget Bardot may not be the best model for this.   She has gotten increasingly more bizarre in recent years with her political views.  Maybe Katherine Hepburn or Jessica Tandy might be better examples. 

Uniformity and Entropy:  There is another strong factor in society.  It is a movement toward uniformity.  What was it Joni Mitchell wrote and sang, "give me spots on my apples but save me the birds and bees?"  We are obsessed with everything looking pristine, unblemished, perfect, and uniform.  We cannot even have carrots that look like they do coming out of the ground.  You can never really get all the dirt out of the crevices.  We can never clean them up enough so that they do not look the roots that they are.  So what have we done, we shave and grind them into almost uniform pure orange pieces and call them baby carrots.  Sure, part of it is saves the effort of cleaning fruits and vegetables but it also makes them look more appealing.  It seems that patina is not appetizing.  

When I was a mere child and first learning about the world, I was not happy to learn about the constant change in the world.  It really made no sense to me that things wore out, broke, rusted, or decayed.  I thought the world should be perfect.  I am not sure I got this idea but it was a very strong feeling.  Perhaps, it was being the first generation to grow up with television or being raised in a time when people really believed that they could conquer and master nature.  This feeling lasted until I took a physics class in high school and learned about the concept of entropy.  Entropy is a complex topic that can be quite involved and mathematical.  What I most remember is that one interpretation was that nature tends to move from order to disorder.  Disorder and randomness is the state of equilibrium.  At least this is how it seemed when I first learned about this concept.  It made sense and defined things in a way that I was more accepting of how the universe works... not that the universe cares one way or another.

In this light, the aging process, the graying, wrinkling, and wearing out all makes sense.  Patina is a natural progression and can be admired and valued rather than abhorred and avoided.  We have all seen photos of people who have lived the simple agrarian lifestyle that look so good in their later years.  They look noble and we can't look at those photos without thinking "that is the way to age!" and “their lifestyle is the way to live!”

Yet, we are conflicted.  We are constantly bombarded with images of what beauty and glamour are.  The recurrent images are those of youth, beauty, and unblemished metrosexual uniformity.   The twist is we are made to believe that our choices with parameters make us unique.  Yes, I chose the turquoise LaCoste polo and you look equally individual in your Ralph Lauren taupe one.  Wait, we are both wearing jeans... no worries, your shirt is tucked in and mine isn't.  

No matter how hard we try, we do tend to wear out.  Entropy always seems to win in the end.

The Patina Lifestyle:  Patina also implies an aging and graying with style and grace.  It is akin to something we might call managed entropy.  A leather chair does not get that valued patina from abuse.  You don't leave an expense leather chair out in the rain and elements to get that desired patina.  If you do that, the chair will be destroyed.  To get that desired patina, you have to take care of it.  The patina comes gradually over the years through consistent use and wear.  People are the same.  To get that desired patina, we have to age and gray with style and grace.  We have to take care of our physical selves.  We all know people who have done that and witness and admire the results they get. 

As has been written in this letter many times before, we know what to do.  We know what it takes to get that patina discussed in this letter.  It is living well.  It is eating properly, getting a proper amount of rest, managing stress, and exercising.   There was an article I just read about the people on a certain Greek Isle living 10-12 years longer than the US average.  The advice is not anything revolutionary.  It is basically what we all know and find so hard to do.  It is what is listed above.

There is also mental and personality patina we should all be striving for.  It is a mixture of wisdom and attitude.  Our personalities need to reflect our years.  Mental patina needs to age and gray with style and grace.

This concept of patina applied to human beings could catch on.  Remember you heard it here first.  I envision an entire liberating movement for people.  Avoid surgery.  Stop coloring your hair.  Live right and develop a patina you can be proud of.  Age and gray with style and grace.  I foresee infomercials with those fake popielesque audiences  clapping and cheering at each minor revelation of the Patina Program.  We need a tagline that is catchy and pithy.

I would, of course, have to host the thing hawking the entire program which would include books, videos, meals, bottled water, bicycles, athletic shoes and apparel, yoga wear, sunglasses, hats, t-shirts, and whatever else I can think of.  I would trademark copyright incorporate the program.  There would be a website and a logo.  I am thinking about using the Greek letter rho, ρ, as the stylized p.  There would be double symbolism as rho is used to represent the linear correlation coefficient in regression analysis.  We are correlating, of course, good living with good aging.  

If this is going to happen, I will have to get some plastic surgery, hair plugs, and a stomach band so that I can look the part as the godfather of this movement.  I would, of course, have to take several before and after photos to use in advertising and in the book.  I know, this is totally against what I have laid out here, but this has to be done in the grand tradition of good old fashioned US marketing and not having to practice what one preaches especially when revenue is involved.  Well, this last bit is more a topic for a future letter.

Graceful aging and graying to us all! Embrace the Patina Lifestyle.

ρ

November 2011: The Internet Makes it All Easier

Technology, namely the Personal Computer and the Internet, have made me more organized, competent, and rigorous than I ever was.  I write more.  I write more effectively.  I maintain three blogs and am a heavy contributor to our business blog.  It is cool and a lot of fun.  

Truth be told, however, I am not the most organized person.  Also, I have had a major gap or disconnect between my ambition and my track record of realizing those ambitions.  For example, up until recently (recent being 2002), I hated to write.  I hated to do research.  I wanted to do both but they were tedious.  They were not just tedious; they were incredibly and ridiculously tedious.  When I was coming of age, writing meant pen and paper, editing drafts and then typing it into a typewriter, onto paper.  Simple changes to almost final drafts were unbearable.  It was boring.  Writing and re-writing drafts, typing and re-typing drafts and final products, was a major pain.  Therefore, I rarely did it.

Research was the same way.  It involved going to the library.  Sometimes it involved going to specialty libraries at a university as the journals I was searching for were not available at the local libraries nor were they available at the main university libraries.  Then, I would have to pore over telephone book sized tomes of journal summaries taking copious notes.  The next step was to take those notes and go find the journals in the library either on the shelves, on microfilm, or perhaps having to order the journal from another library and wait weeks for it to come in.  For me, this was mega-complicated and, I am not sure if I have used this word to describe it, tedious.  Therefore, I rarely did it.  

There is an inherent laziness at work here.  I know and admit this.  The laziness is greater than the ambition when the path to realizing the ambition is overly tedious.  Overly tedious is essentially boring and thus anything else is more interesting.  I have always wanted to get things done quickly.  Even as a kid, I tired of anything that did not be done in one sitting.  All my model airplanes and cars were horribly done because I could barely wait for the glue, paint or decals to dry.  Any long term project in elementary school?  The same thing.  

In junior high, we were taught how to use 3x5 index cards to do proper research for a term paper.  Then we were taught how to create an outline while amassing more and more cards.  Then after all this, we could sit down and type the rough draft of the paper.  Upon editing and reviewing with the teacher, we would type the next draft.  Upon another edit, we could finally type the final paper.  Mind you, all of this was done on a typewriter... multiple times.  Oh my!  This was not for me.  It was not for anyone.  I waited until the last minute.  I typed up the only draft of the paper with books and magazines all about it.  It was chaos but essentially done in real time.  Then, and only because the teacher required it, did I also type an outline and hand wrote enough 3x5 cards to give the appearance that I actually followed directions.  

The PC and the Internet has made this all easier.  Case in point, take an example form a few paragraphs ago.  I wrote “I would have to pore over telephone book sized tomes...”  I was not sure if pore, pour, or maybe a third word, poar, was correct.  In days of yore, I would have opted for pour and let the teacher or professor decide.  Sure, I could have looked it up in a dictionary or  style and grammar book but then I would have had to get up, find the book, the research my question.  Blame it on attention span, but if I were to do that, the chances of coming back to my writing would be minimal.  As I pondered the question tonight, I simply typing “pour over” into Google and quickly found ample instruction that led me to use the proper word, pore, and also realized there is no word poar.  It was easy, though there is still a risk that I could have been diverted by what a friend of mine calls “shiny things” that always seems to pop-up in my Internet searches.

For me and certainly many others, technology has helped.  I love the ability to research almost anything from my easy chair or desk via laptop or iPad.  I was talking with another friend on the phone a few weeks ago.  Somehow, don’t ask me how, we got to talking about a game that was played way back when by children.  It was a basic, simple, and seemingly boring game.  It involved a wheel and a stick.  The stick was used to keep the wheel rolling.  That’s it.  Sure it was an odd thing to talk about but we had somehow gotten there.  The next question was, “I wonder what that game was called?”  Who cares?  Who knows?  In the pre-internet days I would have simply let it go.  It is a small matter.  That day in front of my laptop, I simply typed in “wheel and stick game” and voila, sever listing for hoop rolling, hoop trundling, simply trundling.  Trundling?  Yes, trundling.I  am trying to fathom youngsters who could be amused, for who knows how many hours, with a hoop and a stick.  I wonder about the trundling youngsters of yore the same way young people playing the amazing graphic video games of today wonder how my generation  could have been so fascinated with Pong.

My first realization of how liberating this technology would be for me was back in the early days of the Internet.  I had arranged for Senator Joe Liberman to visit our church: The Armenian Church of the Holy Ascension in Trumbull, CT.  We were very excited as it was the highest US Government official to ever visit our church.  Our priest, Father Untzag Nalbandian, asked me to be the emcee for the event for being the driving force behind this auspicious event.  In truth all I did was contact the Senator’s office.  It was more do to the Senator’s very good policy of engaging the community.  We tried to do the same thing a few years later with Senator Chris Dodd.  We did not even get a reply from his office.

But I digress.  I was travelling to Argentina the week before Senator Lieberman was to visit our church.  I returned late Saturday evening.  I was expecting mail from the Senator’s office that was to include his biography.  There was no such mail.  It was 10 pm and I was wondering what I was going to do.  I did not want to embarrass the Senator, our church, or myself by not having a proper introduction for such a distinguished guest.  I then thought that perhaps they emailed me.  So, I checked my first email address, the kind that came with whatever dismally slow dial-up Internet service I had.  Again there was nothing.  

What to do?  The public library did not open early enough for me to get there and get to chruch on time.  What to do?  I then thought of using that new thing I had just got... what was it... ah yes... Netscape.  It came with what was then a new computer.  I typed the Senator’s name into the search box and hit enter.  Soon, I was at the Senator’s website.  He had a bio tab.  Wow.  This was amazing.  It was like midnight.  I was able to get and print his bio that I could read verbatim if I had to.  How cool!

It was incredibly cool.  I realized the power of where technology was going and what it would allow me to do.  The information world was literally at my fingertips.  From that moment on, the availability of information and the speed of retrieval has only gotten better, broader, and faster.  It is easy to learn about almost anything and everything really quick.  If you have any rights at a university library, the entire world of journals and papers are on-line.  The most classic papers in almost any field are available in pdf form on-line, this includes the Harvard Business Review which is probably the best in the world at trying not to provide free content.

I wanted to learn about alternative oud tunings.  A short internet search and voila:

• http://www.oudcafe.com/stringing_and_tuning.htm - This site provides alternative Turkish and Arabic tunings.
• http://www.arabinstruments.com/112730/Tuning-the-Oud - which is actually an on-line tuner.

People with any passion share their knowledge and lore on-line with, basically, the world.  I am amazed with the volumes of people who read my blogs and which pieces are most read.  The ones most read are not necessarily my favorites.  

There is a negative side of all this freedom.  I can do easily get lost for hours.  The Internet is full of shiny and distracting things that can lead to hours of not doing what I originally intended.  Case in point, consider November 16 and 17th of this month:

• On November 16th, I learned that Karl Slover passed away in Georgia at the age of 93.  Karl who?  Karl Slover was one of the last surviving Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.  Karl Slover played the lead trumpeter in that classic film.  Karl Slover NYTimes
• The distracting bit for November 17th was just as obscure.  Yahoo News informed me that the composer of A Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini, Lee Pockriss, also died.  Besides the bikini song he also composed the music for Johnny Angel and Catch a Falling Star.

I am not even sure what I had set out to do when I ran across these stories and veered well off my intended path.  Apparently some degree of focus is still needed.  Yeah, I just searched on “maintaining focus” and then clicked on the sub-choice of “maintaining focus to achieve goals.”  There is a lot of sites in this topic many of which point out in their abstract that maintaining focus is important in helping one achieve ones goals.  Yes, the Internet certainly can hammer home the obvious.  It does, however, seem like the kind of topic I may want to blog about at some later date.  

Technology is not standing still.  Voice recognition will one day rule the way we input into our various electronic devices.  Of course, that is only until we develop an interface for brain waves.  Right now, voice recognition  it is mostly on cell phones.  It can be very useful when driving to either text someone or have the phone retrieve a phone number from the web or one’s directory and then make the call.  It is useful for activating the GPS on one’s phone to provide guidance to a destination.  It is quite useful and much easier to use then in the recent past.

Almost every phone I have had has been equipped with voice activated calling.  In the early days, it was simply a matter of luck when it worked.  I would activate the system and speak the name into the phone, such as Jim Davis.  It was a surprise if it dialed Jim Davis instead of Jim Clayborn or perhaps Jerry Danville.  I used to get quite frustrated with it.  I would try to speak more clearly on the next few iterations.  When that didn’t work, I would speak more forcefully a few times as if that would have any impact on the software.  Often, I would give up and just look up the number using the keypad.  One time in the car with my daughter, Armene’, I was trying to call home to inform Judy of our whereabouts.  I said, “home.”  Nothing.  I said, “home” again yielding the same results.  After a few more times, I began to speak more clearly and also more forcefully resulting in the following chide from my daughter that she still brings up frequently, “Dad, if saying ‘home’ didn’t work, what makes you think constantly repeating ‘homa’ is going to help.”  She was absolutely correct.

Someone told me that my first edition Droid phone had voice recognition.  I thought I would give it a try.  So, with out glasses, I dictated a short text message to Armene’ and hit send.  She wrote back saying, “what are you trying to say.”  I was trying to say, “hey look, I am using voice recognition to text you.”  That was not anywhere near what the voice recognition system interpreted and filled into the text box.  Only the word ‘look’ was correct.

I let voice recognition go for a while.  A few months ago, I tried it again on a whim.  It is working much better.  I am convinced they have made a software upgrade unbeknownst to me.  I use it all the time now and am quite happy with it.  It is only a matter of time before we will be giving voice commands to our home appliances, entertainment systems, cars, and even computers.  It is inevitable and possibly the last minor information before the systems that help us self-realize and maybe self-actualize.  Well... the latter may still be on each of us individually.

I appreciate what technology has done for me.  I look forward to future innovations to enhance my ability to more easily research and communicate.

November 2010: Mid-Term Elections

On November 2^nd, we had a general election in the United States.  It is called the mid-term elections because it is the election in the middle of the presidential term.  Barack Obama was elected President two years ago in 2008 and will most likely run again in 2012.   The mid-term election is seen as a referendum by the electorate as to how the President is doing.

President Obama was easily elected in 2008.  His election was seen as a mandate not just because of his margin of victory but also because the Democrats took both the House and the Senate.  It was a big deal.

The economy crumbled in September of 2008 and most people blamed President Bush for the mess the country was in.  It was a time for a change and people voted that way.  John McCain did not really stand a chance given that the economy melted in the very month preceding the election.  He did not help his own cause by downplaying the magnitude of the free fall we experienced at that time.

I voted for Obama.  That surprises many people when I divulge this little tidbit.  Mostly, I did so because I thought we needed a change.  The Republicans had moved too right of center, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were dragging on too long, and mostly the economic mess that was due to way too much deregulation which contributed to the sub-prime disaster that mostly caused the recession. 

I thought Barack Obama was as bright a candidate as we have had since I have been voting.  He is a very good speaker.  He was the opposition and we needed a change in approach.  I did not buy into the “Change” rhetoric of his campaign that extolled change without exactly specifying what that change would be.  I voted for Barak Obama contrary to what my demographics would normally have indicated.

Shortly after the inauguration as the President, his staff, and Congress quickly got to work to stop the economic hemorrhaging, people began to grumble.  The grumbling was about this country, The United States of America, being on verge of socialism.  Indeed.   

I had several discussions with this with my friend and advisor John Surak.  He was truly concerned beyond simple TEA Party rantings that this country was moving in a socialist direction.   He also argued that when we come out of this recession we will look more like a European.  The only question being was would we look more like the UK, Italy, or Greece. 

I agreed with him on what we might look like coming out of the recession.  I believe there is a fundamental macro-economic change happening.   I agreed that the policies were more socialist in nature than we had seen the past 20 years.  I disagreed that these changes would be permanent.  I believed that the recession would be long enough and severe enough that there would be a change in the Congress in the mid-term elections moving away from and even undoing any socialist policies.  I guess I am right.  I am not sure that is a good thing.

The Not American Century?  The 20^th Century is called the American Century.  It was the century when we became the most powerful military and economic country in the world.  We took over that mantle from, I suppose, the English.  Because of the US, the Lingua Franca of the world became English instead of the old Lingua Franca, which was French.  The dollar was THE standard in the world.  Countries like Argentina and Ecuador pegged their currency exactly to the dollar.  Hollywood exported the American image and aura to the world adding to mystic and envy.  Countries sent some of their best and brightest to our colleges and universities.   We funded projects wonderful projects through our aid and horrible interventions via other agencies.

Our industrial infrastructure was spared the ravages of World War II.  As a result, our industrial prominence solidified to the point of monopoly until the Japanese economic engine rose up in the 1970s and 1980s.  In the 1980s, we thought our reign might have ended.  We staved off the Japanese until their economy imploded and stagnated in the early 1990s.

With the turn of the century, we have been worried about our century literally being over and the Asian or perhaps Chinese century beginning.  The Great Recession has raised this possibility almost as evident to practically everyone whether they vocalize it or not.  This includes me.

Why am I inclined to believe this?  I do believe that we will come out of this recession, this Great Recession, as something less than what we were when we went into it.  We have exported so much of our manufacturing base that we are essentially a service economy.  Our deficit is out of control. 

Pensions except for government positions are essentially gone.  And as so many states are near bankruptcy, we will have to deal with the elimination of these pensions next.  I will not even get into Social Security. 

Most of what I have just said is my impression.  It is my view of what I am seeing and hearing around my.  It feels real and sadly it feels like what is actually happening:  a realignment of the wealth of nations.  Of course, I thought or was led to think this way during the 1980s and early 1990s.  Then, as mentioned earlier, we were worried about Japan as we are now we are worried about China.  Only time will tell what will actually happen.

One thing that really bothers me is the growing disparity of the haves and have nots in this country.   The distribution of wealth in this country has shifted measurably in the past 50 years and not in the favor of the middle class.  To me it goes hand in hand with the evolution from being a manufacturing country to being a service economy. 

·   1976:  8.9% of income went to the Top 1% of US households.

·   2008:  the Top 1% of households was took 23.5% of income 

·   The average hourly salary was $20.06 adjusted for inflation.  In 2008?  $18.52
http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8

·   66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

·   36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

·   A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-heres-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA

The New Normal:  There is a lot of talk about the “New Normal.”  What is meant be this?   I have seen it used when both referring to the economy and also in regards to Supply Chains.  Basically, the New Normal is simply a quick way of saying the coming out the turmoil of this Great Recession things will not be the way they were.  Things will not return to what, going into the recession, we considered normal.  That is the Old Normal.  We will come out of this crisis different,  somehow.  There will be level set change in jobs, banking regulations, government control, etc.  We will never be what we were.  There will be a, simply stated, New Normal.  To those who use this term, the New Normal is something less than the Old Normal.

I do believe we will more like a European country hopefully more like the UK, France, or better yet Germany than Greece, Italy, or Ireland.  Our expectations will be less because we have lost so much of the GDP and middle class because of the loss of our manufacturing base and the jobs that came with it.

You have read in these pages the belief that the US was the market place of the world.  Our consumption of, well, just about everything was head and shoulders above that of consumers in any other country.  With the dampening, if not erosion, of the middle class and perhaps a chronically higher rate of unemployment, a more modest and more frugal American consumer be part of the New Normal.  Not to worry, there are enough up and coming consumers in India and China to more than make up for whatever we stop buying.

This is what I feel.  This is what I believe I am seeing.  It is not based on any real analysis or econometric modeling.  I could be wrong.  It also felt this way before Reagan was elected and the economy revved up for what was essentially a twenty five year run.  Could that happen again?  Many people are counting on it.  Many more are hoping for it.  My mind is not closed to such an eventually.  I just think there the probability of returning to the Old Normal is less than 50%.

This may not all be a bad thing.  We need to get a little of our fighting spirit back.  Certainly, we absolutely should learn to live within our means.  That applies to both the government and individuals.

We have a great university infrastructure.  We should encourage the study of engineering, science, and math.  We should encourage architects of factories and meaningful new technologies and products instead of architects and engineers of sophisticated and arcane investment schemes.  We need more Apples and absolutely no more Enrons or subprime mortgage schemes.  We need to build a sustainable economy that benefits all.

The other thing I know for sure is that the world is more complicated and unpredictable.  China could implode like Japan did in the 1990s and 2000s.  There may be other disruptive technologies that would favor American industry and workers that I just do not see.

Another point to consider is that the major economies are more inter-connected and inter-dependent than ever before.  Corporations are global entities more so than ever before.  That trend will only continue.  The headquarters may be based in one country but need to have a presence in one form or another in all their major markets.   Furthermore, in our fast changing world, economic drivers force businesses to have to be agile and nimble.  Transportation continues to become more expensive.  As freight costs grow and currencies fluctuate, the definition of lowest cost source can change just as fast.

We hear in the US that China is holding down their currency in order keep the balance of trade in their favor.  If this is true, that can only last so long before there has to be a correction.  The longer they wait the more disruptive the correction will be.  Tampering always adds variation to a business or economic process.

Vacillation:  Speaking of variation in processes, this mid-term election bespeaks of it.  Every two years, it seems, there is a flip-flop in one or both of the houses in Congress.  We move left and then right, states change colors from red to blue to red to TEA.  With each election the new president believes he has a mandate from the American people (maybe not in the hanging chads of 2000).  With this mid-term election, we hear the Republicans speaking of mandate again.  All I can think of is vacillation and that is bespeaks of an unstable process oscillating between… mandates.

Under Bush there was a free market and anti-regulation movement.  It was done, in my opinion to the point where carpet-baggers ran amok and practically destroyed our financial infrastructure.  At the next minute, we are over regulating and trying to emulate certain European socialist policies.  Two years later, we have a change in Congress with the winners vowing to unravel the recently enacted health care package.  Where is the steady hand?  Where is the sensible strategic course?

Such vacillations add variation to our economic processes.  I am not even mentioning the shear waste of money and legislative energy in raveling, unraveling, and then re-doing major initiative like health care  over again.  It is a serious time and these kinds of actions do not get us to the sane national plan we need to renew and invigorate our economic engine again.

The economy imploded under eight years of Bush.  Period.  No argument.  The keys to the car were hand over to Obama and crew while it was about to fly off of a cliff.  The new administration had to act and act quick. 

Were they too socialist in nationalizing large segments of the economy?  Would we have been better off letting GM and a major bank or three go under?  If we had done that would the unemployment rate be 5 points lower or 6 points higher?

We can argue that until the next election when the mantle of power changes again.  The bottom line is that they did what they thought was best.  No one will argue that what was done was done pretty fast.  No one will argue that we have probably bottomed out.  Certainly no one should argue that recovery is so shallow that the case for the New Normal makes a lot of sense.

I am a centrist really.  I tend to listen to both sides and pick and choose what makes sense and then develop an opinion and policy that is solid and lasting.  Such policies need minor tweaks and adjustments not major overhauls.  That is either my wisdom or my naiveté. 

Extremes in terms of being too liberal or too conservative either cost too much or not enough social welfare respectively.  Extremes in terms of no regulation to over regulation lead greed to flourish or stifle growth respectively.   Having a population with way too few haves and ever increasing number of have-nots is what?  It is not a definition of a top tier economy.  Things are not always optimized at the extremes.  I think I learned that in 1970 when I first took calculus.

Appendix – Mortgages:  Let’s look at the craziness of regulation and de-regulation in terms of mortgages. 

When I was growing up, bankers wrote mortgages and then owned the paper.  The people who sold and profited from the mortgage were essentially the same entity.  The entities were usually banks.  Mostly, they sold and managed mortgages in a 10-20 mile radius of their office.  i.e. They were part of the community and had to take care in the loans they made because they counted on that income for the next 25-30 years.

In these same times there were solid, tried, and true rules of thumb for qualifying for a mortgage.  They would not grant a mortgage for any more than say 30-35% of the buyer’s cash flow or take home pay.  Why did they have this rule of thumb?  They knew this was the limit of what people could afford and still have enough money to live on.  They knew that this policy good and while it could also be altruistic, the bankers followed this rule to minimize faults on the loans that would require foreclosures.  It was a good centrist, stable, and sustainable policy.

Fast forward to the recent real estate boom before the Great Recession, things had changed a lot.  The people that sold the mortgages rarely owned the paper (held the mortgages).  The people that sold the mortgages were brokers.  All they were interested in was making sales that generated commissions for themselves.  Period.  The entities that held the mortgages rarely held them for the term of the mortgages.  With the mergers of banks, mortgages moved around a lot. 

To sell more mortgages, the rules of thumbs regarding qualification and approval went out the window.  People were allowed to go in debt up to their eyeballs with balloon mortgages and other enticements designed for people to take on debt way beyond what they can afford.  This was done by making the payments cheaper the first few years.  I know, it sounds stupid and is certainly ill advised.  It presupposes that interest rates will not substantially increases and that housing prices continued to increase. 

People need to be protected, sometimes, against themselves.  If credit is too easily come by with limits beyond what people can afford, more and more people will get into severe economic troubles.  The laws of basic economics cannot be violated without consequences no matter what a mortgage broker might say in their sales pitch.

It goes against our sense of freedom and independence, or so the argument goes, to have too much regulation.  People must have the freedom to make choices and take individual responsibility for their finances.    I do not subscribe to that entirely for two reasons. 

First, there is the need to have some regulations to protect people.  Why do we have traffic laws?  Why don’t we simply rely on the freedom and independence of individuals to make good decisions?  Because without traffic lights, stop signs, and speed limits, it would be pure chaos on the roads. 

Second, many people do not have the financial wherewithal to make the right decisions when offered bad choices.  Variable rate and balloon mortgages certainly have their place for people who understand how to use them for short periods to bridge between a purchase and a sale.  Using such financial devices to take out a mortgage larger than one can afford simply adds risk to the equation.

On top of this, secondary investments were created on mortgages.  These futures and derivatives are only understandable to a select few.  To me they are Enron-esque devices that should be severely limited simply because they are not easily understood by the common person.  I figure that if I do not understand it easily, it is by definition arcane and simply a way for a few to make money off of the confusion of others.

The biggest argument that the system is out of control and needs to be revamped is the foreclosure mess we are in.  The record keeping is a disaster and bespeaks of just how much paper was sold solely to generate commissions.  The proper record keeping necessary for sound management from a mortgager standpoint was simply not done.

We need a system where people are free to make decisions within some sane guides and guidelines.

Appendix – Foreclosures:  It is Sunday, November 28 having spent the Thanksgiving weekend at my parents’ home in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit.  I woke up this morning to retrieve the Detroit Free Press to read about the University of Michigan’s seventh loss in a row to The Ohio State University.  I guess I want to wallow in the dismal recent record.  I wanted to read about all the speculation of what would happen to Michigan’s beleaguered coach, Rich Rodriguez.  Would the University keep him for a fourth season or show him the door for taking too long to turn things around and compete with the elite teams in the nation.

Instead of getting to the sports section as I was amazed at how thick the newspaper was.  In this day and age of shrinking readership, shrinking advertising, and hence shrinking newspapers, I was kind of surprised to see such a thick fat Sunday newspaper.  I wondered why?  Was it Christmas advertisements?  No.  It was something different.

It was instead an extra eight sections of the newspaper totaling 142 pages of what looked like want ads. It was not want ads.  It was the 2011 Notice of Forfeited Property Subject to Foreclosure.  It was a paid supplement to the Detroit
Free Press from Raymond J. Wojtowicz, Wayne County Treasurer (www.treasurer.waynecounter.com).   The supplement will be repeated on December 5^th and December 11^th as well. 

Wayne County is the county of the City of Detroit and the eastern, western, and southern suburbs of the city.  One would expect a large number of foreclosures here in one of the most depressed areas in the United States.  I was shocked to look at 142 pages of foreclosures.  I noticed 9 in the 14000 block of Strathmoor, the street we lived on in Detroit.  Amazing.  Depressing. 

I then read the finer print of the first page of this massive listing.  These 142 pages only include foreclosures due to lack of property tax payment.  Wow. It is even worse.  I shudder to speculate how many pages the list would have been if they had included all foreclosures.

On the front page, there is information on how to and criteria for applying of financial hardship consideration.  There was information on payment plans.  I wondered how many of the poor and disenfranchised actually get and read the paper.

It depressed me.  It made me appreciate the magnitude of the job Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is facing.  It made me sad for my hometown of Detroit.  It made me wonder about the recovery and the prospect for real estate going forward.