To be or not to be?

Through Hamlet, Shakespeare may be showing what he thinks makes a killer by illustrating the Prince of Denmark as a killer's antipathy. We know Hamlet is an educated man, he has gone to school for awhile His wiliness shows with his witty execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He clearly thinks things out from beginning to end, logically. It's his logic that allows him to second guess killing a person. He has ample opportunity to kill Claudius, but he hesitates. Hamlet would rather kill him when he's not praying. He finds a reason not to kill a person through reason. He even finds an excuse not to kill himself in his 'to be or not to be' soliloquy. He reasons that killing oneself is a great risk because he doesn't know what's coming afterward. He realizes the finality of death is too frightening to do it. The tragedy of Hamlet is the effects of his logic and reasoning causing him to hesitate. Each failed attempt at action has a natural consequence. Imagine if Hamlet would have dispatched Claudius during his phony prayer. Polonius probably would have lived; so would have Ophelia, Laertes, Gertrude and even Hamlet himself if he would have killed Claudius at that momemnt. Because of that hesitation to act, as many of us might have, there commences a terrible chain of events that costs many more lives than was necessary. It might be why we identify well with Hamlet. His hesitations are natural, but sometimes that hesitation comes with a steep price.
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Billions and Billions of Stars...

Last week I watched a fascinating documentary on Stanley Kubrick. Arthur C. Clarke was talking about Kubrick's 2001:A Space Odyssey. Something he said was thought-provoking that has really stuck with me, especially because I walk under the stars every night when I walk my dogs. Clarke said that behind every person was 30 ghosts. For every one human living there were 30 dead; this adds up to about 100-150 billion people who have ever walked the earth. That's about the same number as the stars in the sky. Clarke said, isn't it amazing that the Universe is so big that each person that has ever existed might have an entire world to themselves?

That's beyond my comprehension. If you really try and comprehend the sheer size of the Universe, you'll soon find it impossible. Our brains (as advanced as they are) do not have the ability to comprehend the vast size of our universe. To put it into context, the moon is about 500,000 miles away from earth. To travel around the Earth and end up at the same point, one must travel about 40,000 miles. The moon is more than ten times further than that distance, and that is the closest celestial body to our planet! The closest planet to Earth, Venus, is 25 million miles away. To travel 1 million miles on Earth, one would have to circle the planet nearly 30 times. To say we cannot comprehend the size of the universe is an understatement.

It is the most beautiful thing to look up in the sky at night and imagine where all those stars are. For all the shapes stars make in constellations, they are millions if not billions of miles away from each other. Such thoughts truly make me feel small, but it assures me that there is far more beyond this planet than most people bother to imagine. Next time you get the opportunity to look at the stars, see them and imagine the vastness of this universe. Even though we will never comprehend such size, it is an exercise enough to try.
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Money Supply Blues

As I hear more and more about this economic crisis, the pundits and politicians' voice begin to merge and it becomes a sort of white noise. There isn't much sense to be made out of most the reports, so as a statistician I prefer to look at data and see what the real story is. Data sometimes lies, but to be frank it lies a lot less than politicians and businessmen scrambling to keep their jobs. I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website for some graphic interpretations of various economic data. As I had said back in March, the United States is in a recession, perhaps the worst in a very long time. But what does the data say about this? Inflation is currently at 3.7%, not much different from last year. The unemployment rate (6.7%) increases every month, but we're still nowhere near where we were in 1982 when the rate was around 10 percent. What really worries me is not the labor indicators, it's the monetary indicators. Check out the latest data and you will see what worries me.

In a little over a month the total money supply for Treasury and the Federal Reserve have sky-rocketed. This is the medicine that is supposed to soothe the credit markets. But at what cost? As Milton Friedman pointed out, inflation is always a monetary problem, how prescient. Some may say, so what? These are hard times that call for drastic measures. The cost of these drastic measures has been the potential implosion of the American government's credit-worthiness. To increase this money supply, debt must be sold, and interest paid to debt-holders. As this debt grows, it is nearly certain that the dollar will begin to lose its value. We saw this last year when the dollar plummeted against the Euro. This would change after Europe entered its own downturn, but the lesson remains. The danger of applying Keynesian economic theory is that in trying to breathe life into an economy one may end up destroying it instead.

One must ask during times such as these, how much government intervention is necessary to stave off disaster? Many people, including the insulated folks in DC, ponder this question as if it is abstract, and there are no real consequences to such tinkering. Much of this downturn can be attributed to overzealous tinkering in the housing market. If the government cannot take responsibility for their complicity in this matter, what makes you believe they have the wherewithal to fix it? We are witnessing the government solution, which is to print money. We are walking down a dangerous road, not unlike the 1930's. Government interference in economic markets exacerbated what could have been a severe recession and helped it become a depression. We have historical precedent, I can only hope that decision-makers will pay attention, but you'll pardon me if I doubt it.
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Shaking out of a funk

It has been so long since I've done this. I fear I might be rusty. I just thought I would come back and reread some of my old blogs. I was writing about the economic crisis in March and the housing crisis last December. Well, here I am a year later, and a year wiser. My writing style might have changed, I've been reading a lot of William Shakespeare lately, so don't be surprised if that shows up. I am coming out of a bit of a funk and I think writing may help pass the time and help revive my passion. It's funny but my therapy was listening to Shakespeare. I was able to put certain scenes of his plays on my Ipod. So I've taken to listening to pieces of his plays and watching them on the weekends. I have burned through so much in a relatively small amount of time.

I have seen or read in the past four months:
-Hamlet
-Henry V
-Othello
-Macbeth
-Richard III
-Julius Caesar
-Midsummer Night's Dream
-King Lear
-Romeo and Juliet
-Much Ado about nothing


I currently have in my Netflix Queue:
-Twelfth Night
-The Tempest
-The Girl Next Door (wrong queue)

Other than my more lascivious taste in Art (Girl Next Door Rocked!), I have really digested a lot of one artist. I don't even think I like this many of Mozart's pieces. Shakespeare is a genius with language and just sublime to listen to. I've even taking to memorizing verses of Shakespeare so I can recite it to myself. The characters are so relatable. Especially being depressed, I understood Hamlet better than I ever hoped to. His soliloquy on his own existence cuts to the core of every man who's ever been sad. My depression had a voice with Hamlet, my rage had a voice with Marc Antony, and my fantasy had a voice with Henry V's stirring speech at Agincourt. It really has been therapeutic...more than I could ever express if I had a thousand more words than the Bard himself. I hope to discuss a bit on each of the plays I've either read or seen. I absorbed a lot of Shakespeare so this might take awhile...
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Let's talk about poverty

So I see that John Edwards has finally hopped off the fence and picked a candidate. It seems like he was waiting for a winner to become apparent before making his endorsement. As I laid in bed, suffering through Edward's speech, my ears perked up when he mentioned poverty. The main reason he is supporting Barack Obama is because Obama plans to cut poverty in half within ten years. Those words seemed to echo of Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society'. Those words sent shudders through my body; not because I favor poverty, but rather I fear the means used to eliminate that poverty. If there is one thing the state can never do, it is eliminate poverty.

Lyndon Johnson had good intentions when he proposed his war on poverty in the 1960s. America saw a great bloating in social programs, aimed at eliminating poverty. Welfare and Medicare are both prime examples of this farcical mission. Until the mid 1990s, Welfare payments were enough for a single mother to subsist. If someone is able to subsist at the teat of the government, then why work? Instead of lifting up someone's lot, the state guaranteed a permanent underclass by paying people simply for being poor.

Whenever I hear of a politician speak about eliminating poverty, I just shake my head. The state replacing a free market in allocating capital is bound for failure. It's what we saw with Welfare, and it most certainly is what we will see with Social Security. These are all bloated programs that are aimed at eliminating poverty. The only way for poverty to truly be reduced is through growth in private business.

The state has tried to hire people for make-work projects (Tennessee Valley Authority) and they've tried paying them for doing nothing (Welfare). Programs that aim to eliminate poverty only end up perpetuating poverty. It's no wonder that the times where we see poverty decrease is through real income rises, due to higher demand for labor. If business is growing, they need more hands to help them grow. The more they grow, the higher wages that business will pay for labor. Business growth will always do more in alleviating poverty than either John Edwards or Barack Obama can ever imagine. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, and hope the next president doesn't repeat the mistakes of FDR or Lyndon Johnson.
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Red Queen

Since I've been sick these last couple days, sitting still in my bed, my mind has been busy at work while my body refuses. Being sick reminded me of a book I read about a year ago, called Red Queen: Evolution in Human Nature. It's about this constant race that humans have with bacteria and viruses. Our immune systems and viruses are constant adapting to do battle. A virus will evolve constantly until it can find a host. That host must adapt and evolve as well if they hope to beat the virus and return to good health. The author uses Lewis Carroll's character, The Red Queen, as a metaphor for this constant struggle. No matter how fast or long the Red Queen runs, she is always in the same place. It's an effective metaphor because the balance between human and microbes is ever-fragile. Each holding the keys to each other's destruction, yet never quite able to finish the job. This stuff is normally fascinating to me, but being sick gives me a chance to witness the exchange first hand.

My immune system is now struggling to defeat whatever internal infection I have. It could be bacteria or a virus. Either way, something is multiplying exponentially inside me. While the microbe multiplies, my immune system is busy not only trying to defeat the invader but also make copies for later. That microbe will never be able to penetrate again, even though it doesn't do much good. At the rate of reproduction, a virus can easily multiply thousands if not millions in a few days. Each of those viruses are different genetically, each hoping to find a host in which to replicate some more. Inside me, a battle is raging. My immune system will probably win out, but whatever I have will live on many generations. In the end, the microbes will win. They lose so many battes, but in the end they will win the war.

Evolution is always fascinating. Knowing that everything is always changing around us is stunning. We are always changing, but never really going anywhere. Our balance is at best tenous, and anything can happen at any time. It adds value to a world than many take for granted. The more I learn about little things like this, the more insignificant I feel. But it's not a bad insignificance. Even the most famous people of our time will be gone in a few hundred years as generations slowly forget. Being insignificant reminds me that everything continues on, whether anyone's here or not.
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How the mighty can fall

I know in this blog I've usually stuck to economics and politics. They usually dominate my reading, but I still read sports religiously as well. Growing up in Denver, I've always followed all Colorado sports as well as the national sports scene. As I grow older I look back at a lot of events with a different perspective. As analytical skills grow, you start to see things in sports that you didn't see as a kid. One example I can think of was in 1990, when Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson.

I remember when it happened, everyone was speechless. It was unreal. This bruiser had been knocking people out left and right. He had so much going for him, I'm sure some were ready to put him in the company of Ali, Robinson, Marciano, etc. Then that night in Tokyo, Mike Tyson's Heel was laid bare for all opponents to see. The knockout showed what Tyson's life would be like from then on. He was sent to jail for rape shortly after and the downward spiral continued. Now twice a felon, Tyson lost his last fight to Kevin McBride right here in DC in 2005. How the mighty have fallen.

By the time Mike Tyson was knocked out in Tokyo, his fall had been well underway. I believe his downfall can be traced back to his trainer's death in late 1985. Cus D'Amato had helped Tyson turn his life around after ending up in Reform School as a teen. D'Amato trained Tyson, and was much like a father figure to Tyson. When D'Amato died, it was right as Tyson was ascending to great stardom. The man who had looked out for Tyson's best interests was gone, and the jackals were free to feast. For four years before the Tokyo fight, Tyson had not been trained to contend. Many sports historians will say, and I agree, that Tyson was still very raw.

The years he was knocking every one out, he only had one strategy: knock the other guy out. For those amateur and early professional years, that worked. For "tomato cans" and "has-beens," Tyson was a formitable force. Most were unable to withstand his early flurries of jabs, hooks, and upper-cuts. For those who could, they were so busy guarding that they were unable to mount any offense. Once he fought someone who could take his early punishment, and punch back, Tyson was in deep trouble.

As Tyson lay on the mat, hardly able to see with one eye almost closed, he must have been so confused. No one had ever been able to box with Tyson. Buster Douglas exposed Tyson's lack of defense, his unpreparedness, and his lax attitude. Tyson's training for that fight had been cursory. He obviously had not prepared for the fight, his trainers were sycophants. Tyson simply had no answer for Douglas' night of near-perfect boxing. Douglas continuously corned Tyson, jabbed precisely, and kept Tyson's flurries ineffective with his long reach. Although Tyson knocked Douglas down early, the whole fight belonged to Douglas. What Buster Douglas showed every Tyson opponent in the future was that Mike Tyson was a one-dimensional fighter. Tyson lacked the training support to teach the young fighter good defense and endurance. Training support that formerly came from Cus D'Amato.


The lesson of this downfall exposes a great truth in sports. Get better or get passed. The "Iron Mike" Tyson era lasted only as long as fighters feared him. He never received the guidance and direction needed to go beyond bully. Tyson never adapted, and he never recovered after that fight. Sports will always amplify an athlete's weakness. Most of the time the obselete athlete leaves the sport forcefully. It is the rarest of athletes, like Michael Jordan, John Elway or Ted Williams, who lose some physical gift, but yet somehow stay great in their sport. Mike Tyson never had what these athletes had, once he was exposed, he was never the same. His fury was usually weathered and Tyson would end up losing, either by knockout, TKO, or a decision. At least his story reveals what can happen to all of us in life when our specialty becomes obselete. Only those who can adapt will succeed, the ones who can't become obselete and sink. As true it is in sport, so too is it in life.
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