Golden Gamble

I want to live, I want to give,

I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold.

It’s these expressions, I never give,

That keep me searching for a heart of gold,

And I’m getting old.

            Neil Young 1972

          My morning starts the same every day.  Whatever time it is, it feels like 4:00 A.M.  I reach over to my night table, grab my cell phone, and with eyes barely open check the price of gold.  I do this every hour from that moment until when I go to bed, and sometimes every 5 minutes.  It’s my beautiful obsession.

There's a reason for this. About 3 1/2 years ago I took every penny I had and invested it all in gold.  By all I mean all.  There was also a reason for this.  I was drunk at the time (that's a joke).  Actually, there were a lot of reasons that I decided to go all in like a hyper aggressive hold 'em player.  In the next few blogs I'm going to discuss the reasons and a bunch of other things related to gold, including predictions for the future.  Of course by the end I might have lost all my readers, but as we discussed here, I'm okay with that.

So far, the decision to go all in has worked out.  As of today, gold has gone up about 80% since I bought it.  Of course, I can't really pat myself on the back, because if I was really smart I would've bought it 11 years ago when it was selling for $250 an ounce (It's now about $1,600).  So the first question is, why has it skyrocketed and gone up for 11 years in a row? 

The first answer is inflation.  As discussed here, inflation makes the price of everything go up, whether Coke or gold.  The Obama administration and mainstream media try to avoid the topic, but prices have risen about 3 1/2% in the last year. In a related story, your savings are worth 3 1/2% less than they were last year.  Congratulations.  However this alone does not explain the rise of gold, which has gone up approximately 17% annually in those 11 years, far more than the CPI.

To understand why, we have to destroy a common myth.  Inflation actually means the expansion of the money supply, not high prices.  High prices are just the inevitable result of expanding the money supply.  The US government has expanded the money supply by printing money, the most by far of any time in our history.  Many people, including myself, expect this printing of money will ultimately lead to completely unsustainable levels of inflation.   When that happens, that dollar in your pocket is going to lose value so fast it will make your head spin.  Better to keep an ounce of gold there, which can’t be printed out of thin air like paper currency.  So people have flocked to gold to avoid this dollar destruction.  

The second reason is the lack of good alternative investments.  For the first time in my life I can't think of anything besides gold that will make money in the near future.  You can’t invest in CDs or treasuries, because they earn virtually nothing, far less than the inflation rate (this is called a negative real interest rate).  This means that you are losing a lot of money any time you keep money in the bank or in a CD.  Real estate?  Please.  You know what's happened to it.  I may do a few blogs about real estate soon, but here's the short version: it's gotten killed and will continue to go down for at least the next 2 years. Sorry.  I own a house too.

How about putting your money in stocks?  The stock market has hardly moved in the last 10 years, which again means that because of inflation it's actually lost money (I really hope people understand this concept).  If you're like me, and think that we are soon going into a deep recession, you can’t invest in stocks.  Even if the upcoming close to hyperinflation causes the market to go up in nominal terms, that same inflation will cause it to go down in real terms (same concept).

The next blog will be about some myths about gold, and the last one or two will be about my predictions for the future.

Have a good night everyone.

                        JR

           

Dying Words

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright

I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home

I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life

Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone

They will tell you, you can't sleep alone in a strange place

Then they’ll tell you, you can't sleep with somebody else

Ah, but sooner or later you sleep in your own space

Either way it's okay to wake up with yourself

            Billy Joel 1978

You're dying (don't worry, we’re playing make believe tonight).  You have a teenage son.  Unfortunately, you only have time to tell him one last thing.  (I know this is a random thing to blog about, but I have an excellent defense: I have random thoughts running through my brain 24/7). So what piece of advice would you give him? Take good care of your mother? Be a good Christian/Jew/Muslim? Don't sleep with strangers?

Good ones all.  For me, though, it would be this: Don't worry about what other people think.  From what I've seen, this is the single biggest impediment to happiness and fulfillment.  First, I have never met a truly successful person who cares about what others think.  Never. Second, it paralyzes people from doing what they really want to do in life.  The fear of being perceived by others as a failure (which is not the same as being a failure), leads to inaction.  This fear is so strong that for most people it overwhelms the potential reward of living the life that they dream about.  Most of all, the lifelong worry of what others think and subsequent failure to act leads to the cruelest disease of all - regret.

So take a swing, friend.  Start your own business, you’ve been thinking about it long enough.  Your kids won’t starve.  Your wife will respect the fact that you’re taking a chance for the family.  Trust me.  And if it doesn't work out? The people who count will understand how hard it is to do.  And you’ll just be more motivated to try again. 

So tell her that you love her. You may lose a friend but you may gain a wife.

Maybe living in Paris or Jerusalem for a year is not so crazy after all. 

Whatever “it” is, it needs to happen, and it can’t be based on what others think.  No one knows you better than you do.

Have a good night everyone.

                                                JR

Music Time

Well surprise, surprise, surprise

Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise

Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes

And let your love shine down

                                    Bruce Springsteen 2009

A few years ago I decided to transfer all my CDs to an iPod.  That was innocent enough.  CDs had been dying a slow death, eclipsed by MP3 players, which give you the ability to have every song you ever liked fit in your pocket.  But then things got a little crazy.  I decided to enhance my collection a little bit and then realized through Amazon you can get almost every album on a CD for dirt cheap, and then download it to your ipod.  Seriously, some were a penny.  It turned into about a year long project, with the result that I got just about every album and song from my past that I wanted, along with a bunch of new stuff.  The great thing about it was it took very little time; 95% of the listening was in my car and getting albums off Amazon is super quick.

So tonight I'm going to talk about the surprises.  I'll try and stay away from the obvious ones (the Beatles have a lot of good songs? Really?)  The biggest surprise for me was Lucinda Williams. This was because I had barely heard of her and she has a strong country influence in her music.  (Remember in the 80’s when everyone used to walk around saying “country sucks”?  Man, the 80’s were great).  But her songs are fantastic and stay with you. They are a unique blend of rock, blues, and country.  The predominant theme is  broken relationships, and she's about the only singer that I can think of who makes me feel her pain (He slept and ran again? Don't worry, the next one will be your soulmate).  She puts out albums less frequently than just about any artist, but at the end of the day, my iPod says I like 37 of her songs.  Not bad.

 Another big surprise was John Hiatt.  He was another guy I never listened to in school, but he's been consistently solid, and sometimes great, for over three decades.  I was shocked when I saw 69 songs.  Listen to the songs “Perfectly Good Guitar” and “Have a Little Faith in Me” and you’ll be a fan.  John Mellencamp was also a surprise.  I wasn't really into him in college, which was strange considering we both lived in the small town of Bloomington, Indiana at the time, I saw him occasionally, and I dated his kid’s babysitter.  But over the years he has grown on me, and has had a long, impressive career.  I didn't expect 48 songs; consider him a poor man's Bruce Springsteen.

Probably the most underrated band I dug up was Drivin N’ Cryin, a group based out of Georgia who had their heyday in the 90s.  For some reason I largely ignored them, even though I was living in Atlanta at the time.  That was a mistake.  35 songs, and I've got a few albums to go.  Others that I didn’t know had so many good songs were Cracker (37) and the Bodeans (40).

For a lot of the surprise bands, I noticed a similar pattern.  They would have a popular stage for about 4-8 years, and then most of the casuals fans left.  But they were good enough to keep the hard-core fans, and financially and artistically justified in continuing to make albums.  Anyway, there were a few more surprises, but my hour is up.  Maybe I’ll do a blog of the surprise disappointments next.

Have a good night everyone.

                        JR

Cheetah Woods

Frankie, didn't I tell you

You've got the world

In the palm of your hand

It wasn't your intention

Frankie to fall in the trap you made

            It's a crying shame

You left a trail of destruction

Heartbreaker you know now

They really did care cause it's your first affair

The party's over

Now you discover

It's your turn to cry

                             Sade 1984

  

I can always tell when an athlete takes steroids, well before they get busted.  This is not in the least bit impressive.  It's simple.  First, you look to see if they have gone from average or good to very good or great.  Then you look to see if their body has undergone major physical changes, such as Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, or those female East German Olympic athletes from the 70’s who had deeper voices than mine.  Lastly, you see if they hang out with people known to take and dispense drugs.  Steroids, especially the sophisticated kind designed for extreme performance and non-detectability, don't just appear by themselves.  There’s always a scumbag doctor involved.

Which brings me to Tiger Woods.  It's a little strange that I’m doing a blog about him considering I've never played golf, don't follow golf, and don't care about golf.  However, I do think a well manicured golf course is the most beautiful thing that humans have created, so that's gotta be worth something.  Back to Tiger Woods.  So I think he's been on drugs most of his career.  However, all the other athletes I've been sure were taking were easy to spot, but with him I'm not 100%.  Let’s call it 90%.

Here's my theory.  Woods spent his entire marriage cheating on his classically beautiful wife, with girls that as far as I can tell can be described as “sleazy hot”.  (Not that they would ask me, but when it’s time for my sons to get married if the choice is between a girl who is sleazy hot or classically beautiful, I'm going to strongly suggest the latter).  He cheated on his wife, and to my way of thinking his kids also (you know it's true).  So after losing his pristine reputation, family, and a ton of money, he decides to get his life together.  This involves getting off the drugs.  The result? His career goes in the toilet.

Before he got caught he was the #1 player in the world, had won 14 major championships and 71 tournaments, and was widely considered the best golfer in history.  Afterwards he dropped out of the top 50, and not only didn’t win any more majors but didn’t win any more tournaments period.  So basically the guy considered the best in history in his sport becomes a mediocre professional.  I know he’s had injuries, but didn’t he once win a major championship with a torn ACL? I don't buy it.

The other evidence? Well, he got big and muscular compared with what he looked like when he first started playing professionally.  Not quite freakish like Bonds, but still.  He also started hanging out with Anthony Galea, the Canadian doctor linked to dispensing human growth hormone and other performance enhancing drugs.  Galea used a controversial blood-spinning technique to help Woods recover from knee surgery.

          The one flaw in my argument, which is why I’m not 100% sure?  Woods was always good, and won an amateur championship when he was 19.  But no amateur champions ended up being considered the best of all time except him, and he could've been on the juice early.

My guess? He took steroids and eventually will be forced to admit it.

Have a good night everyone.

JR

Charitable Giving

Give blood but you may find that blood is not enough
Give blood and there are some who'll say it's not enough
Give blood but don't expect to ever see reward
Give blood you can give it all but still you'll be asked for more

                                                Pete Townshend 1985

         

When I hear about how much a person has given to a particular charity, my reaction is not “that is fantastic” or “that is sad how little that person gave”.  My reaction is “how about them Red Sox”? It's not that I'm ambivalent, or don't recognize the need to give.  It’s just that making a judgment about whether another person gave enough is impossible.  This is because to make an accurate judgment you have to know two things, both of which are unknowable: 1) How many charities that individual gives to, and 2) What their financial situation is.

First, the easy one.  Unless you're married to that person or are their accountant, you’re not going to know the number of charities.  If someone gives $25,000 to one charity, they're either going to have something named after them or they will be listed as one of the larger donors and praised.  If that same person gives $1,000 each to 25 different charities, no one is naming anything after them. In fact, if people they know are listed as giving more, it might even be embarrassing for them.

The next unknowable is a person's financial situation.  We might think that we know how much money someone has, but believe me, we don’t.  Based on my work as a lawyer, I’ve sometimes been privy to this information; trust me, we don't have a clue. The surprises, both to the upside and downside, are tremendous.  You might think that based upon a person's profession that they are or are not doing well financially, but that is often misleading.  There is a wide disparity of income within professions. 

For example, some attorneys do extremely well while others get out of the profession.  Some “consultants” are in between jobs, while others are millionaires.  Also, you don't know how well or poorly that person has invested, whether they have other sources of income such as family money, or whether they have had massive unexpected expenditures such as healthcare costs.  Looks can also be extremely deceiving, especially with real estate. A person that buys a $500,000 house does not become $500,000 richer.  He immediately has $500,000 in debt, minus the down payment.  We simply never know how many assets a person has, or their liabilities/debt.

So how can we accurately judge whether a person is giving enough to charity?  You can’t.  Who is to judge? God.  This one is between man and God.  No one else really has a clue.

It would logically follow from this that I would be against public listings of charitable giving, or naming things after people based on how much money they have given.  In truth, however, I support them because they work.  In some ways, I am an ends justify the means kind of guy.  Almost universally the regular fees associated with charities are not enough to keep them going.  The tuition won't pay enough for the school.  The dues won't be enough for the synagogue.  The entrance fee won't take care of the museum.  You're always going to need some big hitters, or at least a lot of people who can hit singles on a regular basis. 

So if it takes a little friendly guilt, not so gentle persuasion, or fierce competition, so be it.  If this is what it takes for people to give, we can live with that, even if it makes no sense.  But for me, though, the only donors I’m impressed with are those whose last names are “Anonymous”.

Have a good night everyone.

                               JR

Parents Gone Wild

Well Papa go to bed now, it's getting late
Nothing we can say can change anything now
Because there's just different people coming down here now and they see things in different ways
And soon everything we've known will just be swept away

So say goodbye it's Independence Day
Papa now I know the things you wanted that you could not say
But won't you just say goodbye it's Independence Day
I swear I never meant to take those things away                                                  

                                  Bruce Springsteen 1980

“Hey, how's it going?  Haven't seen you in a while.  How are you guys doing?  Great, we’ll have to get together soon. You know, I'm glad that I ran into you.  I've been meaning to talk to you.  We've been friends for a while now, you mind if I talk about something personal?  Good.  It's your son.  I've watched him play sports a few times.  He's absolutely amazing.  He is so far advanced beyond the other kids it's not even funny.  His hand eye coordination is exquisite.  He’s quick as a cat.  He's bigger, stronger, more aggressive, and simply better than the other kids.  He sure looks like a prodigy to me.

So let me be the first to tell you… your son has absolutely no chance of becoming a professional athlete.  Zero.  Nada.  Ain’t gonna happen.  In fact, neither your son or any friend he ever makes in his lifetime will ever make a dollar playing sports. 

The odds of anyone becoming a professional athlete are about one in 25,000. And that's defining a professional athlete broadly, including minor leagues, smaller sports, etc.; in other words, sports that don't pay well.  If you’re talking about making the big bucks in sports like football, basketball, or baseball, the odds are simply off the charts low. First, you are no longer just competing with people from the United States, with a population of over 300 million.  All the major American sports are seeing increased numbers of foreigners, so that you are now competing with the global population of over 6 billion.

Also, have you looked at yourself? What are you, about 5’10”? And what’s your wife, about 5’4”?  Take a look at the rosters of some pro sports teams.  Just about everyone is way over 6 feet tall, even sports that you wouldn't think that you need a lot of height, like baseball.  Since you were an athlete back in the day, you know that if you take two athletes equally skilled the bigger one always comes out on top.

What? You want your kid to earn an athletic scholarship? Well, the odds of that are pretty low too, and be careful what you wish for.  The school offering the scholarship may not be you or your son's first choice.  Also, when you play a college sport, they own you.  Most practice hours a day, in addition to their academic requirements.  I've talked to a few people who played college sports, and some wished they would've had more time to have fun like normal college kids.  Also, what if your son gets into an Ivy League school?  They don’t even give out athletic scholarships.

What did you say? You want your kid to be an Olympic athlete? Okay, now you're just trying to make me angry, right?  If you want to wake your kid up at 5 A.M. every morning and practice hours and hours before school, and have him resent you forever for not having a normal childhood, then I think it's a great idea.  Also, in the miniscule chance that your son becomes an Olympic athlete, who cares? Except for Michael Phelps, can you name any Olympic athlete in either the summer or winter games?  We all watch for two weeks and then we move on.  Seriously, it's okay.

Look, I'm not saying don’t expose your son to sports.  I'm no expert in raising children; in fact, anyone who considers themselves an expert in raising children is suspect in my book.  All I can tell you is that I liked how my parents raised me.  They told me that my one job was to do well in school, and how I spent my free time was up to me.  Expose your kids to everything, force them into nothing.  The funny thing is, I was that kid that just wanted to play sports all day.  And my parents let me.  I wanted to play in leagues and they let me.  They gave me piano lessons but I didn't like them, so they didn't force me to continue.  Nothing was rammed down my throat.  I love them for that.

So old friend, relax.  I don't mean to get you down.  I saved the best news for last.  From what I've seen, your boy is a really smart kid.  I'm guessing he's going to make some serious coin in his life, far more than is made from a pro athlete’s six year average shelflife.  His potential is unlimited, and I’m sure you will provide the framework to unlock it.  Anyway, great talking to you, but I gotta run.  I Tivo’d the Lakers game.”

Have a good night everyone.

                                                                   JR

Debt Catastrophe II

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

                                       The Doors 1967 

After my blog about how the government's debt situation was going to financially cripple us, my brother Jack reminded me that I promised a follow-up explaining what the options were.  Although I wrote at the time there were two options, there are actually three possibilities:

We  default on our debt.  The odds of this happening are slim and none, and slim just left town.  Doing this would of course have some negative consequences.  Just like an individual that can't pay back their debt, their credit rating collapses and borrowing any money is either impossible or has to be done at an exorbitant rate.  Similarly, if the United States government defaulted, nobody would be willing to lend us money at the sweetheart rate we’re getting.  As I discussed here, if the interest rate goes up our cost to pay back our debt eventually makes doing so impossible.  Individual interest rates on our purchases, like for a home or car, would also spike.  Further, we would lose credibility as a financially sound country that always lives up to its obligations.

However, there would be some positives.  We would wipe out a lot of debt.  We would bring sanity back to the free market system that says lending money is inherently risky.  Free markets are not an insurance system; risk can only be adequately measured when it actually exists.  If individual interest rates rise, it's true we couldn’t borrow money as cheaply, but we could actually earn real money on CD’s.  This would lead to less speculative investing and less bubbles.

But it's never going to happen. Why? As the former Fed chair Alan Greenspan infamously stated a few months ago on one of the Sunday morning TV shows, we won't default because we have a printing press.  In other words, he was saying we can just print money out of thin air and pay back our creditors with that.  This is one of the most asinine comments ever made, at any time, by anyone.  Of course we have a printing press.  So does every other country.  Anyone can come up with a machine, some ink, and paper.  Printing money blindly ultimately leads to a serious case of inflation, as discussed here.  I'm not arguing that we  are going to have hyperinflation, like in pre-World War II Germany or in Zimbabwe (in the latter, children would rummage through dumpsters looking for food , ignoring the worthless currency that had been thrown away).  But it is this dovish way of thinking that has led us to the position we’re in now.

We get our financial house in order and massively reduce our expenditures.  I will tackle in another blog whether we should raise taxes, but even the liberals agree we have a major spending problem.  The odds of Congress doing this are slim and none, and they're hanging slim at high noon.  For starters, what do you cut? As discussed here (really wearing out the hyperlink today, I’m like a kid with a new toy), approximately 85% of our spending comes from the military, Medicare/Medicaid, and Social Security.  Nobody is going to seriously cut Social Security, either by paying out less or increasing the eligible age, because nobody wants to make senior citizens angry.  They vote at a higher rate than any other demographic, and the quickest way to an early retirement from a cushy political life is to have the seniors against you.

As to the military, any Congressman who mentions any cuts to the military is accused of being liberal and not adequately protecting our security.  Never mind the fact that we spend more on our military than every single country in the world combined.  Any discussion of reduced military spending is met with stiff resistance.  No politician wants to be thought of as weak on the military, just like no politician wants to be thought of as weak on crime.  Toughness is a virtue.

As to health insurance, this is a bit of a wildcard.  The trend now, at least with Obama as our President, is to greatly expand the reach of healthcare.  Although this could change if the Republicans take the presidency and both houses of Congress, don't hold your breath.  Medicare and Medicaid continue to grow regardless of which party is in control.

We print more money.  This will be one of the causes of the upcoming depression, but this is what I think is going to happen.  I rate the odds of more money printing at 95% to 100%.  Here's how I think it will play out: 

Without free government stimulus (money printing), the stock market will slowly drop.  Home prices will continue to go down and the jobless rate will start rising from the current 9.1%. Our Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, will panic.  He will feel like he has to do something.  He will do the one thing that he's good at and that he intellectually believes in; printing money.  He is a true Keynesian who is considered a depression expert, with his thesis being that lack of government stimulation is what caused the Great Depression.  The brilliant Bernanke won't ever let the United States make the same mistake again.  Also, he has an incestuous relationship with Obama.  The Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent of the Presidency.  Under these two geniuses it's been the opposite. Obama will put pressure on him to do something.  As he's already lowered interest rates to practically zero, Bernanke will shoot the only bullet that he has left; a third round of stimulus.

My next blog about money will actually have something useful in it, how to make a fortune off the coming depression.  Have a good night everyone.

                                                JR

Generational Jealousy

I was dreaming of the past,
And my heart was beating fast,
I'm just a jealous guy.

John Lennon 1971

I'm jealous of my kids.  Not in the traditional sense, that I want to take something from them and make it my own.  Like most parents, I want my kids to have everything and far, far surpass me in every way possible.  But over the course of the last few years I have recognized one undeniable fact; it's much better to be a kid now then when I was growing up more than 30 years ago.  It's not even close.  Everything is better now.

Take school (My 3 in school are 7, 5, and 3).  I remember school being basically boring.  You sat down, you stared at a blackboard, you got good at rote memorization.  You looked obsessively at the clock waiting for recess.  That was pretty much it.  Today? As one of my sons’ teachers put it, to them everything is play, they just don't know it's really learning.  In other words, the schools have learned techniques and have technology to more efficiently teach children, while at the same time doing it in a fun filled, interactive environment.  Chalkboards have been replaced.  In their place are smartboards with addictive video and color, like a videogame.  Computers are everywhere, filled with learning software that is also a game.  Instead of having to stare endlessly straight ahead, rooms are divided into stations where different subjects are taught.  (By the way, although the particular school my kids go to is GHA in Atlanta, I will hopefully assume other schools throughout the country use similar methods).

I went to a Jewish day school from grades 1-8, and learning Hebrew was taught like any other course.  Neither myself or any of my friends were remotely close to fluent when we graduated.  I probably knew less than 100 words.  Today the school immerses the children in Hebrew.  Even simple instructions like “class, turn to page 10” are spoken in Hebrew.  Yeah, I’d say my kids will know more than 100 words when they graduate.

How about birthday parties?  When I was growing up it seemed like for every birthday party there were two choices; eat cake at the birthday boy’s house, or eat cake at the roller skating rink.  Now? I can't even accurately describe some of the things I've seen.  A massive gymnasium for kids where they do things like drop 10 feet into foam balls.  A place devoted to science experiments where they throw the slimiest goop you can imagine on each other, and it magically comes off without a trace.  Live wild animals (OK, quasi-wild).  Massive, inflatable trampoline like devices where the kids jump for hours, often on each other unfortunately, until it's time to go home.

And how about TV?  As a typical 2011 overly protective couple, my wife and I monitor our children’s viewing like hawks.  And I can tell you, Netflix and Youtube are like manna from the heavens for that.  When I was a kid there was no cable, no powerful computers, no Disney-Pixar.  I remember looking forward to going to Herbie the Love Bug movies.  Yes, it's as pathetic as it sounds.  Now?  My children can basically watch any cartoon or animated movie ever created, and most of the time it’s immediate.  Let's just say that Toy Story 3 was slightly better than Herbie the Love Bug.

So if I could have gone forward in time, I would have.  I wonder if my kids will feel the same way when they’re my age.  Have a good night everyone.

JR

Fairweather Fan

You've got a lot of nerve

to say you've got a helping hand to lend

you just want to be on the side that's winning.

I know the reason

that you talk behind my back

I used to be among the crowd you're in with.

                                      Bob Dylan 1965

When a professional sports team far exceeds expectations, invariably more people start to root for them.  At that point, the long-time fans will often mockingly describe the new fans as fairweather fans.  The implication is that they don't really deserve to root for the team; they don't really care about sports and are only pretending to like the new team because everyone else is doing it.

The truth is, however, that logically it really only makes sense to be a fairweather fan.  First, a little background.  Growing up in a mid-sized town, Louisville, I did not have any local NBA, NFL, or MLB teams.  The only game in town was University of Louisville basketball and an occasional minor league baseball game.  Like a lot of kids growing up in that situation, I started rooting for the first team I saw on TV that won a lot and was exciting.  For me that was Magic’s Lakers and Staubach’s Cowboys.  In baseball I liked the Cincinnati Reds, because they were the closest team to Louisville, and the local media adopted them as the hometown team.

As a close to obsessive sports fan, I followed these teams as closely and passionately as anyone would in a big city with their local team.  Over time however, something changed.  My love of sports did not.  But as I grew up I began to find it harder and harder to root for teams or players that I didn’t like or couldn't play.  I don't expect athletes to be role models.  It's not that I think their character is worse than the average population; I think their character is the exact same as everyone else, and people put in their unique situation of too much money and too many beautiful young girls would act in the same way.  It's just that when you can't stand someone it's hard to root for them.

So the first casualty was the Reds. This happened during the infamous Marge Schott era. Hopefully you don't remember her.  I do.  She owned the team in the 80’s and 90’s, and will most be remembered for her derogatory comments towards African-Americans and Jews, as well as her ownership of Nazi memorabilia. That ended my love of the Reds, and it never came back.  As for the Cowboys? Look, I tried to keep rooting for them.  I really did.  But you just can't.  The owner, Jerry Jones, is an egomaniac who ran the best coach in the NFL, Jimmy Johnson, out of town.  This was because Johnson wouldn’t give Jones enough credit for the titles the Cowboys won.  Their quarterback, Tony Romo, chokes in pressure situations at a more consistent rate than any player I've seen in my lifetime.  The team has consistently brought in criminals and underachievers.  They’re not good.  Seriously, what's there to like?

The second reason that it makes no sense to blindly root for the same team year after year, is what if they suck?  Sports is the only entertainment I know in which people feel obligated to spend their time and money on a product that is weak.  If Tom Cruise is in five movies in a row that everyone tells me are great, and I like Tom Cruise, I'll go see his movies.  But if all of a sudden every movie he's in is horrible, and he's in a new movie that a good friend of mine and RottenTomatoes.com tell me is more of the same garbage, why would I go see it?  No one will ever criticize me for not supporting Tom Cruise.  Why spend time and money on something that you know will be lame?  

R.E.M. just announced that they're breaking up.  In my mind they're one of the 10 best bands in rock history, maybe top five.  I have every one of their albums from 1983 to 1992. It's been all downhill since, to the point where they haven't put out a good song in about a decade.  I obviously don't spend any more time or money listening to their music.  Yet I've never had anyone come up to me and say, “You know, I can't believe that you no longer support R.E.M.  What kind of fan are you?  What? You’ve been listening to Brandi Carlile?  You’re just a fairweather Brandi Carlile fan.  I was listening to her when she was in diapers.  Before it was cool to like Brandi Carlile.  You don't deserve to listen to her.  You’re pathetic”.

Look, life's too short to waste time on anything, especially bad entertainment.  Now I understand why someone who grows up in a city with a pro sports team would always root for them, and have a hard time cutting the cord.  That team brings up happy memories and it's a bridge to your childhood.  We're naturally loyal, and after spending so much time following a team you almost feel guilty letting go.  Also, after a while it almost gets to be a habit.  But you can't rationally argue it makes a ton of sense. 

So at least for now, in football I've watched more Patriots games in the last few years than any other team.  The reasons are simple.  I think Tom Brady is the best football player I've seen in my lifetime, and I’ve spent way too much time watching football.  They’re exciting.  I like their coach, Bill Belichick, because I love how he handles the media and his offense is the most complex and brilliant system I've seen.   In baseball I like the Red Sox, because I grew up reading about Bill James and sabermetrics, and I find the use of statistics and mathematical analysis to create a winning team really cool.  When the Red Sox hired James I predicted that they would immediately start winning big, which they did.

As for basketball, my favorite sport, I'm still a Lakers fan, but that's probably just luck.  My two favorite basketball players of all time are Magic and Kobe, and for the last decade or so they have run a difficult, beautiful offense, the triangle. (As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that two of the three teams are in Boston, which is kind of strange. I've been there only once in my life, and it was freezing.  I couldn't wait to leave).

What do all these teams have in common? They are fun to watch and they play at an exceptionally high level.  I enjoy the characteristics, if not the character, of the people.  It's what I want in whatever entertainment I'm taking in, whether movies, music, theater, etc.

Lastly, people need to understand that you don't owe a pro sports team anything.  If anything, they owe you since you have given them your money and helped make both the owners and players fabulously wealthy.  They don't know you.  You don't know them.  The players will go from team to team in search of the most money, which is exactly what we would do if we were in their situation.  The owners are running a for-profit business; your well-being is only relevant to them as a means to that end.

Have a good night everyone.

JR

Drug War

Late last night about a quarter past four
Ladanyi come knockin' down my hotel room door
Where's the cocaine
It's runnin' all 'round my brain
I was talking to my doctor down at the hospital
He said, "Son, it says here you're twenty-seven,
But that's impossible
Cocaine... you look like you could be forty-five"

                             Jackson Browne 1977

         

Last night, when Amy in the kids were safely in bed, I decided to try cocaine.  I had heard about it for a long time, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about.  I called a friend of a friend, and in a few hours I was set.  I figured that if I was going to do it I wanted to get the most out of it, so I decided to go old-style Richard Pryor and freebase.  To be honest, I don't remember much after that.  My neighbor told me that I knocked on his door at 3:00 A.M., took a swing at him and tried to dropkick his puppy.  I woke up in a jail cell, and my first court date is at the end of the month.

So obviously none of that is true.  But what if it was? (Not the part about the dog, the drugs).  Would you care if I had done illegal drugs last night?  Before you answer, know that if the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t care if you had.  That doesn’t mean that I don't care about you.  As discussed here, if you are reading this you're probably family, a friend, or at least not my mortal enemy.   If you ask my opinion on whether I think you should take drugs, I would tell you that it is one of the two or three dumbest things you could possibly do in your life.  Besides the obvious health affects, you will never meet a truly successful person who takes street drugs.  Never.

But I would not care in the sense of making it a crime.  The main reason is so important that I'm going to be rude and go all-caps on you:

TRUE FREEDOM MEANS THE FREEDOM TO DO STUPID THINGS.

 As a libertarian (not liberal, libertarian), I want both you and I to have freedom against government intrusion into our lives, even if we use that freedom to make bad decisions.  An obvious exception is when our bad decisions cause others harm, such as drunk driving or murder.   But for victimless acts, freedom is the most important goal.  I know an argument can be made that virtually all bad acts affect others in some negative way, but I think as a society we are smart enough to figure out where to draw the line.  It is seriously harmful to you to eat Haagen-Dazs all day, smoke cigarettes, or watch any show that has the word “Kardashian” in it.  But we don't outlaw these, nor should we.

The second most important reason to legalize drugs is to reduce crime.  Approximately 18% of people in jail committed their crime to get money to buy drugs.  In federal prison, about 50% are locked up for drug offenses.  50%!  In state prison the number is about 20%.  More than half a million people are in prison for drug offenses today, compared to 40,000 in 1981.  If drugs were legalized the price would immediately plummet, and being assaulted so that an addict could get money for his habit would be a thing of the past.  Also, on a fairness level, why should we have to pay for other people’s stupid decisions?  I could go into the absurd amount of money we’re wasting on the War on Drugs, but it’s getting late.

Whenever I talk to people about this, their main concern about legalizing drugs is the children.  A lot of people also have no interest in paying to keep drug abusers behind bars, but they're worried that this would lead to more drug use among children and adolescents.  Look, I have four young children.  I would be happy if when the teacher asks them what they want to be when they grow up, they give the usual response of firemen, policemen, doctor, or whatever mommy/daddy does.  I would not exactly be thrilled if their answer was “you know, what I really want to do is bounce around from job to job, be a horrendous parent and spouse, and find myself in the dead of winter in the middle of the night at my dealer's house because I need a fix”.   I have slightly higher hopes for my children.

So how do we keep that from happening?  There are many ways that would work.  First, unlike cigarettes, drugs would not be allowed to be sold in grocery stores or places like Walmart.  They would stay illegal until a certain age.  We could set it up so that anyone seeking to use drugs would have to do it in a controlled environment; a room run by a private company or government in which they would have to stay in for a few hours or for the whole night.  Who would put up with this?  The addicts, obviously.  They're desperate.  They would jump at the chance to get free or subsidized drugs without having to commit a violent crime that could land them in jail for decades. 

The real winners of course would be us.  We’d be freer.  We’d be richer.  We’d be safer. 

Have a good night everyone.

                             JR

The End of Books

You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known.

                             Bob Dylan 1965

About six months ago, I bought an e-reader, the Kindle.  After about 5 minutes of using it, I went upstairs to my wife and told her that paper books would soon completely disappear.  After having read a few more books on it, I still feel that way.

The advantages that an e-reader has are immediately obvious, mainly storage of a massive amount of books on a device that weighs less than a pound.  I thought it was a cool and elegant way to read.  Whenever I've made this prediction of books disappearing to friends who are serious readers, the response is always the same.  They love the feel of the book.  Some like the smell.  All seem confident that while e-readers might be an alternative for some people, paper books aren’t going anywhere, and they will never give up the real thing.

They are and they will.  It’s going to be brutally fast.  I would say most books will be gone within five years, and all of them within 10.  I think that my first grade son will not read one paper book in high school or college, and not because he prefers sports.  I think the e-readers will do to books what CDs did to albums and what digital downloads are doing to CDs.  When a better technology comes along the old one dies pretty quickly.  Don’t believe it?  Come over this weekend and we’ll hang out and talk about it.  We’ll go to Tower Records and head out afterwards to the Verizon Wireless store.  I hear they’ve got some hot new pagers.

Borders is bankrupt.  Barnes & Noble is in financial trouble.  But I think the more interesting concern is not the future of the private companies but the public entities, like the libraries.  I think they’ll be gone soon, but they will be the last to go.  It will make absolutely no sense for the local governments to continue to pay for a massive library, with the huge expense of books, staff, and storage space.  I envision a time when a person walks in a little room that is now the library, with their e-reader, and has any book they want downloaded in a few minutes.  After a certain amount of time, the book will automatically delete.  Actually, now that I think about it, this process will probably be done from home.

My other burning question is what’s going to happen to those people that have walls and walls of books in their house?   I always thought that there was a 50/50 split between those people; half were the really intelligent type and had read everything in the house, and half were just showing off.  I think eventually a roomful of books will look as dated as those grand pianos in the middle of people’s living rooms in the 1970s.  Anyone who was wealthy and cultured was required by federal law to have one.

Have a good night everyone.

                                                                   JR