Tebow for President

This is almost a month old but after last Sunday (and the last few Obama interviews) it applies even more:

Tebow for President? Quarterbacking Our Country

Occupy the USA

Americans make up half of the world’s richest 1%

That is why all the OWS people should move immediately to Cuba. You will find a lot of the real 99 percenters there…

New year, old bananaland

Com greve da PM, violência aumenta e Fortaleza tem arrastões

Quantifying history

Crisis aside, let’s not forget how much capitalism is better than everything else:

From here.

The death of Economics?

For a layman like me, economics was always a field that helped explain how the world worked. You had a bunch of failed theories (like communism) that clearly caused havoc when tried. Then you had the other side, capitalism, that clearly worked and brought prosperity to the world in an unprecedented fashion.

Now since 2008 when the current crisis started, economists seem to have gone insane. Again from an outsider point of view, what seems to be happening is that not only economists don’t quite understand why that crisis happened (you can see the high number of completely disparate theories that have come up) but even worse, they have no idea on how to solve it.

It looks things were reduced to two camps here: the ‘keynesians’ (mostly the left) who basically say government stimulus is the only way to get out of this. You do have people who favor different types of stimulus here but at the end they think that only government spending will ‘heat up’ the economy. You try to understand how they think this works and it is again not clear. My understanding is that they think government is able to force people who are currently not spending (i.e., the rich) to spend money anyway. Actually, the way this is suppose to work is: Government spends money (which it doesn’t have, so it gets it from the people who do) and that spending creates new jobs which in turn causes money to be earned by people who were previously unemployed. These people now spend that money, and the cycle continues generating more economic activity.

The other camp here says that this government spending scheme simply doesn’t work. First, because in order to redistribute money the government needs to either raise taxes OR print/borrow money. Raising taxes causes people who do have money to spend even less. That means less consumption, less jobs, cancelling the so called ‘positive’ effect of the redistribution. Also, printing/borrowing money causes inflation or a credit crisis, which makes financing the regular government operation difficult and possibly impossible (i.e., Europe). Furthermore, these economists say that when the previously unemployed people earn this redistributed money they will not really spend it as expected. They will still save as much as possible because of all the uncertainty in the economy. This group of economists tend to favor basically no action from the government. They think that the economy will recover naturally, and the only way government can help is by leaving this process to occur without external intrusion.

That’s it. As far as I can tell, there is nothing else out there. Krugman for instance, only argues that the stimulus was not large enough. He says (or at least implies, since he is a weasel) the economy will *never* recover until a huge (in the order of hundreds of billions to trillions) stimulus occurs. On the other hand, economists that are against the stimulus think the economy will not recover until the negative effect of the stimulus (i.e., our debt) is controlled.

I don’t think neither of these two things will happen very soon. However, from what I see from my day to day life and from the latest economic indicators, the economy is improving. Slowly but constantly. So my guess is that the ‘correct answer’ lies somewhere in the middle of these two points.

That brings me to the final point of disenchantment regarding economics: Even after things improve, I bet that we will get no consensus on why that happened. Krugman and his folks will find some explanation (the ECB started to print money! Obamacare took effect! We are not measuring inflation correctly!) that proves their point, and so will the other side (Republicans took back congress and that made people more optimistic about no new taxes!).

There is no theory out there that can be called scientific because nothing can be disproved. We learned that we don’t know how or why capitalism worked and why it is not working as well now. Hopefully things will go back to normal soon but the question of why might not be answered in the process.

Economics have turned into politics which is pretty much saying that Economics is dead. Hopefully I am wrong.

Occupy Barcelona

Classic!

Nice boys don’t play rock and roll

At one point during the Guns n Roses show last Tuesday, a chubby Axl Rose approached the public at the section in front of the stage and asked them to ‘Please take one step back. Some people are getting crushed here at the front’.

A few minutes after that, the West Valley mayor suddenly enters the stage and handles the key to the city to Axl. The camera focus on Axl, his face on the big screen now. He can barely look straight under his huge cowboy hat and you can see a little smirk hidden partially by the handlebar moustache. That’s it, I thought. He is going to throw the key to the side and punch this guy (wearing a suit!) in the face. It will be mayhem! Let me grab my wife by the arm so we can run away from here!

Instead, the smirk turns into a smile. The now subdued cowboy lowers his head, thanks the stupid looking politician a few times, looks at the key for a bit and makes a little joke about when would the bar would close. You know, a mormon joke.

—x—

1991 was an unusual year for music. We had the explosion of the Grunge bands, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, all release their hit albums. At the same time, the previous generation bands also put out very successful albums. Metallica release the Black album. Guns n Roses released Use Your Illusion.

I was 17 years old back then, and I was in heaven. I had no problem enjoying all these bands. I would alternate the tapes on my Walkman like there was no tomorrow. It made high school much more bearable.

But I always had a soft spot for GnR. I remember clearly the day I first heard them. It was 1998 and for whatever reason, I got the “G N’ R Lies” album before I got “Appetite for Destruction”. I remember being by myself at home and listening to “Reckless Life” as loud as my old stereo would go. If there was one time in my life that I was blown away by anything, that was it.

Back in 91, I remember that there was a lot of speculation about Use Your Illusion. People were saying that it was soft. The band was supposedly falling apart. It sounds funny now, but they were being criticized for taking 3 years to release a new album. I was nervous.

It was a Sunday night when one of the radio stations in Brazil first played the album through and through (it would take a few extra months to get the actual LP on the stores – ah, the joys of the pre-internet world). My cassette recorder and I were wide awake when the show began at midnight. “Right Next Door to Hell” started and I thought, “It’s ok. It’s going to be ok”.

—x—

Kids do the strangest things. Sounds silly now, but one major challenge for someone in Brazil listening to any American band back in the 80s was to understand the lyrics. Very few bands included them as part of the material in the albums. Trying to actually understand what they were saying was impossible. I’d asked many English teachers of mine (including my mom) to help me translate songs and it was useless. I suspect my mom did this on purpose.

Because of that, I started to learn English above and beyond what school required. I would write down words I could get, hit the dictionary, listen closely for that next word I couldn’t understand until I could.

For a good while, GnR was not only my favorite band but they were my ‘heroes’. Sounds completely stupid now, but that was it. I remember me and my friends sharing the cost of magazines about GnR just to read a bit more about their lives. In a country were only soccer players and samba groups were revered, we were trying hard to imitate those weird dudes with long hair and tattoos.

—x—

Use Your Illusion was good but the band did start dying that year. They were fantastic in Rock in Rio 2 but you could feel that it was the beginning of the end. Axl was a prima donna now. Matt Sorum was good but we missed Steven Adler. Slash was looking bored. Two years later came “The Spaghetti Incident?” and I knew it was over.

Moving back to 2011, I look around and see a half-empty Maverik center waiting for Axl and his band of subs. Listen, I am not a purist in any way. I still paid my 80 something bucks and faced the 28 degrees outside to be here. I know this was not GnR. I’ve seen videos of how Axl looked now, and how bad he sounded. But I actually enjoyed “Chinese Democracy”. I could hear a little glimpse, a little anger hiding under the new softer lyrics. Maybe I could see some of that tonight?

Before the show starts I can’t help and I think to myself: Why is he still doing this? Salt Lake City, Tuesday, mid-December. Chinese Democracy came out 2 years ago… There are no new songs on the play list, or any hope really for a new album any time soon. He is almost 50 years old… Does he need the money? Is this still fun for him?

The show starts and it is not bad. There is a lot of talent there. They start strong with “Chinese Democracy” followed by “Welcome to the Jungle”. Even Axl’s voice was better than what I expected. Maybe he lost a couple of pounds. At one point I told my wife “He doesn’t look that bad”. But then she looks at me and says “How do you know it’s him? I can barely see his face”.

Hmm. A few songs later they started to play “Street of Dreams”. The big screen behind the band was showing a clip of a ballerina dancing.

“I am done” I told my wife. Let’s go home. Enough memories were killed tonight.

Beyond Magnetic

Four new songs, only available for now on iTunes.

It is amazing how these guys continue to deliver. This is just awesome:

The Republican tragedy

Act 1: I like Newt. Newt is smart as hell. He knows Washington better than Romney. He is running a positive campaign. There is a good chance that Newt would be a good President.

Act 2: It will be very unfortunate for Republicans if Newt beats Romney. It will be a victory of the anti-mormom sentiment, justified by a fallacy that Newt is the more conservative candidate. Republicans know Romney is a better candidate.

Act 3: Newt cannot beat Obama. Too much baggage, too little charisma. It will just not happen. If Newt wins, Republicans lose.

Winning is not always pretty

Wow, it was exactly 6 years ago that I wrote this. Time does fly but things don’t change that much. Now instead of our beloved monster, we have Tite, the Dude equivalent of the brazilian soccer world:

—x—

Sports are one of the last windows into our primitive selves. It’s messy, it’s irrational, it’s cruel. We can cite statistics, try to prove how ‘fair’ or ‘deserved’ that final result was. But at the end of the day, we don’t really care about any of that… You are happy because you won, and it really doesn’t matter how. Your little tribe conquered the other one. Sing it out loud and off with their heads!

Nowadays it’s only for fun you would say. Yeah, I wish that was it. After the final game last sunday, my wife told me she was really rooting for Corinthians this time. I was kind of surprised (she hates soccer) and asked why. “Well, you become unbearable when they lose regular games. I could only image how hard it would be to stand you had they lost this time.”

—x—

Which brings me to the really puzzling aspect of this all: how can we still willingly participate in this madness? How can I, after all these years and distance, still care for a group of people I don’t know (and never will) with this passion and commitment? Is this irrationality rooted on our psyche in some inexorable way? Do sports actually prevent us from going back to killing eachother even more than what we already do?

Ah, whatever! Bring it on my jingoistic brothers! Let’s celebrate and thank the Gods for our supreme victory over the hateful losers who could not place the ball inside our rectangular wooden frame! Hahahaha, we rule the world!!!

Freedom you treacherous you

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe we do need a stronger medicine…

Holiday sign off

Ah yes, another holiday season that begins. Amazing how 2011 went by so fast. Time to celebrate and be thankful for all my blessings.

And nothing like a TV sign off from 1982 to get you to relax (man, did I watch many of those – I don’t think I got enough sleep when I was a kid!). This is directly from the 11 Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard article, check it out and see how old you are

Happy Thanksgiving!

The dinner party song

Ah, the internets. I finally figured out the name of the song that plays at the end of my favorite IT Crowd episode: The Dinner Party.

I should have know better since Guided by Voices is mentioned in this episode as well.

But in any case, here it goes. Nice little catchy tune:

Listen and learn

Tyler Cowen from MR was at the Diane Rehm show yesterday talking about OWS. It is available online here and his (short) participation is around 20:30. I thought it was much better than his latest NYT article on the same subject (I left a comment about that in MR).

I think that whole show is a good example of how this OWS ‘movement’ is a farse. You have one or two guys trying to keep the conversation going within some reason but the rest are just crazy folks. They talk about invading homes, “gumming up” the system (see around 35:00) and so on. There was also a good point made by a caller (around 43:00) on the different ways OWS and Tea Party were judged.

I know I’ve been talking a lot about this but to me the fact that these people are actually being taken seriously by the media is mind–boggling. It is a dangerous and irresponsible thing in my opinion, since that attention might be inciting these people to go the next step, which is violence. Nobody wants to see that.

Right?

That explains a lot

Scum of the Earth

Go Frank!

Maybe Frank Miller has a bit more Dark Knight in him then most would have thought:
“Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense:

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.”

There you go.

Cain!

Link fixed

Solving the world’s problems, one hyperbole at a time

No, you are not ‘addicted to your bank‘ dear dummy. You just benefit from the services it provides to you, and you are having a hard time following this stupid ‘drop your bank’ meme. Or, if the problem is really about the hassle of switching banks being worse than the benefits of having a new bank, you are just a crying baby.

Time to grow up. You do what you want – this is a free country. You choose your bank, you save your money under you matress, you can even burn your money and move to Mexico if you want. But please don’t tell me you are not doing things because they are too hard and you need help from other people who are doing fine.

America is just way too spoiled. This needs to stop.

I think it’s inevitable!

I suppose more and more people will trade their typewritters for this sort of equipment eh?

Ah, the awesome 80s!