Brown Motion

The world we live in has rules.  And the citizens are expected to obey those rules.  Without order we get chaos.  Fighting entropy is hard.  Very hard. There was an entire TV series based on this notion called Law & Order.  Recently though there have been a spate of incidents where the watchers failed us.  From the near collapse of the capitalist economic system back in 2008 where the rating agencies failed at doing their job to the recent Boeing disasters where the FAA did not do theirs and 400 people paid with their lives, we are facing a scenario where the watchers need watching.  'Collusion' is a word making headlines these days. Coincidentally (I have started listening to podcasts on the way to work) a new podcast by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis has a show about umpires.  Or referees.  It is titled 'Against the Rules'.  It covers the topic of 'referees losing their authority'. Fairness and how humans enforce ...

Written and directed by Academy award winner Charles Ferguson this documentary about the 2008 financial crisis that rocked the world will do the same to your metabolism. Charles is a thinker, and astute individual with degrees from MIT and Berkeley who has cranked out provocative films.  This one through its poignant narrative and interviews with some of the key members complicit in the making of the crisis will leave you shaking. Shaking in anger, disbelief and pure fear at the levels of corruption and immorality that plagues the highest echelons of government, academia and finance.  To say that not much has changed since that day of rude awakening is an understatement. Michael Douglas' character stated way back in 1987 "Greed for lack of a better word is good".  That world view is what propelled America from its status as a colony of 13 states to a vibrant economy that is the world's envy.  However, greed unchecked and unfettered by any form of regulation an...

Now I know even a die hard nicotine addict will find this impossible to do - as in smoke in the mirror.  But when looking at a mirror one hopes to see a reflection or a truism of sorts not smoke.. Reality is often something else than advertised, in many parts of the world and America is no exception. I will cite 3 examples of how bogus the world we live in has become - 1.  General Motors - At one time and for a long time was touted as the world's largest automobile producer.  Fast forward to late 20th century and it had already morphed into a 'General Healthcare enterprise' spending amounts on employee benefits (and their families)  well in excess of what it spent to produce what its moniker said - motor cars.  It ended very badly.  The government had to bail their ass out from bankruptcy proceedings circa 2008 because they became fat, dumb and ill. So a car company can actually become a hospital or healthcare management outfit when no one is payin...

This is not about a sartorial experiment but rather my book review after reading a work of non-fiction titled the 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis. It is a story of the big financial crisis of 2008 spawned in the USA that endangered the fate of the US banking apparatus and by consequence of the world economy.  It delves into the opacity surrounding the financial instruments cooked up by collusion of power hungry and greedy marketers that operated and still operate on Wall Street and the immoral shenanigans that led to destroying the system built on the power of TRUST. While the Big Short could in the eyes of Mr. Lewis be merely a tale of a few autistic savants and shrewd investigators that accidentally foresaw the big tsunami of sub-prime mortgage loan defaults before the large Wall Street firms did there is also an underlying crusade to expose the wrong doings of chosen few. This is where the story falls Short or has Gaps. While explaining the entire buy and sell side...