MarkFord
The Derivatives Market Explained in Less Than One Minute…
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I Was Profiting from a Bordello!
I like to think of myself as a good and responsible landlord. I keep the properties in good shape, keep the rent increases affordable, and give the tenants the privacy they deserve.
But when Julio took over managing our apartments in Lake Worth, I discovered that all was not well. According to Julio, there were rumores that the tenants of one of the apartments – a mother and her adult son – were running una especie de negocio de entretenimiento. “What kind of ‘entertainment business’? I asked. “Tu sabes,” he said, with a wink.
At first, I couldn’t believe it. Then I thought, “Okay. I’m a Libertarian.” But then I thought, “What if this is part of one of those human trafficking operations? What if some of the ‘workers’ are working off debts? What if some of them are underage?”
“Well, that’s not good,” I said to Julio.
“No,” he said. “And some of the neighbors are complaining.”
We talked about what our options might be, legal and otherwise. We agreed that the way to move forward would be to file an eviction notice with the city. But since we didn’t know whether this was a two-person operation or some sort of franchise of a murderous cartel, we would explain our action with some sort of prevarication, so as not to make it seem like we were suspicious of what they were doing and, therefore, a danger to them.
About halfway through the six-week eviction process, the apartment was busted by the police. (Apparently, one of the neighbors had taken her complaint to them.) That was about a year ago.
Julio repaired and cleaned the apartment and had it rented the following month. He then moved forward, upgrading all the buildings and apartments, which allowed me to forget about what could have turned out to be a difficult and embarrassing situation.
China Is Winning This Battle, Too!
As you might remember, I lived for two years in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. My assignment was teaching literature at the University of Chad. As a college teacher in the capital city, I had many opportunities to hang out at the US embassy. One of the things they sometimes talked about was the way China integrated itself in Chadian affairs. From what I could gather, Chinese diplomats promoted their political and economic agendas – i.e., communism – very gently and indirectly. They sponsored public health and safety projects and built roads.
Indoctrinating the locals in Marxism was not a priority for them. The battle for the hearts and minds of the Chadian people took place in the projects and programs financed and supervised by the US and Russia.
Twenty years later, when my partners and I began investing seriously in Nicaragua, I was able to observe, once again, how US, Russian, and Chinese economic and cultural diplomacy operated. By that time, China’s investment in Nicaragua had increased greatly. It was as large as, even larger than, the investments made by the US or Russia. The Chinese had programs all over Central and South America. And their style was still less political and more pragmatic. Everything I could see that they were doing was in projects that improved agricultural yields, improved basic infrastructure, and provided work for the poor. If there were quid pro quos involved, it was not apparent.
I am not naïve. I don’t think the Chinese are any more altruistic than we are. But I do think their approach to diplomacy is more centralized and their thinking is more long-term. And that has given them a distinct edge over the US and Russia. They are in it for the long view. They don’t need to see pro-China communism become an instant hit in Nicaragua. They are content to take a slower but surer path. And the results of that approach are already paying off in big and obvious ways.
The Chinese approach is basically the same as it was 40 years ago. But the US strategy has changed considerably. Whereas we used to promote the old-fashioned values of free markets and free speech, in the last five to ten years, we have switched our priorities to promoting inclusion and equity, and particularly as they pertain to racism, sexism, identity politics, and transphobia.
On this subject, AM sent me this video, saying, “Listen to what this African has to say about America vs. China.
In Ending Nuclear Energy, Are Germans Killing Ukrainians?
Germany’s green movement has always been one of the strongest in the world. Their latest “triumph” is getting the country’s last two active nuclear power plants to fire its employees and shut down. In the link below, Joe Nocera of The Free Press explains why he believes that is a terrible idea. Click here.
France as It Was Supposed to Be in the Year 2000
In 1899, a group of French artists portrayed their ideas of what the world would look like in the year 2000 on a series of 87 cards.
Check out the results. So many of their “predictions” came true! Click here.
“America is a victim of its own flim-flam. The peak of it… probably came when Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, announced that the US was ‘indispensable’… and that ‘we stand taller… and ‘see farther’ than other people. Since then, we’ve gotten shorter… by almost every measure. Even life expectancy. The rest of the ‘western,’ fully developed nations in the G7 have an average lifespan of 83 years. In America, we live to 76… and life expectancies are falling, along with wages, productivity, GDP growth, trust in government, innovation, happiness and just about everything else.” (Bill Bonner, Bonner Private Research, May 2, 2023)
Coffee? Tea? Why Not?
A friend of mine told me that he was eliminating coffee from his diet for “health reasons.” I told him that the coffee=bad myth was debunked decades ago. In fact, a 2017 umbrella review of 201 meta-analyses by The National Library of Medicine concluded that “Coffee consumption was more often associated with benefit than harm for a range of health outcomes across exposures including high vs. low, any vs. none, and one extra cup a day.”
What about having more than just a few cups a day? Arnold Schwarzenegger answered that question last week in his blog:
“If you have more than a few servings of coffee, research suggests that it does not cause heart problems. The researchers found that while coffee can cause fluctuations in your heart rate, it’s not the dangerous type.” Click here.
And…
“If you tolerate [coffee] well, drinking a few servings appears to have many benefits. Other studies appear to show that drinking three cups or more is also associated with cancer protection.” Click here.
Insights on Chronic Disease
Click here for an interesting conversation between Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick, PhD, a scientist with expertise in the areas of aging, cancer, and nutrition, and host of the popular podcast Found My Fitness.
Jordan Peterson Interviews Camille Paglia: Fantastic!
I’ve known her name for years as a public intellectual. I thought she did movie reviews. Had the impression that she was a leftist. That’s all I knew.
JM sent me this video of an interview Jordan Peterson did with her five years ago. I was floored. This woman is not just very smart, but very forceful, too. (I felt like Jordan Peterson was slightly afraid of her.) In any case, I fell in love with her and wanted to know more about who she is.
It turns out that she’s been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (where the interview took place) since 1984. She’s the author of seven books focusing on literature, visual art, music, and film history, among other topics. The most well-known is Sexual Personae, an expansion of her highly original doctoral thesis at Yale.
What I most like about her is how passionately and convincingly she expresses her ideas. She reminds me of two of my favorite college teachers, both of whom were women of her age. Click here and see what you think!
Ten Useful Learning Strategies with ChatGPT
Recently, Scott H Young asked his readers to write to him and explain how they’re using large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. He then reported on their responses. I was impressed by what people are already doing. And, once again, in awe of what they will probably be able to do five or ten years from now.
Click here.
From CM re my May 5 piece about charitable giving:
“I really enjoy your e-letters. They are both informative and entertaining. Your article on charity was outstanding, and so were the links! Since you quoted the Torah, a subject I’m familiar with, I hope it’s okay if I share some insight.
“‘The highest form of giving charity is giving anonymously’ is not from the Torah. The Torah doesn’t have a hierarchy of giving charity or ‘tzedakah’ – which comes from the root word of ‘tzedek,’ which translates to ‘justice.’
“Maimonides does list a hierarchy of tzedakah in his code of Jewish law.
“Giving anonymously is number two and number three out of eight. Number one is preventing someone from needing tzedakah… such as finding someone a job, partnering with them in business, etc.
“I believe it’s not so much to prevent them from becoming a burden on the community. It’s more so that they don’t suffer a loss of dignity.”
My Response: Thank you for the correction, CM! (I knew I should have looked that up!)
From SA:
“You said: ‘I have an abiding interest in charitable giving. Not because I think it is virtuous, but because I see it as a contributing factor to being a happy person.’ So honest.
“I have always known that about myself but never mentioned it to anyone, because I felt I was supposed to feel altruistic, when instead I felt happy. Therefore, my being charitable made me a selfish man. Now, I feel I can openly admit it, while still being charitable. So what if I’m selfish.”
Two Things You Need to Build a Following on Social Media
This guy has found his niche on social media. He has a big following. Not just because his schtick is clever, but because he’s very good at what he does. Click here.
Anonymous Giving
The Torah says that the highest form of charity is when the giving is done anonymously. One gives for the opportunity to help someone else, without any expectation of social recompence. When we donate to charities via email or mail, we are practicing that.
When the donations are considerable, like millions, one is tempted to be repaid by some form of acknowledgment, such as a plaque on a wall. The great majority of such plaques record for prosperity the name of the donor. A tiny percentage may attribute the gift to “Anonymous.”
(There’s a great episode in Curb Your Enthusiasm about this. Click here.)
There’s another kind of charity – a common form – that is a bit more selfless than getting one’s name on a plaque. I’m thinking of donating one’s time and/or money to charitable causes that do not award donors with recognition. One performs this sort of charity because one wants the benefit of feeling good about contributing to a cause that is virtuous.
And then there is the sort of charity that is anonymous in the sense that neither the donor nor the donee knows one another – random acts of charity, such as helping a stranger change a tire or giving money to a panhandler.
If the random donation is significant, it has the capacity to brighten up someone’s day. And the recompense to the donor is seeing that moment in the eyes of the recipient. I’ve been doing this sort of giving ever since my personal income exceeded my spending, and I can avow from experience that there is a very substantial benefit to the donor, one that can equal or exceed the value of the gift.
I’m hardly alone in this sort of giving. Millions of people all over the world perform random acts of charity every day. Recently, in fact, videotaping such exchanges has become a trope on social media that is fun to watch. You can find at least a dozen new examples on YouTube every day.
Here are two examples:
Click here.
And here.