Short Selling of Game Stop

 Games People Play 

Oh we make one another cry        
Break a heart then we say goodbye         
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame whoa   

So who won, who lost, and who was to blame in the Game Stop situation

Game Stop was involved in a short selling situation in recent days.  So what happened, who won, who lost, and who is to blame.  Short selling sounds like a complicated financial arrangement, but it is basically simple.  Let's replace the share of stock with a coat that you purchased for $100 at a store.  A short seller borrows it from you, and says he will return it after a month,  He immediately goes to the store, returns the coat, and pockets the $100.  He hopes that the coat will go on sale during the month, say for $60, and he will purchase the coat at that reduced price.  At the end of the month, you have your coat back, the store has received $60 in revenue from the coat instead of $100, and the short seller has a $40 profit.  This requires that no one, except the short seller, knows that he plans to the return of the coat, and that the store put the coats on sale. 

If someone gets wind of this need, and the price of the coat is reduced to $80 after halfway through the month, then a second owner buys the coat at $80, and lists that coat for resale at $120. The short seller will have to buy that coat at $120 to be able  to return the coat that he borrowed.  In this case, the original owner of the coat still has his coat, the short seller’s loss is $20 for his repurchase of the coat, the store has received $80 for the coat, which is a loss of only $20 in sales, and the second owner  has received a $40 profit for the resale of the coat.  The total value over all individuals is still the same, but the store is $20 richer, and second owner of the coat has a $40 profit, and the short seller has a $20 loss instead of a $40 profit.  It is hard to see how society has a dog in this fight since the net cost is still zero.   The store experiences a $40 loss of revenue in the first case, and a $20 loss in the second case.  The short seller experiences a $40 profit in the first case, and a $20 loss in the second case.  The second owner is not involved in the first case, but has a $40 profit in the second case, by reducing the store's loss of revenue by $20 and taking $20 from the original short seller.  Does it surprise anyone that many of these second owners purchased their stock (coats) through an app called Robinhood?

The situation could not have existed if the knowledge that the short seller would need a stock (a coat) was known only to the short seller.  Since the knowledge that the short seller would need the stock (a coat) became known, then the new owner of the stock (a coat) has profited,  the original owner ( the store) has less of a loss, and the short seller has a loss, instead of a profit. The game has changed from the original short seller profiting to the short seller having a loss.

The Arts

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)

Now I understand      
What you tried to say to me 
And how you suffered for your sanity          
And how you tried to set them free   
They would not listen, they did not know how        
Perhaps they'll listen now

It takes a very long time to listen to artists, but art is forever.

A Vincent Van Gogh painting was worth very little during the artist's lifetime.  The value of Starry Night has increased by an unbelievable amount since Van Gogh’s death.  During Van Gogh’s lifetime, the news was dominated by rulers, politicians, and the rich.  But I am sure that it would take a lot of effort to determine who were those rulers, politicians or the rich during Van Gogh’s life.  We have forgotten them while we remember Van Gogh.

I can remember only one king in ancient Greece, Oedipus and that is because of the Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex.  I remember King John, Edward III, and Richard II because of the plays by William Shakespeare.  I visited and admired the Coliseum in Rome despite not knowing who fought in, or attended, that stadium.  The Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome are famous for their architecture, not their religion.  In the long run it is the arts that endure. 

We may place more attention on politics, sports, finance in the short term, but like in the fable of Tortoise and the Hare, it is not who is fastest in the short term, but it is he who endures to win the race that is remembered. We will be remembered for our arts, not our finance or our politics. 

Patriotism

 I Love My Country

I'm loud and proud

Rolling into town

Hanging out the window

Like a blue tick hound

Ain't sorry, ain't nothing to be sorry about

I love my country
And I love my country up loud 

Loving your country does not mean hating another country.

Go watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc.  In that scene from Casablanca, the French national anthem, Les Marseille, was led by Victor Lazlo, a Czechoslovakian, whose wife Ilsa  was a Norwegian, at Rick’s Cafe American.  Yvette, the crying French woman who shouts Viva la France, was dating a Nazi soldier earlier in the scene.  The Nazis were fearful of inspiring the love of a country other than their own.

Now listen to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to see how ironically the same song, Les Marseilles, was used to indicate Napoleon’s attempted conquest and failed invasion of  Moscow. The Marseilles fades as a Russian folk song becomes triumphant.  This overture of the Russian love for their country has become a fixture of America's Independence Day since Arthur Fidler picked it for Boston’s celebration of the Fourth of July. 

Love of one’s country is to be something to be admired, even if you yourself are from a different country.  Loving your country can be perverted and confused into hatred and domination of another country.  We may not all like the same music, but love of country is not a matter of musical taste.  It also does not mean that we prove our love by hating another country.

Unity

 United We Stand

For united we stand     

Divided we fall

And if our backs should ever be against the wall          

We'll be together, together, you and I

There is a clamor for unity today.  It is important to understand that there is much that unites us.

Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner was a slave owner.  His view of slavery can be seen in the often unsung third verse of the song, which contains the words,

No refuge could save the hireling and slave    
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.

Woody Guthrie, the author of "This Land is Your Land”, while never a member of the Communist Party, was admitted to be a fellow traveler.  His views can be seen in the often ignored fourth verse of that song.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."      
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.    
That side was made for you and me.

However those are not the verses that are traditionally sung.  We sing verses that proclaim their love of America, “the Land of the Free” and the "Land (that) was made for you and me”.   That love comes through despite wildly divergent politics.  Let’s remember that the love of America unites us much more than politics divide us.

Satire

 

Those Were The Days (Theme to All In The Family)        

And you know where you were then,         

Girls were girls and men were men,

Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again,     

Didn't need no welfare state         

Everybody pulled his weight,          

Gee our old Lasalle ran great,         

Those were the days.

Archie Bunker was an object of satire.  He was not meant to be a taken as an ideal.

Jonathan Swift, in his essay A Modest Proposal, proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords.  He meant that as satire, not as a serious proposal.  Those who did not get the satire treated it as a serious proposal. 

Similarly Norman Lear’s All in the Family was a meant to satirize, not idolize, Archie Bunker’s behavior.  You can see that in the lyrics of the theme song.  Herbert Hoover was not an ideal president.  The LaSalle was a discontinued automobile line. Everyone knowing their place was an unfair restriction on those in “lower” places.  You were meant to laugh at Archie Bunker, not agree with him.

It is a sad that there are those who have adopted Archie Bunker and his ideas as an ideal. They have missed the point of the satire.  Perhaps we can also interest them in a recipe for sautéed Irish babies?

The Future

 The Future

Give me back the Berlin wall    

Give me Stalin and St. Paul     

I've seen the future, brother     

It is murder.

The future for Leonard Cohen may have been murder, because too many people did not believe in a future.

If you do not believe in a future, then money spent on insurance, spent on agencies to deal with future disasters, or money put aside to deal with the future is wasted.  For example, if people do not spend on health insurance, then when, for example, there is a pandemic, they may have no health insurance available to deal with that pandemic.  If an employer does not provide sick days, perhaps his employees will come to work while sick.

Social Security Insurance is a government operated insurance program that was instituted to compel people to save for their old age. Insurance does not have to be government sponsored.  I live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where the ability to register a car is contingent on that car having private automobile insurance.  

That is it wise to put aside money for the future is not a new concept.  Almost 2500 years ago Aesop’s fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper discussed the moral virtues of hard work and planning for the future.  But there are those who do not believe in a future.  That also includes those who believe that the current conditions will not continue because there will soon be a doomsday that is either man-made, (e.g. doomsday preppers ) or divine (e.g. those who believe that we are living in the ”end times”).

But belief in a future is why old men plant trees that they will never see mature and young men go to school to learn something that they hope to use in the future.  The stock market, with its focus on day trading and current earnings, and the political system, with its focus on the next election, may not be the best way to plan for the future.  But those who ignore the future, should not prevent others from planning for a future.   Otherwise the future will be murder.

Insurrection 2

 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The revolution will not be televised   

The revolution will not be brought to you     

By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions.

Gil Scott-Heron was wrong.  The revolution will not only be televised,.…it will be live-streamed.

“When in the course of Human Events…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” After that declaration it may be necessary to “take arms against a sea of troubles”.  However once you make that declaration or take up arms against a government, if you lose, you should expect to be punished by that government.  The Founding Fathers knew this.  That is why John Hancock so famously signed the Declaration of Independence in a large signature so that “ King George could read it without his spectacles”.  It is thus hypocritical for those who participated in the insurrection against the government at the Capitol Riot on January 6^th to now claim that they were only exercising their First Amendment Rights bestowed by that government.

No one should expect to be an officer of the government against which one has rebelled. The Fourteenth Amendment makes it clear that this incudes those whom “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof".  That Amendment does allow mercy to those if two-thirds of the Congress agree.  But this remedy only includes the ability to be an officer of the government, it does not extend to criminal penalties due to those persons.  It is wonderful that so many of the Capitol rioters live streamed or posted images of their rebellion  It makes it so much easier to determine their guilt.

Insurrection

 

For What It’s Worth 

There's something happening here.    

But what it is ain't exactly clear    

There's a man with a gun over there.    

Telling me I got to beware.    

I think it's time we stop,    

Children, what's that sound?    

Everybody look, what's going down. 

What is going down? When did things go wrong? 

Many fine people have called the storming of the US Capitol on January 6^th, 2021 an insurrection.  Those fine people apparently do not include many Republicans.  So this division must be a recent phenomenon, correct?  Actually it goes back at least to my childhood, which is as far as I can remember. Barry Goldwater said, “Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice and moderation in pursuit of freedom is no virtue”  Ronald Reagan said, “Government is the problem”, Nixon said that he was the Law-and-Order president.  George W Bush said Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Each of these statements was false. 

If extremism is a vice and moderation, liberty and freedom are all virtues, then together the vice of extremism (a negative) and the virtue of liberty (a positive) ARE a vice (a negative).  If moderation and freedom are both virtues then together they ARE a virtue.  

The policies of government might be thought to be a problem, but government, as the collective will of the people, can not by definition be the problem. 

Those who break the law can not be the Law-and-Order president.  

Weapons of Mass Destruction were not found in Iraq.  

"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."  Hearing Daniel Moynihan's phrase uttered by Vice President Pence during his pre-election debate was cringe worthy from an administration that prided itself on having its own alternate “facts”. 

The insurrection was a long time coming.  There is something happening here, but its has been happening for a very long time.

Know Nothings

Too Much of Nothing

Now, too much of nothing
Can make a man feel ill at ease
One man’s temper might rise
While another man’s temper might freeze
In the day of confession
We cannot mock a soul
Oh, when there’s too much of nothing
No one has control 

Too much or not, nothing should never be considered a virtue. 

Saying that you Know Nothing, if you are not Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes, might sound like an insult.   But it became the name associated with a political party when the phrase was said so often by its members.  In the 1850’s, the Know Nothing Party was an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, populist and xenophobic movement, that because it was also anti-slavery was absorbed into the nascent Republican Party.  Does this platform sound familiar?  It may be fair to say that the descendants of the Know Nothings have captured the current Republican Party.

You reap what you sow.  The January 6^th invasion of the US Capitol shows the danger of catering to those who Know Nothing.  It has taken more than a hundred years, but isn’t time for the Republican Party to decide whether Know Nothings belong in the Republican Party.  If they have captured it completely, perhaps those remnants who are not Know Nothings should leave and form a new party.

 

 

The Electoral College

 

Naval Academy Fight Song (Anchors Aweigh)

Stand Navy down the field, sails set to the sky;            

We'll never change our course, So Army you steer shy-y-y-y.  

Roll up the score, Navy, anchors aweigh!        

Sail Navy down the field and sink the Army, sink the Army grey!

Many us recognize and get emotional over college fight songs.  So what is the Electoral College fight song?

The Electoral College has received a lot of attention in recent months.  Many of us understand that there are 538 electors, but that number is NOT specified in the Constitution. Article II, Section 1 of  the US Constitution specifies that each state has a number of Electoral College votes equal to the number of its Senators ( and there are two Senators for each state) plus the number of its Representatives.  The 23rd Amendment specified that the District of Columbia, which is not a state, would have three electoral college votes.  That the number of Representatives is 435 is due to a 1911 Act of Congress, not because of the constitution.  https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/sites/default/files/documents/resources-and-activities/CVC_HS_ActivitySheets_CongApportionment.pdf

Congress chose the number 435 because the House wanted a manageable number of members.  The Constitution only specifies that each state should have one Representative and that the number of Representatives be proportional to population, specifically excluding only “Indians who are not taxed.”  (Prior to the adoption of the 14^th Amendment, enslaved persons counted as 3/5 of one person.)  There are a number of mathematical formulas that could meet the objective of at least one representative per state and representation proportional to population.  A simple procedure known as the “Wyoming” rule, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule, would set the number of representatives in each state based on its ratio to the state with the smallest population, which according to the 2010 census was Wyoming. Had this change in apportioning the House of Representatives been adopted in 1930, it would NOT have changed the outcome of any presidential election since 1930, including the most recent election in 2020.  However the California congressional delegation would have increased from 53 to 66, which is in line with the size of its population which was 66 times that of Wyoming according to the 2010 Census.

This would require that the size of the House be increased from its current 435 to 537, according to the 2010 Census (the 2020 Census results have not yet been officially released).  While this rule would have required the size of the house to be 1343 in 1930, 537 in 2020 seems reasonable even if all members were to be accommodated by the current House Chamber.  Given today’s technology which also allows for remote attendance at debates and votes, adoption of the “Wyoming” rule would bring the apportionment of the House closer to one man, one vote; while meeting the constitutional requirement of one representative from each state.  This changes the numbers of the Electoral College but does not abolish the Electoral College.  But it does bring its size closer to its original intent.

Socialism Is NOT A Political System

 

Rocky Racoon 

Her name was Magill,
and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy. 

Names don’t matter if we truly understand something. They do matter if we don’t. 

Socialism has become a common slur in American politics applied by those on the right to policies promoted by the left.  Senator Mitch McConnel opposes a $2000 COVID stimulus because it is socialism for the rich.  Silly Senator!  Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. Just as, Capitalism is an economic system, not a political system. 

And socialism is also NOT communism, any more than the regulated American form of capitalism is unregulated capitalism.  Communism is where ALL means of productions and outputs of production are the property of the state, society.  Unregulated capitalism is where ALL means of production and outputs are the property of individuals.  However neither extreme is perfect. 

Under Communism, if all means of production and outputs are the property of the state, there is no incentive for individual members of that state, society, to seek more efficient solutions. 

Capitalism assumes, among other things, that all buyers have perfect knowledge and that all sellers have unlimited access to buyers. 

Socialism, as practiced in the Nordic Countries, is where, among other things, only SOME  economic sectors, for example health care or energy, are controlled by the state and all other economic sectors are controlled by individuals. 

Regulated Capitalism, as practiced in the United States, is where sellers are required to disclose certain things so that buyers have more perfect knowledge (e.g. Food Labels) and  are prohibited from keeping others from entering the market (e.g. anti-trust laws). 

The fact that some proponents of an economic system (e.g. Karl Marx, or Vladimir Lenin) were also atheists only means that they were atheists, not that communism, or socialism, is inherently atheistic, any more than capitalism is pro-religion.  A religious or philosophical  system is NOT an economic system. 

Game theory would characterize capitalism as a user optimal solution and communism as a system optimal solution.  The sum of user optimal, equilibrium, solutions is often NOT the system optimal  solution.  Regulated capitalism or socialism, which again is not communism, are both less extreme systems that seek to make the sum of the user optimal equilibrium solutions closer to the system optimal solution. 

A $2000 stimulus is a political solution intended to work for any economic system.  Characterizing it as socialism is a blatant attempt to change the discussion from the merits of a political solution to the merits of economic systems.

The War Against Christmas

 

You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch,
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch,
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
"Stink, stank, stunk"!

The Grinch may have declared WAR against Christmas, but some Grinches are NOT whom you think they are.

Grinches didn’t like gift giving on St. Nicholas Day (Dec 6th) or Three King’s Day (Jan 6th) , so gift giving was moved to Christmas Day (Dec 25th). They objected to gifts being given by Santa Claus, so gifts were given by the Christkind.  When that failed to stop the holiday, they banned Christmas entirely.  But the spirit endured.  Now they have changed tactics and have claimed that they are fighting on the side of Christmas in a war against Christmas.  Never mind that the wife of the family, whom complained very loudly about the war on Christmas, said “who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations?”.

But it isn’t about the decorations.  As even the Grinch learned,

“It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.     
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” 

Whether you choose to call it Christmas, Diwali, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Festivus, or some other holiday, we are celebrating the triumph of hope that light and life will return in these shortest and deadest days of the year.  And that there will be “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” And that is what Christmas is about, Charlie Brown.  I know who my enemies are, and when they are AT War , not AGAINST War, on Christmas.

Tyranny of the Minority

Big Boss Man

 

Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call? 

You ain't so big,  you're just tall that's all 

A real big boss should be a decision of the majority, not defined by a minority characteristic, such as being tall.

The founding fathers wrote the US Constitution to prevent a tyranny of the majority. They did a good job of that. They did not do such a good job preventing a tyranny of a minority. 

America was founded by those who fled persecution in Europe for largely religious, but also expressing other, minority opinions. When they arrived in what would become the United States, it would have been hoped that they would be aware of that  persecution and would take steps to ensure that they did not themselves persecute others. However as the early history of the Colonies portrays, the persecution of other minorities when they themselves become majorities was rampant. The Constitution and its Amendments took steps to ensure that its republican democracy never became a tyranny of the majority. Minority opinions were protected. It was not the intent of the founding fathers to substitute a “tyranny of the minority” for a “tyranny of the majority”. 

However the election process of “winner take all”, “second place is first loser” has evolved into a system with only two parties. The protections are such that minority opinion can dominate. For example, the Gallup Poll announced that Donald Trump was the Most Admired Man in the US in 2020, beating out Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Anthony Fauci. I would suggest that Donald Trump was NOT the second, third, or fourth choice of those selecting these other finishers. What is true is that the Donald Trump captured the largest number of FIRST place votes, even though that number of first place votes was a minority. This is NOT the way Most Valuable Players or Best College Football, or  Basketball, Team, or other polls work. Because it is an opinion, points are awarded for second, third, and other choices. In doing so the “best” does not have to capture the most first place votes, only the highest number of total voting points. 

The system in place, as opposed to the one in sports, or as proposed by rank choice voting, ultimately evolves into a two-party system, with a winner and a loser. It also leads to a polarized system where the losers may seek to overturn the determination that they are the loser by any means possible. Protection of a minority does not mean domination by that minority.