Culture

It is really hard to get any work done much less have time to write a newsletter when there are so darn many Christmas parties to attend but...

As the year comes toward its end there are things which continue to mystify me. I think that first and foremost is why anyone cares about Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. I know that Paris Hilton had a TV program and seems to be able to get in the news weekly but the simple fact is that the is merely a famous nobody. I know that Britney Spears is a singer but, alas, I don't even know if I have ever heard anything that she has done. There is something to this entire issue of celebrities that I just don't get. I care nothing about what Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie are doing. That is not true of Pamela Anderson.

I suppose that there is a symbiotic relationship between movie stars and the media just as there is between sports and the media. Sports and celebs sell papers. My insightful analysis of Treasuries is not of interest to the general public and, besides, you folks get it for free. But people are, you know, like interested, like, you know in what Paris Hilton, like, has to you know say. Maybe we need to blame Bush for this spate of bad grammar. While folks may discuss his politics to no end there is no question that he is the most inarticulate President I have ever, you know, like listed to.

As long as we are talking about culture I must reveal that I have a large folder with stuff I have written in the past intending it for these newsletters and am never really sure if some of this actually made it into a past newsletter.

Wait. First I am going to repeat last weeks "blurb" about refinancing in 2007.

I want to address here one set of folks. This includes everyone with a 5/1 or 7/1 ARM and especially those who have good rates (say something near 5%) and a couple of years left.

Assuming that you plan on keeping this property for more than a year after the rate adjusts you must not be lulled into thinking that you can forego this refinancing opportunity and get the same deal two years from now.

There should be two things that you are looking to do in 2007.

1) get a fixed rate loan that will last you a lifetime or

2) replace your current ARM with one at the same or lower rate and move the date on which the rate will adjust out another 5 o7 7 years.

You must not fret over the fact that if you go for the 30 year fixed rate option you may be paying more for a year or two. The difference will be marginal but the entire point is letting the lender/investor take the rate risk for the next 30 years. The economic value of that cannot be know at the time. This is about risk avoidance.

2007 will be a year to ditch your ARM for a fixed rate or, at bare minimum, push out the rate adjustment date.

The French

I have been to France twice. Paris is an incredibly beautiful city. The first time that I went to Paris was in 1981. Near the end of my stay there I had a remarkably odd experience. I had a rental car and was driving back from the Louvre to the Bristol Hotel when I came upon a group of a dozen people blocking the intersection with their cars. They were shouting. I realized that while I speak a certain measure of French all bets are off when it comes to understanding what a group of people are screaming. I really had no idea what was happening.

The people in the cars around me seemed calm. I was not sure what this meant. I mean, that's the same thing they did
when the Germans invaded. I had no idea what was happening, what the demonstrators were saying and what their intentions
were. After about five minutes I decided that I was going to get out of there. Mine was the first car stopped so I decided to go very slowly and make a 90 degree right turn and drive in a direction perpendicular to the scene. I was not driving toward the demonstrators but away from them at a pace of, perhaps, 3 mph, I mean, 4 kph. All hell broke loose. Two or three of the demonstrators jumped on the hood of my Fiat Ritmo and dented the crap out of it. In hindsight, I had broken protocol. The thing to do (I later found out) was to just wait until they were done demonstrating and drive on.

The group demonstrating was called "CIDUNATI" which is an acronym for some French expression. I think that at that time this was a labor union for professional and technical workers.

I think that part of understanding the French is recognizing that they have a different viewpoint about the relationship of capital
and labor than Americans do.

I think that the French subscribe to classic Marxist theory.

They believe in the notion that the proletarians (folks who sold their labor for cash) would be taken advantage of by the bourgeoisie (the bosses or company owners). Marx was rooted is the concept of classes which have largely vanished in modern America where the vast majority of us are middle class homeowners. These notions are more accepted in a country
such as France which has an advanced capitalistic economic system which is imbued with socialist notions about labor and
entitlement. Americans are more pragmatic. We believe that everyone is better off with a house and two cars. The notion of
"bourgeoisie" does not exist to any significant extent in America.

The contributions of the French to contemporary philosophy are rooted in the secular notions of moral relativism (existentialism) and the extended inanities of the recently deceased Derrida and deconstruction. Whereas existentialism and moral relativism are
philosophical ideas meriting discussion, deconstruction is drivel.

The French see themselves as sophisticated compared to Americans. By their standards they are totally correct. But no one
who does not have too much time on their hands can take deconstruction seriously. In the United States its proponents are
college students who are attracted to it because it is intellectually stimulating even though it is drivel.

For me the difference between the French and Americans can be most easily seen in food. Classic French cooking is an
art based of starting with mediocre ingredients. The solution is to cook the heck out of food and put spectacular sauces on it. Contemporary American haute cuisine starts with the proposition that we have great, fresh meats and vegetables and raise them to new standards by dazzling feats of daring with colors and ingredients. The only rule is that there are no rules. American cuisine is like American movies or theater - the emphasis is on entertainment, not art.

America thrives by having little value for what went before. The only contemporary politician who has a strong sense of the importance is history is Newt Gingrich. Whether it is food, technology or pop culture we are "out there." The French have a deservedly proud tradition of veneration of their culture.

I think that the French also have a different perspective about work. The French are not workaholics as are Japanese, Germans or Americans. The are trying to shape an economic system with a minimal work week. Indeed they may discover a better relationship between work and the rest of life than Americans do and that is relevant to my piece last year about how technology will diminish the necessity of a long work week. In short, the French may be onto something.

It is impossible to separate the roots of existentialism from French experience in the two World Wars. World War I created
it and World War II sold it. Existentialism emphasizes moral relativism. There is no higher authority. Life is what we make it. The notions of esistentialism and moral relativism did not occur in vacuum. They were the consequence of educated people philosophizing about the meaning of life after some grim events. In a very real sense this can be compared to contemporary rap and African-American city culture. Like it or not, rap seeks to explain life amid the chaos of drive-by shootings, crack and a confused notion about women.