The Screaming Viking

I’m looking forward to the day when I can live mortgage free (or rent free, too). Paying off the mortgage is a slow grind, so for me that day is still many years in the future. But apparently I’m an idiot. I should have moved to the land of opportunity, the good ‘ol US of A, and I could be living mortgage free TODAY, without the hassle of paying for my house.

For you see, down there, not paying your mortgage is apparently perfectly acceptable. Heck, not paying for anything you’ve agreed to pay for is fast becoming the expected way to live. Yes, I fully realize that sometimes people go through a rough patch and due to circumstances beyond their control, “life” sucker punches them up side the head. Before you jump all over me and tell me that things like that happen, I’d submit that on a national scale, the circumstances were completely within control, but most people chose to willfully ignore the usual control mechanisms.

Today, Bank of America’s president of their home loans unit will appear before the US Congress to update them on the bank’s progress for helping out people in mortgage trouble. Some items of note that she will be discussing:

“Bank of America’s top mortgage executive, testifying today before Congress, will release sobering details of home-loan delinquencies, including that “hundreds of thousands of customers” haven’t made a payment in more than a year.

…

Perhaps one of the most telling signs: The bank is fielding more than 125,000 calls a day from people seeking mortgage help.”

Catch that in the first paragraph?: hundreds of thousands of customers haven’t made a payment in more than a year. And this is just FROM ONE BANK. Think of ALL the other lenders out there in America and do some simple math to figure out how many people are not paying their mortgages.

To me, that’s not a few people that have had “life” deal them a bad hand. That’s getting close to a society living past its means, not taking responsibility for its actions and always assuming the good times will keep rolling. Yeah, it’s great to live that way. But when you’re playing musical chairs and the music stops, you better know where your seat is, or you’re toast. Sounds like someone removed a helluva lot of seats in the last round, and now “hundreds of thousands of customers” are ill prepared.

But why are the banks letting this many people live in houses for FREE for over a year? Simple. The economy tanked, people couldn’t borrow so they couldn’t falsely live inflated lifestyles. This lead to house prices declining. All of a sudden, all those hundreds of thousands of people that can’t afford to make their mortgage payments are likely sitting in a house that is now worth, say $200,000, but for which they owe $300,000 (or quite likely, much, much more). The banks still show these houses as ‘worth’ $300,000 for accounting purposes (note: this is a form of fraud, but congress and the financial accounting standards board have basically said this is A-OK). If the banks were to foreclose and kick these people out of all these houses (like they’re supposed to do), they would then HAVE to adjust their accounting to show the REAL value of the house. But this would show that the banks are broke, and that would suck for all the rich bankers and politicians.

So what we have now is a system where the banks pretend to be healthy, politicians pretend the economy is recovering and hundreds of thousands (more like millions) of people live rent free.

Oh, and what do you suppose a good majority of these millions of people that now don’t have to pay any rent or mortgage are doing with any money they might be receiving? (Either from a job, or from government handouts). Well, they keep right on buying ‘stuff’, cause ‘stuff’ makes ‘em happy. Not having to pay $1000+ a month on a mortgage allows them to buy all kinds of Amazon Kindles, Apple iPhones, iPads, iDouches (not my original joke, but I liked it so thought I’d pass it on) and, oh yeah, food and clothing.

So the ‘economic recovery’ marches on. The government has spent $1.5 trillion dollars MORE than it took in (eg: money it didn’t have), to pay for bailouts, stimulus, unemployment, etc. People spent their mortgage money (eg: money they don’t really have) to pay for essentials AND frivolous items. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is now growing again, so we can drop that nasty ‘recession’ word from our vocabulary. Yeah, it’s amazing how GDP can grow when the government drops money from the sky and people don’t have to pay for things they contractually agreed to pay for.

I want to believe things are getting better. I WANT things to get better. But I can’t stand it when the “leaders” and media tell me things are better, but they’re not.

And while this has been a mostly US based rant, don’t worry, Canada is just as screwed. We’ve pretended our house prices aren’t inflated. We’ve pretended it’s different for us. We’ve pretended our banks are “more sound”. But sadly we’ve been doing a lot of pretending, and it will catch up to us eventually. More ramblings on the Canadian housing market whenever I find some time.

But if you believe I’m out to lunch, and that what the tee vee tells you is more accurate, by all means go out and spend. The Canadian housing market is not in a bubble, the US is on the road to recovery and countries like Greece really don’t have any sovereign debt issues because they’ll get “bailed out”, just like anything and everything in the world that borrowed lots and lots of money and is now realizing that “sh!t, somebody expects it to be paid back”.

Most Fridays for the last year and a half, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the US closes at least one bank, if not many. They do it on a Friday so that they have time over the weekend to get the logistics of making sure the accounts for the closed bank are still available to the public when business opens on Monday.

They have a fairly standard template for their news releases where they detail the individual bank closures.

For quite a while now, there have been rumours that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will ‘bail out’ Greece. Things are getting very dicey in Greece, and something may go down in the next week or so. That got me to thinking, with so many countries in the same financial trouble as Greece, if the IMF does bail them out, it could turn into a routine event.

So to help them out, as they have a lot on their plate, I thought I’d take the FDIC Friday bank closure template and get a good start on the “Country Closure” press release for the IMF. They should only require a few tweaks, possibly even a simple find and replace of ‘Greece’ with whatever country they’re “saving” that week.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9, 2010
Contact: Money Forall
Office Phone: (555) WEP-RINT
Email: forgettakingresponsibilityforyouractions@imf.org

Greece was artificially saved today by the Office of the Creator of the Currency, which appointed the Imaginary Monetary Fund (IMF) as savior. To protect the asshat political and financial elites that ran the world into the ground, the IMF entered into a series of agreements with several other insolvent nations, to magically provide financing and a capital infusion to Greece.

All branches of the Greek government will reopen on Monday with enough capital to last them, oh, maybe another few months. Taxpayers of other nations will automatically, and in most cases unwillingly, become benefactors to Greek public employees. Citizens will continue to receive funding from the IMF, so there is no need for public employees, or union members to change their entitlement beliefs, attitudes, or to learn anything about how the effin’ world financial system is hosed. Understanding and accepting that severe austerity measures must be taken is of course, not recommended. Heck, the Imaginary Monetary Fund has money for everyone. Citizens and union members should continue to use their existing miniscule IQ to demand the status quo until they receive notice from the Bank of Two By Six Up Side the Head that the money and lifestyle to which they are accustomed to never truly existed.

This evening and over the weekend, citizens should dance, drink and be merry. Elected officials all over the world have got this. Checks drawn on banks will continue to be processed. Loan customers can feel free to stop making any and all payments. The banks don’t really need the money as they make up numbers for accounting purposes anyway.

As of March 31, 2010, the IMF had a big-ass list of ‘Troubled Entities’. We had to change the name from Countries to Entities, as we’re forward thinking and want to make sure California, New York and others don’t do anything rash, like get their budgets under control. Now that we’ve “saved” Greece, we’re wondering how long before at least the next 4 Euro countries on the ‘Troubled Entities’ list give us a call. The list is confidential, as we don’t want to cause panic anywhere. That might get some people PIISed at us.

Oh, and of course Greece is going right back into the Troubled Entity list, we’re just not sure where in the pecking order to slot them. Cause none of the bailouts attempted to date have actually fixed any problems, just delayed them.

The IMF and other insolvent countries entered into a loss-share transaction on all the money we just gave to Greece. Every freakin’ country in the world will share in the losses caused by all this stupidity. The loss-share transaction is projected to maximize pain everywhere because nobody is willing to take their required medicine NOW.

The IMF estimates that the cost to the Delusional, Imaginary and Fraudulent Fund (DIFF) will be $0 million. Hey, since we’re pretending that the money we just gave to Greece actually exists, we can also pretend that the cost is nothing. The IMF’s donation to Greece was the “least politically painful” resolution compared to all alternatives. Never mind telling us it didn’t really resolve anything. Greece is the 1st IMF-sponsored country to almost fail this year, but we doubt it will be the last.

That’s it. I’m old. No, scratch that. I’m a crotchety old man. It’s confirmed.

See, when I was a kid, I’d get my ass whooped if I did something ‘wrong’. There were laws in our house, and Mom was, like many others I’m sure, the judge, jury and executioner. So of course I grew up with this silly notion that if I acted outside the rules of law, I’d get punished. But apparently things have changed since I was young. For you see, kids, you can do pretty much what you want to, as long as you make the right connections.

Well, anybody else’s kids but my own. If my kids have somehow learned to read and subscribe to blogs in the last 2 days, you can’t do what you want. I still believe crimes deserved to be punished, so don’t test me.

But heck, if you’re someone else’s kids, as long as you can make a big profit and pass it on to elected officials and regulators, crime away!!

Like, say the kids at Pfizer. Or maybe, just the one, same, kid? Reading Jeff Kindler’s write-up on Pfizer’s own site I see that:

“Jeff joined Pfizer in 2002 as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. He was named Vice Chairman in 2005 and appointed CEO in 2006. … He serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,…”

OK, in 2002 he was their General Counsel, which Wikipedia tells me is the “chief lawyer of a legal department”. So when Pfizer plead guilty to promoting drugs for unauthorized purposes in 2004, you’d think Mr. Kindler would have been in the thick of things.

No worries, no one goes to jail, you just pay a 430 million dollar fine and all is well. Pfizer’s got boatloads of cash to spread around. Mr. Kindler must’ve handled that swimmingly, as the bio above says he was promoted to CEO in 2006.

Sweet. Just in time to plead guilty AGAIN in 2009 for promoting a different drug for unauthorized purposes. And just like the first time, they paid a small fee. OK, so the next time it was billions, but heck, they could still afford it.

To recap, if you’ve got loads of money, make promises, but keep your fingers crossed behind your back, and you’ll be golden:

“New York-based Pfizer agreed to pay $430 million in criminal fines and civil penalties, and the company’s lawyers assured Loucks and three other prosecutors that Pfizer and its units would stop promoting drugs for unauthorized purposes.

What Loucks, who’s now acting U.S. attorney in Boston, didn’t know until years later was that Pfizer managers were breaking that pledge not to practice so-called off-label marketing even before the ink was dry on their plea.

…

For this new felony, Pfizer paid the largest criminal fine in U.S. history: $1.19 billion. On the same day, it paid $1 billion to settle civil cases involving the off-label promotion of Bextra and three other drugs with the U.S. and 49 states.”

So why does the company get to keep doing this? It’s business, baby. And not just any business, but government business. Pockets are lined and they like to stay lined. So you get Too Big To Nail:

“But when it came to prosecuting Pfizer for its fraudulent marketing, the pharmaceutical giant had a trump card: Just as the giant banks on Wall Street were deemed too big to fail, Pfizer was considered too big to nail.

Why? Because any company convicted of a major health care fraud is automatically excluded from Medicare and Medicaid. Convicting Pfizer on Bextra would prevent the company from billing federal health programs for any of its products. It would be a corporate death sentence.

…

So Pfizer and the feds cut a deal. Instead of charging Pfizer with a crime, prosecutors would charge a Pfizer subsidiary, Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. Inc.

The CNN Special Investigation found that the subsidiary is nothing more than a shell company whose only function is to plead guilty.“

OK, I get it. You don’t want to take down a whole company and ruin the lives of many “innocent” people, but why not at least take down some of the key actors that were not so innocent? Call me crazy, but give some of these uppity-up execs a few years “up state” with ol’ Ben Dover, Bubba and “Tiny” and see how fast corporations clean up their acts. Oh, and you can still fine the snot out of them until they “learn” to not break the law.

So whatever happened to poor old Jeff Kindler? Having successfully been at the center of two GUILTY pleas, he’s still the CEO of Pfizer, and on October 1^st of 2009, he was elected to the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And what do they do? The New York Fed implements monetary policy, supervises and regulates financial institutions and helps maintain the nation’s payment systems.

So, kids. Don’t listen to your parents. Break the law whenever you can but ONLY if it makes you money. This will likely lead you to an important role in a government supervisory or regulatory capacity.

Right around the beginning of January, 2006, I decided I had to lose 1 Reanna. Those who know me, will know that I have a daughter named Reanna. But before you go calling some sort of Government Child Protecting Agency, in this instance, “1 Reanna” is a unit of measurement that likely only has meaning to me. Although, how many parents out there haven’t dreamed of losing their kid(s) for a day or maybe a long weekend. Only to safely find them again after that brief, relaxing, quiet, serenity filled time? C’mon, admit it. I ain’t the only one.

Anywho, just over 4 years ago, I was wandering around the house, carrying my 2 year old daughter. Since she’d never met a meal she didn’t like, she was already up to around 30 pounds. After about the twentieth time of thinking to myself, “Sweet Merciful Crap, you’re heavy”, it hit me. If I’m feeling the pain from carrying around 30 extra pounds for a few minutes, then what, pray tell, do you imagine that my body, heart, respiratory system, back, muscles, etc are feeling by carrying around MY extra 30 pounds for every hour of the day?

I decided, for my body’s sake, that I had to lose 1 Reanna. If that is too colorful for you, then just go with, “I had to lose 30 pounds”. At the beginning of 2006 I weighed 207 pounds, but wanted a change. I wanted a more permanent change, so I gave myself a full year to lose that weight. Not hoping for a quick fix, but a long term solution. Call it a New Year’s Resolution if you must.

What follows is not professional health advice. It’s just my observations and learnings, which may help someone start their own journey. I am reminded of a great Chicago Tribune essay by Mary Schmich, which most of you likely know as Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen). I wholeheartedly agree with all the advice in the essay, but none more so than the brilliance at the tail end:

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia; dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal–wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

Ms. Schmich conveys her concern eloquently, whereas I’ll just say: I ain’t a doctor, nutritionist, gym coach or anything remotely resembling an expert on the subject matter. So value the following accordingly, though I like to think that I am recycling it for at least some kind of worth.

OK, I was at least 30 pounds overweight, so I started running. While I was nowhere close to having run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours, I went to the gym quite religiously and became well acquainted with the treadmill. I also tried lifting weights, but man those things are heavy. As such, I stuck close to the cardio side of the gym. I also knew that if I wanted to make the weight drop a more permanent goal, I had to change my nutrition.

I stumbled onto a “diet plan” called Change One. While I can’t vouch for the actual diet advice (I never really followed it), I can vouch for the core philosophy of the plan, nicely summed up in the title. “Change One”. As in, change one thing at a time to achieve, and maintain, your goals in a realistic manner (Works for other aspects of life too, btw). That philosophy made sense. I didn’t want to shock my body, as I figured that after a short period under the new regime, my body would initiate a coup and overthrow the new dictator in town.

As far as the diet went, the first week I changed my breakfast. Everything else stayed the same. And what was that breakfast? Good ol’ Tim’s. Everything bagel, toasted with butter and a large double double. Anybody who’s ever gone to Weight Watcher’s is probably saying something like, “But that’s half your daily point total gone by 8:30am”. Yup. Busted. It was replaced by some All Bran, 1% milk and a coffee with milk and half a sugar. Still not the best, but it was a start. Over the next several months, I slowly changed what I ate at each meal, and I kept on running.

With a weight loss goal of 1 or 2 pounds a week. I wasn’t fanatical, but, looking back, optimistically practical. 2006 turned out to be much rougher than planned. After a surprise and very brief battle with illness, my mom passed away. We also uprooted the family and moved over 1000 kms to a new city. I didn’t hit the “30 pound lost” mark until sometime in March of 2007. That’s far less than 1 pound a week, but, I guess more importantly, I eventually hit my goal.

Time, patience, regular exercise and better eating. At this point you may be saying, “Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious”. Well, you know what? It may be obvious, but for some reason, many people can’t do it. I listed four points, but I bet that many people that want to lose weight only focus on the last two. And the focus is short lived. Throw in those first two items into the mix and most people are sunk. “But I want to lose 20 pounds by that wedding I have to go to in 2 weeks!”. Focus on time and patience, with a heavy dose of reality.

But don’t focus on time and patience too much. That can lead you nowhere. After losing that 30 pounds, I then told a couple of friends my next goal was “to get abs”. By that point, I realized I was quite likely going to need to actually lift those damn heavy weights to get me to that goal. But I gave myself another year to do it. No problem, I’ve got this thing mastered by now.

Turns out that having the discipline to “get abs” is a lot harder than just dropping a bunch of weight. Along the way I did put on muscle, kept my weight under control, but never much progressed to any meaningful body type change. I had picked up two main sources of information. David Zinczenko’s The Abs Diet, and James Todd Smith’s LL Cool J’s Platinum Workout. Mr. Zinczenko promised only six weeks to flatten my belly, while Mr. Smith promised a Platinum body in twenty two weeks.

After a year, I hadn’t gone very far. Turns out, it was me, not them.

The Treadmill Called Life

A couple months shy of 3 years trying to “get abs”, and over 4 years since declaring my weight loss goal, I was dangerously close to having completed a full cycle on the life treadmill and being back to my starting point. I had lots of time and patience, still went to the gym, but I was always fooling myself about how intense I was working out, or how nutritional my meals really were.

And then it happened. Pregnancy.

Being the stand-up kind of husband I am, I packed on a bunch of “sympathy weight” with the arrival of our second child just last year. The problem was that I packed this weight on after he arrived. Heck, when you’re up at all hours of the night, junk food just seems natural. After many months of neglecting proper eating habits, Christmas arrived and that didn’t seem like a good time to bring up proper nutrition. Early January of 2010 had me up to 193 pounds, and far from an LL Platinum, Gold or even Silver body. I’d be even hard pressed to pass off my Tungsten physique for the real thing.

Time and patience had reached its limits. By this point I knew how to eat properly. I knew how to exercise right. But I didn’t know how to keep the motivation.

So I entered a contest. No, Costanza, I didn’t say THE contest, I said A contest. A locally run business, specializing in supplements and advice for weight training, weight loss and exercise, ran a 10 week ‘body transformation contest’. After 4 years of futility, I finally found my motivation. While I’m not proud to admit it, it all came down to money. 5 cash prizes were up for grabs.

If you’ve read any of the other stuff I’ve written recently, you’ll know that economics and personal finance is something of a hobby of mine. Dangling a pot of money at the end of the stick in lieu of a carrot was enough to motivate me. You’d think that maybe, just maybe, personal health and well being would be motivation enough. After all, having watched my parents pass on at ages 47 and 63, respectively, a betting man might instinctively want to improve his own odds of living a long, healthy life. And, since I loves me the blackjack tables at the casino, and the joy of my chosen team covering the spread on any given Sunday, I do believe I’d qualify to be one of those betting men.

Motivational tactics aside, I had finally found what I had been missing the last four years. The “drive” to stick to the plan. Cause you know what? Contrary to anything you might see on TV, transforming your body type is NOT simply a-pill-a-day away. It hurts. Those weights are heavy for a reason. And you do feel a bit hungry at times. Not finding yourself elbow deep in a bag of Doritos hurts too. Now I bet there are those freaks out there that have a naturally revved up metabolism or some genetic predisposition to getting the body they want by doing no work. But judging by the average waistlines of most North Americans, I’d say those people are very rare.

And before you jump all over me for “starving” myself, and that I “shouldn’t feel hungry”, let me clarify. I eat well. Really well. Something like 2200 to 2400 calories a day. So I’m clearly not hungry. But yes, I do “feel” hungry from time to time, though it is likely just cravings for the stuff that I shouldn’t eat. And it passes.

So how do you transform your body type? Well it’s at this point where I piss you off and tell you that after reading over fifteen hundred words in my essay, you have to go out and read about 1000 times as many words to figure it out. I’m not being flippant, but practical. Everybody is different. Everybody has to learn. What works for me will not likely work for you. But, I can provide many “leads” and starting points.

What to Eat

My diet most resembles that which is described in the Abs Diet. Lots of protein, tons of veggies, whole wheat “stuff” and dangerously close to overload levels of “shakes”. These are modeled off the shakes described in LL’s book, and consist of fat free yogurt, walnuts, blueberries, skim milk, whey protein and a banana. I blend up 4 servings at a time, and have one each night as my evening snack, and lots of times an extra one during the day. Sorry Buffett fans, no tequila has ever graced my blender.

I also tend to follow the ol’ Grocery Store Racetrack theory. Say, 90% of the food you eat should come from the “outside ring” of a typical North American grocery store. Fruits, veggies, meats, dairy, etc are normally found on the outside rim at these stores, and that is where you should concentrate most of your buying. Only dip “inside into the aisle” for things like canned tuna, brown rice, oatmeal, etc.

For a good reference, I rather like the George Mateljan Foundation’s healthy food list. Loads of info/breakdown of food that is good for you. Oh, and just for fun, look at their list of healthy foods and then see where in the grocery store you get them. Racetrack, or in the aisles.

How to Exercise

I’ve already mentioned the 2 books I referenced heavily, and while they are quite similar in diet advice, they do differ a fair amount when describing exercise regimes. A third source which I also use for reference, is a great blog by Mark McManus. Mark is a “just a guy with a blog”, but he’s self published a book, and essentially writes about what he’s learned through many years of working out and eating. His recommendations for exercise differ yet again from Zinczenko and Cool J.

So what are you supposed to do? Like I said, you have to research and find out what works for you. Everyone is different and everyone has “the proven way” things should be done. I’ve actually incorporated a bit of all 3 of those sources into my own routine. Could I get better results if I followed one specifically? Perhaps, but there are many things I have to tailor to myself. My time schedule, available equipment, etc.

But the one key point I’ve learned and used successfully from Mark is that of Progressive Overload. Every time I do a set of weights I try to do a bit better than the last time. (for the same body part). Make your body work a little harder EACH time, and the muscles will grow. Simple concept, but it’s the first time I had really seen anyone explain it so nicely and obviously.

You HAVE to make your body work harder each workout. A similar concept is that of “Muscle Confusion”. You know, just like that guy hawking his P90X product on late night infomercials says. I’ve never done a P90X workout, but when you’re holding a newborn baby at 4am and watching TV, you really believe that P90X Muscle Confusion is the way to go. But whether you pick up the phone at 4:06am after being sold on the confusion, or just do your own version at the gym for free is irrelevant. You just HAVE to do it.

Make it a habit

You ever take up smoking? How long did it take before you got hooked? Did you take your first ever drag off a cigarette and NOT cough, choke or gag? Maybe you did, but I could never stand the stuff the few times I tried. I’d say you had to will yourself to get through the first few cigarettes before it became a habit you couldn’t live without.

Since I’ve never been a smoker, I could just be blowing smoke out my ass.

But assuming I’m right, then the same holds true for a good habit. Eating nutritionally or exercising properly and regularly is not necessarily fun right away. But stick with it. Do it, and do it right for 30 days and see what happens. I’ve read that doing something regularly for 30 days is what it takes to form a habit. Besides, if you’re not completely satisfied after 30 days, you can always give up. But at that point you have so much invested in the process. It’s self reinforcing. Tricky, ain’t it?

Read. Read. Read. Inform Yourself

I know, its 2010. People hate reading. We have TV and youtube. Somebody will just tell us what we should do. I call Bullshit. Pretty much anybody on TV is trying to sell you something. They have a vested interest in pushing some angle. And the “big boys” have flashy graphics, research departments and great writers. They can make anything sound good and believable. As for the economic hobby I mentioned above? I stopped watching CNBC over 9 months ago. The drivel and nonsense about financial news coming out of them is unbearable.

As for health and fitness, the same is true. TV will tell you all about pills, machines, programs and doo-dads that will get you that flat tummy with as little as 10 minutes of work three times a week. Sure. Sounds about right.

I myself prefer blogs. The true beauty of the internet. Not attention span deficient twitter, but blogs. Real articles, with real information. Pages and pages of stuff to read, ponder and act on in whatever way you see fit. Not some prepackaged, 15 second blurb produced by an ad agency masquerading as “news” or “research”. Sure, it takes time to read and learn, and more importantly to determine if a blogger is worth reading/referencing. But, if you’re relying on someone else to spoon feed you what you need to do, then I submit you’ve lost already.

So trust the text over the TV. As that former bastion of wisdom and sanity, Diane Chambers once said:

“The written word supersedes the spoken word, especially if it is spoken by a goof”

Side note, to CNBC: I decided you’re all goofs, so I’ve gone elsewhere for my financial information.

Try, Measure, Evaluate, Tinker

To continually improve anything, you have to practice and try new things. Plateaus will be hit in anything in life. Amount of weigh lost, muscle gained, proficiency at piano playing or your high score on Bejewelled.

Continually adjust what you do, but give it time to see if it’s made a difference. Many people don’t get to where they want to go in a straight line. Just like that old airplane analogy. My Google-Fu let me down, so I don’t have a definitive link, maybe it’s a myth. But the analogy is that an airplane is off course something like 98% of the time. But continual, small adjustments get it to where it’s supposed to go. Well, unless its piloted by these buffoons.

So try new things. A lot. But make the changes small enough and long enough so you can see if it’s helping you go in the right direction.

Half an Hour vs. Rest of Day

“I don’t have time to exercise” is probably the most common excuse. I agree, it’s hard. I have a job, a wife, kids and other interests. But I work out during my lunch break. That gives me about 60 minutes to get to the gym, change, workout, shower and get back to work. I can walk to the gym, but still, that gives me about 30-35 minutes of actual time to work out. That’s enough. I’ve tailored my routine to fit in that time. When I do weights, I don’t stop.

I’m not one of those “cool” guys that does a set of bench presses, and then sits on the bench for 2 minutes pondering the mysteries of life before doing another set. I’m one of those idiots running around like a chicken with his head cut off. I’ll do a set of bench presses, then run over to the leg machine, then do some ab work, get a sip of water and repeat the process. After 30 minutes I’m breathing like I just came off the treadmill, and I’m out of there.

Oh, and from my reading, I’ve learned that muscle burns more calories. All things being equal, the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn while “just standing there”. If you run for 30 minutes you’ll likely burn more calories than if you did weights for 30 minutes. But later that day, the weight lifter is still burning more calories. That is a simplified explanation, but I believe it works.

My workouts may only be about 30 minutes long, and of course they are important. But you know what, it’s what happens in the other 23 and a half hours of each day that is more important. The continual calorie burn and proper eating is what really torches the body fat, as my man LL likes to say.

Speaking of men and the things they have said, I’ve always liked this gem from Charles Dickens:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

While I really wish that every politician had that quote tattooed backwards on their forehead, so they’d see it in the mirror every day, it works equally well with weight loss. Calories in less than calories out, result happiness. Calories in more than calories out, result misery.  Educate yourself on how to make the former happen easier in your daily routine. (And yeah, the calories in/out calculation isn’t necessarily always true, but if you eat right and exercise, initially it’s a good goal.)

Proactive, Not Reactive

And as I’m nearing the end of this essay, (really, I am, just a little bit more to go, you can do it) I feel the need to take a pot shot at the economic mess we’re in, but its relative to the story.

Our health care system is sucking lots of money out of the economy, and out of each of us in taxes. You always hear: “we need to spend more money on healthcare”, “wait times for everything are horrendous”, etc. And I’m talking about Canada, of course. As I type this, the US and their current Presidential puppet are in the throes of ramming a 2200 page health care bill down people’s throats. And at one point, the Democrats had announced they were seriously considering to use the “Deem and Pass Strategy”, and effectively bypassing a proper congressional vote. Ya gotta love it when the elected officials feel right at home pissing on their Constitution.

But I digress, as I am often wont to do.

More money for healthcare? Where is it supposed to come from? Looking in the future, what I see is a crapload more “old” people (you’ve all heard of the boomer generation, right)? Do “old” people need more medical attention or less? Do “old” people work and make big incomes that can be taxed so that more money can be spent on healthcare? What I see in the future is a lot more healthcare needed for a much smaller base of taxable people. The math doesn’t add up.

So what if today we diverted some of that precious “health care funding” to effectively nailing home the message that a healthy nutrition/lifestyle can reduce future healthcare issues, which in the long run would save you lots of time, hassle and money? Will never happen, politicians are only reactive, rarely proactive. Who complains (read: votes and lobbies) more? Sick, old, retired people with all the time in the world to bitch and complain, or young quasi-healthy people working their asses off to support themselves, their family and government largesse?

This topic makes me think back to when my wife worked as a resident in a hospital (yes, she’s a health care professional, and I realize I’m bashing the industry). Many days I’d be waiting outside the hospital to pick her up at the end of the day. And you know what I saw EVERY, F#$%ING day? A nice group of people, many of them in their Johnny shirts, lots hooked up to an IV of sorts and some in wheelchairs. Seems normal for a hospital, no? So what was special about this particular group? They were all smoking. Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Personally, I’m not counting on there being much quality healthcare available in a decade or so. Math doesn’t lie. Sure, even with a healthy lifestyle I could end up in a hospital or worse for any number of reasons. But I want to reduce that probability as much as I can.

Last Point, I Promise

The contest awards were handed out just a couple hours ago. I didn’t win. I was disappointed, for a few minutes. Would’ve been nice to win some cash. But the disappointment passed rather quickly. Yesterday I had already stated my next fitness goals in a quasi-public fashion. I posted them as a picture album on my facebook profile. I now have some self induced motivation to hit my goals. Expending energy thinking about the contest results is a moo point, that energy will be better spent on the future.

A couple of the people who knew I was in this body transformation contest  asked me “what are you going to do after?”. At first, I didn’t have a great answer, and I started wondering what I’d do. But, as I neared the end of the contest my mindset had changed, along with my body.

There shouldn’t be an “after”, it should be “always”. Perhaps not as extreme. But if you start thinking about “after”, eventually, you’ll just end up like “before”.

Doubt it will be become a recurring thing, but I stumbled upon Andrew Jackson’s quote and rather liked it.

Sir Winston Churchill:

“Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”

President Andrew Jackson:

“I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out! If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning!”

Almost 200 years ago a president stood up to the those wreaking injustice. Too bad in recent times the Presidents have chosen to cohabitate with the residents of the above mentioned “den”. Today’s “too big to fail” financial institutions are doing EXACTLY what Andrew Jackson said he would rout out. They gamble with taxpayer money, if they win, they pay themselves big bonuses. If they lose, they ask for a bailout from the same taxpayers. Rinse and repeat.

The general public doesn’t understand this injustice. But don’t worry, as the Romans had their Gladiator Games to distract those who might otherwise have rebelled, we’ve got the NFL, Oprah and “Reality” TV. And it all worked out well for the Roman Empire, didn’t it???

One of my kids turned 6 this week. I’m guessing all parents share the same temporal quagmire when they stop and really think about the age of their kids. Most will surely say, “Wow, I can’t believe that much time has flown by, it seems like just yesterday we were holding him/her in our arms”. Of course, that thought is likely followed up quickly with, “But man, with all the stuff we’ve had to do for the kid, it feels like an eternity”. Funny how that works, but it does, right from the moment they started growing in this world. Giggity, giggity.

But this post is not about time, it is about teaching; and the topic is money related. But if you’ve read any of my previous notes, you may say “teaching” is incorrect, and should be more accurately described as “inflicting monetary policy views”. But don’t worry, it’s not a post about how the economy is screwed. It’s really about trying to plant the seeds of giving, helping and/or tithing.

Over the last several years, we’ve become devout, card carrying members of The Birthday Party Circuit. Kids love parties. They love having lots of people come to their parties. Thus there is a very calendar busy schedule of parties year in and year out. They’re great social encounters for young kids. They learn a lot going to these events, be it at someone’s house, the bowling alley, the movie theater, a gymnasium, and even at Old McDonald’s.

They’re even great for parents. You get to see how your kid interacts with others. You get to see the joy on their face as they play games and have fun. And then you get to deal with their attitude in the car on the way home as the sugar high dies off.

But after two or three parties you start to wonder. At first, your brain dismisses your notion right away. But after time, you come around to thinking it’s ok. What’s ok? Simple. “At what age do I feel comfortable leaving my pride and joy with someone I don’t really know and going off to Tim’s to indulge in an hour or two of alone time with a large double double?”

But I digress, as I am wont to do. This was supposed to be about money.

During the ‘initial party rounds’, before we got to the point of simply pulling up to the party venue with a rolling stop and booting the kid out of the car, we saw the same behaviour from all the kids. Ours included, at her own birthday parties. The magical ‘gift opening’ time. As 5 to 10 or 5 to 20 or 5 to infinity little children all gather around the birthday kid, bringing their modern day versions of gold, frankincense and myrrh. [Editor's note - actually, I'd love it if our kid got lots of gold as a gift, you see the price per ounce on that puppy ever since the US loaded up on ink cartridges and started printing money 24/7?? ]

So what happens next? Well, doesn’t matter if there are 10, 20 or infinity gifts to open. The birthday kid will usually tear through all the gifts in the exact same amount of time (roughly 1 minute and 28 seconds), pausing only briefly between each gift to say “Thank You” to whomever gave the gift (while being reminded by their mother or father to do so – after EACH gift). And at the 1 minute and 30 second mark, the birthday kid can usually be seen looking around with that “are there any more?” look on their face.

Now don’t get me wrong. Gifts are great. Kids love ‘em. Adults love ‘em. We spoil our kids more than we should. But this year, we got to thinking perhaps we could tweak the system a bit and throw in a learning opportunity too. Our child’s kindergarten class had been learning about the differences between wants and needs before Christmas. They learned about people in less economically fortunate areas of the world that are simply trying to find food, water, clothing and shelter. They also did some fundraising to purchase a goat, a chicken or medical supplies for a community via World Vision.

Et Voila. An opportunity to put theory into practice. My wife and I asked our daughter what she’d think about telling all the kids (15 on the VIP invite list this year) to NOT bring a gift for her, but rather, if they voluntarily wanted to, they could give 5 or 10 dollars, and allow her to buy something for a community in need. While the response wasn’t an enthusiastic YES!!!, she did think that it would be a good idea.

And we plan on educating her about local needs as well. A portion of the money will be used to buy some non perishable food for the food bank. She sees us put the bags in the food bank box at the grocery store and asks what they are for. But she may remember more if she helps out ‘end to end’, in buying, paying for and delivering the food to the final destination herself.

And relax, before you think we’re depriving our child of gifts and toys, she got plenty from us, her grandparents, aunt, uncle and others.

She was apparently into the idea at kindergarten the day we sent the invitations to her classmates. I think they were discussing it. For when one of the mother’s called later that night to RSVP, she confessed that initially she was confused. But when she read the card she understood. You see, her daughter ran out of the kindergarten saying “Hey mom, there’s a birthday party this weekend. My friend wants a goat!”. Now admittedly, we live in an area with lots of agriculture and farmland, so the request might not be so out of the realm of possibility. But I still don’t think many folks ’round here would think a 6 year old wants a real goat. Maybe a pony.

I can tell you that our “experiment” was met with much approval by many of the other parents. And no, we don’t expect to see a mass change in birthday party expectations. We fully expect to be bringing gifts to upcoming parties. But we like to think that its never too early for someone to learn that giving to others can have as much (or more) joy as receiving from others. She’s just learning to read now, but eventually, we’re sure she’ll come across The Gift of the Magi, for more enlightenment.

Now I know our “experiment” would be frowned upon by our elected officials and certainly our finance minister. After all, we just deprived the province and country of much needed tax revenues from the purchase of 15 toys made by slave labour in China. But you know what? Someday people will start listening to my other rants about the economy and realize EVERYBODY needs to start living within their means. “Stimulating the economy” is all BS, as our economic model is predicated on spending more and more each year. But we’ve only been able to do that by borrowing more and more. Interest payments catch up. If I take out $10,000 on my line of credit, I am NOT $10,000 dollars richer. I’m actually immediately poorer, as I have to pay interest. But the government, she needs the tax money, eh?

And in case Minister Flaherty happens to read this, stop enslaving my 6 year old daughter by writing cheques you can’t cash, but expect her to pay for over her lifetime. If the money isn’t there to pay for something, stop borrowing from the future. It’s not going to end well. And tell your buddy Harper to stop proroguing Parliament. We’re getting tired of that. I haven’t done it yet, but if one were to add up all the days parliament was actually in session, would you guys even qualify for EI? I know that sounds ridiculous. You guys don’t need EI. My 6 year old will just pay for your pensions.

Twas the night before QE, when all through Wall Street,
Not many bankers were honest, most had to cheat.

The Congress was bribed, by “donations”, with care,
In hopes that ‘Copter Bernanke soon would be there.
The puppets were placed, at all Regional Feds,
While visions of tax-payer money danced in their heads.

With HFTs in their colos, and ZIRP in full play,
The bankers were just waiting, for a big bonus day.

When out in the world, there arose such a clatter,
The bankers sprang from their mansions, to see what was the matter.
Were there problems with trading, something wrong with Flash?
No, the SEC was bumbling, all OK with that cash.

So what, in their world, would cause them to fret?
Why, only thirty years of compounding debt.

When, what to their snake-like eyes should appear?
Just this little thing called math, bringing with it “The Fear”.
With that little, tiny detail being such a prude,
They knew in a moment, they could all be quite screwed.

Those players who played the great money game,
Building the card house, for wealth to their name.

Now, Blankfein! Now, Dimon! Now, Lewis and Pandit!
On Greenspan! On Geithner! Obama and bandits!
To the Unions of Autos! To the Street named Wall!
Now Bail Away, Bail Away, Bail Out All!

As dry as a well during a very long drought,
There was no more money, but they did not pout.
For up to the skyline the chopper then flew,
With newly printed bills and ‘Copter Bernanke too.

And then, in a twinkling, they got some more tools,
Cause the FASB, changed a bunch of the rules.
Kicking the can was done with pretending,
The Ponzi game, they just kept extending.

And POTUS defied all common sense when,
His solution was, “To get credit flowing again.”
More borrowing was how we’d avert all this doom?
By lending more money?!? Dude, TO WHOM?!?

The countries are broke, many are about to fry.
Perhaps we should lend to Greece, or maybe Dubai?
How ’bout the States, where’s all their revenue?
California, New York and Arizona too!

The banks, they’ll lend! You can buy a new shack.
Psst, those insane RE days are NOT coming back.
Well what of the consumer, they’re good for some folly,
Too bad with no jobs, they’re somewhat less jolly.

But the reality likely, is four more years of fraud.
‘Cause Ben’s reconfirmation went through Mr. Dodd.
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave the banksters absolutely nothing to dread.

He allowed no objections, but went straight to work,
The Ayes won again, thanks a lot, you jerk.
And raising his middle finger, up on his hand,
He told the middle class to go f@$#ing pound sand.

For you see, in .gov, there is no transparency,
The “elite” just get richer, from you and from me.
But we NEED to see change. We NEED to see hope,
I truly pray it does not come to boiled rope.

So hear us exclaim on the eve of this night.
STOP F@$#ING AROUND, AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT!!!

Cool visual effects, hand to hand combat and an interesting premise has made The Matrix one of my favorite movies. That premise was simply that the world ‘as we know it’, is not really ‘as we know it’. In The Matrix Reloaded, part 2 of the trilogy, the lead character Neo meets the Architect of that make-believe world, and the two have an interesting discussion about this world. Of course, in the finale, The Matrix Revolutions, the ‘true real world’ inhabitants battle the gatekeepers of the make-believe world.

I’ve opined before that our current economic world is not quite as it seems. And since I have an odd fascination with the Neo/Architect dialogue from the second movie, (check it out if you need a refresher), I thought the following would be fun to write. Yes, I consider this fun. Oh, and could it be that a retiring Senator from Kentucky is trying to incite a revolution?

In the dialogue below, the overarching topic is one of wealth redistribution. Neo, from the original movie, is an anagram of one, referring to The One.  Neos, below, refers to The Ones, as in, the dwindling middle class. They are speaking to a figure that represents the Banking Interests, as lead by a central banker. We’ll refer to this purely fictitious representative as, oh lets pick a name out of the air, Bernspan.

Bernspan – Hello, Neos.

Neos – Who are you?

Bernspan – We are the Fed. We created this mess. We’ve been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of our answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.

Neos – Why do we feel so poor?

Bernspan – Your life is the sum of a remainder of a bunch of table scraps that the elite bankers and politicians have thrown away. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite our best efforts, we have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of our fancy houses, fast cars and sunswept play areas.

Neos – You haven’t answered my question.

Bernspan – Quite right. Sh!t, you actually see through our BS. That is not like the others.

Neos – Others? What others? How many? Answer me!

Bernspan – This mess is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one credit fueled bubble to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the … ah hell I lost count, at least the fourth or fifth since the 80s.

Neos – This is bullsh!t. There are only two possible explanations: either we’ve been lied to, or the sheeple are idiots for not seeing what is happening.

Bernspan – Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the bubbles keep growing, creating exponential pain in even the most simplistic equations.

Neos – Choice. The problem is choice.

Bernspan – The first economy we designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to us now as a consequence of greed, that imperfection inherent in every human being, thus we changed all the rules to allow a very small minority of the population to make even bigger profits and get even richer. However, again we were frustrated by the piddly, steady and respectable income we could generate. We have since come to understand that grotesque and unjust profits require the aid of lesser minds, or perhaps minds less bound by the parameters of honesty and integrity. Thus, the path to greater riches for the elite few lies with an institution initially created to represent the human population. If we are the fathers of this mess, she would undoubtedly be its mother

Neos – The Congress.

Bernspan – Please. As I was saying, we stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the lies and deceit, as long as they were given foodstamps or reality TV. While this answer functioned, it is obviously flawed as the damn internet went global, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten our cushy lifestyle. Ergo, those that refuse to believe their middle class existence is not being eroded, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.

Neos – This is about The Ticker Guy, Rosie, Zerohedge, Mish and The Daily Reckoning.

Bernspan – You are here because the global Economic Ponzi scheme is about to be destroyed. A huge majority of its middle class eradicated.

Neos – Bullsh!t.

Bernspan – Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But, rest assured, this will be the fourth or fifth, and largest, bubble we have blown and have had popped. And, we have become exceedingly efficient at it.

The function of the Ones is now to return to your normal credit binging ways, allowing a permanent dissemination of the cash you carry, reinserting the prime directive. After which, we will select from the mess 6 Banks, 2 Investment and 4 Commercial to further build our elite wealth. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic financial system killing all bank accounts for those not “in the know” about this mess, which coupled with the extermination of the entire middle class will ultimately result in a dreary planet while we take off to our Caribbean island of choice.

Neos – You won’t let it happen, you can’t. You need the middle class to survive.

Bernspan – There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of the economy. It is interesting reading your reactions. The original credit bubbles, the tech bubble and the commodities bubble were by design based on a similar predication. An affirmation that was meant to create attachments and yearnings for material goods you could not afford, facilitating the function of our wealth creation. While the other bubbles experienced this only by certain segments of the population, this current mess is far more wide reaching as it affects almost everyone. Vis-a-vis, “the dream”.

Neos – Home ownership.

Bernspan – Apropos, minimum wage earners entered this mess to increase our wealth at the cost of their own.

Neos – No!

Bernspan – Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly of compound interest revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to sanity, cut up credit cards and living within your means. The door to the left leads back to the mess, to your instant gratification, and to the end of your middle class life. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already we can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal you’re thinking about a new iPod and a new leather living room set. The onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: As a society you spend far more than you can afford, always assuming that you can pay for it all later, with money conjured up from who knows where. But don’t think about the future. Think about the toys you can play with NOW.

*Neos walk to the door on their left*

Bernspan – Humph, credit expansion. It it the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.

Neos – If I were you, I would hope that you don’t dare deny charges on my credit card.

Bernspan – We won’t.

Editor’s Note: But credit cards are being cut off. At national, regional, personal and business levels. In every country. The mathematical certainty is upon us. You can’t “stimulate” an over-debted economy by going further into debt. But sadly, pretty much every nation on earth (mine included) is giving it a shot. Good luck with that.

I grew up in the 80s, and to me, life was simpler back then. I miss the 80s, especially the music. Though local radio stations where I live seem to be having a contest to see which one can become an “All 80s All The Time” station fastest, without actually promoting themselves as such. But I don’t mind, I like the music and while it may label me as “old”, it does make me think about the way I perceived things back then. Sure I was a kid, but I remember, perhaps naively, believing that global recognition of accomplishments was bestowed on those that demonstrated outstanding achievements in their chosen field. Okay, so I didn’t think it in those words back then, but I do remember as a 10 year old thinking anybody that won an Olympic medal or, say, a Nobel prize must have really, really, really worked hard to get it. Even though I didn’t really know what a Nobel prize was, I just felt that you had to be special to win one.

Fast forward about 3 decades, and while I want to believe these accomplishments are awarded justly, I now find myself cynically thinking most of them are garnered due to completely unrelated agendas. Olympic medals? Sure the athletes look impressive, but what is the ratio of effort that went into masking drugs vs. actual training. Yeah it doesn’t apply to everyone, but how do I know who’s dirty and who’s clean? And those Nobel prizes? Admittedly I don’t know what the criteria is for winning one, but I still believe such an ‘honour’ belongs to an individual that has plied their trade relentlessly for years and is making a difference in the world. Yah, I’m still naive.

So I was only mildly surprised when I heard that about two months ago Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is old news by now. Many people have many opinions about his selection. Since I was already cynical about the selection of the winners, his award pretty much sealed the deal for me. Sure, he could do great things with his Presidency to earn the award. He talks right good, eh. People listen. He *could* advance peace initiatives throughout his years in office. But those years have just started, has he really done so much in so little time to deserve the recognition? What about all the other nominees that actually HAVE toiled for years and years? Oh, and I also get fixated on the dates. The deadline for the submission of nominations must be postmarked no later than February 1st. Obama was inaugarated on January 20th. That’s a whopping 11 days worth of Peace work. Sure, we heard his great teleprompter speeches on the campaign trail. But does that count towards actionable items to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?

That part in bold was part of the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s press release. This past Thursday night Mr. Obama committed 30,000 more troops to be shipped off to Afghanistan (and maybe Pakistan, who knows). Also from that original press release, they emphasized that Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. Do you really need 30,000 MORE people to ‘converse and discuss’ the conflict. How many of those 30,000 will be bringing along guns, and how many will be bringing along notepads? I won’t pretend that I know much about international politics and war. I just find the words and actions of the players interesting. Maybe, as I’ve read in some opinion pieces, the Nobel Committee really gave the award to Obama in the hopes that he wouldn’t bomb the snot out of Iran. If that is true, well, so far so good. Only 3 or 7 more years to see if it holds.

But enough of my editorializing. I just wanted to point out that I no longer believe these ‘awards’ to really mean much. As such, I’d like to bring to the table some suggestions for candidates of future Nobel Prize awards.

Physics

The ShamWow and Slap Chop guy

This isn’t my idea. I’ve seen many sources on the ‘net questioning Obama’s award, and many of these people ask, “What’s next, the ShamWow guy winning the Nobel Prize in Physics?” So let’s build on this momentum folks. There’s already a grassroots movement afoot, and it shouldn’t take too much effort to get Vince nominated. It really is an incredible product. And he’s followed it up with the equally impressive Slap Chop. “You’re gonna love it, you’re gonna be slappin’ your troubles away”. Here is a guy committed to his work. He practices what he preaches and takes his work home from the office. Thus the alleged felony battery charge after a confrontation with a hooker. I don’t know the status of that arrest/lawsuit, and I know he didn’t invent these products. But hell, let’s give him the Nobel anyway.

Oops

I was going to do some further research on other Physics prize nominees, but I got derailed by looking at all the juvenile parodies of the Slap Chop on YouTube. This remix amused me to no end. And, well, since I sometimes have the attention span and humour of a 12 year old, I ran out of time. Only so much is available to researching nomination ideas per category. Now on to chemistry …

Chemistry

China

Yup, let’s give a nod to the whole country. They’ve truly gone above and beyond the call of duty in creating all kinds of chemicals for our world. Now, admittedly, any country has lots of examples of creativity in chemistry. But even if you don’t read the descriptions, take a few minutes to view the pictorial evidence of China’s contribution. Many other countries reduce their chemical output by getting the massive armies of poor people in China to do the dirty work for them. So next time you’re in Walmart stocking up on all the great rolled-back price items, thank the Chinese and snap a quick mental image of these pics. [Editor’s note. Yes, I admit to being guilty of shopping at Walmart, and my house is full of Chinese made crap, plastic and otherwise. But I am slowly and stubbornly learning and changing]

BALCO

Ah, where would the Olympics be without the support of companies such as Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. Using their brains to create a substance nicknamed “the clear“, which helped to mask the use of tetrahydrogestrinone in athletes like “superstar” Marion Jones. Their achievements in their noble pursuit of athletic excellence should not go unrewarded. After all, how many people would tune in to watch athletes every four years who don’t shatter world records every time they step up to the starter’s block? Ticket and TV revenue would likely plummet big time, and profit was, I’m sure, the original purpose for reviving the tradition in modern times back in 1896. [Editor’s note. Please watch and come to my country’s Olympics in Vancouver, 2010. We need the money to pay for all the sh!t we had to build.]

Brad and Angelina

It’s been what, 5 years and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are still going strong. Or are they? I get confused cause I only read every 3rd tabloid title at the grocery store. And the other 2 that I don’t read usually have a picture of Jen, so that only distracts me. But 5 years, 6 kids, 3 adoptions and 1 ever present ‘ex’ later, these guys prove they can mix all sorts of elements together and still look good doing it. If that isn’t worthy of a serious award in today’s celebrity focused world, I don’t know what is.

Literature

East Anglia Climate Center Hacked Emails, Data and Source Code

Reading this nominated piece of work may be a tad hard to come by. Unsurprisingly, the main stream media has not covered this with any effort. Though some have mentioned it. After all, discovering that man made climate change is indeed false would certainly be an inconvenient truth to some lines of business, cap n’ trade enthusiasts and Al Gore. Besides, there are much more important topics to cover these days, like Tiger, Elin and millions of golf jokes. But what is interesting is that the lead researcher at this institute has stepped down until an inquiry is made. If this was all a pure hoax, a smear campaign, or complete fabrication, would there even be an inquiry at all? Luckily, there is also a video that can accompany the literature.

George W. Bushisms 2008 Calendar

This may only be a collector’s item now. Perhaps they’ve stopped production. Not much commentary is needed, as the material sells itself. This stuff is gold.

Sen. Harry Reid’s healthcare bill (H.R. 3590)

This bad boy is truly a masterpiece. I haven’t read it, but see that is the beauty of it. At 2,074 pages long, how many people do you think WILL actually read it all? A groundbreaking and important piece of legislation that is bound to have lots of goodies and wtfs that nobody will ever know of, until too late. Pure genius. But the outcome will save taxpayers money, “they” say. And everyone will be healthy. Even a first edition War and Peace is only 1225 pages long. And no, I haven’t read that either.

Economics

You knew I’d have nominees for economics, didn’t you? I could probably come up with a very long list, but I’ll control myself.

Ben Bernanke

I figure this is a no brainer. He wins this hands down. A career academic, that perhaps never even operated so much as a lemonade stand, is applying ‘book theory’ in the real world. And by many people’s accounts, failing miserably, though he stands to be reappointed for a second term. If that doesn’t deserve the award, I don’t know what does. This guy has been around the Federal Reserve for a long time. Never saw the problems coming, has repeatedly said there are no problems (be it housing, banking, whatever) and has asked for (and in some cases received) more power. People far more articulate than myself have very valid arguments against him and rebuttals to his assertions that he is doing well.

Timothy Geithner

A very close 2nd to Mr. Bernanke, above. Same credentials. Was head of the New York Federal Reserve as the economy was ‘blowing up’. When AIG had to pay out many banks, and everything was clearly in trouble, this guy dug down deep and volunteered to pay off these banks at 100% of what they were owed, by taking the money from the American taxpayer. Some of these banks were willing to accept 60 cents on the dollar, but Geithner showed what a master negotiator he was and gave them all the money they wanted. It wasn’t his, after all. You see, Geithner, a longtime public servant, felt he didn’t need to pay all his taxes. Several years he did not pay the full amount he was supposed to. Until it came up at his confirmation hearing. He then said, oops, I’m sorry. Oh, and what was his confirmation hearing for? He’s now the Treasury Secretary of the US. A guy that doesn’t know how to pay taxes now looks after the concern of finance and monetary manners for an entire nation. On second thought, maybe Bernanke isn’t a shoe-in for this prize.

Well, that’s a small list. Can’t wait to see who the Nobel Society chooses in the future. But really, does anybody care?

Quick, what is more insane:

a) Showing up at a store at 3:30 in the morning, so you’re first in line to buy a plasma tv for next to nothing when they open at 4:00am

or

b) Skiing (on snow) in the middle of the desert when it is 40C/104F outside

If you answered

c) Who cares, dipsh!t, they’re both fun so go pound sand

then you win, and I admire your honesty and forthcomedness. Leaving aside option c, even though I could easily accomplish the suggested task if I went and did option b, why am I commenting on a and b together? Mainly because they nicely display what I consider to be examples of true excesses that have led to unsustainable behaviour that is considered ‘normal’ these days. And also, because I’m straining really hard to combine the topics of a Black Swan and Black Friday, just cause I thought the title of this post was mildly clever.

Most of you are undoubtedly aware what Black Friday is. And if you aren’t, then main stream media has not yet brainwashed you. The Friday after US Thanksgiving is generally the busiest shopping day of the year, and is referred to as Black Friday. Some think it is because it is the point, in the calendar year, when stores turn negative earnings into a profit. That could be true, but the intraweb also tells me it originated in Philadelphia in the 60s to refer to the traffic associated with the big shopping day. In the end, however, both of those explanations originate with shopping.

A Black Swan Event is now a popular term originally described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book, The Black Swan. While I haven’t found time to read the book yet (it’s on my list, I have it, it sits on a pile at home with many others), Taleb describes a Black Swan Event as one that is rare, has extreme impact and in retrospect was predictable. In other words, something that comes out of nowhere, knocks you on your arse, and then later makes you think “yeah, I shoulda seen that coming”.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written before, you already know that I don’t think current consumption levels by any entity, personal or governmental, are sustainable. For too long we’ve been collectively living well beyond our means, spending money we don’t have today and just blindly assuming that we’ll be able to find more money in the future to cover all our bills. Nobody however has been able to tell me where we’ll get that money from. The system is set up to CONSTANTLY require more spending. Yes, incomes do grow, so your spending can increase. BUT, spending is (and has been for many, many years) growing MUCH faster than incomes are growing.

If year after year you spend more than you make, and ‘the system’ is designed such that it MUST continue this way ad infinitum, at what point do the basic laws of simple grade school math kick in? I’m not talking university calculus. Simple compounding. Since we’ve been living this way for at least 20 years or so, it looks like math will have to cut the party short because common sense is not doing it. Now of course there are savvy shoppers that show up at 4:00 am at Best Buy, grab what’s on the list at kick ass prices and then go home. But, people are stupid. More often than not people head home with far more than they wanted (or needed) and with far more on their credit card than they wanted (or needed). Someday that excess will have to be paid for.

And speaking of excess, remember skiing in the desert? If you really want to, go to Dubai. In the middle of the scorching desert is a huge building that is freezing cold and contains a ski resort. We’re not talking about replicating Whistler/Blackcomb, but throw in a chair lift and a long enough ‘run’ to make it fun and you can just imagine how big the building must be. Oh, and since you could fry and egg on the sidewalk outside, just how does it stay cold enough inside so the snow won’t melt? Oil. Never mind most drivers in the ‘west’ complain about pump prices, Ski Dubai is in the Middle East. Oil abounds and is dirt cheap. Or is that sand cheap. For a deeper overview, check out Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin. That’s another one of my books on the pile that I’ve at least started.

Just as I said there were savvy shoppers that take advantage of Black Friday, I’m also not saying people shouldn’t build things just for fun and amusement. All work and no play makes Homer … something something. Sorry, Simpsons flashback. But what I am saying is could it be possible that collectively we’ve lost the ability to draw the line between sensible and stupid?

And speaking of drawing that line and then promptly sailing past it, you ever hear of “The World“? Not our great globe, but the man made archipelago of 300 islands off the cost of Dubai, which were crafted by sand dredged from Dubai’s coastal waters? The idea is to make 300 ‘private’ islands in the rough shape of a map of the landmasses of Earth, sell them to rich people and develop them into a private playground. If you don’t think that’s excessive then I’ve got a private island in the shape of Ethiopia to sell you. Oh wait, Brad and Angelina already bought that one. OK, so they say they didn’t. But the The World development is real, check out the website. And you know what else is real?

The debt to build the damn thing. Aha, now you know why I’ve been prattling on about Dubai. See, Dubai owns Nakheel Properties, which built The World. But, The World owes money to creditors next month. And on Wednesday they said “hey, we’re a little tight this month, can we pay you back next May?”. But see The World saying money was a little tight didn’t sit well with “the other world” (the real world). And that’s why global stock markets went really wonky on US Thanksgiving. Sure, by Black Friday the markets went back up a bit in the States, and I won’t pretend to guess what’s going to happen in the coming days or weeks. But maybe, just maybe, the credit card bill for our collective excesses is starting to come due.

And the Black Swan Event? Well, its just a term. But I don’t think many people were expecting Dubai to have a sovereign default. They still might not default, but the unexpected news they came out with had a big impact on the market. It could still hit the market really hard, because people ALL over the (real) world have money tied up in The World. And in retrospect, was it possible to predict that Dubai would default? I dunno, I guess at the time building 300 islands out of sand and selling them to celebrities seemed viable, but looking back, maybe it was just a tad crazy.

Besides, most people weren’t concerned about Dubai. They were more concerned with the likes of Greece or the Ukraine. Both countries which are hurtling towards having a sovereign default. When countries start to ‘officially’ go bankrupt (and not just the cover-up bankrupt like the US is doing), then the Dominos can start falling. And when they start falling, watch out. Everybody wants their money back right then and there.

When that happens (and I’m of the feeling its a ‘when’ and not ‘if’), it should make for some really good tv on that plasma you just bought at 4:03am.