New Jersey

This weekend, I had the chance to go out to the ocean in New Jersey for the first time, and I had a blast. I went out overnight on Friday with a group of people from the church I go to (Redeemer Presbyterian) for a weekend getaway at a bed & breakfast. It was nice mostly just to be able to go and relax, get out of town for a little while, but the highlight for me was definitely the ocean itself.
The ocean has always been a powerful symbol for me personally, for reasons that are too complex to go into here. But it is a powerful symbol in a good way. The last time I went to the ocean was about three and a half years ago, when I was still living in Washington State. But I didn’t swim that time, since the beach that I was on had a lot of debris near the water, and I didn’t feel like swimming.
This time, in New Jersey, I did go swim, in surf that from what I was told by people who swim on the East Coast frequently, was pretty intense. And it was … in a word … awesome. I got smacked around, turned upside down, pulled under by the current, and even had a few seconds that I thought I might be in real danger (since I was under the water and couldn’t tell if I was being pulled towards the shore or away from it). I probably swallowed a gallon of seawater. (Which by the way really is salty, I mean, seriously salty! I’m sure anyone reading this who knows the ocean well is thinking ‘Duh!’, but not having tasted the ocean since I was very very young, finding salt crystals actually clinging to my skin after I’d dried off was really quite a novelty) When I dragged myself back onto the beach after 15 minutes or so of swimming, I felt like I’d had the shit beaten out of me.
I can’t remember the last time in my life I had so much fun.

Limited Strategies

One of the things I’ve mentioned before that is cool about this school is that since it’s in NYC, we get speakers who come here and talk that we might not get at many other schools. Since it’s near Washington DC, we also get a fair share of government type people. A few days ago, I had a chance to hear Dr. Andrew Scobell, who is a senior advisor & researcher on East Asia from the War College (in Virginia I think), come and give a talk on North Korea. The thing that was perhaps most fascinating is that the conclusion he came out to, was pretty much the same conclusion I’ve been hearing all along for the last 3 years: we need to do something, but there isn’t much we can do.
In a nutshell, the problem is this. The US has a vested interest in North Korea (NK) not having nukes. The government there also brutally oppresses their own people because Kim Jong Il (the head of state) is a despot, so there are good reasons to be concerned about NK even without nukes being the issue. However, the other major player in the scenario is China, and they have a different primary interest. They don’t really want NK to have nukes either, mostly because it would encourage their ancient rival Japan to nuclearize, which they would rather not have happen. However, their overriding interest is to not have the country collapse and descend into anarchy, because it would send millions of starving North Korean refugees flooding into China (and also South Korea) and throw the entire region into chaos. So, they have something of an incentive to prop up the regime there, even if they don’t like the behavior.
( This picture is a real NK propoganda poster, by the way … )
NK knows both these things, so of course they have an incentive to play coy about the state of their program and keep everybody on pins & needles and guessing. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Il continues to starve and torture thousands and perhaps millions of his own people (numbers are hard to come by since the country is so closed) while everyone stands around looking stupid. Military intervention isn’t really an option, since NK has a large conventional army and the country is very mountainous so it’s built like a bunker. If anyone attacked them directly, most analysts figure they would use regular artillery and shell Seoul out of existence as their first move. And economic sanctions aren’t much of an option either, since NK gets most of its aid from China. And China, as we discussed, does not want the country to collapse. And so we’re back to square one, with no good options.
Everything I’ve written here I have learned myself simply by reading news publications like the Economist and Time. Mr. Scobell is a senior policy advisor to the military and I believe also to Congress, and the fact that basically what he was saying was the same thing that I’ve been reading in the news and concluding myself was very interesting to me. Now, let me be clear, Mr. Scobell was articulate, a good presenter, and from everything I could see really knew his stuff. I’m not knocking his presentation or saying he’s stupid. What I am saying is that I think there is a common perception that people higher up in the government have this wealth of knowledge about geopolitical situations that the rest of us don’t, and that they have tools or options available to them that they choose not to use for conspiratorial reasons. When in actual fact, much of the time the situation is closer to this one; the people in government know most of the same things that we the public do, and despite (in the case of the US) having the considerable policy tools that their disposal, still find their hands tied. The best thing that could be said at the end of the talk was, ‘It’s a tricky situation, we have limited strategies available, and we don’t know how it’s going to turn out’.
Sometimes, even when you’re the biggest or the most powerful, you still find yourself without any good choices.

Stiglitz

Last year, about this time, I wrote about getting a chance to go hear UN Secretary General Kofi Annan speak here at the school as a part of the World Leaders Forum that Columbia hosts. They hosted the forum again this year, and while I didn’t consider the list of attending dignitaries to be quite as compelling as last year, two people who I went to hear speak did stand out to me. The first is Joseph Stiglitz.
( I apologize for the fact that these next two pictures are poor, the auditorium I took them in makes the lighting hard. )
Those outside the Econ community may not know who Stiglitz is, but most of those within the community will. Among other things, he has served on the President’s Council of Econ advisors (under Clinton), been Chief Economist of the World Bank, and received the Nobel Prize in Econ for his work on asymmetric information. (In simple terms, he explored some of the implications of economic exchanges when two parties do not have the same information about that exchange). He also wrote a book called ‘Globalization & Its Discontents’, which I’d read parts of back in my econ classes at BCC. Smart guy, for sure.
I always like getting a chance to hear these well known figures speak, so I was interested to see what Stiglitz would be like in person. He was speaking that evening about his new book, ‘Making Globalization Work’, which I haven’t read (but I imagine is good, or at the very least well thought out). He struck me as a good guy, obviously very bright, decent speaker, articulates his ideas very clearly. One thing that did strike me as funny is that he comes across a bit as the genius but absent-minded professor; he had this strange habit of taking long pauses for no apparent reason in the middle of his talk, and then resuming again where he’d left off. It also appeared that he was reading from notes or a prepared speech, something I always find a bit disappointing. But it wasn’t a bad presentation, and I was glad to get to hear him talk, even though he didn’t blow me away.
But the main reason I was there that evening wasn’t to hear Joe Stiglitz. It was instead to hear …

Soros

As in George Soros, the billionaire financier. Soros is a name that nearly everyone in the financial community will know, and that many outside the community very well may.
To go backwards for a minute, when I was in community college back in Seattle, trying to figure out “what I wanted to be when I grew up”, there were two men who’s writings and examples deeply influenced me. The first of was George Soros. (The other was Robert Kiyosaki, author of a well-known book called ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’) I’d read about men who’d worked on Wall Street, made a ton of money, and then became philanthropists and gave most of it away, but I’d never read about anyone doing it with such sophistication as Soros did. He didn’t just find aid agencies and cut them large checks, he actually looked for creative programs he thought would make concrete differences in people’s lives, or where they didn’t exist, created his own. One thing I’ve noticed (and this is changing more & more) is that many people want to donate money to ‘a good cause’, but figuring out how to achieve the objectives can often be tricky. As an example of what Soros did differently, he’s originally from Hungary and grew up under the Nazi occupation, so when he started working in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, he knew he wanted to work against the oppressive governments there. Instead of trying to organize protests or arm freedom fighters, he did something very clever; he bought all the universities in those countries a large number of photo copiers. He knew that there were people with ideas other than communism, but information dissemination was hard. So he found a seemingly harmless way to begin to open up those societies by promoting the spread of information.
Now, I know in some places Soros is not at all very popular. He made a lot of his money in currency speculation, and has been accused of such things as insider trading and contributing to the East Asian Financial Crisis. I’ve also heard some people here in this town say that much of what he did was just clever insider trading, and that he’s really not as smart as he’s cracked up to be (and by extension, not such a great guy). Honestly, some of these critiques may be fair. I don’t know enough yet to properly evaluate them myself, but some of what I’ve heard seems plausible.
Regardless though, his example inspired me when I was younger, and while I’d feel sad to find that his methods were not ethical, I still draw inspiration from what he did. So I was VERY excited to hear he was coming to the school to speak.
His speech was interesting, he speaks with a very strong accent (I assume it’s a Hungarian accent), and while he isn’t the greatest speaker I’ve ever heard (that honor goes to Bill Clinton, as I talked about in a previous post), he was articulate, passionate about his ideas, and pretty natural all things considered; he knew what he wanted to say & didn’t read from notes. He said a few things I thought were interesting. (If you’re not interested in Econ or Finance, these things might seem obscure so you can skip to the end of the post if desired)
- He feels that most of the problems of poverty and misery in the world are the fault of bad governance. This isn’t surprising coming from him, since his Open Society Foundation heavily promotes democracy and governmental accountability. But I didn’t expect to hear him pin so much on bad pols. I wish I’d been able to read ‘End of Poverty’ by Jeff Sachs, so I could know if Sachs agreed with him or not. I’m not sure I’d go as far as this myself, though bad governments certainly do a lot of harm, and in some places are the worst problem.
- He feels one of the biggest problems with globalization is the asymmetry of labor and capital. One of the ideas behind globalization is that labor and capital can move around freely, and thus more efficiently. This is certainly true for capital, given how interconnected the banking system is now. But it is certainly NOT true for labor. I might be a manufacturer in a third world country, who knows he could make more if I produced and sold in another market. But I may not be able to just move to another country or market at will, for a number of reasons. (Having enough money to afford the move, getting a visa, other governmental issues, language, etc) So while capital is free to move, labor often isn’t. This was a good insight to me.
- He also thinks (speaking about Stiglitz work) that asymmetry of info isn’t as important or relevant in financial markets, since a large part of finance is trying to anticipate the future. (Will the market go up or down?) This was also a good insight that wouldn’t probably have occurred to me.
Even though he didn’t talk for long, and even though he was mostly commenting on Stiglitz’s book, I still felt it was a privilege to go and hear my other great hero from my earlier years speak. (I’d heard Kiyosaki speak before)

Senior

Ah, here we are, back at it again. The fall semester of my senior year is in full swing now, and after the strange registration dance, which every student goes through in the first week or two of classes, I find myself facing the following courses. (The registration dance, BTW, works like this: you sign up for more classes than you actually plan to take, check them all out in the first week, then drop the ones you decide you don’t like. You also usually try to have to get into one class you aren’t actually registered for, which is always interesting. This is why week one is so busy, even though there’s no real homework, because everyone is trying to jockey for position & figure out where they’re going to end up.)
Chinese – Yup, intermediate Chinese. Have to take it this semester and next to fulfill the language requirement. The section I’m in has an instructor from the summer program in Beijing, and she doesn’t really speak English. Which means, she’s teaching the class immersion-style, Chinese only. Which, at first, terrified me. However, after the first day or two, I actually found myself able to follow most of the class discussion. And I feel that I’m actually learning much more. It helps that our instructor has a very good sense of humor, and doesn’t pile homework on us. I consider the workload very reasonable, so it isn’t too bad. I actually think the class could turn out to be enjoyable.
Lit Hum. – Literature Humanities. Or, more specifically, Masterpieces of Western Literature. This course, in short, has been and will continue to be a blast. It’s a year long course (literature is also a graduating requirement), and in the first semester most of our reading will be the old dead Greek guys; we’ve finished the Iliad, now we’re doing the Odyssey, and other things like Herodotus’ Histories and the Virgil’s Aeneid are upcoming. The thing that makes the course amazing is the fact that I’m taking it with a bunch of my friends; there’s half a dozen people in the class that are good friends of mine. I really wanted a chance to take one class with some friends, and since this one is a discussion class, it’s perfect. Plus, the teacher we have for it is great too.
Money & Banking – This is an Econ elective course on basically the history of … money and banking. And it’s already fascinating. Getting into some of the issues about what money actually is, now that we’re off the gold standard is so interesting. This course shouldn’t be much work, and I’m enjoying it already.
Oil – The name of the class of course isn’t oil, but that’s the topic. Seniors in the Econ department are not required to write a senior thesis (though they can if they want to do the honors program), but they are required to take a senior seminar. Oil and the effects of oil on the macroeconomy is the topic of the senior seminar that I’ve chosen. The class is great so far, we’ve read some outstanding papers on the subject, such as papers prepared for Congress, and our instructor is a great guy originally from Nigeria whose background is in oil. This class is also small, which helps a lot. I should be able to spend a good amount of time working with him individually.
So that’s my semester outline. This year already feels much better than the last one. I know a bunch of people, the place is more familiar, I’m not a total stranger here anymore. Plus, it’s my senior year. May 16th is a date burned into my brain; the end of the journey, the goal line, is now in sight.

Vacation

I’m back in New York City now, I arrived in town yesterday. Classes start tomorrow, and I’m basically already signed up for everything I’m going to take. (The trick here at this school is to sign up for everything you think you’re going to take, and then drop the extra classes once you’ve made your final choice.)
Had a good vacation, all in all. Got to rest, got to relax, got to see friends, just got to chill out. My time in California, I’ve already talked about. In Seattle, honestly, I didn’t “do” much. It is my hometown after all; many of the things one would do if they were from out of town, I’ve already done previously. Besides, the priority was really just seeing friends & family, which I did have ample time for. A bit part of it all was just the sense of getting to kick back & relax, not having my calendar as jam packed as it tends to be during the school year. I didn’t schedule much while I was in Seattle, other than seeing friends. And the friends I did get to see, it was great. Even though some things have changed, much of it remains the same, and it really was outstanding to get to see people. About the only thing I didn’t get to do was finish ‘Brothers Karamazov’, which was my summer reading project (my own, not for a class). I’m better than halfway through it though, and enjoying it immensely. I think I will be sad when I do finish it.
Two things about my trip are worth mentioning. I got to watch some great cinema while I was there. I’ve been building a list of movies I wanted to see for some time now, and I used the time I had while I was there to work my way through parts of the list. I’ll comment on a few (not all) of the more notable ones I saw.
Casablanca – If you’re going to watch ‘classic’ films, you might as well start with this one, right? Watched it and understood why people like it. Also understood, after watching it, where a lot of ‘classic’ Hollywood lines come from; they come from this movie. (Here’s looking at you kid, could be the start of a beautiful friendship, etc) Honestly, I had a hard time getting into it at first because I didn’t like Humphrey Bogart’s character. But by the time the end of the film rolls around, I realized he really was a pretty decent guy. I also liked how they resolved the movie at the end; after Rick pulls the gun on the inspector, I really wasn’t sure how things would turn out, given that this was classic Hollywood in that era so you knew Rick couldn’t die or get carted off to the concentration camps. All in all, really a great film, well acted, well shot. I can see why so many people like it so well after the fact.
Citizen Kane – So then, you have to watch the OTHER ‘greatest film of all time’, right? And this one, I didn’t care for, though I’m glad I can say I’ve seen it now. Frankly, the story isn’t all that great, though the real-life tie in to Hearst is interesting. (Apparently he offered RKO Studios $800,000 to destroy all copies of the film, and then had Welles blacklisted in Hollywood) From what I understand, this movie is a milestone on a technical level; several things were done with it, cinematically, that hadn’t been done before and heavily influenced all the films after it. But story-wise, it was lacking, although it was certainly well-acted.
Farewell My Concubine – OK, this movie was FANTASTIC. I’d been meaning to watch it for awhile, and wasn’t disappointed. This movie is classic of Chinese cinema, and is well worth the watch for anyone interested in foreign film. Gut-wrenching to watch at times as it follows the main characters through China’s turbulent years from 1910 or so till after the Cultural Revolution and a bit shocking at its portrayal of some things that generally aren’t shown in film here in the West (amputating a child’s fingers), it was extraordinarily moving. Also, I’ve basically fallen in love with Gong Li, who (for those who don’t know) is generally considered to be the finest Chinese actress of her generation; she was basically #1 before Zhang Ziyi, who played the main female character in Memoirs of a Geisha (and interestingly, Gong Li played her rival in that same film). She’s amazing, I’m going to go find a few of her other movies.
Les Miserables – This is one I probably wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but my younger brother Ben recommended it highly. After watching it, I’m not at all sorry that I did. Liam Neeson & Geoffery Rush were set against one another perfectly, they both inhabited those characters. I even liked Uma Thurman in it, who I don’t usually like. Very powerful, very moving, very well acted. Some people I’ve talked to say the play is better, but I certainly had no problems with this adaptation.
Phantom of the Opera – OK, for a long time, I had zero interest in seeing this. I knew it was a very popular musical, and I’d read that many people considered the film poor. Given that it was directed by Joel Schumacher, the same director who brought us such luminaries as Batman & Robin, I really had no interest.
Then my entire family watched it (on separate occasions) and recommended it to me. Especially given that my parents liked it, I figured I’d give it a go.
I’m so glad that I did. I still may go and see it on Broadway, but I think I’ll have a very hard time seeing any other actors in the roles of the Phantom and Christine, those two were perfectly cast. Very, very moving, I can see what people like about it so well.
*** Brief spoiler ahead *** However, I did find out that in the original book that both the movie and the play are based on, the Phantom dies at the end of the story, which I felt made much more sense. The rose at the end of the movie was a great sentimental touch, but it felt out of place. I mean come on, where is the Phantom going to go? *** End spoiler ***
The other notable thing that happened while I was home was golfing. At least sort of.
I’d been trying to think of something that I could do with my brothers Mark & Ben while I was home that would be fun, inexpensive, and a bit outside the realm of what we’d usually do together. None of us golf, but going to a driving range and hitting a bucket of balls seemed like it could be a good time. I decided to press for it and they were amiable, so we went.
And actually had a fantastic time. It really was fun, and we were all of us basically terrible. We did hit some of the balls pretty well, all of us got a couple of shots to the far end of the range (out to 200+ yards) but I’d say half our balls didn’t even make it past 50. We were laughing so hard watching each other shoot we had to stop sometimes. Ben even broke the driver he was using; I watched his ball fly out onto the range followed directly behind by the head of the driver. (They told him in the clubhouse that driver was already cracked) It would be hard to explain exactly why we had so much fun, I can only say that we did. It reminded me a lot of the golfing scene in that old movie Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen, we were purely horsing around, probably horrifying the serious golfers who were there to practice their technique, and we couldn’t have been having more fun.
A special note of thanks goes to my two brothers. Ben let me stay with him most of the time while I was there, and also went out of his way to help with some behind the scenes things in order to make my stay more enjoyable. Mark also let me use his car while I was there, which saved me a ton of time & made some things possible that otherwise might not have been. For Ben’s above and beyond efforts, for Mark’s graciousness, and for both their hospitality, I am grateful.