10.11.2022 – You can’t talk about

You can’t talk about
economy without talk
about future stuff

According to Edward Helmore, in the article, US is headed for a recession, says head of JP Morgan Chase bank: ‘This is serious’:

The US and global economy is facing a “very, very serious” mix of headwinds that is likely to cause a recession by the middle of next year, warned Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, the largest US investment bank, on Monday.

Dimon pointed to the effects of runaway inflation, sharp interest rate rises and Russia’s war in Ukraine, as factors that informed his thinking. But he added that the US was “actually still doing well” and consumers were likely to be in better shape compared with the global financial crisis in 2008.

“You can’t talk about the economy without talking about stuff in the future – and this is serious stuff,” Dimon told CNBC at a conference in London.

I have to get excited when I hear that Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, uses those $20 economic terms like ‘stuff.’

According to Wikipedia, Mr. Dimon attended the Browning School, and majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University, where he graduated summa cum laude. At Tufts, Dimon wrote an essay on Shearson’s mergers; his mother sent the paper to Sandy Weill, who hired Dimon to work at Shearson during one summer break, doing budgets.

After graduating, he worked in management consulting at Boston Consulting Group for two years before enrolling at Harvard Business School, along with classmates Jeff Immelt, Steve Burke, Stephen Mandel, and Seth Klarman. During the summer at Harvard, he worked at Goldman Sachs. He graduated in 1982, earning an MBA as a Baker Scholar.

With all that resume I take my hat off to a feller who can boil down the current state of the economy into words I can understand and say: You can’t talk about the economy without talking about stuff in the future – and this is serious stuff.

10.10.2022 – its not my circus

its not my circus,
not my monkeys – hey waiter
ready for the check

Not my circus, not my monkeys is a calque Polish nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.

A calque is a borrowing by word-for-word translation or a loan translation.

For example, the English expression it goes without saying is a calque (a literal, word-for-word translation) of French ça va sans dire, and flea market is a calque of French marché aux puces (literally “market with fleas”).

Go down to beach and watch the waves.

As it is said in the Gullah, De wata bring we and de wata gwine tek we bak.

10.9.2022 – from Tajikistan

from Tajikistan
and over to Kyrgyzstan
to Azerbaijan

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had a way with place names.

Coming up with the likes of Osgiliath, Gondolin and Cirith Ungol in his writings about the made up land of Middle Earth.

Still I am reminded that truth is stranger than fiction when I am reminded of those countries to the east of Russia.

The countries that when we had to live with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the CCCP, made up that Union.

I got that reminder reading the article A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere in the New York Times.

The article states that these old members of the Soviet Union are taking advantage of Russia’s focus on Ukraine and are getting back to their old ways of not getting along that has gone along since before the birth of Christ.

That these countries don’t get along has to take a second seat for me as in the first seat is the realization that there really are countries named Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

People live there.

They go to sleep and get up every morning and go to work and come home and go to bed at night.

Where they work, what they have for breakfast and whether or not they have parent-teacher conferences or even telephones, old style, telephone wire, landline telephones is all unknown to me.

They have to have some exposure to modern items as the article stated: And here along the mountainous border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, long-running quarrels between farmers over land, water and smuggled contraband escalated last month into a full-scale conflict involving tanks, helicopters and rockets, as the armies of the two countries fought each other to a standstill.

How about that?

Technology is available for fighting so why do I picture these places as looking just like Anatevka?

Well, forget what these places might look like.

From the point of view of syllables and haiku, you can’t beat the names.

10.6.2022 – no matter how thick

no matter how thick
or how thin you slice it, it
is still baloney

On August 23, 1936, a book review in the New York Times was headlined, “Carl Sandburg Writes in the True Accent of the People; His New Poem Displays and Develops the Popular Sayings That Americans Live By THE PEOPLE, YES.”

According to Wikipedia, The People, Yes is a book-length poem written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1936. The 300 page work is thoroughly interspersed with references to American culture, phrases, and stories (such as the legend of Paul Bunyan). Published at the height of the Great Depression, the work lauds the perseverance of the American people in notably plain-spoken language. It was written over an eight-year period. It is Sandburg’s last major book of poetry.

Written in 1936.

Containing the sayings that Americans live by.

One of those lines is “No matter how thick or how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.”

Published almost 100 years ago.

In the words of that old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial, “We’ve come a long way, baby!”

I watch the news.

I read the papers.

I look at the magazines.

All I can think is, No matter how thick or how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.

Who knew you could say such a fine line of words and be quoting Carl Sandburg.

I can go down to the beach and stand with my feet in the Atlantic Ocean waves and face Algeria across the water.

Looking out, the entire country is behind me.

Turning around and I face the entire country all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

I want scream, “WAKE UP CANTCHA!!! GEE WHIZ”

The next line in the poem is, “I would if I could and I could if I would but if I couldn’t how could I, could you?”

I guess I will just turn away and look out.

At least I can see the sun rise.

If I said the poem, The People, Yes, was a bit nonsensical, it would only serve to make it more fit for reading today.

10.5.2022 – heartsick with horror

heartsick with horror
to endure infinite
misunderstanding

Adapted from the short passage in the book, Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1929) that reads:

Lying darkly in his crib, washed, powdered, and fed, he thought quietly of many things before he dropped off to sleep – the interminable sleep that obliterated time for him, and that gave him a sense of having missed forever a day of sparkling life. At these moments, he was heartsick with weary horror as he thought of the discomfort, weakness, dumbness, the infinite misunderstanding he would have to endure before he gained even physical freedom.

Heartsick with weary horror.

Discomfort.

Weakness.

Dumbness.

The infinite misunderstanding.

From the pen of Mr. Wolfe (and the editing of Maxwell Perkins), these are the musings of an infant child in a crib.

An infant with all of life to look forward, or at least, look ahead, to an entire life filed with discomfort, weakness, AND dumbness.

The infinite misunderstanding that would have to be endured.

Only to get worse with time.

Only to get worse with age.

As Big Bill put it:

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. the way to dusty death. (Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5)

Still can hear the line from the book, “Shoeless Joe” that says: “I wish I had your passion … However misdirected it may be, it is still a passion. If I had my life to live over again, I’d take more chances. I’d want more passion in my life. Less fear and more passion, more risk. Even if you fail, you’ve still taken a risk.

But more drawn to the line from the movie, Field of Dreams that states: “The man’s done enough. Leave him alone.