Time to post some socialist stuff… I’ve had a subscription to Monthly Review for some time now (gotta support socialist media outlets) and have read maybe a third of this article. These guys are some prolific writers. I liked the following observation.
The economic system that dominates nearly all corners of the world is capitalism, which, for most humans, is as “invisible” as the air we breathe. We are, in fact, largely oblivious to this worldwide system, much as fish are oblivious to the water in which they swim. It is capitalism’s ethic, outlook, and frame of mind that we assimilate and acculturate to as we grow up. Unconsciously, we learn that greed, exploitation of laborers, and competition (among people, businesses, countries) are not only acceptable but are actually good for society because they help to make our economy function “efficiently.”
Fuck it. Let the hedge funds burn their records. The mistake was bailing out any of the financial institutions. We should have torched the fuckers.
March 3 – Bloomberg (Katherine Burton and David Scheer): “The U.S. is asking hedge funds not to destroy trading records on euro bets, according to a person with knowledge of the requests, as Europe and the U.S. step up scrutiny of the funds’ role in the Greek debt crisis.”
I was playing poker at a small club in Hayward… I like small clubs… I seem to do a little better… I think it attracts more amateur players from the neighborhood though not nearly enough.
I was a bit stressed out from work which usually improves my game as does decent drugs. I won the first hand with King high… told the table I should have bet it like I had it… heck if anyone had bet I would have folded.
Soon I was dealt the nut flush and went all in against a player with two pair. Why he kept raising my raises beats the heck out of me.
Players — myself included — have a tendency to smile and joke at the table. If someone wins with a bad drawing hand people tend to congratulate the player hoping to win this person’s stack in the future. A woman sat down and won on a drawing hand. I smiled, told her it was a good hand and made a note to take her down when given the opportunity.
Next to go down was the smiling guy to my left. The flop comes out two queens and a ten. I got pocket tens. There’s just two of us in the hand. I check, he bets and I call (with a powerhouse like I had, you can slow play it). The turn is a ten giving me four tens. I check, he bets and I raise. He raises me and again we go all it on the turn. We turn over our cards. He’s got a queen for a full house against my four tens. No queen on the river and I take the pot. So now I’ve run two players off the table. I think winning is a matter of timing. You want to arrive at the end of a cycle of play. I got to the club at 7 pm. The tables were full but I didn’t have to wait long to get a table. A number of players show up just after work and leave around 7 pm to go home.
After another half hour of play I’m just breaking even… I win a few small pots, fold most of my hands. I know the new guy to my left is bluffing some… most of the players now at the table are pretty good. The woman player turned out to be a strong player. I’m up about $50 and accessing the table. All of the players now are about as good as me — maybe better, maybe a little worse. The last poor player — an old guy who was taking notes of every hand — you’d figure he was good but he wasn’t — got taken down by another player and had left. I stole one pot betting from the button when all the players checked to me on the flop with an ace on the board. They did the right play and I figured it was time to pack it in. The player to my left who I knew bluffed occasionally also slow played his hands some and he knew I knew. He had checked two pair on the flop from early position before so betting from late position with three other strong players in the game was a good play. Their fold was also predictable unless any of them had paired the ace and were slow playing.
When the blind came to me, I packed it in and called it a night… got home around 9:30 pm.
Smiling faces… somehow I find poker a more honest game than business. At least in poker you know — or should know — that smiling faces aren’t what they appear to be.
On the second to last day of our trip to South America, my stepdaughter and I go to the Evita museum. We arrive early and have about a half hour to kill and decide to walk to a nearby cathedral. As we’re walking through a park a guy on a motorcycle is on the path ahead checking us out. First thing I’m aware of is the revving of a motorcycle engine, the guy is to my right and his hand snatches the gold chain from my neck and he’s gone. I’d say it was probably a quarter-ounce of gold.
I knew in Buenos Aires — hell just about anywhere these days — you gotta be alert. I didn’t think of the frickin’ gold chain. Didn’t know it was in play. Funny thing is part of me doesn’t see much difference between theft, capitalism and poker. I just didn’t know what game I was playing that morning.
The snatch was very similar to the briefcase snatch in the movie Nine Queens which was shot in Buenos Aires and a movie well worth seeing. I saw it about two years ago and saw it again a couple days ago.
I think I read if a house is foreclosed upon, the bank is responsible for paying the taxes on the houses along with its keep up. I think I’ve read where some cities have taken banks to court. Seems like this is the way the law should be. The bank now owns the house. I’m pretty sure a lot of banks aren’t following through on their legal obligations… ergo, some cities are now suing the banks.
My question is this. Does the same obligation hold for home owner association fees? The bank now owns the condo. Shouldn’t they be responsible for paying the HOA fees?
This line of thought comes from a letter I received from our association. Some guy running to be on the board says the association has lost a fair amount of money because of foreclosures. Seems to me much of the loss would be because the banks aren’t coughing up what they owe.
I remember seeing one news item where they said that many banks are trying to keep empty houses in limbo. They kick the tenants out but don’t complete the foreclosure so they can argue in court that they don’t need to keep up the property or pay taxes.
I know banksters are douchebags (i’ve added this word to my symbol system), but shouldn’t every city in the country take these banksters to court?
I printed out A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze(four pages per page — front and back — I don’t want be accused of being an anti-environmentalist) about a month ago. I read part of the introduction where the writer said the book was difficult to get a handle on… that although the book was broken up into chapters, Deleuze preferred to call them plateaus. The book I believe is a deconstructionists critique of capitalism. Some of the passages in the introduction reminded me of Foucault’s book Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, a philosophical critique of the modern world and conformity. My favorite Foucault quote is that “structure is strategy in slow motion.” I think this concept helps one in understanding why the social institutions that are there are there. I don’t have a favorite quote by Deleuze yet but I hope too. My favorite quote of Camus is “don’t wait for the absurd to happen. It happens everyday.”
In last week’s quarterly meeting our VP told us the structure of our company was being changed (we had a 15% layoff in January) to better fit the company’s strategy. I thought of mentioning my favorite quote by Foucault but thought it best to keep a low profile.
Anyway my next chance to read more of Deleuze’s came when I brought the 100 or so pages of the book to a local poker club. I thought I might get a chance to read it before a table opened up. The opportunity did not arise. I placed the manuscript under my chair. After playing about 10-15 hands of poker a fairly decent poker player to my left said the pages had become ruffled a bit. I said that was okay. I had K-Q in early position. A King came out on the flop and I bet it. Everyone folded. I than asked the table do I have a fucking tell or something, a sign on my head that says when I have a good hand? The player who had told me Deleuze’s book was getting scrambled under my chair said it wasn’t all about me, that everybody folded because they had nothing. I made a note of this in my head and proceeded playing. I was playing 3-6 holdem and the rake was $4.00 per hand. Holdem’ is a quicker game than stud. On average I’d say one is dealt 40 hands per hour… that’s like $160 per hour the poker club makes and the dealers I think make $20 per hour. Than figure there are about 20 tables at the club I go to and you’re talking about real money.
I became a bit concerned about the manuscript of Deleuze’s book and picked up the papers and placed them on one of the side tables. About a half hour later one of the employees of the club came by, thinking the papers were trash tried to pick them up. I startled the man by saying the manuscript was mine, he dropped the papers and began picking them up off the the floor. The pages were truly scrambled now but since Deleuze wrote the book without supposed chapters and was a deconstructionist I figured it didn’t make a difference. I told the employee not to bother with the papers, that I would pick them up and arranged the papers so they were neatly stacked and placed them carefully under a side table and proceeded to lose $80 at the table. I said good night to everyone, cashed out and went to a nearby Korean spa to unwind.
The next chance I had to read the book was last weekend when I went across the street from where I live for a burrito. I was reading some of the text (the text was quite small). The owner brought over some chips and salsa, asked if I could read the small text and I said for the most part no. I could pick out a few words and skimmed about eight pages. I think they were from page 90 or so on (as I said the pages got scrambled).
When I read more of the book I will give a fuller account. Yesterday I bought Slavo Zizek’s latest book in paperback, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce which is about the death of Capitalism and the need for the Left to reorganize itself to take advantage of the changing world. One anecdote I found amusing in his Preface is the following:
In the fifteenth century, when Russia was occupied by the Mongols, a peasant and his wife were walking along a dusty road; a Mongol warrior on a horse stopped at their side and told the peasant he would now proceed to rape his wife; he then added: “But since there is a lot of dust on the ground, you must hold my testicles while I rape your wife, so that they will not get dirty!” Once the Mongol had done the deed and ridden away, the peasant started laughing and jumping with joy. His surprised wife asked: “how can you be jumping with joy when I was brutally raped in your presence?” The farmer answered: “But I got him! His balls are covered in dust!”
Got back from a short trip to Kansas. The formation of our small vanguard of revolutionaries is proceeding very well. I very much like my new weapon. It’s a Simonov-SKS-45 made by communist Russia, bought by communist China and given by Mao Zedong to the Vietnam People’s Army during their struggle for freedom.
A quote of Mao Zedong I read in the Investor’s Business Journal (IBD) on the plane ride home I liked. Mao was asked how he expected to win the chinese revolution against a much superior force. His reply was a good one. “You fight your war and I’ll fight mine.”
I don’t think so. The health industry represents too much of the growth in our GDP and economy. Obama’s mistake (or intention) was to take it to town hall meetings and make a fiasco of it. As many say the answer is simple. Medicare for everyone. Medicare already picks up 50% of the expense of health care (see wsj for the stats). Christmas is over and the health care is big business. Get sick and pay for it. I will not pick up the tab for anyone. If I get real sick I’ll simply go to Hong Kong or Canada.
Health care reform in the US? Nope I don’t see it. Mandatory fees for the poor to cover their possible medical problems. Yeah, I’ll go with that. Make the poor pay more! Poor people get sicker than rich people. They should have to pay more for insurance.
There is a dime’s worth of difference between democrats and republicans.
For my wife, we already get her thyroid drugs from Canada. It’s 75% cheaper — and that is after the increase in cost for their internet website/profit, adnauseum — this is comparing the cost of drugs in Canada with a prescription and no insurance to the cost of drugs in the US with insurance.
They’ll be very few numbers — or too many numbers in the final plan. It’ll come out in a 1000 page report written by the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Will it be pro-business? Considering whose writing it and the length of the document I don’t think it will be pro-people.
And yes Obama is increasing the war in Afghanistan and bailed out the banks and corporations. Is he pro-business? You betcha.
The idea that there are liberal/socialist worries about Obama’s health plan is a fantasy of the conservative right and distracts us from reality. The plan will be exactly what the health industry wants.
The US government having concerns about the poor and disenfranchised? Forget about it. Hopefully the government will be able to deduct the cost of health insurance from unemployment and disability checks and give it to the corporations.
Life in America is not a friendly family game of fish. It’s no-limit poker and the rake is 50%. Call, raise or fold.
