"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me." Jack Nicholson, The Departed

One of the best opening movie quotes to one of my favorite movies. This quote stirs up reminders of people who were not products of their environment, but rose well above society's feeble expectations to achieve great things. There are countless examples in history, between Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ted Turner, and though his leadership as President was questionable; Jimmy Carter. Here we have four people whose ambition and determination superceded any obstacle that stood to hold them back. Samuel Clemens was born into a very poor family in Missippi and had very little formal education. How is it that he was able to become one of the most respected writers of all time and as Hemingway called him "the father of American literature"? How is it that his witticisms and observations were so profound, unique, and intelligent that there is a perennial humor award in his honor?

Twain, while obviously very intelligent, knew that in order to achieve his goals he had to work dilligently, specialize and focus. When he wanted to be a river boat captain (a profession that led him to his penname) he studied chart after chart on the Mississippi River so that he would know every shallow point, every threatening rock. This effort and focus ensured his success as a river boat pilot. It is unsettling to hear about people being unable to rise above their means or that society inherently holds people down. It is said that when Twain was young, all he wanted to do was be a river boat pilot. Unlike most, this dream never wavered and was ultimately achieved. As for Twain becoming a literary giant, his formula was simple, "Write what you know about." Funny, he never seemed to discuss croutons, probably for the best. In any case, Twain is the archetype of the self made man. Rather than look at the world as cruel and unsupportive of individual success, he used the tools that were available to learn and read and soak up as much as he possibly could. Twain spent countless hours pouring over volumes of every literary topic imaginable in the New York Public Library.

"You wasted one hundred and fifty grand on an education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library"

This Good Will Hunting quote embodies the path Twain took. He didn't have the means to go to a place like Oxford, Harvard, or Yale, and while he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from these institutions, he took advantage of the best asset available to him; public libraries. Public libraries are such powerful tools that it is alarming how few people actually take the time to go there and make use of it. Twain summed it perfectly, a sort of motto for autodidacts, "I've never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Many consider Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead to be one of the best, most profound books in the past century, and I would concur. However, while many see redeeming qualities in the tragic hero that is Roark, I think the most important paragraph is when Gail Wynand concludes that the main difference between succesful and unsuccessful people is "books". Successful people are well read. Unsuccessful people are not. While this formula does not apply to every situation or circumstance, there is much more to be gained from turning the the TV off, picking up a book than from watching re-runs of Scrubs. Something incredibly simple, but still an elusive process for most. As I said earlier, Jimmy Carter isn't exactly my favorite President. But Carter grew up on a farm in Georgia, and clearly had ambition to burn. His appetite for reading was unprecedented and he claims to have read every book in the public library in his hometown. He went from being the son of a farmer to a President, albeit a poor one, to a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Not bad at all.

"It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain or passion that does not radiate to the ends of the Earth. Let a man in a garret but burn enough intensity and he will set fire to the world."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars


In other words, I have no sympathy for people who resign to their circumstances without giving an honest, hard-nosed try to break out. When you hear children speak about wanting to be movie stars, doctors, or astronauts, it's inspiring to see that much hope, though it is so often dismissed for naievete. But what happens that makes people suddenly drop those dreams or slowly learn to settle for something that is nowhere near what they had hoped to become? You can pour over Coelho's The Alchemist and get that inspiring chip back, but without serious effort, and an intense focus on exactly what you want, it just isn't going to happen. The inevitable argument is that most people do not have enough time to pursue what they really want because they are so busy working two jobs to support themselves. Perseverance and focus will not bend to the hurdles and obstructions such as work schedule. I've been told stories of people who took jobs in garages and still found time to study and graduate with a degree in electrical engineering, who lived in fear of oil drips that would ruin their books.

The bottom line is, no autonomous person will be a victim of the world until they choose to be swallowed by mediocrity. Whether you have to tackle a few shelves at the local library, audit some night courses, or simply shut off the blackberry for a while, it is easy to see that most limits and setbacks are self-imposed and can be surpassed.

Further Reading:

4 hour work week

War of Art

The Fountainhead

Suicide Bombers and Pussy

Generation Kill is an incredibly awesome mini-series - not that you'd expect anything less from David Simon, Ed Burns and co. The writing, acting, and most importantly, story are nearly perfect. And by the end of it, the Godfather will either place or show in my ultimate badass heirarchy: Stringer Bell, Batman, Forrest Griffin.

Besides badassery, another of my favored values is of course, unapologetic sarcasm. This rant is fucking brilliant. The dialog is between Cpl. Josh Ray Person (Ziggy Sabotka on the Wire) and the reporter from the Rolling Stone.

"Oh, there's layers of retardation that most people don't even know about. You should quote me on that. Look at this shit. How come we can't ever invade a cool country...like chicks in bikinis, you know? How come countries like that don't ever need Marines? I'll tell you why. It's lack of pussy that fucks countries up. Lack of pussy is the root fucking cause of all global instability. If more hajjis were getting quality pussy, there'd be no reason for us to come over here and fuck them up like this. 'Cause a nut-busted hajji is a happy hajji."

"It's an interesting theory though."

"Yeah, you should quote me on it. Matter of fact, you should definitely quote me on it. This whole fucking thing, it comes down to pussy. Look, if you took the Republican guard, comped their asses in Vegas for a weekend, no more fucking war."

"So this war isn't about oil or WMDs?"

"No. In the opinion of this Marine, it's about pussy."

"And it's not about Saddam?"

"Saddam's just part of the problem. Look if Saddam invested more in the pussy infrastructure of Iraq than he did on his fucking gay-ass army, than this country would be no more fucked up than say, Mexico."

Awesome. And as we well know, stuff is funny cause it's true. Check out #4 in this article written by the evolutionary psychologists Alan S. Miller Ph.D. & Satoshi Kanazawa Ph.D.

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

"So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region."

Christ, even a FRENCH writer pointed this out way back when in like 1930. From Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars (great book, Outside magazines #1 adventure, Nat'l Geographic's # 3.)

"In Paris," [the Moors] said, "you walk through a crowd of a thousand people. You stare at them. And nobody carries a rifle!"

"You take one Moor from each tribe," they went on. "You take him to the circus. And nevermore will tribes of Er-Reguibat make war on the French."

Pre-sexual revolution, but the point remains the same. Deny people that which is natural, healthy and good (and the freedom and opportunity to pursue these things) and you get violent and destructive backlash.

Further reading:
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters
Generation Kill
Tons of shit I haven't read yet and admittedly don't know enough about this topic, but it's worth learning.

Fuck Croutons

write what you hate

"...another variant on the old chestnut of writing what you know. There are numerous sensible folks out there that have pointed out that writing what you know should not be literally interpreted as writing about your life or about your exact experiences. A broader and more useful interpretation is to use your emotional experiences to help drive your characters. And here’s where I come to the crux of writing what you hate. Hatred and anger are emotions like any other. They may be ugly and very not nice, but they are real. Everybody feels it (whether they admit it or not). Everybody has different pushbuttons that set them off–and most often we’re not in a position to really do anything sensible to blow off steam. So what am I to do with all this pent up angst and fury? Well, I’ll tell you. I’m going to go vilely murder someone. On paper of course."

Done. Fuck croutons. Little pieces of shit-sellout soulless stale bread:

"As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him" John 13:27

Fuck, there isn't anything I hate more. Sure, terrorists and communism and the Yankees, but we're (arguably) taking care of all those things. Nothing, unfortunately, is being done about the fucking cataclysm that is the crouton. No one has said anything to start what is a very necessary war - until now.

All great military strategists followed one of the most ancient principles of war, Sun Tzu's "Know Your Enemy." General Macarthur read Mein Kampf and all of his other enemies' books so as to better understand how they'd make decisions. The most brilliant modern day strategist, Robert Greene has this to say from 33 Strategies of War:

"The target of your strategies should be less the army you face than the mind of man or woman woman who runs it. If you understand how that mind works, you have the key to deceiving and controlling it. Train yourself to read [croutons,] picking up the signals they unconsciously send about their innermost thoughts and intentions...by finding your opponents' psychological weaknesses, you can work to unhinge their minds."

Two important goals: Firstly, figure out who or what nation is the puppetmaster behind the atrocity of the sheer existence of the crouton. Secondly, we've got to get inside the heads and figure out exactly what they want. And so, I've done some of the preliminary research and analysis on these fuckers.

Wiki Croutons:

"The word crouton is derived from the French croûte, meaning 'crust.'"

No surprises there. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys fucking up the name and packaging and presentation of something that was fine as it was (bread), along the likes of water (now bottled and named and exploited) and...crepes (toss whatever the fuck you want in some dough.)

"A crouton is a small piece of sautéed or rebaked bread."

What the shit does rebaked mean? What was wrong the first time around? Some jackass french bakery owner who couldn't manage his business well enough (because he didn't want to do any work) had a shitload of bread left over, so he decided to cube it up, dunk it in some olive oil and spices, toss it the oven, and dupe everyone into thinking it was a brilliant complement to a salad. Fuck you, frenchman.

"A dish prepared à la Grenobloise has a garnish of small croutons along with brown butter, capers, parsley, and lemon."

Only pretentious assholes hold croutons in any reasonable regard. The rest of those garnishes in that "a la gremlins" nonsense are legitimate upgrades for your food. They come in a form thats been altered only once, not having undergone so many metamorphoses that it's totally unrecognizable from its original form. Spending money on croutons whether on your salad or by actually purchasing them, you are making a blatant statement that you are so affluent with so much discretionary income that you can buy stale, dry, worthless bread - aka trash. Fuck you, you elitist prick.

"Nearly any type of unsweetened bread, in a loaf or pre-sliced, with or without crust, may be used to make croutons."

See, a blatant statement about how worthless croutons are. In econ, scarcity increases value. The less of something there is, the higher the price, the more work and resources you're willing to commit to glean whatever utility you desire from it. Steak over burgers for example. You pay more for a nicer cut of beef that's not processed, you spend more time and effort marinating and cooking it to your desired specifications, and you generally regard steak with higher standards and an understanding that you'll enjoy it more than a burger. Not croutons. "...nearly any time of unsweetened bread" - no fucking variety or originality or important characteristics distinguish them. The unique, specialized, highly valued breads from which they came no longer matter. It's all the same shit in crouton form, and accordingly tastes like its valued. As shit.

So what's to be done? The tricky part is that these things survive better than roaches. Most food - that is, nourishing, soulful and essential food - has to be stored in some particular fashion to preserve taste and freshness. Not croutons. Stale, dry, decrepit, and worthless - that's how the crouton is supposed to be - it can't go bad. Makes storage pretty easy.

"Monseuir Pierre, we 'ave no more plastic bags or refrigoration space for ze croutons!"

"Fuck off, boy. Can't you see it is noon and I 'ave finished working for 'ze day?! Don't bother me with your petty problems, or you'll have to go be unemployed with 'ze other nine percent of ze country. Throw ze croutons in the stable with ze donkeys. We'll say ze 'orrible smell is a new flavor!"

Remind me not to try writing fiction. Whatever, the point is, fuck croutons, they're worthless. If your bread is stale, give it to a homeless shelter. Ship it off to North Africa. Throw it the fuck away. Do not buy into this uppity fad that's been around for decades too long. I'm declaring war on croutons, and in this war we are like Sith Lords, we only deal in absolutes. You're either with us and for the proliferation of a croutonless world, or you're against us and will be dealt with accordingly. The choice is yours.

Shitty Days

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, everything around you goes to shit. You try to remind yourself how temporary all of this is - how in the grand scheme letting the little things get to you is just a total waste of time - but still, rising above the fray is not a skill easily acquired.

Religious folk and alcoholics resort to the Serenity Prayer:

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."

Cute. But if you're a badass you go to the awesomeness that is Marcus Aurelius:

"...when jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep going back to it..."

Seriously, read The Meditations and you'll be able to handle any shit that comes your way. But, there is truly no better pick-me-up than what's below. (Safe for work, unless of course your boss is gay or a chick - their panties will melt and they can't be held responsible for their actions in the subsequent fits of passion.)

The Economics of the Caped Crusader

Notice the awesome product placement Chase bank – middle left. Outstanding work, you capitalist whores. (click to enlarge)


Batman - greatest superhero of all time. And don't argue that shit about the X-Men who live in a parallel universe don't fit into our concept of "time." Batman is the greatest superhero of all time, space, and any combination of any other dimensions you want to mention. Everyone knows that he's the only superhero who could reasonably exist in our world - no radioactive spiders, or a sun-enhanced biological makeup, or some fucked up HGH that turns you green. Everything about Batman is entirely reasonable and could occur in our reality. He also happens to be an economist.

The favored definition of economics is Lionel Robbins' "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." So what do you do when you're Bruce Wayne and your fortune is more than you could reasonably spend in a lifetime? You simply dedicate your mind and body to perfecting those skills which make you a superhero. He is, in every regard, a pragmatic economist. He efficiently allocates the scarce resources he has available to enhance what he’s determined to be his comparative advantages; ultimately in what manner he deems he can add value to the world. Economists talk about societal gains all the time, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When each entity allocates all its resources to its comparative advantage, the resulting synergy does more for society than if each acted individually. Batman has determined his competitive advantages and plays to them accordingly. A necessary corollary to this is to have effectively defined your own personal value system.

"The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions." - Milton Friedman.

He has "Bruce Wayne," his father’s namesake and fortune, to which he models himself as the dimwitted billionaire playboy. While perhaps slightly condemned for his hedonistic lifestyle, he is well-known and praised as one of Gotham's great philanthropists. There are two distinct business/econ thoughts on philanthropy; first the Milton Friedman version that corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders - that money should go right back to the board members and reinvested in the business itself. With the excess money, new jobs and businesses and opportunities can be created, and those provide better long-term societal gains than simply throwing one-time sums of money at people. On the other hand, you have Freeman's stakeholder theory as well as M.E. Porter's competitive advantage of philanthropy; both generally state that excess wealth ought to go back to the surrounding community, aiding in building public works and structures. Porter recommends strategic giving, putting the corporation in a positive light. Say Wayne Enterprises creates a grant or scholarship for aspiring engineers, the hope would be that the recipient get his degree and seeks employment with WE. The stakeholder theory advents corporate responsibility and charity, essentially investments in the surrounding functional communities. Then of course, jackasses like Ted Turner argue that you should do both, donate one-time sums and create new jobs and companies, but the argument is long and boring so read about it somewhere else. Essentially, you could argue that Bruce Wayne is a Keynesian and Batman is of the Chicago School of Economics.

So what do you do when you really have all those resources, and want to spend them on what you believe in? Well, first, you have to clearly understand and define your convictions. The young BW realizes how wrong he was in seeking revenge on his parents' murder, but it took Rachel's slap on the face and his long exile to truly realize his beliefs. So what are they? Well it’s clear that Batman believes in freedom, fairness, opportunity, pursuit of happiness, all that cool shit - founding father’s style. Rights to a fair trial. Incorruptibility – he sees the inherent flaws of the police system and therefore creates the Batman persona as a way to separate himself in his vigilante fashion. He understands the nature of incentives and that most people act in their own self-interest - the very nature of crime. He believes in justice and accountability. When Batman first came about it was in a comic book line called "Detective Series." A detective is an economist whose convictions and values lie in fighting crime, adhering to those principles of justice and all that other shit we mentioned earlier.

Last quick thoughts, the democratic government we (and supposedly Batman) consent to inherently has those checks and balances we learned about in elementary school civics classes - the notion of accountability from different angles being absolutely necessary to arrive at the best solution for the greater good. Unfortunately, this practice is incredibly inefficient. Batman is private sector - he doesn't adhere to those checks and balances, he acts on his own strategy without oversight. And so, growing technology – the true definition of private sector, and a fundamental part of the consumption function (I know it's Keynesian, but it represents the overall health of a nation; the best technological innovation always happens in the private sector)- Batman has in spades better than the gov’t funded police.

One of the fundamental economic problems of cities, specifically regarding crime rates, is limited policing. Guliani is renown for fixing this in New York by greater policing and the CompSTAT system. Batman does the same shit in Gotham - only with his own cash, technology, and ability. Everything about Batman, right down to the very style of his martial arts (whatever crazy form of jiu-jitsu they called it, its based on using agility and your opponent's strength against him rather than brute force,) reflects an exceptional, intuitive understanding of economics. Use your resources effectively, play to your comparative advantages, and do all of it within your defined set of values. And just be a downright badass. Have a lot more to say, but this is a start. Go see "The Dark Knight."

More reading:
Batman Wiki
Stakeholders and Shareholders
Older awesome article likening Batman's crusade to Baghdad - the attraction of lunacy

Journalism's Fall

I can't help but think back to a paper I wrote my freshman year in journalism class commending W&B for their superior investigative reporting skills without a raw sense of anguish at my naivete. Sure, they brought down the President by exposing the "truth" to the public and government. They sent the country into turmoil, which hadn't even began to recover from the Vietnam crisis, and shook it's faith in the oval office. But they were not detectives, they were scavengers. They fiendishly scrounged off the stupidity of those who were too inept to understand the value in keeping your mouth shut. And their "investigative reporting skills" do not differ or amount to much more than that of a bulk magazine salesman.

Nixon did his best to protect those who were working on his behalf and to better his political career. He was simply taking care of his own. This is not to say Nixon was a great President. It wasn't by coincedence that he was crowned Tricky Dick. Nixon's inconsistencies in Vietnam screwed this country six ways from Sunday. However, morally, he maintained credibility. Nixon should be known as the man who went down without betraying those were loyal to him. And yet he met his political end at the hands of two who were only concerned with climbing the ladder to a Pulitzer, despite the guise of morality they published under.

Locke and Pope would be ashamed. Hearst, the founder of "yellow journalism", would be giddily watching his money pile up. The face of journalism has become uglier since this mid-70s phenomenon. Now journalists and "truth seekers" seem to carry a sense of childish vindication in their articles. They think the system is always broken, the good-natured senator is a criminal because he enjoys women and booze. Let me save you a headline story, everyone has flaws and skeletons in their closet. It is not the job of journalists to habitually beat this point into the ground over and over again. Do your job; report the facts as they are relevant to the public and do not speculate. If this is too great a burden, change your name to Sam Spade, get a detective's license, and stop the charade.

Traditional print is on the way out - losing to weblogs, regular television news is passed over for the Colbert Report and comedians - mainstream media is dead. Mainstream journalism's fall is a good thing - maybe now we can actually get closer to some untempered truth.

Korea at Night

Below is a really cool satellite image of Korea (North and South) taken at night. It serves as a great visual comparative example of the wealth and health of a nation whose embraced capitalist and democratic policies, with that of a nation without such freedoms. There's hundreds of comparative statistics from population, birth and mortality rates, caloric intake, GNP per capita, and even physical stature of the citizens of each country. (S. Koreans average like half an inch taller than their grass-eating counterparts.)The societal health statistics of the overall South Korean nation absolutely dwarf those of the N. Korea.

You may hear that that tiny speck of light in the North is the nation's capitol of Pyonyang, but we've done our research and discovered that it's actually Kim Jong-Il sitting on a pile of nukes, in a very well-lit room, masturbating to his own reflection - as a string quartet plays The Red Flag.