Yep

Douthat on Trump's surprisingly coherent foreign policy.

But those of us who fear Trump also need to be honest when he exceeds our expectations. Before his election, I wanted a Republican foreign policy that was less hubristic and more calculating than what most leading G.O.P. politicians were offering, that showed a willingness to limit foreign interventions and conduct diplomatic experiments while also trying to maintain United States primacy in a more multipolar, Chinese-influenced world. 

Within certain limits, and with a lot of stumbling and bluster, that’s roughly what Trump has delivered. And however his foreign policy looks by November 2020, I suspect that future administrations of both parties will often find themselves imitating the strategy of his first two years.

I notice many criticize Trump's foreign policy ideas for the possibility they will create future disasters, and yet support policies that have already proven to create disasters...(ie interventions, etc)

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TV: True Detective S. 3 ep. 1-4

I am quite enjoying it so far. Acting and tone are great and a number of good scenes (almost always between Ali and Dorff). The biggest problems are plotting and structural. The show feels much less disciplined than season 1. At first, I thought this was good -- in episode 1 & 2 -- it felt like the creators were looser and easier, but when episode 3 suddenly introduces Stephen Dorff's character doing interviews in new timelines and to get into the obligatory episode 4's action sequence requires jumping over to a non-principal character POV, I realized the storytelling this season lacks focus and discipline. One of the greatest aspects of season 1 was the tight POV, only telling the story through the two detectives, but season 3 has completely strayed from this conceit.

The three timelines was a good idea (although it's the exact same thing The Missing did), and the layers of mystery started nicely but we're getting about as much plot in 4 hours than the average Law and Order episode accomplishes in 30 minutes. The show will test your patience. I heard a (non-movie) podcaster say Season 3 show was like watching paint dry.

My predictions:
-I will finish the season
-My favorite parts will continue to be scenes in the car between Dorff and Ali.
-One could cut all the relationship stuff between Ali and his wife and we would not miss it at all
-Ali's son will be found to be sleeping with the documentary filmmaker
-We will get no significant insight into the powers truly behind the sex crime, etc and the end of the season will be slightly dissatisfying.

Henry Winkler on Dyslexia

Caught a segment on NPR this weekend with Henry Winkler talking about discovering his own dyslexia at age 31 when his step-son was being diagnosed with the same. Really interesting segment. When he first found out, he was very angry. He couldn't believe how much easier his life would have been had he known his suffering was due to a condition versus being stupid. But now that he's older, he thinks he wouldn't be where he is today had he known and gotten help for the dyslexia. He got his tenacity (and maybe his sense of humor) from it -- or perhaps in reaction to it.

I'm not making the point we ought to ignore dyslexia or other learning disabilities. But we might want to be a bit more circumspect at social efforts to "fix" people, or to attempt to end all unpleasantness. Human beings are surprisingly durable and adaptive if they're allowed to be. I wonder if American society has now swung too far in the direction of protecting ourselves from pain at the expense of creating durable, tenacious people.

Saving More

Tyler Cowen discusses how the government shut down discussion brings to light an issue: Americans don't save enough.

Indeed a higher savings rate is possible, and not just for the wealthy. Most Mormons in the U.S., for example, manage to tithe at least 10 percent of their incomes. This suggests it is possible to curtail one’s consumption without losing the best things in life. Mormons also tend to have especially large families, making tithing all the more difficult. If Mormons can tithe so much, is it so impossible for the rest of us, including government employees, to save more?

Just in my own life, probably 50% of my expenditures could be accurately described as "wants" versus "needs." If you're an adult with other people relying on you, ie family, etc., it's ridiculous to be living paycheck to paycheck. I'm sorry. It just is. Obviously people get in difficult situations and Cowen rightly points out --

To be sure, in any individual case we should be reluctant to criticize someone for ending up with low or zero savings. It’s hard to know the full details of any person’s life, and an unexpected catastrophe or medical emergency can wipe out even the most conscientious savings plan.

But the larger point remains, you should be ready for "black swan" events like losing a job, a medical emergency, etc. And as far as major events go, a government shutdown and losing 1 month of pay is pretty small. Most people in life will suffer a much worse event - a debilitating illness, accident, sudden job loss, a career gone, a spouse dying, a divorce, a sick child, a fire, etc.

Most of the outrage over the employees and government shutdown is what everything is about these days: a reflection on people's feelings toward Trump.

This Is Correct

Maybe Hillary ran the wrong campaign.

In retrospect, Hillary ran the wrong campaign. She should have run non-stop commercials portraying Trump as the spoiled son of a very rich New Yorker, who was given everything he needed in life and has contempt for average Americans. At the very least, the public would have understood that he was handed great wealth on a silver platter, even if he did add to that wealth. How much he added is hard to say, as he also lies about his own wealth.

She ran the Trump is dangerous and I'm experienced campaign. She should've ran: this guy is a complete fraud campaign who was gifted dad's money and has accomplished nothing on his own. Furthermore, she should've pointed out the reason he doesn't provide his tax forms is because he doesn't even make that much money.

Hate To Admit It

But this is good.

Logging

Film: Burning

Could be a strange companion piece to Surviving R Kelly and the best movie I watched this year.

UPDATE: Just read a few reviews on Burning and an ongoing interpretation of the film seems to be vagueness and ambiguity surrounding the 3rd Act. I disagree. It seemed clear to me. Yuen's character speaks in metaphors. What he means by burning greenhouses is consuming women and destroying them. He picks women like he picks greenhouses - the ones who are abandoned and lost. Five clues to point to Yuen as serial killer  - the tidiness at Haemi's home felt the same as the tidiness at his home an unnatural to Haemi, the discovery of the watch he has kept as a souvenir/trophy, the cat (of course), the pattern of Yuen's solicitation of women ,and most of all, his yawns.

Good Stuff

2018 lessons.

For The Record

I believe a great deal of Trump's and AOC's policy ideas are bad, but I am relieved they and their ideas are part of our politics. The stuffy, rigid, rot in both parties - moreso the Democrats - are in major need of a shake up and thank God for democracy and America because the American people see what I see. Or feel what I feel. I believe our institutions and culture are strong enough to counter the worst impulses in both Trump and AOC -- and their presence might be a very important way for our country to reassess and regenerate our self.

Home Ownership: Bad Investment, Good For Wealth Building

The Good: Your Wealth Will Increase

-The best medium term aspect of owning a home is the fixed mortgage payment versus having increased rent each year. Over time, your "rent" costs go down each year as inflation decreases the cost of the dollar.

-Forced "savings." The portion of your mortgage that goes toward principal increases your net worth by paying down debt.

-Levered asset appreciation. A $1 million dollar home going up 5% in a year equals 50K increase in paper net work. A 100K stock portfolio going up 10% in a year equals 10K increase in paper net worth.

The Bad: Your Money Will Decrease

-Levered property tax each year. So while your asset appreciates, you also have to pay property tax on the assessed value at time of purchase.

-Repair costs. Varies.

-Selling a home is an expensive proposition. You pay 6% to real estate agents of the entire cost and then need to turn around and spend money on another place to live.

-You cannot sell part of a home if you just need some cash like other investments.

-Having a mortgage means the bank has a piece of you if something unexpectedly goes wrong.

The Negligible:

-Interest deduction on taxes. You save some tax, but you're paying interest.

-You can borrow money off the home if need be.

The Neglected Elements:

-Home mortgages serve as a rare inflation hedge for a joe average person. Say inflation skyrockets 10-20%. That hurts joe average, but actually makes the relative value of paying down the mortgage less. So it works as a hedge.

-The option to pay off your mortgage with additional money. Additional payments hack away at your principal and turn each subsequent mortgage payment into a higher ratio of principal repayment and a lower ratio of interest, thus making all future payments more beneficial to your wealth.

-Paying off in full one day. No housing payment would be real nice.

Logging

TV: Surviving R Kelly

Not enjoyable to my taste, aesthetically. Feels just like a list of horrors he perpetrated. This is also why I stopped reading 2666 during book 4. But he is a true monster - far beyond the scope of any of these other MeToo folks, including Weinstein.

Amazing he still has fans/defenders and has avoided jail. Bizarre.

A Frustrating Liberal Tactic

Behave disagreeably, and then when someone calls you out on it, claim racism, chauvinism, or whatever -ism makes the most sense.

Intriguing Take

On why Millenials actually might be making smart financial decisions, despite the numbers not reflecting it.

Pot

May be much more dangerous than commonly assumed.

I knew a gentle guy in high school who smoked a ton of pot and later committed the most horrific crime I've ever heard of. That's anecdotal, but I'm from NoCal and my general impression is the folks up there underplay downsides of pot use and overstate the upsides.

Gene Hackman

Underrated excellence in Get Shorty as a schlocky movie producer. The scene where he's somehow found courage through hanging out with Chili Palmer to talk shit to Dennis Farina over the phone is worth the price of admission. IMO could go toe-to-toe with Burt Reynolds' turn in Boogie Nights.

AOC

Hard not to notice the minute she proposes taxing those with incomes over 10 mil, Anderson Cooper and Whoopi Goldberg start attacking her. Just saying...

...Reminds me of the scene from Broadcast News (which I sadly cannot find a clip of on the internet) when Jack Nicholson playing the news anchor laments the awful layoffs at the network and his news manager suggests he could take a salary cut to help keep the people employed and he just looks at him, blank with one of the greatest Jack Nicholson looks ever and simply moves on. That's our elite. And Jack would know.

Not than I'm an AOC fan, but at least she takes liberal ideology to its logical conclusion. The plain truth is this: folks are super liberal when it comes to other people's money and super conservative when it comes to their own. I'm not sure who is more right.

AOC vs. Pelosi

My money's on Pelosi.

Worth It, Not Worth It

A new feature to Public Musings in 2019 will be the game Worth It, Not Worth It. I will examine recent purchases, etc, to determine whether they are: Worth It or Not Worth It.

Game #1: Organic Chicken

Most things in American life have improved since I was a child. Cars, computers, restaurants, you get the idea. But one thing has noticeably declined in American life and you guessed it: that thing is chicken. Store bought chicken today makes me want to puke. It costs like 1.99 a pound and is incredibly cheap, but do you eat this stuff? Disgusting. I get most of meat from Costco and the steak and salmon is just as good or better than Whole Foods, but the chicken? In the words of my 3-year old: YUCK! A chicken breast today is 3x as large as a chicken breast should be.

Over the break, we ate chicken at an average family Chinese restaurant and it tasted quite good, especially compared to the chicken I've grown used to. My father-in-law informed me the Chinese use what they call "running chickens," that are raised in a way where they run around a lot so the meat is leaner and the chicken is smaller. The Chinese believe they taste better and guess what? The Chinese are right.

So...what to do? I don't live near a Chinese market, so I thought I'd try the smallest Organic Whole Foods chicken. This chicken was about 3x as expensive as the 1.99 a pound chicken. I made the chicken in an Insta pot (wrongly, it turns out) and yet, the entire family ate it and was satisfied. Then I made the leftovers into congee (again in the Insta pot). We used the entire chicken! And are actually eating it rather than letting the disgusting leftovers sit in the fridge for a week before tossing it out in a purge.

My verdict for Organic Chicken? WORTH IT!

Inequality

When the stock market soars, you will see articles and statistics about how all the increase in wealth is going to the rich. But you never see the corresponding article when the stock market falls. Why not?

And if one is concerned with wealth inequality, isn't the most efficient solution just a 50% decline in stocks which will impact the rich in a huge way and the rest of people in a much lesser way? And poor people not at all.

Just saying.

Temperature In Food and Beverage

Is highly underrated by joe average. Temperature is critical to my enjoyment of a number of food and beverages, so much so, the wrong temperature makes great food or beverages inedible or undrinkable. For my taste, here are the relevant levels of temperature:

Ice Cold
Fridge Cold
Room Temp
Luke Warm
Warm
Hot

I just ate some porridge that when hot was unenjoyable, but when luke warm was delicious. It got me thinking of this post. What other foods/drinks are like this?

Ice Cold - martini. A non ice cold martini is not a martini as far as I'm concerned.

Fridge Cold - water. Only slightly better than ice cold. Pudding? This one isn't coming to me easy.

Room Temp - sandwiches

Luke Warm - porridge (see above)

Warm - most food and soup, etc.

Hot - coffee. Duh.

Affirmative Action - A Thought

It's been going for 40 plus years. Supporters rarely make the claim it is working. In fact, often it is just the opposite: they say not enough progress on racial matters is being made. So then why should we continue affirmative action if it is so clearly not working or not working adequately? See my point? Either it has worked, and thus makes itself unnecessary, or it hasn't worked and we ought to try something else.

My instinct is that the time for it has come and gone and we should be moving away from such measures. If anything, it ought to be replaced with some type of component of socio-economic considerations (although that too will be problematic).

Ellen

Finally! Someone stands up to the Twitter outrage mob. At first I was surprised it was Ellen DeGeneres of all people, but upon reflection, it shouldn't have. I've always liked her and thought she was the last good Oscar host. Not my style of humor, but she succeeds in coming across as completely herself and not crazy, which is a rare commodity in public life these days.

Good For Pelosi

She says "All lives matter," which will trigger all the right the people. A small sign the Democrats are regaining their sanity.

Logging

Film: Blackkklansman

Fun scenes, but plotting was ridiculous toward the end. The heavy handedness was eye rolling, but not offensive.

Film: A Quiet Place

Pretty good.