Author Archives: shiningseausa

BROKEN NEWS – TRUMP BUYS CNN, CHANGES NAME TO “TRUMP NEWS TODAY” (TNT)

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Washington, DC – July 5, 2016:  It was learned today that Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States, has purchased Cable News Network, normally known as CNN, for an undisclosed sum. Trump hired the public relations firm of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey to advise in connection with the transaction.

“When you think about,” Trump added, “my buying CNN makes perfect sense. They spend 90 percent of their time talking about me, anyway, with around-the-clock panel discussions and live video of my every utterance, so why shouldn’t I own it? Isn’t the press supposed to be free in this country? Believe me, CNN wasn’t free. It cost me a bundle, but with my former campaign manager working for them now, it was clearly the right move. Their constant coverage really helped my campaign and saved me a lot of money. And now, this way, we can cut costs by eliminating what remains of their so-called journalists. Instead of constant speculation about what I said and what I meant to say, they can just ask me directly and I’ll tell them what to report. They should just report the news I give them. That’s it,” Trump said.”

In a related development, Trump’s advisors hinted that Trump, at his own expense, had purchased large tracts of land along the U.S.-Mexican border and was already starting construction of his infamous Wall. A large area has been set aside for construction of Trump Castle, similar to a hotel, but with a moat, for the convenience of visitors to the massive construction site.

Around-the-clock web cam coverage of the construction is being suggested for broadcast by TNT. Trump is also planning to sell the dirt from the Wall excavation as souvenirs for his supporters. Finally, word leaked out from his campaign that he is considering renting shooting positions along the wall to aspiring owners of AR-15 rifles who, for a fee, have the opportunity to stand guard and fend off anyone seeking to breach or scale the Wall. His spokesperson said that Trump meant to say that only rubber bullets would be permitted. Thus, even if Mexico does not end up paying for the Wall, Trump will still make a killing, figuratively speaking, of course.

Note: This is satire. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.  Believe it.

Or not.

DEPORT TRUMP! An Alternate Immigration Policy

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Donald Trump, aspiring candidate for the presidency of the United States, has taken the position that an essential element of the solution to the immigration problem in the United States is the forced deportation of some 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants, combined with the construction of a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border, followed by the acceptance back into the U.S. of the “good” Mexicans through a .”big beautiful nice door.” This will be accomplished with the help of a “deportation force.”  We are not making this up. See http://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/donald-trump-we-will-have-a-deportation-force, 11/11/15 This policy will be good for America, Trump asserts, because, among other things, it will be paid for by Mexico and will help “make America great again.”

The “very nice wall” would be at least a short term boon to the construction industry in Texas, and a longer term stimulus to the American arms industry whose products would be needed to defend the wall against the likely incursions that will follow its construction. There will, of course, be a  short-term need to increase police department budgets to provide for the extra manpower needed to track down the many immigrants who will seek, and find, refuge in the homes and other properties of sympathetic Americans who are opposed to the forced expulsion of workers, colleagues and friends identified by the “deportation force” as candidates for removal. This scenario, of course, has some of the attributes of a police state, but, under the Trump scheme, this would presumably only be temporary …. like all the other police states we know about.

There is another option, of course, Several, in fact, but this one stands out for its elegant simplicity, matching the simplicity of Mr. Trump’s solution. The other option is to deport Mr. Trump to Mexico, which has been having a lot of economic and other troubles (e.g., embarrassing prison escapes by drug lords). Mr. Trump’s strength, a storied history of business success which seems to have led to his belief that the government can be run just like a big business, would perhaps be welcomed by Mexico. Even Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico, is reported to be losing money recently. See http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/12/carlos-slim-worlds-2nd-richest-man-mexicos-biggest-oligarch-master-of-slimlandia-loses-billions/

The master of the deal would likely find fertile soil in Mexico for his skills, including showing Mexico how to instantly create a thriving free-market economy. The result would be renewed growth of the Mexican economy, creating new jobs, income growth and all of the other benefits of a consumerist society unbounded. Then, without the expense of a wall, indeed the wall would be counterproductive at this point, Mexican “illegals” would flee the United States in droves, seeking employment and happiness in their home country. Trump’s deportation would solve the U.S. immigration problem without government intervention or force (other than as required to secure Mr. Trump’s removal across the border). If Mexico were as in thrall of Mr. Trump’s solutions as he is, this single act would demonstrate once and for all the benefits of a market economy free of government intervention and could become a model for the future of the United States economy to boot. Everyone wins! Except for those Americans who are dependent upon cheap Mexican and other Latino labor that will have gone elsewhere for better paying jobs.

 

 

Renter’s Insurance — Does a Better Credit Score Make You Less Likely to Make a Claim?

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I recently, and for the first time, experienced an insurance company (with whom I have long experience) tell me that my premium depended, in part, on my credit score. I called to inquire into the basis for the connection between those two seemingly independent questions. The explanation tracked what I later found onohmyapt.apartmentratings.com, where this appears:The logic behind using credit ratings, according to insurers, is that those who default on debt are more likely to make claims.”   Indeed, Liberty Mutual (not my insurer) candidly states this:While insurance scores predict insurance losses, credit scores predict credit delinquency. Both are calculated from information in a credit report ….”

I challenged the idea that my credit score, which is very good, was relevant to my insurance premium because the premium was to be paid in advance in order to obtain any insurance on my property. So credit and “delinquency” would appear to be irrelevant to what I should pay for protection against loss of personal property from external forces. The response from Travelers was essentially “that’s how we do it, so take or leave it.”

Remarkably, I believe, Liberty Mutual says this in its Q&A about the relationship between credit scores and insurance premiums: “I have an excellent credit rating; does this mean I qualify for the best insurance premium?
That depends. [my emphasis] Since insurance scores measure items related to insurance losses and credit scores measure creditworthiness, these scores may be very different. Items on a credit report considered by an insurance company may not be ones considered by a lender. Likewise, there may be items on a credit report used by a lender that are not relevant to an insurer. …. For your homeowner premium, insurers may consider prior loss history, construction type, distance to fire stations and fire hydrants, and presence of protective devices such as smoke detectors, theft alarms, and deadbolt locks. State laws and regulations also vary, so the factors insurers may use to calculate premium or determine eligibility may differ by state.”

What is missing from the answer is the explanation of why credit rating has anything real to do with the likelihood or size of a claim, which would seem to be the sole issue to be determined.

This may be a small part of a larger question related to the extent to which data about an individual is algorithmically evaluated to determine the commercial practices of firms performing essential services for large numbers of consumers. It is not beyond imagining that companies could, for example, be connecting low economic status with trustworthiness. I make so such claim about rental insurance companies. The key point is that If such data connections are being made, they should at least be made completely transparent upfront, so that consumers understand exactly what is going on and why. This is especially true when the correlations may be sound but causality is not proven. Transparency would enable shoppers in all areas to better assess their choices and would improve the competitive forces that lead good companies to treat their customers with respect.

Bank to Customer: Your payment may have been canceled

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Had an interesting interaction with Wells Fargo the other day.  When I logged into my online bank account to check a bill payment, a message appeared telling me Wells Fargo had changed its Bill Pay process.  Effective two days prior to my logging in “consumer credit cards cannot be used as a payment account for Bill Pay.”  The message later clarified that “if you are using a consumer credit card to fund Bill Pay payments, you will need to choose another payment account or your payment will be canceled.”

I don’t question that the bank has the right to stop accepting credit cards as payment vehicles for its online Bill Pay service, but the idea that it could do this without formal notice users of the online banking service is disturbing.  When I called to inquire about the precise meaning of the message and to raise the issue of lack of notice, the voice-from-India (wild guess on my part, based on accent) told me that she apologized, but that was it.

Remarkable.

Getting Jazz

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I took a friend to a jazz club recently and, despite the powerhouse performance laced with complex improvisations, the experience was a disappointment to my friend. I had built up the event as something special, but he just didn’t “get” jazz. I suspect the root cause was that he was not properly prepared for the encounter, not schooled in the history of the music and thus unable to hear it in a context that made musical sense. He said it was just “interesting” and that he could “appreciate the mastery.”

My own appreciation of contemporary jazz is based in part on listening a lot to the precursors of the hard bop style and extended improvisations of modern jazz. This historical perspective is just as important in jazz as in classical music, where an informed listener can understand more modern classical forms in the context of, say, music from the Baroque Period. It is, for example, easier to hear the magic in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring if you are familiar with what came before.

I have compiled a list of jazz performances that, in a manageable time frame, could provide a short course in the progression of the music from the original Dixieland originating in the back streets of New Orleans, progressing through ragtime, swing and the other major “movements” to the challenging styles of the present. This is not the “definitive list” or a “complete list” but it’s a pretty good one. More is omitted than is included, but anyone with a minimal ear can listen to the changes through time, without a detailed analysis of what is actually going on, and hopefully learn to dig the sound and the freedom that inheres in jazz music. Jazz deconstructs music to its core elements and reassembles it in new ways. As Cyrus Chestnut says at the end of the first set at each performance: “We’ve enjoyed playing these songs and we promise never to do it again.” He means that the improvisation will be different each time, a spontaneous reimagining of each tune. Like chess games, no two performances of the same tune are the same.

Here is my list:

Louis Armstrong                                  West End Blues

Sidney Bechet                                       Summertime

Jelly Roll Morton                                   Black Bottom Stomp

Pete Fountain                                        Rampart Street Parade

Art Tatum                                               Tiger Rag

Count Basie                                            One O’Clock Jump

Dorsey Brothers                                     St. Louis Blues

Charlie Parker                                         Cherokee

Charlie Parker                                         Scrapple From the Apple

Lester Young                                            Stardust

Ben Webster                                             Stormy Weather

Coleman Hawkins                                   Body & Soul

Bud Powell                                               Bouncing with Bud

Thelonious Monk                                    ‘Round Midnight

Thelonious Monk                                    Straight No Chaser

John Coltrane                                           Giant Steps

John Coltrane                                           One Up, One Down

George Shearing                                      Lullaby of Birdland

Art Blakey                                                  Moanin’

Modern Jazz Quartet                               Softly As In a Morning Sunrise

Erroll Garner                                             Autumn Leaves

Stan Getz                                                   Girl From Ipanema

Stan Getz                                                   These Foolish Things

Miles Davis                                                So What

Miles Davis                                                Oleo

Dave Brubeck                                            Blue Rondo a la Turk

Dave Brubeck                                            Take Five

Marcus Roberts                                         What Is This Thing Called Love?

McCoy Tyner                                              Passion Dance

Stefon Harris                                              Black Action Figure