Springtime for Safiyah

I sat an hour in the Ariel campus observing groups of Palestinian male and female students. Arab boys are tall, noisy and stressed, forming murderous-looking male circles. They dress exactly like their Jewish Mizrahi counterparts. The hijabed girls are mostly slim, graceful and provocatively physical, they touch and push the boys without any reticence, making the hirsute savages embarrassed and frozen. Arab boys do not talk with Jewish girls, and if they do, they spy the surroundings worried if somebody from the village is around. Arab girls in the University of Ariel, against my dark prejudices, seem happy, liberated and in heat. 

Rip Currents in British Waters

In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition leader, has said the state would take control of Britain’s water, electricity, gas and railway operators, as well as Royal Mail and Royal Bank of Scotland if Labour wins power. After WWII, everything was State-owned and managed, till they decided otherwise. Now they moving back. The Democrats (USA) will follow, they too are considering the same, not because something is wrong, but out of spite and hate of the rich. 

Why Americans feel that the World is About to End?

Americans have a real, immediate feeling that the world is about to end, especially if they fail to do penitence.

They feel guilty about using too much water, using too much energy, eating non-organic foods. De Blasio wants to re-engineer NYC's marvelous steel and glass skyscrapers in order to save water (and electricity) and feel that they are good, in harmony with Nature, Earth, God. Like fakirs, against human nature, eat no meat. Why to  save water on an river island, why recycle the shit? Why no more sinful steel and glass?

Mayor De Blasio, that is my specialty, recycling water, I can do it. But I feel degraded spending my time in imbecile playthings of the very rich. But work is work and it pays the bills.

If they want to live without breathing to save CO2 and save the world, let them do it. I think the Jewish religion, where fasting and other self-punishing ritual acts are strictly regulated, is more rational. Orthodox Jews do not see tall glass buildings as a sin against nature, Earth or whatever. 

Retro-Commissioning in New York

One of the things that amazed me in New York is extreme "environmentalist" public policy in building regulations. Bronx and Brooklyn are today inhabited by third-world people, easily manipulated by anti-rich, nationalistic slogans, reminding me to Arturo Frondizi's book "El Petroleo Es Argentino" which caused the annulment of all contracts with international oil companies and the transformation of the country from oil exporter to dependent from foreign suppliers. Thus, Alexandria Ocasio et al. ran out Amazon HQ from their city and now Mayor De Blasio's declarations are freezing investments in real estate in Manhattan.

De Blasio is proposing to reduce buildings' emission by 80% in five years or so, meaning the total energy (electricity) consumption that is the CO2 emitted by the electricity generation plants. His program is to force tall buildings to replace water and sewage etc infrastructure with new energy saving pipes and stone cover instead existing steel and glass. The builders observed that the newest skyscrapers in New York have EEAL Platinum certificate, that is, comply with the maximum environmental criteria on top of existing city regulation. The new view is that the steel and glass tall buildings are ugly and hurt the Earth environment. New York Democrats new flag says Save the Earth, what ever that it means and costs.  


"In Sydney, Australia, planning regulations, according to a recent Reserve Bank study, now add 55 percent to the price of a home." I think that in New York it is more, and the pressure will only grow to ridiculous extremes. Israel cannot stay behind.  Conclusions:

1. My business line of engineering drawings and municipal permits has a beautiful future, it seems. 

2. Urban building and commercial places will become prohibitively expensive and well placed real estate prices will rise to incredible levels, like in San Francisco. 

What is coming to Israel? This:

There are 3 steps to comply with NYC Local Law 87:

1. Energy Audit: A licensed engineering firm must conduct an ASHRAE Level II Energy Audit.  An Energy Audit is a detailed survey and analysis of a building to identify all opportunities to reduce energy and water use. The end result is a report that details all potential energy and cost-saving measures.
2. Retro-Commissioning (RCx):  Based on the findings of the Energy Audit, Vert Energy Group will conduct retro-commissioning study to identify deficiencies in your building’s base systems.  RCx ensures that building systems are operating in accordance with facility requirements and design intent. 

Strategic Error in the Illiad

When the dissension stroke the Greek expeditionary force in its tenth year of fighting against the Trojans, the balance of power suddenly changed and the Trojans started beating the Greeks. For the first time in this long war, they camped in the open, in the expanse between the walled city of Troy and the fortified Greek camp on the beach.  The next day attacked in force and they succeeded in reaching the sandy beach where the Greek ships were stationed. Then they made a fatal strategic error. They tried to burn the ships. 

Sun Tzu says that you always should leave an escape opening for the circled enemy camp. One should press and harass the enemy, but never let it without a potential escape route, because an enemy with its back to the wall or the sea will fight desperately to death. These kind of combats, even if successful, are terribly expensive in terms of fallen soldiers and must be avoided. Hitler, for example, totally encircled the British expeditionary force in the continent, but did not close the trap but let a few kilometers wide opening, allowing them to sail back with their equipment to Britain. That was the classical Chinese and Mongol strategy.

But the Trojans, instead of letting the Greeks embark and row back to where they came from, tried to destroy their only hope of getting away alive from this failed, endless, futile war. The perspective of defeat and slaughter united the Greek fractions, healing their bitter divisions, and hardened their fighting spirit. They beat back the triumphant Trojan forces to behind the high walls and strong gates. The experience of almost-defeat forced them to realize that brute violence would never take Troy. You shall make war with tricks, unheroic but effective. It took ten bloody years for the Greeks to get the idea.

Likud 1 Gantz 0

Surprise in the Israeli elections: The right wing Likud won - again - under Bibi Netaniyahu. His opponent, Benny Gantz, a former Chief of Staff, ran under an unclear program trying to collect left wing votes. He did not fake his views, it would have been pointless, it was the Israeli left - always living in an illusory world  - that convinced itself that Gantz is not the hard line, cruel, general we know. Gantz led the Army in the last war against the HAMAS in Gaza, with wholesale destruction for the world to see who he is. So, we shall keep Bibi, who gave us relative peace in the last ten years, and has established a visceral (?) love relationship with President Trump AND with Vladimir Putin. The illustration has no relation to the elections, no one should confuse Benny Gantz with that synthetic Japanese masturbatory object.  

What the Illiad is about

Thanks to Richmond Lattimore's new translation of Homer's Illiad, I am starting to understand the history. I have read several Spanish and English versions, and never got the sense of the action and never enjoyed the reading. Now I get it: the Achaians alias Danaans are a bunch of sea pirates, they raid seaside villages to take slaves and valuables. They have put their eyes on Troy, the richest city in Eastern Mediterranean. 

Although they have an "ethical" alibi, the seduction and running off of the young wife of Mykenos's old king with beautiful Paris, they know that this is just another pirate operation.  The objective is to carry off the wives of the Troyans and sell their children as slaves. They want their treasures of golden tripods, shining cauldrons, fine textiles, all the fine things they possess.

The story: The hard core of the pirate band is Agamemnon and his followers of Mykenos, and the Mirmidons (the Ant people), the shock troop of professional killers lead by Achilleus. At a certain point, Agamemnon who is the entrepreneur financing (and personally leading) the expedition, breaks down under the insolence of young Achilleus, and to put him in its place, takes by force his war-prize, the fair-colored girl Briseis. Achilleus, humiliated and bitter, retires from the fight. The Troyans take advantage of this internal dissent, attack in force and press the invaders back into the sea, and start burning the ships. Desperate, the king returns Briseis to Achilleus and adds seven other girls and many presents to pacify the Ant people. Back in the fight, the Troyans are pushed back to their fortified city and in a mano-a-mano, Achilleus kills their leader Hector (illustration). 

In summary, it is the story of an ugly discord within a gang of criminals, and how it is resolved, bringing death and destruction to the peaceful city of Troy. The second part of the saga, the Odyssey, tells the travails of the returning slavers. More suffering and more wretched misery. Agamemnon finds that her family has happily adapted to his absence and kills him, and Ulysses arrives home naked and penniless, and is forced to fight to recover his wife and position. 

Unsettling Settler Colonialism

"I am a White Settler Colonialist" writes Corey Snelgrove of Canada in an academic paper. She felt better after confessing her inborn, hereditary  culpability. 

Jeff Corntassel, a self-declared member of a First Nation, writes in the same essay his feelings about being a dispossessed Indian. He tries to inject into the paper some tribal wisdom, but there is none available. The wise men of the inexistent Indian band he imagines to belong were not literate and anyway, their wisdom - if any -  died off with them, a hundred and twenty years ago. 

Lastly, Rita Dhamoon, a recent immigrant from India, is traying hard to write something relevant to the subject of settler colonialism. What are/were Canada's First Nations and what they have to do with her? She finds that as a brown skinned female, she too is 100% colonized and dispossessed, with terrible traumas caused by White colonials.  

Is this the curricula of Canadian universities?

What is this craziness about settlers? The only bone-and-flesh settlers the papers talk incessantly about are Israelis in the West Bank. I may be paranoid, but this is old Christianity: they are learning that they were born in sin and have to confess and repent to be pardoned, and of course the worst, unrepentant sinners are the Jews. They do not believe in  God and all that, but it is the same thing.

My brain is shrinking and softening

As I "grow" older, my brain is betraying me more and more. I am also tired sooner. So do not give much importance to what  I am saying. My opinion tends to agree with the last argument that impressed me. Sad but being dead is worse. Maybe.

Now I think that the current negative real interest benefits the poor and harms banks and credit intermediaries. Jews - I mean the Jewish moneylenders of the far past. Low interests have an equalizing effect on society, the poor can pay their loans. The rentiers are fucked. I always accepted that social stratification is by IQ but who knows.

I am a NIEMAN, like my father. He was called that by my millionaire uncle Ivor Szabo, Andres in Argentina, and the insult depressed him for weeks. At this age I am what I am and no hope or desire to become else. I am travelling to the Bronx Island with my beloved  little daughter and her fiancee and I pay - what more can anyone desire? Is that happiness? Or am I just drunk?

Teva shares sinking

It was a terrible day for Teva's shares on  TASE.  Teva's stock is now trading at near historical lows from a forward-looking P/E perspective.

Ajovy , comes with bright expectatives but there are already alternative and largely generic drugs to treat migraine, meaning that getting insurers to cover more expensive anti-CGRP treatments, even for patients who have failed existing therapies, is going to be tough. Teva's Huntington's disease medicine Austedo is expected to contribute significantly. Over the past two years, Teva has also managed to slash around $7 billion from its total outstanding debt. All told, Teva seems to be nearing an inflection point on several fronts. 

But the bourse thinks differently. I have lots and lots of shares.....

Sick Sex is Killing Humanity

If our beautiful, intelligent, tools-manufacturing ancestors had evolved as Nature planned it, we would now be almost perfect. But they had a bad, sick side, in fact they were sex-crazy perverts that would immediately mate with any ambulant creature with a hole or a hose between their legs. So they mated with brutish, raw-meat devouring Neanderthal animals, who could not speak an intelligent word, and injected to our genome their primitive vital essence. 

Their incandescent sex-hunger made them approach and mate with the even more primitive Denisovans, veritable gorillas hiding in Siberian caves. Because of their sinful nature, half of humanity now looks like gorillas. 

And if mating with these two proto-hominids did not satisfy their degenerate concupiscence, they maintained secret affairs with a third and a even with a fourth pre-sentient species in Africa, endowing their unfortunate descendants with a monstrously prominent ass. Humanity is doomed, the Planet of the Apes (see pic above) is our sad future. 

Inverted Yield Curve: Prosperity in Sight

It happens that a Treasury bill that matures in three months is yielding 2.46 percent — 0.03 percentage points more than the yield on a Treasury that matures in 10 years. This is called inverted and it is said to predict Depression.  

I do not see the logic of it. If somebody is willing to pay MORE for a short term loan, that means that he needs money NOW and thinks that with time, he will prosper and easily pay back the loan. If somebody asks higher interest for a short term loan, it means that the coming months are uncertain, but he is sure that prosperity will arrive later. In my opinion, there must be a temporary shortage of liquidity and the people needs cash to bridge over these uncertain times. 

In fact, the vision of Israel Katz as Finance Minister and Betzalel Smotrich as Defense Minister is fueling the investors' animal spirits.