Searching for a guru

At old age, I got to realize that all my life I was searching for a guru, a teacher, a leader. In seventy plus + plus years I met only a few and only for a short time. The most memorable is Chaim Ben Ezra, my boss on TAHAL, a miracle-worker who won the economic planning function in a number of Central American States, to the point that once said I own … (a country) and it was true. He was the person who paid me MORE than I thought was worth. Another one is … Buzaglo (he hebraized his name) who - metaphorically - took my trembling hand in difficult meetings with regulators and led me to victory, and paid well for my loyalty and dedication. In the last years, with wider contacts in the Israeli entrepreneur environment, I met others, but typically they are too busy to dedicate their time to me or I am so overworked with my urgent projects that I fail to them. On the other hand, many of my students and friends have identified ME as their guru, but I am too egoist to help the too much, and then, they feel (correctly) that I despise them. My life is done, so that is it. I am not trying to change anymore. 

The assault against Judaism

Scandinavian countries have forbidden circumcision, considering it a bloody attack against a powerless individual. Other countries forbid schita, the Jewish slaughter of animals without sedation. Britain had problems with Jewish schools, whose racial composition did not reflect the general population. Now we have the State of New York that intends to force the schools to change their curriculums to prepare the graduates to find good jobs. 

Jews are the most successful and wealthiest ethnic group in the New York State, if not the world, but clearly, some New York officials believe that Orthodox Jews need to do better. Although New York City public schools are not exactly an unbridled success story, the city contends it must intervene in order to ensure the yeshivas better prepare students for the workforce. 

Israel is no different. Every State desires an uniform and obedient population, serving in the army and working at "productive" sectors. Judaism has been under assault forever. 

NASDAQ smells recession

In the NASDAQ we are already in bear territory. The Fed killed all hope with its crazy policy of cooling down the American and world economy. I suffered cruel losses, I may not be anymore a Hanukkah-geld multimillioner…

Long Term Loans Erosion

I found this expression in a Singapur text. What does it mean? Economic dictionaries have profit erosion, due to a number of events but this is different. Long term fixed interest loans get eroded because of inflation. Or they lose its worth by annual bank maintenance expenses.

Maybe the creditworthiness of the debtor changes with the time, gets worse. Maybe the difficulty of recouping the money increases with time? Who knows?

Tunnel War with the Hizballah

We are having a tridimensional war with the Hizballah religious party of Lebanon. In fact, we founded that Muslim organization, thinking that it will focus in humanitarian and social work in South Lebanon. You know, highly educated and intelligent people - in positions of power - tht were convinced that Lebanon's hostility was founded in poverty and destitution, so if we improve their life, they will love us. Hizballah IS basically a welfare organization but it has also organized an army focused on our destruction. They had fired missiles to our Northern cities, and we have built a tall prefab cement blocks wall. So they went underground and bored several tunnels to surprise us. They planned to send through the tunnels fighters on motorcycles, with mission of causing chaos. We have discovered three tunnels, we don't know how many are. The pic shows that these days they have erected a wall in the tunnel, to make difficult to Israeli soldiers to advance in it. Comparing this photo with the photos of Hamas tunnels, I think the Hamas's technique of prefab inverted U blocks is more effective. The Hizballah seems to have worse engineers, maybe because those in Gaza have worked and gathered experience in Israel. 

Flint Water Keeps Poisoning Innocent Victims

The Flint Water Crisis keeps taking victims. A Michigan judge ruled Friday that the state’s chief medical executive will be one of six people to stand trial on involuntary manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the Flint water crisis.

During that period an outbreak of the Legionella disease affected at least 90 people in Genesee County, resulting in the deaths of 12. (The local hospital's unmaintained hot water system was breeding the bacteria). A manslaughter charge was added to Wells’ case. Wells (pic), a member of Gov. Rick Snyder’s cabinet, has denied any wrongdoing and her attorneys claim she had no legal duty to warn the public.  

Fear Seizes The Algo Trading Machines

All the main indicators of economic activity are telling us about an economy that is all right and full employment and fat profits and dividends. Yet NASDAQ is falling evermore. What is that? I think that the crossing of the long term and short term interest rates in the USA, which has apparently predictive power, has convinced the statistical machines that recession is coming in six months. So they are discharging shares. Since the algo machines are the most active participants in the market, they impose their mood on everybody.

Should I join the robots and follow their direction? I don't know.