Saturday, May 9, 2020

The Antimatter Man

How to make sense of what is happening in the financial markets? TASE is about 15-20% below its peak. All my extended family are working, I am working and being paid in the University, consulting jobs are starting to flow in to the point that I am again rejecting orders, people stopped dying from coronavirus (they keep dying from other causes as before).  We have learnt to manage the epidemic and extinguishing focus infections. I can't take my eyes from the girls and tend to talk up the cashier girls, but I am impotent (even with viagra!). I schedule my working life till end of 2020 and it is approaching and can't think of an alternative nor how to continue. Most people lives without planning, day to day, but that is not my lifestyle. Weather is great. The international papers like Barron's are pessimists, they say "Wait until the unemployment benefits run out in July. That'll be the beginning of the real trouble."

Yes, but what about the antimatter men?  John Robinson and Don West are transported onto a psychotic world where their evil opposites exist and plan to change places with them. Will, The Robot and a reluctant Dr. Smith set out to find and help the real Don and John only to be pursued by a evil John Robinson.

Lost in Space,” a 1960 TV series, centers on the tight-knit and inexhaustibly inventive Robinson family, who set off for the Alpha Centauri star system after Earth threatened to become inhospitable. Unfortunately, the Robinsons have faced obstacle after obstacle over the seasons. Don't worry, in Lost in Space every episode has a happy end.

Friday, May 8, 2020

Zsidó mesék - Kulka János

Jewish stories - the Hungarian Actor Janos (John) Kulka. His story is that they lived in Szeged, a provincial town, when the shool visited the local sinagogue. At home, he told his father, and he told him the family story, they are Jews and most of the family was assessinated in Auschwitz. Typically among us Hungarian Jews, the subject was never mentioned and it was all completely new from him. He comments that his father spoke without emotion, tried to avoid loading the children with the horror of the Holocaust.

Springtime for J

Friday morning. Wonderful fresh air, springtime  sun, the streets full of people and children all dressed in happy colours, long white legged girls, life is coming back to the city. The winter is over, hungry young pidgeons and exotic birds are busy courting on the fig trees in front of my window.

I am re-reading Xenophon and endless petty wars of the Greeks. Near the end, only one thousand Spartans (of the officer class, mistranslated) remain, spread as harmosts (governors) in one hundred islands and mini-republics. One asks a Spartiate, Tell me, how many are you? He answers: Enough to reject people like you.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Blue

I am a bit dispirited since Monday. I drove to an Industrial Park of Ashtrom in the Deep South, and met a friendly young executive and promised to submit my proposal, which we had already agreed on. When arrived home after 2 hours driving, I got a bad lower back pain. Next day I had to prepare and deliver lectures on ZOOM, did so but I felt below my average. I suspect that the dread of restarting classes and work after two weeks of holidays caused my lower back pain. Today nothing aches but I postponed a meeting in Tel Aviv because my mood is blue, melancholic, dispirited. The epidemic has been mostly stopped and my wife is happy and tired babysitting and feeding the third generation. Her agenda is full for the next week. I am getting old - next time I'll stop every 30 minutes of driving. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Death in Manaus

Manaus, in the middle of the Amazonas rainforest. The corona virus reached them. 

Sunday, May 3, 2020

BAZAN is the exception

Today there is a general retreat of 3% in the stock exchange, with only one stock of TA35 still green, the Israeli refinery BAZAN.  What is happening? the air transport industry has crashed, no demand for refined products, the price of oil is near zero. 
Could it be that BAZAN's competition is exiting the market? Turkey’s largest oil refiner Tüpraş will temporarily stop production at its 220,000-barrel-per-day İzmir oil refinery as coronavirus lockdowns hit fuel demand, the firm has said in a stock exchange filing. Output at the refinery, which has an annual processing capacity of 11.9 million tons, will be suspended from May 5 until July 1.
I am not buying  because of the uncertainty. I am in cash.