The Long Road Out

Index funds have killed hedge funds and active management.   By how much?   It appears 5 to 1 during the period from 2010 to 2015.   The artificial run up caused by the Trump election can only have made this gap worse, since many big investors (Buffett, Soros) have bet against the market recently.   Index funds have only continued to ride the wave of every one else's capital staying in one place. It's comforting to see the gap--the NY Times reports these numbers from Seth Klarmen, who they say is some kind of wise guy for hedge fund managers.   I've never heard of him, not that I would.   I have friends with real interests.   He's apparently a value investor like Buffet at some place called the Baupost Group (is this a real firm?   Who knows.)   I've got nothing against him.   I can imagine he's a bit frustrated, losing money for his clients day after day, relative to the S&P. My point, as always, is that these are all dumb guys....

The New York Times, which is trying its best to provide historical context to this period of fascist revolution, found yet another clever parallel:   the censorship of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour . OK, yes, I'm biased.   I did in fact sit in my living room and watch Tom and Dick--and Pat Poulson--every week with my family.   But still.   This stuff is funny . And it reminds me of how invasive the government seemed then.   Every one knew it.   How could any one claim to be surprised by the simple disclosures of Edward Snowden that the government is lying to us about surveillance, all those years later.   Phones were tapped then, and privacy was a joke.  And you could get your head bashed in in Chicago and elsewhere--or your successful TV show cancelled--for saying the obvious. So here's to the two subversive guys who could turn Paint Your Wagon  into a text for revolution.

I've been a radicalized feminist since 1978, and an unconscious one prior to that.   I've read the core literature, and have believed since the beginning that the single best place to start any battle for a more peaceful and humane world is with womens' rights. It's time to stop.   I've taken off my pink pussy hat.  Perhaps I feel this way since I spent the recent Women's March in NYC looking at the same posters and the same angry cops I did at Take Back the Night marches on Broadway in 1984.   Or the Senaca Falls womens' peace encampments.   Etc. etc. And maybe it's because I realize that strong women don't need, nor necessarily appreciate, male fellow travelers.  Generic feminism now means being women-centered in a more exclusionary way than the earlier part of this wave did, I believe. (I wonder if that was true of the first and second waves of Western feminism--that they too grew more exclusionary as they evolved?   I have no idea.) Mostly...