Top 5 Predictions of 2008

2008 will bring many new and intriguing changes to our world.  The US will have a new president, there will be a new college football champion, and I will have a new job (and a new degree, lord willing).  We may be living somewhere else, maybe even a new city.  Who knows what might lie ahead?  Here are my best guesses, for the whole world to see, listed in the order of my confidence in them.

1. The person elected president will have promised peace in Iraq with the return of our troops, a restored US economy, and an end to partisan politics.  None of these things will actually occur, however.

2. There will be a recession in the US economy, there will be some tough times for a lot of Americans, but it won’t be as bad as some people want to predict.  Housing prices will dip, more drastically in some places than others, unemployment will increase, and the Federal government will try unprecedented measures to correct the problems before the election in November, which will only exacerbate the problem.  But we will recover, if not in 09 then before the midterm elections.

3. My wife will either realize a significant promotion at her place of employment or will be working somewhere else by the end of 2008.  I believe her patience has worn thin enough for her to finally take the risk.

4. The college football season will be neither surprising, nor unpredictable.  For all the discussion around “parity” this year and a new era of a level field, I don’t believe the plethora of upsets could be explained any better than a bunch of underachieving teams let themselves go.  Next year, there will be some upsets, the traditional powerhouses will undoubtedly prevail, there will be two undefeated teams from BCS conferences playing for the championship, and the dream of parity will have faded from memory.

5.  The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing will have significant off-the-field drama.  These games are considered by the People’s Republic to be their “coming out” statement to the world.  Look how powerful and impressive this communist country has become, despite their detractor’s claims.  But when the spotlight does shine on this backward country, and the human rights’ atrocities become undeniably evident, the world will not stand by and say nothing.  Athletes may make statements, international visitors might, the media may even get in the game if it becomes popular enough.  But it is hard for me to fathom all those people hosted by China to not become appalled at the censorship and heavy-handed state affairs.  How China reacts to the criticism is going to involve the real drama.

And my last, fun prediction – Britney Spears, jealous of the attention her easy little sister is getting over her pregnancy, decides to become really trashy and sleep with every inmate in the Orange County Jail and refuse paternal tests – that way her baby daddy will always be an unknown criminal.  Beat that Jamie Lynn!

Why the US Economy Will Slip in 2008

My brother the accountant explained to me recently why he doesn’t think we will experience much, if any, of a recession this upcoming year.  Because the housing market kept chugging along during the 2001-02 economic recession, the two markets can apparently operate independently and therefore the impending sub-prime crisis will not have much effect on the overall economy.

I tend to take a different view on the subject.  I see the growth of the housing market, particularly through the economic slowdown of the first part of the decade, as more of a “trick” to continue the illusion of the US economy’s strength.  Like delayed maintenance costs can make the bottom line look better than it really is today, only to cost more in the future, the low interest rates and relaxed regulatory enforcement allowed for continued housing market performance today, only to cost us more in times to come.

The payment of these tricks is coming due soon.  And when it does, the economy will suffer.  Just like refusing to pay for road maintenance will later result in ten times the cost for road replacement, so will social services cost more tomorrow for those people who lose their jobs, and their homes, when the housing market tanks.  Prices are over-inflated, too many new homes have been built saturating the market, and equity will disappear for many parts of the country.  As that equity disappears and the sub-prime mortgages reset, people who can’t afford the new rates will default as well as home equity lines will come due, and money will be sapped from the economy.  This will lead to a recession, which will reduce hiring at least, if not shrink the job market, and people will be relying on social services to survive.

In addition, commodities are trading higher than ever, meaning that while people will have less to spend everything will be costing more.  This crunch could exacerbate the problem further.

The federal government is looking into ways to alleviate the sub-prime crunch, but this is a bad idea.  Letting the market correct itself will be painful, but interfering in the market will only lead to bigger problems.  Hold on tight, and we will all weather the upcoming downturn.  It is a natural market cycle so let it run its course.  There will be upswings again, just be ready for it when it comes.

Top 5 “Angel” Songs

‘Tis the season, and while most people are thinking of Christmas songs, debating their favorites, etc, I thought I might go a less conventional route and name my top five favorite songs about angels – not Christmas songs per se, but angels do figure pretty predominantly into the season, so why not?

Of course the real angel in my life inspires this list.  Since I have met Tara I have thought of her as my angel – she has saved me from myself more times than I can count, and I am sure I would not be here without her.  So I have had an affinity for songs about angels for almost ten years now, ever since my angel came into my life.

5. One Angel – Stir.  Not a song a lot of people know, but this St Louis band has rocked my collection since I saw them in 1997, and this song has always had a particular message with meaning.  Find it, you’ll like it.

4. Angel – Jimi Hendrix.  Come on, this one is great.  While it doesn’t exactly make me think the happiest thoughts, it is iconic and has to be included.

3. Angel in Harlem – U2.  Again, not one that relates particularly to the wife, but a great rock song nonetheless.

2. She Talks to Angels – Black Crowes.  This song is heartbreaking.  I have always loved this song, and have a great acoustic version that is haunting.  This girl, that talks to angels, is an intriguing one that would spell doom for any man she meets, but through no fault of her own.  Can you imagine her?  I think this song does a great job of describing a secret desire of many.

1. Seven Spanish Angels – Willie Nelson and Ray Charles. What a duet, and what a song.  I love this song and love to imagine the story.  This reckless, foolish love that drives the protagonists is wonderful.  The Seven Spanish Angels will someday come for me, I hope.

I feel as though I am missing one, but just can’t remember it here in the ole hometown at the parents’ house.  If I think of it I will add it later.  Merry Christmas, I hope to post more regularly soon!

Top 5 Things I Learned This Year

Just because I’m in school, that doesn’t mean I learned anything.  What I mean is, everyone learns regardless of whether or not he or she is in school.  Maybe I shouldn’t blog late on the Friday evening after finals and an excellent bottle of champagne.  So it goes, but here is the list of top five things I learned this year (in no particular order):

5. Public finance is so much like classic literature.  Seriously, who knew?  But just like good literature, there are things written “between the lines” in a public financial statement that explains more fully what real priorities, and real problems, exist in a particular municipality.  They also say what it means to be human, and suffer under the common condition – or maybe not.

4. I don’t like surprise parties.  I like throwing them, and I like going to them, but I am not real good at being surprised.  Maybe one of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life was switching moods from raging mad to super happy in .03 seconds when the surprise was sprung for my 30th birthday party.  Mission Accomplished, I was surprised!

3. I like to blog! I know its silly but I do. This medium that I had heard so much about but knew very little was opened to me by two distinctly different venues – my good friend Hilary Marchbanks and her super blog, and a great class I took this fall called Internet and Public Policy given by Professor Chapman.  Hilary helped me get over my fear, and Professor Chapman illustrated the power the blogosphere can wield.

2. Hierarchical statistical modeling is very powerful. I (almost) accurately predicted this year’s National Collegiate Football Champion last January.  Just because this season was the strangest in history and my model didn’t actually get the right team, I think it wasn’t the model’s fault!  Damn you Appalachian State, you started the madness!

1. Fire in the hole sauce burns as much coming out as going down.  Nuff said.

There you have it.  I may have forgotten something, feel free to let me know.  Thanks!

Remembering Professor Rostow

I was never fortunate enough to have a class with Professor Rostow, but I am well aware of the loss to our school her passing signifies.  A wonderful and thoughtful counselor and instructor, she was committed to public service and teaching up to the day she died at age 90.  I know this from stories, from short conversations with her in the halls, and from her reputation and longevity.  But she lived an incredible life, and instead of mourning her death I want to celebrate what I remember most about her.

Elspeth Rostow, as I knew her, was a small, fervent old woman with a presence that was undeniable.  One couldn’t explain why, but a room seemed dominated by her spirit whenever she was around.  Her fierce eyes didn’t seem to miss a thing, even as her body aged and slipped around her.  Everyone who knew her admired her, and I can’t imagine a more honorable thing to say about someone.  But she was not without humor and charm, as my first introduction to her will illustrate.

The first week of LBJ is consumed with orientation – a week-long event in which students get to know the expectations, the classes, the professors, and each other so that when classes begin everyone can “hit the ground running.”  Part of the event include class panels at which professors of similar classes are given the opportunity to discuss their topics, workload, and teaching styles.  Professor Rostow was the last panelist to speak for the P&P classes, immediately following a young, pretentious, arrogant, newly appointed associate professor in his tweed jacket and elbow patches.  She was so old it was difficult to hear her, even with the microphone.  All of us in attendance in the auditorium found ourselves leaning forward expectantly to hear her speak.  With a sigh, she began.

“It is never good to be last on a panel, so I will end with a story.  There once was a young, impressive, associate professor who had recently moved into town.  It was Halloween, and he wanted to be a good neighbor and give healthy snacks to the children that visited his door, so he bought a bushel of apples for treats.  Very soon he had his first visitor.  She was a darling little angel, with delicate wings and a lovely smile.  She held out her bag and said in her sing-song little voice, “trick or treat!”  This dashing young professor, so proud of himself for his own cleverness, picked up an apple, shined it on the sleeve of his tweed jacket, and dropped it into the little girl’s bag.  The little angel looked into the bag, then looked up at this impressive professor, and said … “God dammit you broke my cookies!”

The entire auditorium erupted in laughter (except, perhaps, the professor to Rostow’s right).  To hear this little old lady, truly LBJ royalty if there was such a thing, say these words was funny enough.  But to see clearly the jab she threw at her self-important neighbor was priceless.  She finished with, “and that is why I never wish to be the last speaker on a panel.”  Nothing about her class, or her teaching style, as her other panelists had detailed fully.  She didn’t need to.  She said it all right there.  It was perhaps the funniest thing I have ever heard an octogenarian mutter, and one of my favorite all-time memories.

I didn’t know Dean Rostow well.  I am sad to lose her.  But I would like to think she was ready, it was her time, and she would want us to remember the best of her as we move on.  I hope her family and close friends appreciate the story, and that they can be comforted by the memory of the wonderful little lady.  Bless her and all those who mourn her loss; I am thankful for the opportunity to have even met her.

Top 5 Moments in 2007

Ah, the end of the year draws nigh, and it is in the twilight that we spend time looking back and pondering how far we have come.  So it is that I begin this pensive mood with a top five list of my best moments in 2007.  I know it may not be as riveting to some as others, but nevertheless, it is what I am going to write about.  If you don’t like it then TOUGH! 

5.  The All-Comers Cross Country Meet in July.  For those of you who may not know, I ran in high school and college, and in the years since have grown to miss those days.  But this past summer I talked a group of my friends to come run a free, all-comers cross country race in Zilker Park one fine Friday evening.  Sure it was hot, and all the high school kids made us feel old, but it was the closest thing to a real XC race I had experienced in years, and it made me smile.  Running through shin-high grass up hills and through the trees, around landmarks and to the painted finish line – it was great.  The greatest part of it, however, was having my “team”, my friends there with me.  I will always think of them sweating it out to support some silly idea of mine as a strong testament to the greatness of my friends.

4. Landing my internship with Fitch Ratings.  From early in the fall semester I thought I wanted to pursue public finance, and the best route seemed via municipal bond rating.  The competition was fierce for the Fitch internship, and when I found out I was the one, I couldn’t have felt better about myself.  It seemed everything was working out exactly right, the world was right, and the sky was the limit.  What a great feeling that was.

3. Colin Thomas Brown was born.  What a wonderful and blessed occurrence!  My best friend and his wife have a beautiful, healthy baby boy, everyone is healthy and joyous, the occasion was momentous.  The first of many signals that we’re all grown up!  You can’t ask for more than that, and to see Cameron and Tab, and proud uncle Kevin and aunt Sarah, as happy as they were, it was a wonderful moment in history.

2. Lollapalooza 2007.  Chicago (in the summer) is freaking awesome, the music festival was incredible, seeing Eddie Vedder backstage was amazing, and hanging with some of my best friends – priceless.  What a great weekend, an experience I will surely remember for the rest of my life.

1. My surprise 30th birthday party.  As mentioned earlier, I have some great friends.  My wife completely surprised me, the story is great (but better told in person).  Being roasted was fun and enjoyable.  But seeing so many people there that care about me meant more than anything else.  I get by with a little help from my friends, and my top five list of best moments wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Here’s to another great year gone by, and a better one to come!  Happy Holidays–

The Irony of Peacekeepers

Ah, the irony of peacekeepers - why do we send troops with guns to keep the peace?  Of course I understand the logistics; when entering a hostile environment where people want to kill you and/or the people you are trying to protect it only makes sense to be armed with retaliatory force should it be necessary.  However, what if, under certain circumstances, a true “peacekeeping” force, without weapons and with the intention of creating peace and not just safety, were unleashed on a hostile environment? 

There are people in this world, plenty of them, that see our presence in Iraq as an occupation, not as an effort to spread democracy and peace to an oppressed region.  Our military driving through the streets in armored humvees with automatic rifles does not help this image at all.  In fact, those who believe us to be the oppressors see these images and nod along with the insurgents that fire at our troops.  They say to themselves, “If an army occupied my country, my city, I would fight them off as best I could.”  This PR war cannot be won with artillery; we cannot convince the world that we are peace keepers when we carry weapons on a foreign land.

There seems to be two resolutions to this problem through conventional tactics.  Either we destroy the insurgency or beat the people into submission (or bribe them into submission), or we pack up and leave.  To beat down everyone that resists our presence would require incredible resources and time, if it is possible at all.  To pull out and leave would be a demoralizing defeat for our country and most likely leave the region in a more powerful and threatening position than it was to begin with.  There must be another solution.

What if, instead of meeting the insurgent resistence with power, we met it with compassion and tolerance?  Don’t get me wrong, I believe our troops serving in Iraq are working as compassionately as they can under their present orders, and I admire them for their efforts to help those in need regardless of the bullets being fired in their direction.  I can’t imagine the courage and compassion it must take for our troops to work every day for the betterment of a country and a people that sometimes don’t seem to want their help.  However, as long as the media focuses on the guns, and ignores for the most part the humanitarian aid, the war is lost.  So what if we bend and expose ourselves to the insurgency, we allow ourselves to be the vulnerable bringers of aid and comfort, we make ourselves the victims at the hands of the savage insurgents?  Then the paradigm is shifted, and the world will become our ally in our efforts to help Iraq.

This is my proposal: we train and prepare 20,000 or more people, volunteers for the US Army of Peace, in the languages and the skills necessary to help redevelop ravaged areas and mend ethnic conflicts in Iraq.  Of all the anti-war people in the US there has to be at least 20,000 of them willing to enlist in a military program that trains them to rebuild instead of destroy.  It can be similar to a Peace Corp, only trained with the specific skills necessary to address Iraqi tensions and reconstruction issues.  These fighters will not carry weapons, though they should probably be equipped with armor and all the tools they will need for their particular objective.  But in addition, they will all be outfitted with cameras linked directly to the internet, broadcast in real time to a website available to the entire planet, unedited. 

Can you imagine the outcomes now?  Either these ambassadors of peace, unarmed peaceniks with nothing but promised aid on their agendas, will be unleashed on a populace that truly needs all the help they can get, and this will communicate more than soldiers that we truly mean to help.  Or these brave and valiant souls will become martyrs for the cause and the insurgents will suffer horrible PR consequences.  These unarmed men and women, working to resolve conflicts and rebuild schools, being fired upon by insurgents, will not sit well with anyone in the world, and retribution will be swift and from everywhere.  The media could not avoid covering such immediate news, it would be available to everyone and undeniable.  Of course if any bloodshed occurred it would be tragic, but it would not take many instances for world opinion to sway and snuff out the killers.  Either way, the end result would be true peace keeping; insurgents would find they have no one to fight and the US would be able to bring the aid promised to a ravaged country that needs our help.  The game would shift, and we could not lose.  Its just a thought – Peace Bringing instead of Insisting on Peace at Gunpoint.

Top 5 Sports Moments

OK sports fans, I almost forgot to write my weekly top five installment, but my wife gingerly reminded me at dinner so here I am, giving it to you late on a Friday evening.  This is a list I have been working on for awhile, the top five sports moments in recent history.  I am sure this is as contentious (if not more) as the top five covers, since people’s opinions can vary widely depending on your interest.  Maybe Hulk Hogan throwing Andre the Giant over the top rope to win Wrestlemania III in 1988 really moved you to tears; maybe Derek Jeter hitting a home run to win some baseball game shook your world; or maybe the Eurotrash rugby championship in 2002 was the pinnacle of your sports-watching experience.  But these are the moments that really move me, played out mostly in the sports I care about.  If you have better ideas, feel free to share them.

5. Secretariat wins the 1973 Belmont by 31 lengths to complete the triple crown.  The first racing horse to grace the cover of Time Magazine, he still holds the standing track records for both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont, and the fastest time ever run for 1.5 miles on a dirt track.  His win may be the single most impressive victory in sports history.

4. Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman 1974 Title Bout – “The Rumble in the Jungle”.  Ali, fighting to regain his heavyweight title that he lost through conscientiously objecting to the Vietnam War, was a clear underdog against the powerful Foreman.  However, by outlasting the big man and implementing the”rope a dope” strategy of wearing his opponent out, Ali was able to surprise the champ in the 8th round and knock him out.  Amazing strategist.

3.  2007 Fiesta Bowl – Boise State vs Oklahoma.  Boise State was given very little chance in this game against Bob Stoops familiar Oklahoma team.  Most found it amazing that the Broncos hung with the Sooners through 4 quarters, but sending the game into overtime, and then winning with the “statue of liberty” was maybe the most unbelievable bowl game I have ever seen.

2. Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile in 1954.  Most experts told him he would die, that the human body could not run that fast without exploding his heart.  Can you imagine, being told that your heart would explode if you kept pushing yourself, but doing it anyway?  Today the world record is almost 17 seconds under 4 minutes at 3:43.17.

1.  The “Miracle on Ice” – 1980 US Hockey Team’s upset of previously unbeaten USSR.  The USSR team, unbeaten since the 1960’s, was brought down by a bunch of kids who had only played together for 6 months.  The fact that they believed, and played fearless hockey on one night in front of the home crowd, changed history and may have single-handedly brought hope back to the beleaguered USA.  I get teary-eyed even thinking about it.

 So there you go, the top five sports moments.  Let me know what you think.