Author: Aaron Weber

Angry letters

It’s been all too long since I’ve sent a strongly worded letter to someone or something. McSweeney’s totally has me beat here. People I need to write to:

The undergraduates who keep hollering and shouting outside my window at night. Damn Tufts kids.

The company that runs my apartment building and has tiny vintage mailboxes that don’t hold even a magazine, and therefore leaves all non-tiny mail on a big table where it is stolen, lost, or discarded before I get to it.

The company that my apartment management company has contracted to run the laundry room, and which has failed to maintain the machines or the laundry room, to the point that most people in the building prefer to use laundromats which are further away and more expensive.

Macy’s, which left me on hold listening to Christmas music. I hate Christmas music. In fact, anyone who plays Christmas music where I have to hear it is going to get a glare, and if it’s Little Drummer Boy I swear I’m going to kick someone. If it’s a busker I’m giving them five bucks to play anything else.

Dean Dean?

Well, if Al Gore is doing it, I guess I’ll back Dean too. It seems like he’s got a lot of support: Foodies, for example, and Geeks, and, encouragingly, groups that you might expect to side with Republicans: Economists, Libertarians, Mormons (actually, several groups of Mormons for Dean), even Republicans.

Honestly, I’d vote for almost anybody against Dubya, but I think Dean has what’s necessary to win: money, cultlike grassroots support, and a clear, moderate platform. Yes, moderate– he’s certainly further to the right than I am on the drug war, and his economic policies are of a piece with critique of, rather than blind hatred for, NAFTA.

Dean’s got my vote. I guess it matters most in the primary ’round here though– Massachussets went 70% for Gore in the last election.

Swiffer Good

On Saturday, I swiffered the cats. I have the Swiffer jingle to the tune of “Whip It” stuck in my head. That evening all we did was watch TLC. I’m turning into a domestic drone.

Sometimes that scares me, but not much. I mean, this particular phase of my life seems to be focused on setting up and settling in– a lot of people my age are doing that sort of thing. Buying, saving, working, acquiring, cleaning, organizing.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just a consumer whore. Or maybe my fear of becoming a consumer whore is due to being a cheapskate. I can never tell– I’m definitely neurotic about money, more so than the rest of my family. I mean, I’m aware of it, and when I hesitate about things I have to remind myself “money is for using, not hoarding. Do nice things for people.” When I remember that, when I remember that I have a good savings rate and few expenses, then it’s much easier to buy dinner or drinks for friends, to give to charities, buy presents, etc.

Tarrifs Made Simple

How the whole tarrif thing works in relatively simple terms. For example, defining dumping subsidies:

Let’s say my mother wants to see me do well in the lemonade business, so she offers to pay me 15 cents for each cup I sell. Now I can charge 10 cents a cup and make a profit! I could give it away for free and still break even! Once again, my pricing advantage will run you out of business in short order. Subsidized dumping works this way, with government playing the role of Mom (without the warm chocolate-chip cookies before bedtime).

Corporatism

BFT is in a competitive market, and has few new members and a declining credit rating. On the other hand, they’re the biggest gym network in a big fat country. I think that a lot of people have been cancelling their gym memberships as cost-saving measures, but if the larger economy improves they’ll go back. The way Bally’s handles the post-New-Year’s surge of gym-joining and resolution-making should be a good indicator of their ongoing value.

Commerce Bank is one I should have paid attention to earlier. Great bank, strong growth, and not an oversized conglomerate like Bank of America (bad service, bad acquisitions: dump it). Open weekends, too. Even if the stock sucks (and it is expensive right now) I really recommend their checking account and consumer banking services.

SNE could get back in the saddle. They have great design, great technology, strong innovation, and a great brand. On the other hand, the industry is brutally competitive. But the Japanese economy can’t keep sucking forever, and when it revives, Sony should be able to perk up along with it.

RAD was way low for way long. Mismanagement, overexpansion, and so forth, drove them near collapse. But they’ve restructured their debt and their stores keep doing well, and management seems not to be screwing it up this time around, so I think they’ll keep doing well.

Conservatives, Cranks, etc.

Note from a former conservative about his change of heart and the neocon kleptocracy.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a crank, but the New Yorker had a great article about the redistricting system, in which it described an “unholy alliance” between various electoral groups. But really– is it an alliance between the rich and the stupid, as some suggest? Are we really moving toward fascism? Is Krugman right that we’re undermining the foundations of democracy in our own nation?

I don’t think things are all that bad, but it’s true that our voting machines are owned by Republicans. Our registration systems are owned by Republicans. The districts are owned by Republicans. There oughta be a fair fight. Districting ought to create fair fights and reasonable electoral groupings… things like a neighborhood, a city, a region. Maybe not– maybe it needs to be all in squares, no matter what.