Moscow turned out to be more of a surprise than I thought it would. After a week in St. Petersburg I got this notion of modern Russia as quiet, kind of slow paced, and generally nice. It's not that Moscow isn't nice, it's just much bigger, with lots of people, cars, noise, happenings and it's just so different from St. Petersburg.
Everyone was warning us about traffic, and I thought it would be just like traffic in, say, Los Angeles. Not really. One can seriously spend 2 hours trying to get somewhere while that same route would only take 10 minutes without traffic. I'm surprised that people aren't using alternate routes - perhaps there aren't any.
Curt is getting annoyed with how expensive everything is here. Me too. I'm just in denial - there's no point in thinking about it and spoiling the vacation. But indeed everything we have to pay for regularly is over the top - taxi rates, restaurant food, internet access at the hotel. However, if we weren't lazy tourists, we could use the subway (which is cheap and fast), eat simpler food - either by buying groceries or off the street prepared foods, and walking across the street to a cafe where WiFi is about $20 a month vs. $40 a day in the hotel. Just like anywhere else, tourists are paying much more than locals - think Hawaii.
I'm cheaper than Curt - I refused to pay $40 for Internet access and be hooked on my Outlook emails. Yesterday we found out that there's a PC in the hotel's atrium which provides free Internet access - and here's the new post. :) I wonder if Curt will be spending the next few days here or keep paying the insane rates.
Last night Olga and I went to drop off a present to her relatives who live in the outskirts of Moscow. I bet it would take us 90 minutes to get there by car, but the subway ride was only about 30. That was awesome. Plus you get to walk from the station to whereever you're headed.
We've been walking a lot here. It's fun and I really enjoy it. I've never been excited about hiking - it's too boring, while these urban hikes give you a lot of things to see, many options to sit down and have a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, and if you feel tired you can always take the Metro (subway) back. When we come back I want to set up these hikes with Curt, Allora and Olga - in the city - and see if it will be as good as here now.
One thing that is consistent between St. Petersburg and Moscow is how calm people are. Nobody is running, although Olga seems to think it's just our perception because we're vacationing. I like it here just the same. Generally I didn't think I would like it as much - we kind of went here thinking it would be good to just visit the place like we would go see Rome or Paris, but perhaps it helps to speak the language and be amused at how much things changed over the course of the past 15 years.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
More On Stealing, Prices, Money, and Culture
Dear Blog,
Stealing from tourists is just another form of corruption, and it's just as dispicable as any other form of corruption.
I have been suprised at the lack of theft on this trip but thought I should point out a few places where we've seen it:
1) In Italy, the only person who scammed anything was a toll collector on the highway. She did not give me back the change I was due. This is a play on the normal third world issue of giving you back some of the change, then pausing to see if you walk away or drive off. Then giving you the rest if you ask. If a clerk did this all year long it would add quite a bit to his salary. In Rome last time we were there it was as common as sunshine.
2) In Moscow, the internet is $40 per day. That's insane. They blame it on the vendor but I did my duty and argued with them. Most hotels will give you the service for free if you're mean enough (it should be free anyway everywhere because it is so cheap), but no here.
3) Last night at a restaurant, someone charged our card, took the money out of the register and pocketed it, gave us the slip to sign, then voided the transaction. If this was an owner, thn it's clear that they're avoiding taxes. (Which is why at mexican and asian restaurants in the seattle area, they don't take credit cards, so that they don't report the income. THis is of course stealing from the rest of us who have to pay those taxes.)
4) Price gouging is seen as acceptable here. There is usually an uplift for souveniers and trinkets but it's completely out of control. Sometimes you don't mind. Allora bought a few things yesterday and the guy was so entertaining that we paid for the entertainment not the goods. He made it worth it. That's a good trade.
5) We made the mistake of not negotiating with the luggage guy for the train. He tried to charge us 150 to carry our bags. Olga and I would have just screwdd the guy. I mean what else was he going to do. I think max wanted to avoid a confrontation, so we paid him like 70, which was still five times waht it was worth. This used to be common in the US, but most of the jobs are regulated now.
I think max sees this as a national affront. I see it as human nature. These people are scumbags and if you travel around the world you just have to be aware thtat they're scumbags. Max says he's been living in the US too long so that he has forgotten how to worry about that kind of thing all the time, but it used to be just how everything worked.
BTW: I am pretty sure we got carbon monoxide poisoning on the train. I slept for 15 hours the next day, after not being able to think or breathe, and being drowsy. It is an electric train but something wasn't right. I did't feel reasonable until this morning. The train was clean, and neat, and modern and the help was exceptional. The food was stale, the coffee bad, and it was hotter than hell, and I felt like I was sleeping in a claustrophobic pool of sweat all night. I don't recommend it. Flying is hard on you but not that hard.
On pricing and the costs of things in general:
a) The dollar continues to lose it's value worldwide, and as I've said, I am pretty sure this will only escalate. YOu can feel it here.
b) Everything seems to cost 20-25% more here than in the US.
c) The stores have all the same goods, but La Coste and the like are considered more upscale than at home.
d) People shut their cars off at intersectinos to save gas, and will not use air conditioning unless you press them. (In general, it is hot and sweaty here and no one uses air conditioning like we do at home and we're dying because of it. We keep the hotel room at 64 to balance it out a bit, but the rest of the hotel is sweltering, and walking the streets is unbearable at times. We did not dress for this. Men do not wear shorts. If we could I would be more comfortable.)
e) for the four of us at a coffee shop we typically spend 80-$100 for a visit. It's insane.
NOTE: we were in a coffee shop in Moscow the other day (done in a french style: Mon Cafe was the name) and they were filming what Olga called a "Chick Show" that is apparently popular here. I couldn't understand it but apparently it was about relationships and in particular sex. Olga says that the host gives women what I call "Oprah Advice" which is to love yourself first, then your family and spouse. Good advice. (Of course it has boundaries that seem to get thrown out of the window too.) Anyway, I was trying to figure out if there would be a market here for the masculine equivalent..... Not sure. Probably. Would seem odd though. The guys would probably try to do the Man Show equivalent and make it humorous. But it needs to be serious.
f) there is still some soviet era nonsense, using what I call "Human Two Part Keys". The steps you go thru to pay for something often seem designed to make it impossible to buy. But they are really steps that are used when everyone is trying to steal everything in sight. It seems like they are useless now, but the traditinos are ingrained at this piont, even though the need has probably passed.
Other Things:
a) waiters take for freaking EVER to do anything. i mean, it's like France. I've just gotten in the habit of doing things myself whenever possible. Restaurants almost all have some form of entertainment. SOme of it wonderful, some of it gaudy. The guys who play music in the subway are unbelievably good. (The economist in me says that is because talented people are cheap and still evenly distributed across the work force which will not be true in another generation.)
b) there are not a lot of porsche's but lots of other expensive cars. I suppose because they're impractical in the weather here. That, and it would be painfully easy to wreck one.
Curt
Stealing from tourists is just another form of corruption, and it's just as dispicable as any other form of corruption.
I have been suprised at the lack of theft on this trip but thought I should point out a few places where we've seen it:
1) In Italy, the only person who scammed anything was a toll collector on the highway. She did not give me back the change I was due. This is a play on the normal third world issue of giving you back some of the change, then pausing to see if you walk away or drive off. Then giving you the rest if you ask. If a clerk did this all year long it would add quite a bit to his salary. In Rome last time we were there it was as common as sunshine.
2) In Moscow, the internet is $40 per day. That's insane. They blame it on the vendor but I did my duty and argued with them. Most hotels will give you the service for free if you're mean enough (it should be free anyway everywhere because it is so cheap), but no here.
3) Last night at a restaurant, someone charged our card, took the money out of the register and pocketed it, gave us the slip to sign, then voided the transaction. If this was an owner, thn it's clear that they're avoiding taxes. (Which is why at mexican and asian restaurants in the seattle area, they don't take credit cards, so that they don't report the income. THis is of course stealing from the rest of us who have to pay those taxes.)
4) Price gouging is seen as acceptable here. There is usually an uplift for souveniers and trinkets but it's completely out of control. Sometimes you don't mind. Allora bought a few things yesterday and the guy was so entertaining that we paid for the entertainment not the goods. He made it worth it. That's a good trade.
5) We made the mistake of not negotiating with the luggage guy for the train. He tried to charge us 150 to carry our bags. Olga and I would have just screwdd the guy. I mean what else was he going to do. I think max wanted to avoid a confrontation, so we paid him like 70, which was still five times waht it was worth. This used to be common in the US, but most of the jobs are regulated now.
I think max sees this as a national affront. I see it as human nature. These people are scumbags and if you travel around the world you just have to be aware thtat they're scumbags. Max says he's been living in the US too long so that he has forgotten how to worry about that kind of thing all the time, but it used to be just how everything worked.
BTW: I am pretty sure we got carbon monoxide poisoning on the train. I slept for 15 hours the next day, after not being able to think or breathe, and being drowsy. It is an electric train but something wasn't right. I did't feel reasonable until this morning. The train was clean, and neat, and modern and the help was exceptional. The food was stale, the coffee bad, and it was hotter than hell, and I felt like I was sleeping in a claustrophobic pool of sweat all night. I don't recommend it. Flying is hard on you but not that hard.
On pricing and the costs of things in general:
a) The dollar continues to lose it's value worldwide, and as I've said, I am pretty sure this will only escalate. YOu can feel it here.
b) Everything seems to cost 20-25% more here than in the US.
c) The stores have all the same goods, but La Coste and the like are considered more upscale than at home.
d) People shut their cars off at intersectinos to save gas, and will not use air conditioning unless you press them. (In general, it is hot and sweaty here and no one uses air conditioning like we do at home and we're dying because of it. We keep the hotel room at 64 to balance it out a bit, but the rest of the hotel is sweltering, and walking the streets is unbearable at times. We did not dress for this. Men do not wear shorts. If we could I would be more comfortable.)
e) for the four of us at a coffee shop we typically spend 80-$100 for a visit. It's insane.
NOTE: we were in a coffee shop in Moscow the other day (done in a french style: Mon Cafe was the name) and they were filming what Olga called a "Chick Show" that is apparently popular here. I couldn't understand it but apparently it was about relationships and in particular sex. Olga says that the host gives women what I call "Oprah Advice" which is to love yourself first, then your family and spouse. Good advice. (Of course it has boundaries that seem to get thrown out of the window too.) Anyway, I was trying to figure out if there would be a market here for the masculine equivalent..... Not sure. Probably. Would seem odd though. The guys would probably try to do the Man Show equivalent and make it humorous. But it needs to be serious.
f) there is still some soviet era nonsense, using what I call "Human Two Part Keys". The steps you go thru to pay for something often seem designed to make it impossible to buy. But they are really steps that are used when everyone is trying to steal everything in sight. It seems like they are useless now, but the traditinos are ingrained at this piont, even though the need has probably passed.
Other Things:
a) waiters take for freaking EVER to do anything. i mean, it's like France. I've just gotten in the habit of doing things myself whenever possible. Restaurants almost all have some form of entertainment. SOme of it wonderful, some of it gaudy. The guys who play music in the subway are unbelievably good. (The economist in me says that is because talented people are cheap and still evenly distributed across the work force which will not be true in another generation.)
b) there are not a lot of porsche's but lots of other expensive cars. I suppose because they're impractical in the weather here. That, and it would be painfully easy to wreck one.
Curt
Mugging For The Camera
Dear Blog,
1) Some people are very sensitive to photographs here. You have to be quick and subtle to get one. Some merchants will let you take pictures, but most will not. In the US, it is a point of honor to be photographed, but here it is seen as suspicious.
2) Russian women mug for the camera. It's hysterical. Every one of them poses, magazine -style for every picture. Pouts, Coquettishness, Drama, Seduction, Glamour. It's obviously the convention but it still seems odd to me for some reason.
3) You cannot take a picture outside of any government installation, or transporation center. You can take a picture of family or friend, but if you want to capture a physical location alone it sort of looks odd to do so. You are always conscious of the fact that people watch you when you take photos.
Curt
1) Some people are very sensitive to photographs here. You have to be quick and subtle to get one. Some merchants will let you take pictures, but most will not. In the US, it is a point of honor to be photographed, but here it is seen as suspicious.
2) Russian women mug for the camera. It's hysterical. Every one of them poses, magazine -style for every picture. Pouts, Coquettishness, Drama, Seduction, Glamour. It's obviously the convention but it still seems odd to me for some reason.
3) You cannot take a picture outside of any government installation, or transporation center. You can take a picture of family or friend, but if you want to capture a physical location alone it sort of looks odd to do so. You are always conscious of the fact that people watch you when you take photos.
Curt
Icons: Nicholas II, Lenin, and Curt Doolittle
Dear Blog,
At the entrance to the Kremlin there were two men dressed in period costume, one as Lenin and one as Nicholas II. They did an excellent job of both looking and playing the part. (There are a lot of these people here in costume at all the tourist attratctions.) So I paid the 200 Rubles (about eight dollars) to sit with them for a photograph.
Two totalitarians. A king who failed to protect his people, and viewed the country as his private banking system. A communist who killed him and drove his nation into poverty and starvation (albiet industrializing it in the process) and the capitalst (me) who would have us return to having kings, but would be the enemy of both of them..
Of course, I view this photo as sybolic, and personally fascinating. I see myself as a symbol of why the others failed. That the Anglo model of capitalism succeeded. So while my arms are around them in an embrace, I actually see my ideology standing on their graves, thrilled that those like me have conquered them. Those who know me in business do not really understand the importance of these things to me. I have become a philosopher first, and everything else second. Perhaps I just have expanded the population I desire to effect with my entrepreneurship.
I plan to frame it and put it at the cabin. There are many hunting trophies that one can hang in one's house. Some are family pictures. Some are business accomplishments. Some are artistic achievements. Some trophies we make or catch ourselves. And for some, we are minor participants, like luggage carriers on the hunt, or pamphleteers, or cooks in a war. And some, are simply hiers to the achievements of others, and hang the trophies as homage, like old swords or flags, to those who did the hard work, that made possible our standards of living, our values and our ideas. And while I can only claim to be an heir, not a participant, I still hope that if I have time in the next decade to become one worthy of memory.
Curt
At the entrance to the Kremlin there were two men dressed in period costume, one as Lenin and one as Nicholas II. They did an excellent job of both looking and playing the part. (There are a lot of these people here in costume at all the tourist attratctions.) So I paid the 200 Rubles (about eight dollars) to sit with them for a photograph.
Two totalitarians. A king who failed to protect his people, and viewed the country as his private banking system. A communist who killed him and drove his nation into poverty and starvation (albiet industrializing it in the process) and the capitalst (me) who would have us return to having kings, but would be the enemy of both of them..
Of course, I view this photo as sybolic, and personally fascinating. I see myself as a symbol of why the others failed. That the Anglo model of capitalism succeeded. So while my arms are around them in an embrace, I actually see my ideology standing on their graves, thrilled that those like me have conquered them. Those who know me in business do not really understand the importance of these things to me. I have become a philosopher first, and everything else second. Perhaps I just have expanded the population I desire to effect with my entrepreneurship.
I plan to frame it and put it at the cabin. There are many hunting trophies that one can hang in one's house. Some are family pictures. Some are business accomplishments. Some are artistic achievements. Some trophies we make or catch ourselves. And for some, we are minor participants, like luggage carriers on the hunt, or pamphleteers, or cooks in a war. And some, are simply hiers to the achievements of others, and hang the trophies as homage, like old swords or flags, to those who did the hard work, that made possible our standards of living, our values and our ideas. And while I can only claim to be an heir, not a participant, I still hope that if I have time in the next decade to become one worthy of memory.
Curt
T Shirts, Fashion Taboos and Bears
Dear Blog,
I abide by the rules I read in a fashion book by Esquire while in my twenties. One of the principles it gave is never to wear anything with text on it, or that advertised anything. This was not for gentlement to do. (God knows I needed some way of being more gentlemanly. This is not really true but it seemed so at the time.)
But today Max asked me if he bought a t-shirt that said "I have been to Russia and there are no Bears" or something like that, would I wear it around the office for a day.
I only conceeded because he is relentless, and because, before I break one of my solemn fashion taboos, I believe that I can lose five pounds before someone sees me in a t-shirt. While I have no confidence in losing the weight, I have it in max's ability to wear me down, so I acquiesced. It was either that or delay dinner for another twenty minutes, so the torture was sufficient to gain my compliance.
I can probably claim duress, and get out of it, but I think that I'll have some fun with it.
Curt
I abide by the rules I read in a fashion book by Esquire while in my twenties. One of the principles it gave is never to wear anything with text on it, or that advertised anything. This was not for gentlement to do. (God knows I needed some way of being more gentlemanly. This is not really true but it seemed so at the time.)
But today Max asked me if he bought a t-shirt that said "I have been to Russia and there are no Bears" or something like that, would I wear it around the office for a day.
I only conceeded because he is relentless, and because, before I break one of my solemn fashion taboos, I believe that I can lose five pounds before someone sees me in a t-shirt. While I have no confidence in losing the weight, I have it in max's ability to wear me down, so I acquiesced. It was either that or delay dinner for another twenty minutes, so the torture was sufficient to gain my compliance.
I can probably claim duress, and get out of it, but I think that I'll have some fun with it.
Curt
Population Advantage, The Bear Is Not Seriously Wounded
Dear Blog
Sometime in the past two years I have seen an advertisement for a russian televisoin program. Fade in, to a medium shot of snow. Slowly advance forward and see that the snow is broken by something making it's way through it. slowly advance until you see blood smeared in the snow, slowly advance until you see a bear crawling, through the snow, deeply injured and struggling to move, finally collapsing in a last rattling exhalation. Add voice over that says something like "the russian bear is dying".
A lot has been made of declining longevity here in Russia combined with low birth rates. I have been seduced by the data and worried for the past few years myself. But in observing people here I have come to a different conclusion:
While Europe and Asia are drowing in a sea of elderly people to whom promises of social safety have been promised, these young Russians do not bear that burden. They can devote all their resourcdes to tehir own cutlure and their own family's future. With this confidence they can breed children that they can afford. And they can afford to build a new world around them.
It is true that the old are dying younger. It is true that alcohol is a problem. But it is NOT true that the young will not live longer. It is only true that the people who survived the second world war, and the difficulties through the eighties, have had so much stress and have so little promise, that they cannot live to their human potential. So this is a temporary problem in the data, not a trend.
For my part I will not say what I think of this situation, except to say that I have little sympathy for those who rely on the state. They get what they deserve.
Curt
Sometime in the past two years I have seen an advertisement for a russian televisoin program. Fade in, to a medium shot of snow. Slowly advance forward and see that the snow is broken by something making it's way through it. slowly advance until you see blood smeared in the snow, slowly advance until you see a bear crawling, through the snow, deeply injured and struggling to move, finally collapsing in a last rattling exhalation. Add voice over that says something like "the russian bear is dying".
A lot has been made of declining longevity here in Russia combined with low birth rates. I have been seduced by the data and worried for the past few years myself. But in observing people here I have come to a different conclusion:
While Europe and Asia are drowing in a sea of elderly people to whom promises of social safety have been promised, these young Russians do not bear that burden. They can devote all their resourcdes to tehir own cutlure and their own family's future. With this confidence they can breed children that they can afford. And they can afford to build a new world around them.
It is true that the old are dying younger. It is true that alcohol is a problem. But it is NOT true that the young will not live longer. It is only true that the people who survived the second world war, and the difficulties through the eighties, have had so much stress and have so little promise, that they cannot live to their human potential. So this is a temporary problem in the data, not a trend.
For my part I will not say what I think of this situation, except to say that I have little sympathy for those who rely on the state. They get what they deserve.
Curt
Beautiful People, Beautiful Ideas
Dear Blog,
Most Russian men will tell you something on the order of "yes, that woman is beautiful, but Russian women are more beautiful." I usually take this as some sort of bias or bravado, but walking the streets here is life altering. It's not just the women, the people in general are simply beautiful. There is a joke in Seattle that "A Seattle 8 is an LA 4", which means that women in LA are much better looking and on a different scale. I think that it's even more true for men, because Seattle has a density of geeks that is unmatched in the universe, a climate that makes exposure to the sun impossible, and a social dress code one step above that of the medieval peasantry.
But both here in Moscow and in St Petersburg, the beauty of people (without plastic surgery no less) is awe inspiring. It's not that there is a beautiful person every now and then. It's that, despite the fact that the whole country dresses like it shops the discount racks at Target, at least a third of the population looks like they could model for Abercrombie and Fitch, and the rest would be stuck with the tragic social stigma of modelling for Gap or victoria's secret. I mean, at least three quarters of the college age people are runway material. I'm serious. We went to a club the other night and it was ludicrous. It's like they have an ugly people filter at the door or something. I kept wondering why they let me into the place. It was clearly out of my league. (Not that I'm making a statement about our wives here. Only myself.)
The men still seem to have that belief that manliness means you have to dress and act like a day laborer hanging plasterboard, complete with cigarettes rolled in your sleeve, and your shirt open to your navel. So you have to work a little harder to see their features. They also smoke too much, and many of them have the complexion and eyes of men who spend too much time with alcohol, but the number of tall, fit, handsome men here is intimidating for the short balding middle aged nerd that I am. One of the parts of urban culture I find appalling in the US is the worship of ignorance and the imitation of Ghetto behavior. It's become cool to be ignorant. Here, the guys just haven't had enough generations of wealth yet to change, but the women are bought into commercialism hook line and sinker. I mean, Target taste or not, no town in Europe or America has this many beautiful women walking the streets. It's like Disneyland for human aestheticists. A Greek sculptor would have a lot of models to choose from.
It would be easy for me to be crass, but that would diminish my message. But from what I have seen, Russian men are not biased or speaking with bravado about Russian women. Instead, they are speaking conservatively, and pragmatically, and honestly, just like they speak about everything else. Bravado is limited to masculine pursuits and drinking.
A few Russian women I"ve spoken to think that American men are better husbands, because of work and family values. I don't see that at all, but perhaps, with foolishness born of familiarity I am more aware of American sins than those of the country I am visiting. I think we all see grass being greener when we are at a loss in our places of birth. My experience with most eastern European men certainly would agree, but the families here appear happy and solid, and the men, at least from my vantage point, do not have that look of "I am supposed to be enjoying this but I would honestly really rather be doing anything other than this right now" that most American men seem to wear every day.
Clear skin, elongated features, flat stomachs, calm faces and demeanors, great posture, zillions of natural blondes, long bones, uniform features. They lack the smiles that are common in the west, because that would be a falsehood here. They do have a poster in the subway that says "a smile is a cheap way to look more beautiful", which is an adage I will keep with me into old age. I like it even better than the 90's quip: "Smile. It gives your face something nice to do." Smiling is for friends.
One of the things that makes them wonderful is how they actively listen. The average Russian will look you straight in the eye, and listen until you are done. They will quickly turn away if you are blathering, and blathering seems to be a very American trait here. It is considered disrespectful and stupid. The Yankee Peddler mentality that has spread across the country simply won't do, and that should present an interesting opportunity for advertising agencies here. Advertising is very visual and verbally limited, and when not, it is intelligent and succinct. These people do not worship ignorance. They have the closest thing to a Greek concept of excellence of any country I have been to. Humor seems to be based on nihilism or absurdity or disorder or foolishness.
Now it's true that city folk who walk a lot have an edge over those of us who drive every day. But the calm faces is something that's to be coveted. Once I have thought about this particular topic a bit more I'll write more, but the PACE of the culture is even better than that of Europeans. People are just not stressed, and they share the "we are all in this together" thing that Americans do not, and probably cannot. Socialism created a uniformity here and there has not been the time to create new classes that can war. The culture does not permit emotional displays as are common in the lower classes in the US. You are expected to be quiet, and considerate at all times, even more so than in Germany and Austria. Children do not run about undisciplined and loud, or touching things. Day-Care-guilty-Moms have not yet abdicated their social role of being the engines of discipline. Men do not sit on street corners leering or interrupting passers by, and a sidewalk hawker is not protected by 'freedom' to annoy you. You get the distinct impression that you would get beaten pretty easily for social infractions.
It is true that here, there are seemingly a lot of runway models attached to much older men, but there is no social stigma about it. I read an article by an economist recently that showed that statistically this is more common in the world than I had thought, and was much more common in history, and I can understand it both economically and socially, but it still seems kind of odd or pedaphillic to me. (For a guy who married a women seven years younger than him to say at least.)
So, while the architecture is fairly nice, having been frozen in the turn of the nineteenth century, or built in the megalithic soviet style, (or disgusting apartment warrens as built in that same style), and while the shops and coffee houses would absolutely shame any in America, and the land is quite beautiful outside the cities and very sparsely populated, it is the people who make this land beautiful, and while some of that beauty is physical, it is made more so by their demeanor and culture.
These are not quite the broken bent, and tired people that we saw from the post ww2 generation. They are still here among the very old who still live in subsidized housing. They exist in small numbers waiting at bus stops. But they are a disappearing minority in the land of the new capitalists and the burgeoning middle class, apparently confident of their future, and proud that they have done it all together. And while I will give them credit for their genes, which are probably some of the finest on this earth, I think their more impressive beauty, comes from having this feeling of determined content written on their faces.
Curt
Most Russian men will tell you something on the order of "yes, that woman is beautiful, but Russian women are more beautiful." I usually take this as some sort of bias or bravado, but walking the streets here is life altering. It's not just the women, the people in general are simply beautiful. There is a joke in Seattle that "A Seattle 8 is an LA 4", which means that women in LA are much better looking and on a different scale. I think that it's even more true for men, because Seattle has a density of geeks that is unmatched in the universe, a climate that makes exposure to the sun impossible, and a social dress code one step above that of the medieval peasantry.
But both here in Moscow and in St Petersburg, the beauty of people (without plastic surgery no less) is awe inspiring. It's not that there is a beautiful person every now and then. It's that, despite the fact that the whole country dresses like it shops the discount racks at Target, at least a third of the population looks like they could model for Abercrombie and Fitch, and the rest would be stuck with the tragic social stigma of modelling for Gap or victoria's secret. I mean, at least three quarters of the college age people are runway material. I'm serious. We went to a club the other night and it was ludicrous. It's like they have an ugly people filter at the door or something. I kept wondering why they let me into the place. It was clearly out of my league. (Not that I'm making a statement about our wives here. Only myself.)
The men still seem to have that belief that manliness means you have to dress and act like a day laborer hanging plasterboard, complete with cigarettes rolled in your sleeve, and your shirt open to your navel. So you have to work a little harder to see their features. They also smoke too much, and many of them have the complexion and eyes of men who spend too much time with alcohol, but the number of tall, fit, handsome men here is intimidating for the short balding middle aged nerd that I am. One of the parts of urban culture I find appalling in the US is the worship of ignorance and the imitation of Ghetto behavior. It's become cool to be ignorant. Here, the guys just haven't had enough generations of wealth yet to change, but the women are bought into commercialism hook line and sinker. I mean, Target taste or not, no town in Europe or America has this many beautiful women walking the streets. It's like Disneyland for human aestheticists. A Greek sculptor would have a lot of models to choose from.
It would be easy for me to be crass, but that would diminish my message. But from what I have seen, Russian men are not biased or speaking with bravado about Russian women. Instead, they are speaking conservatively, and pragmatically, and honestly, just like they speak about everything else. Bravado is limited to masculine pursuits and drinking.
A few Russian women I"ve spoken to think that American men are better husbands, because of work and family values. I don't see that at all, but perhaps, with foolishness born of familiarity I am more aware of American sins than those of the country I am visiting. I think we all see grass being greener when we are at a loss in our places of birth. My experience with most eastern European men certainly would agree, but the families here appear happy and solid, and the men, at least from my vantage point, do not have that look of "I am supposed to be enjoying this but I would honestly really rather be doing anything other than this right now" that most American men seem to wear every day.
Clear skin, elongated features, flat stomachs, calm faces and demeanors, great posture, zillions of natural blondes, long bones, uniform features. They lack the smiles that are common in the west, because that would be a falsehood here. They do have a poster in the subway that says "a smile is a cheap way to look more beautiful", which is an adage I will keep with me into old age. I like it even better than the 90's quip: "Smile. It gives your face something nice to do." Smiling is for friends.
One of the things that makes them wonderful is how they actively listen. The average Russian will look you straight in the eye, and listen until you are done. They will quickly turn away if you are blathering, and blathering seems to be a very American trait here. It is considered disrespectful and stupid. The Yankee Peddler mentality that has spread across the country simply won't do, and that should present an interesting opportunity for advertising agencies here. Advertising is very visual and verbally limited, and when not, it is intelligent and succinct. These people do not worship ignorance. They have the closest thing to a Greek concept of excellence of any country I have been to. Humor seems to be based on nihilism or absurdity or disorder or foolishness.
Now it's true that city folk who walk a lot have an edge over those of us who drive every day. But the calm faces is something that's to be coveted. Once I have thought about this particular topic a bit more I'll write more, but the PACE of the culture is even better than that of Europeans. People are just not stressed, and they share the "we are all in this together" thing that Americans do not, and probably cannot. Socialism created a uniformity here and there has not been the time to create new classes that can war. The culture does not permit emotional displays as are common in the lower classes in the US. You are expected to be quiet, and considerate at all times, even more so than in Germany and Austria. Children do not run about undisciplined and loud, or touching things. Day-Care-guilty-Moms have not yet abdicated their social role of being the engines of discipline. Men do not sit on street corners leering or interrupting passers by, and a sidewalk hawker is not protected by 'freedom' to annoy you. You get the distinct impression that you would get beaten pretty easily for social infractions.
It is true that here, there are seemingly a lot of runway models attached to much older men, but there is no social stigma about it. I read an article by an economist recently that showed that statistically this is more common in the world than I had thought, and was much more common in history, and I can understand it both economically and socially, but it still seems kind of odd or pedaphillic to me. (For a guy who married a women seven years younger than him to say at least.)
So, while the architecture is fairly nice, having been frozen in the turn of the nineteenth century, or built in the megalithic soviet style, (or disgusting apartment warrens as built in that same style), and while the shops and coffee houses would absolutely shame any in America, and the land is quite beautiful outside the cities and very sparsely populated, it is the people who make this land beautiful, and while some of that beauty is physical, it is made more so by their demeanor and culture.
These are not quite the broken bent, and tired people that we saw from the post ww2 generation. They are still here among the very old who still live in subsidized housing. They exist in small numbers waiting at bus stops. But they are a disappearing minority in the land of the new capitalists and the burgeoning middle class, apparently confident of their future, and proud that they have done it all together. And while I will give them credit for their genes, which are probably some of the finest on this earth, I think their more impressive beauty, comes from having this feeling of determined content written on their faces.
Curt
Russian Driving Woes
Dear Blog
Imagine you're watching one of those Google or YouTube videos from China, where drivers maniacally careen into each other one after another in the same intersection. Now, take larger more modern cars, swap the Asian attitude for the Russian one, increase the speed by five hundred percent, the traffic density by fifty percent, and double the width of the roads.
I mean, we SAW three major accidents in fifteen minutes on Friday. Oh, and I don't mean, US 35 mile per hour crashes where there is minor body damage. I don't mean Hong Kong crashes where some byciclist gets hit at fifteen miles per hour, or some quarter ton car collision in a Korean intersection that results in shouts and broken glass. I mean, where the cars were rolled over by the impact, people possibly die, the car is totalled, or nearly halved and at least one of the vehicles moves over the curb and onto a lawn.
You ever watch teenage boys weave through a crowd? Highschool boys trying to walk or run faster and evade the traffic of the more sedentary? Watch some highschool hall if you get a chance. It 's what you do before you mature and find out that it's rude and dangerous once you weigh more than ninety pounds.
They are ignorant of the adage that "It's not the car you see that's the problem it's the one you don't see. You do not drive with the cars you see in mind. You drive with the cars that you DON'T see." It's kind of Zen. It's kind of computationally difficult as well. But in Moscow it's like the entire world is populated by teenage boys who are as yet unskilled in driving, and as yet inconsiderate of their fellow man, unaware of the mass of their bodies, and they drive as if they are immortal, and omnicient, when they are in fact, simply naieve and foolish. We see this as immaturity in boys. But doesn't it mean the same thing if we see it in an entire country? It means that they are all two ton boys running at sixty miles per hour. I would rather be in the repair than the insurance business here.
Basically, it looks like there are evolutionary processes involved in driving, creating a cultural common sense to the art of it. RIght now everyone is a recalcitrant and egoistic teenager, possessed of too many hormones, not enough wisdom, and the ability to do real damage to himself and others. I only hope that this maturity progresses at the same rate as the rest of the economy. Otherwise, the innate russian population problem is going to be challenged.
Curt
Imagine you're watching one of those Google or YouTube videos from China, where drivers maniacally careen into each other one after another in the same intersection. Now, take larger more modern cars, swap the Asian attitude for the Russian one, increase the speed by five hundred percent, the traffic density by fifty percent, and double the width of the roads.
I mean, we SAW three major accidents in fifteen minutes on Friday. Oh, and I don't mean, US 35 mile per hour crashes where there is minor body damage. I don't mean Hong Kong crashes where some byciclist gets hit at fifteen miles per hour, or some quarter ton car collision in a Korean intersection that results in shouts and broken glass. I mean, where the cars were rolled over by the impact, people possibly die, the car is totalled, or nearly halved and at least one of the vehicles moves over the curb and onto a lawn.
You ever watch teenage boys weave through a crowd? Highschool boys trying to walk or run faster and evade the traffic of the more sedentary? Watch some highschool hall if you get a chance. It 's what you do before you mature and find out that it's rude and dangerous once you weigh more than ninety pounds.
They are ignorant of the adage that "It's not the car you see that's the problem it's the one you don't see. You do not drive with the cars you see in mind. You drive with the cars that you DON'T see." It's kind of Zen. It's kind of computationally difficult as well. But in Moscow it's like the entire world is populated by teenage boys who are as yet unskilled in driving, and as yet inconsiderate of their fellow man, unaware of the mass of their bodies, and they drive as if they are immortal, and omnicient, when they are in fact, simply naieve and foolish. We see this as immaturity in boys. But doesn't it mean the same thing if we see it in an entire country? It means that they are all two ton boys running at sixty miles per hour. I would rather be in the repair than the insurance business here.
Basically, it looks like there are evolutionary processes involved in driving, creating a cultural common sense to the art of it. RIght now everyone is a recalcitrant and egoistic teenager, possessed of too many hormones, not enough wisdom, and the ability to do real damage to himself and others. I only hope that this maturity progresses at the same rate as the rest of the economy. Otherwise, the innate russian population problem is going to be challenged.
Curt
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Karaoke
It is 3:08am in St. Petersburg. Max. Curt. Karaoke. It was fabulous. No pictures, I am sorry to say. Well, I don't have any. :)
Monday, August 20, 2007
Max and Cary Grant
Dear Blog,
For those people that have worked with Max, we all know that he is charming, intelligent, lucid and can sell anything to customers. He and Robert share this trait, and Robert perhaps is one of the best people in the industry at doing so. I have known Max for a number of years now, and I constantly hear how he can help with sales, and how widely he seems to be liked in the company.
But seeing him operate in the US, I am always struck by what I view as his underlying caution. In working with him I have tried, (like I did with Robert as well) to get him to trust his judgement and be less cautious. When I've asked him about it, he says that he is never quite sure in the US how people will react and this makes him overly sensitive to interpersonal communications. In response, he just says he listens more carefully. Personally I think it has something to do with his work as a Translator here in Russia when he was just out of college.
So, it has been fascinating to see him work people on his home turf. He is like a walking Cary Grant. He charms everyone from clerks and salespeople to officials with a friendly and sincere and rational manner that is disarming. It's a bit like walking the streets with a conservative version of Bill Clinton. I have never felt so comfortable in a foreign city. It's like having Obi-Wan Kenobi around. He says "these are not the droids your looking for" in Russian, and all of a sudden people are smiling, happy and compliant. He can tell someone that htey're absurd and they agree and apologise. I can't figure out whether to be jealous or in awe.
When we travel, I usually ask Allora to be the politician. I have not patience for pettiness in the US and even less so in other cultures. (Again, this is not indignation, but my view that by doing so these people are hurting themselves.) I am simply not likeable enough, and am certainly too intolerant unless I am sure how to use the local protocol. I can usually get it within two weeks, but Allora can charm people in almost any culture within a minute or two.
Max on the other hand, when he is here, in his native element, has lost all caution, and all self doubt, and operates like a french fencing master deftly maneouvering voice, language and ideas with such charm and eloquence that it inspires awe.
It is something to behold. Cary Grant would be impressed.
Curt
For those people that have worked with Max, we all know that he is charming, intelligent, lucid and can sell anything to customers. He and Robert share this trait, and Robert perhaps is one of the best people in the industry at doing so. I have known Max for a number of years now, and I constantly hear how he can help with sales, and how widely he seems to be liked in the company.
But seeing him operate in the US, I am always struck by what I view as his underlying caution. In working with him I have tried, (like I did with Robert as well) to get him to trust his judgement and be less cautious. When I've asked him about it, he says that he is never quite sure in the US how people will react and this makes him overly sensitive to interpersonal communications. In response, he just says he listens more carefully. Personally I think it has something to do with his work as a Translator here in Russia when he was just out of college.
So, it has been fascinating to see him work people on his home turf. He is like a walking Cary Grant. He charms everyone from clerks and salespeople to officials with a friendly and sincere and rational manner that is disarming. It's a bit like walking the streets with a conservative version of Bill Clinton. I have never felt so comfortable in a foreign city. It's like having Obi-Wan Kenobi around. He says "these are not the droids your looking for" in Russian, and all of a sudden people are smiling, happy and compliant. He can tell someone that htey're absurd and they agree and apologise. I can't figure out whether to be jealous or in awe.
When we travel, I usually ask Allora to be the politician. I have not patience for pettiness in the US and even less so in other cultures. (Again, this is not indignation, but my view that by doing so these people are hurting themselves.) I am simply not likeable enough, and am certainly too intolerant unless I am sure how to use the local protocol. I can usually get it within two weeks, but Allora can charm people in almost any culture within a minute or two.
Max on the other hand, when he is here, in his native element, has lost all caution, and all self doubt, and operates like a french fencing master deftly maneouvering voice, language and ideas with such charm and eloquence that it inspires awe.
It is something to behold. Cary Grant would be impressed.
Curt
Sunday, August 19, 2007
On Trains and Terrorism
We are planning to go from St. Petersburg to Moscow by train. Train has always been a traditional way to travel in Russia, and the route from St. Petersburg to Moscow is the one that has been described by almost every Russian novelist in the last 200 years.
In the Soviet era, this route was serviced by the special train called Krasnaya Strela, which stands for Red Arrow in Russian. This express train would take you from one capital to another in about 8 hours in comfortable sleeper cars. One would just get on board at night in one city and wake up the next morning in the other.
In the late 70's the Soviet engineering genius produced a high speed train, which covered the distance in mere 3 hours. Those who have ridden the bullet train in Japan get the idea. However, the genius part is not the speed of the train per se, it's the fact that those trains operate on the same rail tracks as the regular slower trains. Over the years they've slowed it a bit, and today it takes about 4.5 hours, mostly because of the safety precautions.
These days there are half a dozen overnight trains, which differ in price and accommodations, catering to all kinds of travelers. I am thinking of putting us on one that really serves as a hotel on wheels, where one would get all the amenities of a high class hotel, including full size beds and bathrooms, high speed wireless Internet access etc. In the most luxurious of the cars there are only 4 rooms per car to make it all possible.
Last week, however, I learned from the news about a train derailing on the route from Moscow to St. Petersburg because of a terrorist attack.
There were no casualties, yet a few people were injured. The authorities traced the terrorists quickly, although they're yet to be captured. The tracks were restored within a few hours, and so was the regular train traffic. They even sent an armored military down that road to check on other possible bombs planted under the tracks; that train was used in Chechnya for similar operations.
We're still going to take the train though. For a while now this particular route will be the safest one in Russia.
Friday, August 17, 2007
First Night in the City of Peter the Great
St. Petersburg is often dubbed as simply Peter by the Russians. The city was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as the window to Europe; it was uniquely situated to become the marine gateway to European ports and open Russia to European traders.
Geographic benefits outweighed the geological challenges the builders faced. The city is built in a giant swamp, and at the time the idea of building a city and a port here was sheer utopia. Yet the it was built, and became one of the most beautiful cities in Russia and Europe.
If you look back at the history of Russia, utopia might just be the leitmotif for it. Making impossible happen at the cost of thousands of human lives for the sake of some glamorous idea - that's the secret recipe there, and it was exploited by many of the cooks in the Russian political kitchen from the early earls of Moscow Russia to Stalin.
Over the years, the city changed many names - Saint Petersburg, Petrograd (the city of Peter), then Leningrad (the city of Lenin), and it got around back to its original name shortly after the Perestroyka times.
St. Petersburg is dubbed the Northern Venice for abundant rivers and immediate proximity to the Baltic Sea. The downtown area consists of 600+ islands divided by those rivers and artificial waterways.
We met up with the Doolittles at the airport, and after a fairly long ride in the hotel's minivan (traffic was horrible) we were at the Petro Palace hotel. The hotel is situated in the historic center of the city, only a few minutes from St. Isaac's Cathedral, Nevsky Avenue and Neva river.
One checked in - and it was quite late in the afternoon - we went to have some food in the nearby Baron restaurant. The restaurant had a traditional Russian flavor, and featured a Gypsy live performance by a small group of people. With the traditional Russian fare, which included Beed Stroganoff, Roasted Duck, Venison and many traiditional appetizers, the place offered good service and steep prices. For a dinner for four, we ended up paying about $300.
Here's the first picture to the Funny Pictures of Curt Fund.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
London
We were staying at Jurys Inn Heathrow, a decent airport budget hotel. It was clean, convenient to the tube and only 1 subway stop from Heathrow terminals. I definitely recommend the place to anyone who needs to spend a night close to the airport. A night there cost me about $120 - which isn't bad for London at all.
The subway ride is normally 3 GBP from Heathrow to Hutton Cross where the hotel was, but we opted for a day pass for 6.70 GBP each, which covers unlimited tube rides on the date of issuance.
This was our first time in London - both for me and Olga. We only had 20 hours to spend there, and despite a sleepless night on the plane we decided to go into the city to explore. After about 40 minutes on the tube we were at Piccadilly Circus station in the heart of downtown London.
We didn't have much time, so we went with The Original Tour Bus. We only wish we had more time - 20 pounds covers 48 hours of the hop-on-hop-off experience as well as a river cruise. Definitely a good economical way to see London.
Now, food and service. Not surprisingly, the food is generally expensive and bad. It just doesn't taste right, you know. But that was something I expected anyway. What came as a surprise was a big brand, which is Starbucks. I felt like I only could function with enough caffeine in my bloodstream, and we headed towards the very first green-and-white sign we found. I asked for a double tall breve, and Olga wanted her usual "not too hot not too sweet raspberry latte". Well, they didn't know what breve was, and even when I explained that it's just a latte made with half and half - they said they couldn't make one for me. As to the raspberry request, they said it wasn't on the menu, and that they would try to make one. Unfortunately, with raspberry juice - as they didn't have such a syrup! We truly are spoiled in Seattle!
We both loved London. To me it was the experience of coming back to a place where one can breathe history, live in it, all without the museum exhibit aftertaste, if you know what I mean. It is just part of everyday commute if you will, something that we don't get much of in the young city of Seattle. We came back to the hotel exhausted but inspired.
London reminded me of Moscow, and now even more so of St. Petersburg. I have never been particularly excited about history, but it just seems to me that being surrounded by it just changes my disposition and perspectives on many things. Maybe I'm just getting older. Do you ever feel that way?
On Glass, Sculpture, and Buildings
Dear Blog,
On Glass
I now understand the European fascination with glass buildings: the poor people live in concrete apartments. The glass offices and such are a reaction to that aftereffect of fascism, communism and socialism: they are anti-egalitarian statements wrought in liquefied sand. They are a coming of age movie. A first car. An expression of freedom. They mean "we are wealthy enough not to live in concrete". Concrete in most of the world has become a replacement for mud-brick and thatch. personally I hate glass buildings. They're loud, they're hot or cold, and you can see almost straight down. Gimme brick, stone or concrete, preferably two feet thick or more, and an air conditioner. I want it quite, and cool. Besides, and this should be important to Italians: sculpture is an extension of architecture. The reason that concrete doesn't look good is the absence of sculpture. Build concrete buildings and make sculptures to adorn them. Cast them in concrete like they did in the nineteenth century. but rebuild your craft in concrete and stone. Glass is simply an anti-human building material that destroys the craft that sculpture prolongs: the visual mythology it communicates, and creates uncomfortable spaces the are hard on energy consumption.
On Glass
I now understand the European fascination with glass buildings: the poor people live in concrete apartments. The glass offices and such are a reaction to that aftereffect of fascism, communism and socialism: they are anti-egalitarian statements wrought in liquefied sand. They are a coming of age movie. A first car. An expression of freedom. They mean "we are wealthy enough not to live in concrete". Concrete in most of the world has become a replacement for mud-brick and thatch. personally I hate glass buildings. They're loud, they're hot or cold, and you can see almost straight down. Gimme brick, stone or concrete, preferably two feet thick or more, and an air conditioner. I want it quite, and cool. Besides, and this should be important to Italians: sculpture is an extension of architecture. The reason that concrete doesn't look good is the absence of sculpture. Build concrete buildings and make sculptures to adorn them. Cast them in concrete like they did in the nineteenth century. but rebuild your craft in concrete and stone. Glass is simply an anti-human building material that destroys the craft that sculpture prolongs: the visual mythology it communicates, and creates uncomfortable spaces the are hard on energy consumption.
Don't go to Italy in August if you want to shop
I thought that going to Milan, a mecca for fashion, would be a fun learning experience. You know, learn about what all the fuss is about the big fashion houses. But...no, no, no. At least not during August. It seems that almost all Italians go on vacation and foreigners such as Curt and I, who didn't do any research about it, are left wandering around looking each other and at many closed doors and wondering how the businesses, heck, the country can keep itself solvent with so much time off and lost opportunity for revenue generation. We spent a day in Milan today and had a wonderful time anyway. We found some cool bookstores, had a fabulous lunch and delicious cappuccino while people-watching at a cafe near the Duomo, which, by the way, has a very well done restoration process going on with its exterior.
(marzipan dentures, if you were wondering...)
(marzipan dentures, if you were wondering...)
Not One Single Thief In Italy This Trip and Other Observations
Dear Blog,
(This is a good blog entry so if you're looking for one, read this one.)
Ok, I know we're in the north of Italy, and for all intents and purposes it's a different country from the south, and for the sake of their children, posterity, and the rest of the European Union, the north should declare it's independence from the other half of the country, rather than dragging it around like a useless East Germany, and pray nightly that it becomes the next Atlantis, and Vesuvius will lose its top and toss the whole boot into the sea. But, even though it's the north, the last time we were here, even in Venice and Florence, every other person we met was trying to steal from us. Over charging at registers, counting out bills incorrectly, hiding charges until it was too late to object, serving reheated food, trying to sell refilled water bottles, lying about products, or even stealing a watch from one of our fellow travellers and running away on a scooter. The travel guides new nothing about Italian history, and I had to stuff my ears with cotton so that my obsessive compulsive disorder wouldn't kick in and make me correct them every time they spoke. I would have been hoarse by the end of the day if I had to. I mean, the number of idiotic things they said was dumbfounding. I'd think that statistically they'd get something right given that many opportunities, but their natural inclination to lie must have taken over so that when presented with an opportunity to tell the truth, they didn't. That's the only way it was possible. It's just statistically impossible to be that wrong all the time.
Anyway, on this trip, we have not had a single person do anything except treat us with respect, care and consideration. No bill has had one error. No overcharges. No hidden fees. And they're apologetic about any mistake they make. I don't know if it's just the difference between Romans and Milanese, or the side effect of being close to the Swiss border, or that we're older, or what the matter is. Personally, I think it's largely the impact of the Euro and the EU, as well as the maturation of two generations who are hooked on Mcdonalds, movies and video games. Every person you talk to can muster up pidgin English, and unlike the french, they simply consider it effective to speak it, rather than wait around for you to stumble through guttural Traveler's Italian.
I mean, all the signs, and all the advertising (which is plentiful) are in English. there are English bookstores both here and in Zurich. It's just odd, and you don't feel like you're in a foreign land. I feel more alien in the international district in Seattle, or the Indian food stores in Redmond. Not that it's bad. I am not an anti-American or anything (although, the average American is far more ignorant than the average European, at least by my experience) but it's shocking how similar globalization has made us. I think the first time I noticed it was in Paris, but you no longer feel like your exploring when you go to Europe. (Its only been three years since we've been here because of the baby, but the rate of change is fascinating.)
The countryside is absolutely stunning. Nor orderly and neat like the Swiss or Germans. Certainly not well maintained or cared for (everything is someone else's problem and besides, who can put the extra effort into a job in the heat, and with all the pretty girls walking by, and the smell of food, and pretty countryside to look at, I mean, why would I spend an extra ten percent of my effort on such a thing, when I have all these options?)
Allora tells me Pliny the Younger was born here. It must have been even more beautiful in Roman times. (If you could afford to be a Pliny instead of a slave that is.)
Everything is closed because everyone is on vacation. I mean, all the stores are closed, with metal gates, and even the homes, (most of them qualify as villa's,) have shuttered windows. Everyone is on vacation. Everyone. If it weren't for some of the more popular restaurants and hotels, the place would look like Charlton Heston would show up for an Omega Man II. (Old sci fi reference for those of you less cultured.)
While I like English and Germans the best of any people, the people here have been wonderful, kind and honest. And given that after my last trip I swore I would never set foot here again (well, except in Sorrento, or maybe one of the hill towns, or maybe Venice - I wasn't really serious) I've been thrilled with the experience.
My only recommendation is for the Italian government to import a few thousand old British ladies in their wool dresses to run the work crews that maintain everything. Because Italians build roads and bridges like madmen in the first place, then they don't maintain anything. I think it's cultural thing hung over from making stuff from stone for two and a half millenia. I mean, you don't have to maintain stone, but you do steel and concrete. Everything here is like an American bridge from the 1970's: one step from falling apart, with WW2 era electrical wiring hanging out of rusted doorways. I mean, in England, every historic site has a dozen grey haired matrons with little black bottles of enamel, touching up everything at every moment. And if you ask them who the Third Earl was, they know and can tell you a story about him.
One thing that surprises me still is how well mannered are the drivers on the road. I think this partly has to do with the fact that they drive less. I notice now that I live farther out of town, I am a more aggressive driver than I used to be. Also, since you're always negotiating small curves and such, you don't get that aggravating road hypnosis of boredom you do on the long straight highways.
Another thing that's interesting is that the people who drive fast, almost always seem to drive Audis. I have to do some research on this, and I know they're fairly fast cars, but while the little blue ford Fiesta might pass you, nine out of ten of the cars that do are Audis or the odd Mercedes. There must be something interesting in their marketing data if we got a chance to look at it.
The bookstores are far better than in the US. I found half a dozen books to read here. This is important because i don't feel like I've had a vacation unless I've eviscerated some idiotic author, and in doing so purged my psyche, like a runner who has finally healed enough to make it two miles without getting another injury. My intended victim is the head of one of the College's at Oxford who has written a foolhardy and pompous book on Identity and Violence. He is my first victim.
One thing I notice is that books on socialism are more popular in the US than they are here in Europe, at least, on the store shelves. Most university bookstores are unabashedly communist. Most university classes are steeped in socialism. The humanities are the most left wing of all. But it's odd to me in these places that have more of it, how much of the stores focus on business books. Hopefully it's a sign of ongoing prosperity.
If you go into a typical Barnes and Noble or Borders, half the store is built to support the Oprah book club or the newest Harry Potter release. ( I should start another rant on what Oprah's philosophy really is, and it's cancerous, but I would have to defend it and don't have the time at the moment.) I mean, I guess there is a place for that kind of thing, but if you go to a bookstore in Milan or Zurich (or Paris or London for that matter) and look in the philosophy, history, or science sections, there will be an intelligent selection of books that represent good thinking in viewpoints. In the US, there is either an unintelligent selection that myopically represents a viewpoint, one that creates an artificial dichotomy for two viewpoints, an massive inventory that tries to represent all viewpoints equally (thereby absolving them of editorialism), but certainly no well considered inventory representing the best of some set of those worlds.
My cut on this is that we have too many marketers. These marketers are trying to be cunning. Education in the US focuses too much on being cunning and not enough on being wise. Cunning is a fools way of avoiding the work of being wise. And wisdom is both hard to accomplish and takes a long time. Marketers who try to be cunning are simply trying to sell products that they shouldn't be. Unfortunately their demographic representing total market of fools in the US is sufficiently large enough to carry onward. It must be like soccer fans in Europe. Consumerism is our Soccer. Consumers are the US's version of idiots. It's exasperating. In other words, we don't educate our people very well and they succeed because of confidence and spending rather than because of innovation.
The US used to house the great universities, great capitalists and risk takers. Now we're the leading economy largely because the average person is profoundly ignorant, and can afford to be so simply because by spending all his or her time in the act of consuming, he's decreasing prices enough to keep people in other countries working around the clock to meet production demands. I mean, there are Ponzi schemes and Ponzi Schemes, but this one is the mother of all Ponzi's, and when the Hayekian Knowledge Bill Collector shows up, the auditors are going to have a hard time figuring out who's going to jail. Because we'll have to wall in the entire continent, even though most of the people would run out in their hiking gear, prada accessories, and leveraged automobiles crying their innocence, while their undisciplined, day-care-raised children, steeped in the religion of consumerism and socialism, drag video games, out of bookless rooms, to the sound of exercise videos promising an end to obesity, with T shirts stained in multi-colored corn-syrup flavors, and with soccer, kung-fu, and Camp-Tillamuck appointments notices flapping in their nanny's hands. The worst part of this is the destruction of the boys, who, in an effort to not offend anyone, stand open eyed and expressionless hoping they didn't offend anyone as they tripped over the cord to their electric ATV's. And they stand there, whimpering and speechless as the iron gates close and the Ponzi-Court nails the sentence to the doors of the prison. I only hope those boys can find a few copies of The Lord Of The Flies, because they're going to read it as a personal biography, or an instruction manual, or both.
That's a long way of saying that I like the social order here in Europe better, but I like our economic freedom better at home. Each man pays for his own sins. Both the US and Europe will pay for different ones. I am not sure that theirs will be so severe.
Cheers
Curt
(This is a good blog entry so if you're looking for one, read this one.)
Ok, I know we're in the north of Italy, and for all intents and purposes it's a different country from the south, and for the sake of their children, posterity, and the rest of the European Union, the north should declare it's independence from the other half of the country, rather than dragging it around like a useless East Germany, and pray nightly that it becomes the next Atlantis, and Vesuvius will lose its top and toss the whole boot into the sea. But, even though it's the north, the last time we were here, even in Venice and Florence, every other person we met was trying to steal from us. Over charging at registers, counting out bills incorrectly, hiding charges until it was too late to object, serving reheated food, trying to sell refilled water bottles, lying about products, or even stealing a watch from one of our fellow travellers and running away on a scooter. The travel guides new nothing about Italian history, and I had to stuff my ears with cotton so that my obsessive compulsive disorder wouldn't kick in and make me correct them every time they spoke. I would have been hoarse by the end of the day if I had to. I mean, the number of idiotic things they said was dumbfounding. I'd think that statistically they'd get something right given that many opportunities, but their natural inclination to lie must have taken over so that when presented with an opportunity to tell the truth, they didn't. That's the only way it was possible. It's just statistically impossible to be that wrong all the time.
Anyway, on this trip, we have not had a single person do anything except treat us with respect, care and consideration. No bill has had one error. No overcharges. No hidden fees. And they're apologetic about any mistake they make. I don't know if it's just the difference between Romans and Milanese, or the side effect of being close to the Swiss border, or that we're older, or what the matter is. Personally, I think it's largely the impact of the Euro and the EU, as well as the maturation of two generations who are hooked on Mcdonalds, movies and video games. Every person you talk to can muster up pidgin English, and unlike the french, they simply consider it effective to speak it, rather than wait around for you to stumble through guttural Traveler's Italian.
I mean, all the signs, and all the advertising (which is plentiful) are in English. there are English bookstores both here and in Zurich. It's just odd, and you don't feel like you're in a foreign land. I feel more alien in the international district in Seattle, or the Indian food stores in Redmond. Not that it's bad. I am not an anti-American or anything (although, the average American is far more ignorant than the average European, at least by my experience) but it's shocking how similar globalization has made us. I think the first time I noticed it was in Paris, but you no longer feel like your exploring when you go to Europe. (Its only been three years since we've been here because of the baby, but the rate of change is fascinating.)
The countryside is absolutely stunning. Nor orderly and neat like the Swiss or Germans. Certainly not well maintained or cared for (everything is someone else's problem and besides, who can put the extra effort into a job in the heat, and with all the pretty girls walking by, and the smell of food, and pretty countryside to look at, I mean, why would I spend an extra ten percent of my effort on such a thing, when I have all these options?)
Allora tells me Pliny the Younger was born here. It must have been even more beautiful in Roman times. (If you could afford to be a Pliny instead of a slave that is.)
Everything is closed because everyone is on vacation. I mean, all the stores are closed, with metal gates, and even the homes, (most of them qualify as villa's,) have shuttered windows. Everyone is on vacation. Everyone. If it weren't for some of the more popular restaurants and hotels, the place would look like Charlton Heston would show up for an Omega Man II. (Old sci fi reference for those of you less cultured.)
While I like English and Germans the best of any people, the people here have been wonderful, kind and honest. And given that after my last trip I swore I would never set foot here again (well, except in Sorrento, or maybe one of the hill towns, or maybe Venice - I wasn't really serious) I've been thrilled with the experience.
My only recommendation is for the Italian government to import a few thousand old British ladies in their wool dresses to run the work crews that maintain everything. Because Italians build roads and bridges like madmen in the first place, then they don't maintain anything. I think it's cultural thing hung over from making stuff from stone for two and a half millenia. I mean, you don't have to maintain stone, but you do steel and concrete. Everything here is like an American bridge from the 1970's: one step from falling apart, with WW2 era electrical wiring hanging out of rusted doorways. I mean, in England, every historic site has a dozen grey haired matrons with little black bottles of enamel, touching up everything at every moment. And if you ask them who the Third Earl was, they know and can tell you a story about him.
One thing that surprises me still is how well mannered are the drivers on the road. I think this partly has to do with the fact that they drive less. I notice now that I live farther out of town, I am a more aggressive driver than I used to be. Also, since you're always negotiating small curves and such, you don't get that aggravating road hypnosis of boredom you do on the long straight highways.
Another thing that's interesting is that the people who drive fast, almost always seem to drive Audis. I have to do some research on this, and I know they're fairly fast cars, but while the little blue ford Fiesta might pass you, nine out of ten of the cars that do are Audis or the odd Mercedes. There must be something interesting in their marketing data if we got a chance to look at it.
The bookstores are far better than in the US. I found half a dozen books to read here. This is important because i don't feel like I've had a vacation unless I've eviscerated some idiotic author, and in doing so purged my psyche, like a runner who has finally healed enough to make it two miles without getting another injury. My intended victim is the head of one of the College's at Oxford who has written a foolhardy and pompous book on Identity and Violence. He is my first victim.
One thing I notice is that books on socialism are more popular in the US than they are here in Europe, at least, on the store shelves. Most university bookstores are unabashedly communist. Most university classes are steeped in socialism. The humanities are the most left wing of all. But it's odd to me in these places that have more of it, how much of the stores focus on business books. Hopefully it's a sign of ongoing prosperity.
If you go into a typical Barnes and Noble or Borders, half the store is built to support the Oprah book club or the newest Harry Potter release. ( I should start another rant on what Oprah's philosophy really is, and it's cancerous, but I would have to defend it and don't have the time at the moment.) I mean, I guess there is a place for that kind of thing, but if you go to a bookstore in Milan or Zurich (or Paris or London for that matter) and look in the philosophy, history, or science sections, there will be an intelligent selection of books that represent good thinking in viewpoints. In the US, there is either an unintelligent selection that myopically represents a viewpoint, one that creates an artificial dichotomy for two viewpoints, an massive inventory that tries to represent all viewpoints equally (thereby absolving them of editorialism), but certainly no well considered inventory representing the best of some set of those worlds.
My cut on this is that we have too many marketers. These marketers are trying to be cunning. Education in the US focuses too much on being cunning and not enough on being wise. Cunning is a fools way of avoiding the work of being wise. And wisdom is both hard to accomplish and takes a long time. Marketers who try to be cunning are simply trying to sell products that they shouldn't be. Unfortunately their demographic representing total market of fools in the US is sufficiently large enough to carry onward. It must be like soccer fans in Europe. Consumerism is our Soccer. Consumers are the US's version of idiots. It's exasperating. In other words, we don't educate our people very well and they succeed because of confidence and spending rather than because of innovation.
The US used to house the great universities, great capitalists and risk takers. Now we're the leading economy largely because the average person is profoundly ignorant, and can afford to be so simply because by spending all his or her time in the act of consuming, he's decreasing prices enough to keep people in other countries working around the clock to meet production demands. I mean, there are Ponzi schemes and Ponzi Schemes, but this one is the mother of all Ponzi's, and when the Hayekian Knowledge Bill Collector shows up, the auditors are going to have a hard time figuring out who's going to jail. Because we'll have to wall in the entire continent, even though most of the people would run out in their hiking gear, prada accessories, and leveraged automobiles crying their innocence, while their undisciplined, day-care-raised children, steeped in the religion of consumerism and socialism, drag video games, out of bookless rooms, to the sound of exercise videos promising an end to obesity, with T shirts stained in multi-colored corn-syrup flavors, and with soccer, kung-fu, and Camp-Tillamuck appointments notices flapping in their nanny's hands. The worst part of this is the destruction of the boys, who, in an effort to not offend anyone, stand open eyed and expressionless hoping they didn't offend anyone as they tripped over the cord to their electric ATV's. And they stand there, whimpering and speechless as the iron gates close and the Ponzi-Court nails the sentence to the doors of the prison. I only hope those boys can find a few copies of The Lord Of The Flies, because they're going to read it as a personal biography, or an instruction manual, or both.
That's a long way of saying that I like the social order here in Europe better, but I like our economic freedom better at home. Each man pays for his own sins. Both the US and Europe will pay for different ones. I am not sure that theirs will be so severe.
Cheers
Curt
Zurich
(Note: I just read Max's post about his frustration with Airline Tickets, and well, I already think the guy walks on water, but, english isn't his first language, and he writes better than I do. Sigh. Something to aspire to. Anyway, I can't wait to see them in St Petersburg)
Dear blog;
Zurich. I have a new favorite city. Nice shops, sophisticated people. Well mannered. Great service in stores. The food was even better than here in Italy. Of course, one of the restaurants was Italian, but both were impeccable. Still impossible to navigate the place, even with a GPS system.
A few things I noticed:
1) The men are uncommonly fit, even for a city. Haircuts are short. Waiters are serious and fast moving. The cashier who runs the late night cafeteria on the highway is from Kansas. (I think her name was Dorothy. Either that or I needed the cappuccino to stay awake for the rest of the drive more than I though I did.) But seriously, the men are fit. There is clearly a social code here that says you have to run two miles a day if you're a banker. It must be in the Quals. The lawyers are all shoddy looking and have bad skin, but the bankers look like they play three sets of racquetball between meetings and have a shower in the back room. Their US counterparts at least in the investment banking community would wear shirts with less synthetic fibers. And you wouldn't put a client in a room without air conditioning in the US, even though they do not employ such common devices with abandon here. But they're all fit. I have gained ten pounds since May and I feel like a leper around here. On the way home I noticed a map of the alps with 35 equidistant hikes drawn out, and tried to marshal the will to do them like I was some teenager watching a bruce lee moving vowing to become a kung fu master. I am older now and know that such fantasies are just that. Instead I'll be more careful eating, and double my hikes. Not that I can do much about either while living in hotel rooms and eating restaurant food while adapting to jet lag over eleven time zones.
2) There are an oddly large number of men in their late fifties or early sixties that hang out in front of the brokerage houses and stare at tickers as if they were Amsterdam prostitutes They stand there for an hour. I mean, what's the point of making money like that? I guess if it's you're retirement and you see it as buying yourself days that's one thing, but otherwise I just don't see the whole point of living if that's what life consists of.
3) We met a woman who looks so much like someone from our office at home that it's almost disturbing. Here is her picture. She's born and raised in one of the German cantons. Same voice even. Same body language. Same smile. You know in the new version of Battlestar Galactica, how the Cylons are clones of each other? I sort of got that feeling. If I ever hear the real person say "By your command" (a Cylon favorite response) I'm going to shudder in fear and assume a nuclear attack is coming. In France, actually, in Brittany, which is technically only French by conquest, I met a dozen people that looked like me, enough that it was comforting. But certainly no dopplegangers. We live in the fantasy that we are chaotically special individuals. but in reality, there are X number of variables handed down and we do not seem to vary from them all that much. I have spent a lot of time learning about different ancient tribes and it is very clear to me that those same tribes walk around today, and while each member considers himself an individual according to the religion of the day, I simply see dog breeds acting on general tendencies that they were bred for, and tend to laugh to myself when each of us thinks we're innovative and special. I know my family well enough to know that I am a clone that goes back for a few hundred if not thousand years, and my son is an accurate clone of me only marginally different in terms of temporary experience, but his basic tendencies are as invariant as any template of such complexity could be.
4) The dollar is relatively week and it is clear why the euro is now more widely in demand than the dollar. The newspapers and magazines still see the US as the weather vane by which to run the social, political and economic universe, and English, because English is the language of the accounting, legal, finance and trade system put in place as far back as Elizabeth I. But the marginal difference in things is no where near what it was five, ten or twenty years ago. And we are NOT producing evolutionary knowledge faster than the rest of the world any longer.
5) Banking. This country is a bank. That's it's claim to fame. It oozes banking and finance. No dirty manufacturing or laborer problems here. Everything is tidy. While I'm not so happy that Germans have lost their desire to protect Europe (ne: christiandom) from "The East", and are making the country "east turkey" as fast as we are making the US "north Mexico", I am glad that this group of them chose Banking because the german character is perfect for it.
There are tickers in windows and banks the size and frequency of Starbucks in Seattle. Every designer has a store here. There are watches, watch stores, and whole magazine racks full of watch books. I wear fairly inexpensive watches (Skagen -denmark) because I break up to three of them a year, so I feel like I have a bad haircut and need to put on a hat, and deftly put my watch in my pocket so that I don't make a fashion heresy, or represent myself as some member of a lower caste.
But banking is what this city is about. And it made me wonder why we don't have relationships with our banks at home in the US. Of course, I know the answer: Computers.
Not that long ago, you didn't need a financial advisor, because the bank was run by local business people from the town, and employed fairly intelligent and talented people who could give you financial advice. Less than twenty years ago, you could still go into a bank and have them help you work out a plan to get out of debt, or finance a house or whatever. Now bankers are from the bottom third of their class, and if you're lucky they can speak English. A bank is a wallmart where you buy products, but none of those products is advice.
Want to make money? Open a chain of banks (it's quite easy really) that are franchises, where the president, and the team are local bankers, and where only a little of the money goes to the headquarters for administration expenses and necessary services like reinsurance. Let local people take the risk and reward for who they loan to. This might not work everywhere, but it would work in suburbia well, and certainly, one of the reasons we are such consumers is because we are operating in a financial vacuum. Money is everywhere, the people around us spend it, so we spend it. The government prints it for us like there is not tomorrow. The bankers lend it as if Santa delivers payments for people on Christmas morning. Few families today have had money for two or three generations and are passing down financial management knowledge as a key skill which has been done for centuries among the wealthy families. We are hiring accountants, tax men, and financial advisers to tell us common sense principles, and they are creating dogma, and code words as if they are scripture, that make these very common sense ideas seem mystical, and thereby keeping the masses ignorant, as if they are medieval catholic priests interpreting the bible for superstitious peasantry. The fact is that we cannot hide from our ignorance, or have our ignorance hidden from us forever. You want to fix our economy? Take computers out of banking centers, and make many small banks where loan officers are financial advisers. Pay them four times the median salary (they can earn it easily) plus a small commission. Let teams of wise people make decisions based upon their understanding of each individual. Make them responsible for the success of those people that they lend to. This is not an innovation.
During the computer revolution most banking became centralized. This did a couple of things. It took talent out of the local offices. And it created bureaucracies in large banks. The amount of money consumed by these headquarters offices in salary alone is staggering. On the other hand (and I don't have the reference) it appears that more than three quarters of the people in any main office of administration in any large bank, are actually useless. Meanwhile the average American has lost the one advisor that was truly important to him, and is denied a partnership with a person who can foster entrepreneurship and lifelong security.
Move computers out of large banking centers. These large banks only serve large companies and they hurt small business and consumers. They stifle innovation. They manufacture ignorance in the populace. They are one of the primary reasons for the downfall of western civilization.
I already have one company, and another in the wings. If I had one more to do, I would try to make this happen. I know that credit unions are of this variety, but there are not enough of them and there is not a good enough marketing campaign out there to redirect enough capital nationally, and to retrain our people. I could do it if I had another lifetime. Hopefully someone else will.
Now, if you're one of those people who thinks that this isnt financially viable I'll be happy to debate it with you. But it's pretty simple really.
The Swiss are not successful simply because of their privacy. Their successful for their customers service. I use schwab, and one other. But talking to them, while better than a normal bank, is still a bit like talking to the three stooges, and while they have financial advisers, trying to get financial advice out of them is laughable at best. They are simply community-college script readers following scripture from heaven and attempting to tell you that they possess some wisdom. they do not. Anyone who is very wise in this universe is not available to common people at any brokerage. and those that are cunning are people who you should not talk to. So you are left with the unwise, and the uncunning: the imbeciles who parrot what others have told them to, and they do nothing of value for you.
Curt
Dear blog;
Zurich. I have a new favorite city. Nice shops, sophisticated people. Well mannered. Great service in stores. The food was even better than here in Italy. Of course, one of the restaurants was Italian, but both were impeccable. Still impossible to navigate the place, even with a GPS system.
A few things I noticed:
1) The men are uncommonly fit, even for a city. Haircuts are short. Waiters are serious and fast moving. The cashier who runs the late night cafeteria on the highway is from Kansas. (I think her name was Dorothy. Either that or I needed the cappuccino to stay awake for the rest of the drive more than I though I did.) But seriously, the men are fit. There is clearly a social code here that says you have to run two miles a day if you're a banker. It must be in the Quals. The lawyers are all shoddy looking and have bad skin, but the bankers look like they play three sets of racquetball between meetings and have a shower in the back room. Their US counterparts at least in the investment banking community would wear shirts with less synthetic fibers. And you wouldn't put a client in a room without air conditioning in the US, even though they do not employ such common devices with abandon here. But they're all fit. I have gained ten pounds since May and I feel like a leper around here. On the way home I noticed a map of the alps with 35 equidistant hikes drawn out, and tried to marshal the will to do them like I was some teenager watching a bruce lee moving vowing to become a kung fu master. I am older now and know that such fantasies are just that. Instead I'll be more careful eating, and double my hikes. Not that I can do much about either while living in hotel rooms and eating restaurant food while adapting to jet lag over eleven time zones.
2) There are an oddly large number of men in their late fifties or early sixties that hang out in front of the brokerage houses and stare at tickers as if they were Amsterdam prostitutes They stand there for an hour. I mean, what's the point of making money like that? I guess if it's you're retirement and you see it as buying yourself days that's one thing, but otherwise I just don't see the whole point of living if that's what life consists of.
3) We met a woman who looks so much like someone from our office at home that it's almost disturbing. Here is her picture. She's born and raised in one of the German cantons. Same voice even. Same body language. Same smile. You know in the new version of Battlestar Galactica, how the Cylons are clones of each other? I sort of got that feeling. If I ever hear the real person say "By your command" (a Cylon favorite response) I'm going to shudder in fear and assume a nuclear attack is coming. In France, actually, in Brittany, which is technically only French by conquest, I met a dozen people that looked like me, enough that it was comforting. But certainly no dopplegangers. We live in the fantasy that we are chaotically special individuals. but in reality, there are X number of variables handed down and we do not seem to vary from them all that much. I have spent a lot of time learning about different ancient tribes and it is very clear to me that those same tribes walk around today, and while each member considers himself an individual according to the religion of the day, I simply see dog breeds acting on general tendencies that they were bred for, and tend to laugh to myself when each of us thinks we're innovative and special. I know my family well enough to know that I am a clone that goes back for a few hundred if not thousand years, and my son is an accurate clone of me only marginally different in terms of temporary experience, but his basic tendencies are as invariant as any template of such complexity could be.
4) The dollar is relatively week and it is clear why the euro is now more widely in demand than the dollar. The newspapers and magazines still see the US as the weather vane by which to run the social, political and economic universe, and English, because English is the language of the accounting, legal, finance and trade system put in place as far back as Elizabeth I. But the marginal difference in things is no where near what it was five, ten or twenty years ago. And we are NOT producing evolutionary knowledge faster than the rest of the world any longer.
5) Banking. This country is a bank. That's it's claim to fame. It oozes banking and finance. No dirty manufacturing or laborer problems here. Everything is tidy. While I'm not so happy that Germans have lost their desire to protect Europe (ne: christiandom) from "The East", and are making the country "east turkey" as fast as we are making the US "north Mexico", I am glad that this group of them chose Banking because the german character is perfect for it.
There are tickers in windows and banks the size and frequency of Starbucks in Seattle. Every designer has a store here. There are watches, watch stores, and whole magazine racks full of watch books. I wear fairly inexpensive watches (Skagen -denmark) because I break up to three of them a year, so I feel like I have a bad haircut and need to put on a hat, and deftly put my watch in my pocket so that I don't make a fashion heresy, or represent myself as some member of a lower caste.
But banking is what this city is about. And it made me wonder why we don't have relationships with our banks at home in the US. Of course, I know the answer: Computers.
Not that long ago, you didn't need a financial advisor, because the bank was run by local business people from the town, and employed fairly intelligent and talented people who could give you financial advice. Less than twenty years ago, you could still go into a bank and have them help you work out a plan to get out of debt, or finance a house or whatever. Now bankers are from the bottom third of their class, and if you're lucky they can speak English. A bank is a wallmart where you buy products, but none of those products is advice.
Want to make money? Open a chain of banks (it's quite easy really) that are franchises, where the president, and the team are local bankers, and where only a little of the money goes to the headquarters for administration expenses and necessary services like reinsurance. Let local people take the risk and reward for who they loan to. This might not work everywhere, but it would work in suburbia well, and certainly, one of the reasons we are such consumers is because we are operating in a financial vacuum. Money is everywhere, the people around us spend it, so we spend it. The government prints it for us like there is not tomorrow. The bankers lend it as if Santa delivers payments for people on Christmas morning. Few families today have had money for two or three generations and are passing down financial management knowledge as a key skill which has been done for centuries among the wealthy families. We are hiring accountants, tax men, and financial advisers to tell us common sense principles, and they are creating dogma, and code words as if they are scripture, that make these very common sense ideas seem mystical, and thereby keeping the masses ignorant, as if they are medieval catholic priests interpreting the bible for superstitious peasantry. The fact is that we cannot hide from our ignorance, or have our ignorance hidden from us forever. You want to fix our economy? Take computers out of banking centers, and make many small banks where loan officers are financial advisers. Pay them four times the median salary (they can earn it easily) plus a small commission. Let teams of wise people make decisions based upon their understanding of each individual. Make them responsible for the success of those people that they lend to. This is not an innovation.
During the computer revolution most banking became centralized. This did a couple of things. It took talent out of the local offices. And it created bureaucracies in large banks. The amount of money consumed by these headquarters offices in salary alone is staggering. On the other hand (and I don't have the reference) it appears that more than three quarters of the people in any main office of administration in any large bank, are actually useless. Meanwhile the average American has lost the one advisor that was truly important to him, and is denied a partnership with a person who can foster entrepreneurship and lifelong security.
Move computers out of large banking centers. These large banks only serve large companies and they hurt small business and consumers. They stifle innovation. They manufacture ignorance in the populace. They are one of the primary reasons for the downfall of western civilization.
I already have one company, and another in the wings. If I had one more to do, I would try to make this happen. I know that credit unions are of this variety, but there are not enough of them and there is not a good enough marketing campaign out there to redirect enough capital nationally, and to retrain our people. I could do it if I had another lifetime. Hopefully someone else will.
Now, if you're one of those people who thinks that this isnt financially viable I'll be happy to debate it with you. But it's pretty simple really.
The Swiss are not successful simply because of their privacy. Their successful for their customers service. I use schwab, and one other. But talking to them, while better than a normal bank, is still a bit like talking to the three stooges, and while they have financial advisers, trying to get financial advice out of them is laughable at best. They are simply community-college script readers following scripture from heaven and attempting to tell you that they possess some wisdom. they do not. Anyone who is very wise in this universe is not available to common people at any brokerage. and those that are cunning are people who you should not talk to. So you are left with the unwise, and the uncunning: the imbeciles who parrot what others have told them to, and they do nothing of value for you.
Curt
Seattle-Denver-London
I have been on the road a lot lately, and ended up with enough miles on Alaska Airlines for both Olga and I to go to Russia. Alaska has quite a few partners, and some of them have flights to Moscow, but the only partner that flies to St. Petersburg is British Airways. I am Americanized – I was foolishly thinking that booking an "award" ticket with British would be just as easy as booking one on Alaska. Well, not really.
There's no online tool to manage award bookings with partners. You have to call Alaska's partner award desk, and painfully go through all the options with them. I never realized that I was taking Internet business for granted; with my travel I can simply hop online and have an e-ticket in no time. Individually, both airlines do offer such convenience, but once you use an unusual monetary instrument, such as miles from a different carrier it all becomes far more difficult. The partner desk people are helpful and patient. The trick there is that you don't have any means of visualization of the options available to you except for handwritten notes you need to take as you speak with them.
It turned out that to book a route you really want on your dates with British (and I suspect it's true for other non-American airline partners), you need to make that reservation well in advance. I called about a month ahead of time – and I couldn't get on the direct flight from Seattle to London anymore. The only viable option was to go through Denver. That was a disappointment, and I was threatened with the idea of this trip taking a lot longer than it would have – 2 hours to Denver plus 9 hours to London, with all the padding around those and the wait between the flights all came down to 18 hours.
Ok, I figured that's the way it was. However, return flights were limited as well – and I ended up with an itinerary which started with a flight out of Moscow to London at 5 AM, followed by a 9 hour wait at Heathrow, and then a 9 hour flight back to Denver just to miss the last flight to Seattle – which would put us into an airport hotel in Denver! But it's free – kind of. Taxes and fees totaled around $100 per person, which was still much better than $1,500 each if I were to book with money. At the end of the day, I kept calling them back, going over the whole itinerary again, several times – and finally got lucky. Now after $100 in change fees we're leaving Moscow at 9 PM, staying overnight in London, and catching up a flight to Phoenix and then to Seattle on the same day.
On top of it all I got paper tickets mailed to me. This is another relic of the past, which sounded ok at first, but then became quite an annoyance to deal with. First off, you have to have them on you – or you don't get to fly. Sounds like a small thing, but it adds to the whole list of small things that in the end make all this travel so painful. I could not check in online – fully anyway – either. I did call British to get the reservation code, and did check in online – otherwise I wouldn't get seats assigned, but when we arrived to Denver the airline was looking for us all over the place to check us in again for some reason.
To tell the truth, I was expecting our flight experience to be something much worse than what it turned out to be. The Seattle to Denver flight was a quick 2 hour one on Alaska, nothing new there. The British flight was long and therefore painful. Despite taking Tylenol PM I could only take a 1-hour nap, and Olga didn't sleep at all, even though it was a quite comfortable 777.
We're now checked in, and ready to go explore London. We're tired, but here for just one night, so we're going for as long as we can. More to come!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Panoramas, Our Lady of the Beloved Bicycle
I'm tired and this is rather scattered but I mostly wanted to get some photos posted. The text is just meant to be descriptive and not insightful :)
Today, I rode up a funicular. I did this because our son lives and breathes trains and I just taught him about funiculars last week. I'm going to bring home pictures and short videos of a real one to show to him. Curt wanted to go but he gets vertigo with things like this, which would have ruined a few days for him so he walked along the lake shore while I went up Mount Como in the funicular. The idea of a funicular is that the weight of one tram car moving down helps move the other up the inclined plane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular).
I absolutely love my camera. It is a Canon G7 Powershot. I almost got a digital SLR but didn't think I'd use it as much because I would end up not carrying it around because of its bulk. So I went with the G7 _and_ read the manual and it's a marriage made in heaven. Camera software keeps getting better and better, too. I now no longer have to manually stitch my images together to make a panoramic shot. Okay, so I'm going overboard with the panoramic shots but it is just because I can...
This is the view we had while eating lunch yesterday:
Today, I rode up a funicular. I did this because our son lives and breathes trains and I just taught him about funiculars last week. I'm going to bring home pictures and short videos of a real one to show to him. Curt wanted to go but he gets vertigo with things like this, which would have ruined a few days for him so he walked along the lake shore while I went up Mount Como in the funicular. The idea of a funicular is that the weight of one tram car moving down helps move the other up the inclined plane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular).
Later today, while heading toward Bellagio, Italy (north of Milan, on Lake Como) we happened upon an arts and crap fair. That was mighty satisfying - who knew you could make so many different plants and animals out of seed beads? We actually had stopped to get a photo of a beautiful view of the mountains and lake and after we got all there was to get out of the fair, we wandered over to the viewpoint to take some photos.
And then we went into this little church:
And of course, what do you find in chapels but bicycles mounted on the walls...
A Day Around The Lakes
Dear Blog,
We stayed up late last night, partly to adjust to the time zone, and woke around ten in the morning local time, took care of necessities like paying bills that we should have before we left, and headed out for brunch. It was brunch for us, and lunch for everyone else. Actually it was late lunch for everyone else, and we were lucky to get served.
We ate at a restaurant on the water again. Harry's Bar wasn't open, so we went to the hotel next door and sat outside in the sun. The temperature was comfortable, with cool air off the lake and warm sunshine from almost directly above us. Dozens of people were sitting in chairs, on benches, and walking on the cobbles nearby.
Two families drove up and provided us with an interesting contrast. An American couple with two children drove up, parked in the parking spot, unloaded some clothing to bring upstairs. The man took the luggage and disappeared. The children were in the back seat eating what looked like crepes. The woman stood near the back of the car, with down turned lips and we noticed she was crying. The kids were not being out of order at all, but she reached in the car and lost her temper with them, and came close to striking them with a fist. But she caught herself. Later the man came down, and spoke to her. Clearly they are not happy together, at least today.
A few minutes later an Italian family drove up. they parked in the middle of the damned road, with no consideration for anyone else. They piled out of the car (an alfa) and started looking around, as if they were visual ants trying to survey all the local food sources. They were disorganized, confused, but happy. The hotel manager came and asked them to move the car into a parking space. The driver looked at him as if the idea were something novel that had not occurred to him, then fitfully tried and finally succeeded in parking his car out of the way of traffic. Meanwhile, the ants continued their survey, and in somewhat chaotic fashion they chose a restaurant, frittered with the chairs as if not sure what they were for, then finally settled in to sit in them, and apply the same chaos to the menus, bread and tableware. They managed not to break anything except the silence and even then, only softly.
I think if I have to choose between the two families I would prefer the chaos and comfort of the Italian family, which appears fairly typical to me, to the stern loneliness of the American family. I just wish the Italians would learn how to park in a civil fashion. But perhaps this is a telling contrast. The American family was living clearly for someone Else's expectations, rather than their own, and the Italian family was living for themselves regardless of the expectations of others. While Italy is a fairly poor country by European standards, and they can't make a decent product to save their souls, without help from either the Germans or the Japanese, by and large they certainly seem happier.
This is especially true for the women. In the US it always seems like women are insecure and less comfortable in their skins. Especially the middle class women. This is in stark contrast to the comfortable expressions of the average Italian woman walking by on the street. I plan to think about this a bit more, but it doesn't quite make sense to me yet. Other similar problems do. For example, there are very few professional men in sight. Waiting for allora this morning I sat at a table outside a small cafe for an hour and watched people walk by. There were people from all walks of life. In particular there were a few older women, well dressed, but practical and neat, who were managing three generations of family around them. There were no men with these matrons. at one point, a Korean man made vulgar hawking nasal sounds nearby (my neighbor does the same thing. Is there some Korean sinus ritual I don't understand?) and she admonished the children not to look, to ignore him, and to move forward. When she gets to me and notices that I'm smiling, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head and says something in Italian I don't quite catch, but she conveys the universal idea of one's failure to understand the crudity of one's fellow man. How I know she is well read, is something I'm not sure of. It has to do with how quickly she responds the the environment. She is what is left in the west of European nobility. It is a meager morsel of the once glorious past, but a stalwart one determined to raise her family according to her standards.
But there were no men of similar stature. Most of them were ordinary folk. When Allora and I spoke about it she said that this was nothing to be surprised about. She said "Do you, or Jim, or any other of the executives you know walk around town?" And the answer is no. The more accurate answer is that none of us would enjoy sacrificing a weekend trying to herd three generations of children around such boring tourist sites. We would find something more interesting to do even if it was painfully physical and cost a lot of money. The fact that too many of the men were wearing pink or salmon colored pants was insight enough that they weren't the kind of people others trust with money. I mean, I simply would not let some guy over forty in a sleeveless polo and salmon colored pants that have seen to many laundry cycles with Tide handle my money.
I am not sure what this says about me, that I'm one of the guys walking around, even if I'm wearing khaki shorts, a braided leather belt, and a linen shirt from Indigo Palms, other than I prefer getting lost in remote places, and stumbling across a decent restaurant, to a beach or popular tourist attraction. It gives me insight into the common people which is why I travel. As a person who loves to watch people, this anonymity comforts my internally analytical voyeur and gives him something to amuse himself with. Maybe there are other closet entrepreneurs hovering in villages here. But it is terribly easy to spot them, simply by their body language, and I think that there is no camouflage that can hide them from me. So I think I am alone or nearly so in my adventure here.
As I was watching people a man on a bicycle stopped and spoke to a young woman. At first I thought this was yet another example of an Italian man giving ghetto compliments to an attractive woman. Even though she was not attractive. There were four young women, probably under twenty five, walking together, following two adults who were obviously parents or senior relatives. I knew they were Americans before they spoke, because they all had too many pounds, too bad a posture, and too lazy a gate, as if the only exercise they got was between the couch and the kitchen. In the sunshine, one of the girls had removed her shirt and was walking around in what was either a fashionable bra, or a bikini top. The man was a policeman and he had told her to put her shirt on. The mother was horrified. For my part, first, if you're overweight no one wants you to share it. Secondly, I never understand the classlessness of walking around without a shirt on, man or woman, except on the beach. I understand less doing so in a foreign country, and even less so in one where such things are not commonly accepted. Yet another American being a bad ambassador.
The trend in Italy right now is not very different from that in the US. Almost every woman is wearing jeans, strap heels, a tight elastic strap camisole shirt, some kind of layer over it, something with glitter somewhere, and a little jewelry. It's obvious that the average colorist in the US is slightly better than his or her peers in Italy, but it's also easier to work with brown hair than black. You notice that they are comfortable bearing their shoulders. But stomach's and backs are out of the question. The old conventions haven't apparently changed either: married women with children have a definite dress code. Unmarried men and women do as well. There is very little overlap in these dress codes. Men are more likely to be fit weight here when they are young, and more likely to be sodded smokers with pot bellies than I think at home. But that might just be the class of people we're seeing.
Personally I find this dress code comforting. I commented to Allora that the underlying social variable here, is that people stay in the towns where they grew up, even if they go to school. This is still fairly common here, despite the changes in the past twenty years. If you make that one decision you get the culture that they have here. Family is everything and everyone else is only vaguely important.
But enough about clothing, except for one interesting note: Allora found some guy taking what looked like up skirt photos as people walked by. That was charming. I would have done something if I had noticed. Which is probably why she didn't tell me until I'd walked by.
We decided to drive to Bellagio which is on a peninsula between two forks of a local lake.
There were beautiful homes along the way. 1-6M euros. There were post-communist little apartment buildings. There was a church, with a kitch-fair outside, near a breathtaking overlook. Unfortunately, it was the church of the virgin bicyclist or something. No kidding. A church to bicyclists, with monument outside. I am sure it was well intended but I found it ridiculous. Cycling is not heroic. I am sorry. I don't get it.
We found a wonderful hotel on the water and had dinner. Fish, from the lake. A lemon, butter, and caper sauce, and the fish was done perfectly. Every meal so far has been unassailable. I programmed a route along the water, and we headed home to the hotel at dark.
And the drive home was my only disappointment for the day. I should have had the Ferrari here. It was a road designed by fascists I'm sure, but a narrow curvy road along the water that just begged to be driven in a sports car, late at night, at speed, with hi-beams on. Allora says we should do the south of France in it if anything at all. But I'm thinking that these roads, by Mussolini's government-work projects, cannot be bested for a Ferrari with fresh tires. It's 2500 to ship it overseas. That's not any more than you'd spend on a rental car for three weeks. I can justify it if I drive enough. Can't I? Anyway, I did my best to enjoy it in the Saab, which is pretty comfortable in the lower gears.
We drove by wall after wall of elegant stonework meant to retain the hillside. Beautiful.
Anyway, I'm tired now and can't even try to be funny. Allora is putting pictures together for the blog. Hopefully she'll post a few.
Tomorrow we're going to Zurich and back.
Cheers
Curt
We stayed up late last night, partly to adjust to the time zone, and woke around ten in the morning local time, took care of necessities like paying bills that we should have before we left, and headed out for brunch. It was brunch for us, and lunch for everyone else. Actually it was late lunch for everyone else, and we were lucky to get served.
We ate at a restaurant on the water again. Harry's Bar wasn't open, so we went to the hotel next door and sat outside in the sun. The temperature was comfortable, with cool air off the lake and warm sunshine from almost directly above us. Dozens of people were sitting in chairs, on benches, and walking on the cobbles nearby.
Two families drove up and provided us with an interesting contrast. An American couple with two children drove up, parked in the parking spot, unloaded some clothing to bring upstairs. The man took the luggage and disappeared. The children were in the back seat eating what looked like crepes. The woman stood near the back of the car, with down turned lips and we noticed she was crying. The kids were not being out of order at all, but she reached in the car and lost her temper with them, and came close to striking them with a fist. But she caught herself. Later the man came down, and spoke to her. Clearly they are not happy together, at least today.
A few minutes later an Italian family drove up. they parked in the middle of the damned road, with no consideration for anyone else. They piled out of the car (an alfa) and started looking around, as if they were visual ants trying to survey all the local food sources. They were disorganized, confused, but happy. The hotel manager came and asked them to move the car into a parking space. The driver looked at him as if the idea were something novel that had not occurred to him, then fitfully tried and finally succeeded in parking his car out of the way of traffic. Meanwhile, the ants continued their survey, and in somewhat chaotic fashion they chose a restaurant, frittered with the chairs as if not sure what they were for, then finally settled in to sit in them, and apply the same chaos to the menus, bread and tableware. They managed not to break anything except the silence and even then, only softly.
I think if I have to choose between the two families I would prefer the chaos and comfort of the Italian family, which appears fairly typical to me, to the stern loneliness of the American family. I just wish the Italians would learn how to park in a civil fashion. But perhaps this is a telling contrast. The American family was living clearly for someone Else's expectations, rather than their own, and the Italian family was living for themselves regardless of the expectations of others. While Italy is a fairly poor country by European standards, and they can't make a decent product to save their souls, without help from either the Germans or the Japanese, by and large they certainly seem happier.
This is especially true for the women. In the US it always seems like women are insecure and less comfortable in their skins. Especially the middle class women. This is in stark contrast to the comfortable expressions of the average Italian woman walking by on the street. I plan to think about this a bit more, but it doesn't quite make sense to me yet. Other similar problems do. For example, there are very few professional men in sight. Waiting for allora this morning I sat at a table outside a small cafe for an hour and watched people walk by. There were people from all walks of life. In particular there were a few older women, well dressed, but practical and neat, who were managing three generations of family around them. There were no men with these matrons. at one point, a Korean man made vulgar hawking nasal sounds nearby (my neighbor does the same thing. Is there some Korean sinus ritual I don't understand?) and she admonished the children not to look, to ignore him, and to move forward. When she gets to me and notices that I'm smiling, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head and says something in Italian I don't quite catch, but she conveys the universal idea of one's failure to understand the crudity of one's fellow man. How I know she is well read, is something I'm not sure of. It has to do with how quickly she responds the the environment. She is what is left in the west of European nobility. It is a meager morsel of the once glorious past, but a stalwart one determined to raise her family according to her standards.
But there were no men of similar stature. Most of them were ordinary folk. When Allora and I spoke about it she said that this was nothing to be surprised about. She said "Do you, or Jim, or any other of the executives you know walk around town?" And the answer is no. The more accurate answer is that none of us would enjoy sacrificing a weekend trying to herd three generations of children around such boring tourist sites. We would find something more interesting to do even if it was painfully physical and cost a lot of money. The fact that too many of the men were wearing pink or salmon colored pants was insight enough that they weren't the kind of people others trust with money. I mean, I simply would not let some guy over forty in a sleeveless polo and salmon colored pants that have seen to many laundry cycles with Tide handle my money.
I am not sure what this says about me, that I'm one of the guys walking around, even if I'm wearing khaki shorts, a braided leather belt, and a linen shirt from Indigo Palms, other than I prefer getting lost in remote places, and stumbling across a decent restaurant, to a beach or popular tourist attraction. It gives me insight into the common people which is why I travel. As a person who loves to watch people, this anonymity comforts my internally analytical voyeur and gives him something to amuse himself with. Maybe there are other closet entrepreneurs hovering in villages here. But it is terribly easy to spot them, simply by their body language, and I think that there is no camouflage that can hide them from me. So I think I am alone or nearly so in my adventure here.
As I was watching people a man on a bicycle stopped and spoke to a young woman. At first I thought this was yet another example of an Italian man giving ghetto compliments to an attractive woman. Even though she was not attractive. There were four young women, probably under twenty five, walking together, following two adults who were obviously parents or senior relatives. I knew they were Americans before they spoke, because they all had too many pounds, too bad a posture, and too lazy a gate, as if the only exercise they got was between the couch and the kitchen. In the sunshine, one of the girls had removed her shirt and was walking around in what was either a fashionable bra, or a bikini top. The man was a policeman and he had told her to put her shirt on. The mother was horrified. For my part, first, if you're overweight no one wants you to share it. Secondly, I never understand the classlessness of walking around without a shirt on, man or woman, except on the beach. I understand less doing so in a foreign country, and even less so in one where such things are not commonly accepted. Yet another American being a bad ambassador.
The trend in Italy right now is not very different from that in the US. Almost every woman is wearing jeans, strap heels, a tight elastic strap camisole shirt, some kind of layer over it, something with glitter somewhere, and a little jewelry. It's obvious that the average colorist in the US is slightly better than his or her peers in Italy, but it's also easier to work with brown hair than black. You notice that they are comfortable bearing their shoulders. But stomach's and backs are out of the question. The old conventions haven't apparently changed either: married women with children have a definite dress code. Unmarried men and women do as well. There is very little overlap in these dress codes. Men are more likely to be fit weight here when they are young, and more likely to be sodded smokers with pot bellies than I think at home. But that might just be the class of people we're seeing.
Personally I find this dress code comforting. I commented to Allora that the underlying social variable here, is that people stay in the towns where they grew up, even if they go to school. This is still fairly common here, despite the changes in the past twenty years. If you make that one decision you get the culture that they have here. Family is everything and everyone else is only vaguely important.
But enough about clothing, except for one interesting note: Allora found some guy taking what looked like up skirt photos as people walked by. That was charming. I would have done something if I had noticed. Which is probably why she didn't tell me until I'd walked by.
We decided to drive to Bellagio which is on a peninsula between two forks of a local lake.
There were beautiful homes along the way. 1-6M euros. There were post-communist little apartment buildings. There was a church, with a kitch-fair outside, near a breathtaking overlook. Unfortunately, it was the church of the virgin bicyclist or something. No kidding. A church to bicyclists, with monument outside. I am sure it was well intended but I found it ridiculous. Cycling is not heroic. I am sorry. I don't get it.
We found a wonderful hotel on the water and had dinner. Fish, from the lake. A lemon, butter, and caper sauce, and the fish was done perfectly. Every meal so far has been unassailable. I programmed a route along the water, and we headed home to the hotel at dark.
And the drive home was my only disappointment for the day. I should have had the Ferrari here. It was a road designed by fascists I'm sure, but a narrow curvy road along the water that just begged to be driven in a sports car, late at night, at speed, with hi-beams on. Allora says we should do the south of France in it if anything at all. But I'm thinking that these roads, by Mussolini's government-work projects, cannot be bested for a Ferrari with fresh tires. It's 2500 to ship it overseas. That's not any more than you'd spend on a rental car for three weeks. I can justify it if I drive enough. Can't I? Anyway, I did my best to enjoy it in the Saab, which is pretty comfortable in the lower gears.
We drove by wall after wall of elegant stonework meant to retain the hillside. Beautiful.
Anyway, I'm tired now and can't even try to be funny. Allora is putting pictures together for the blog. Hopefully she'll post a few.
Tomorrow we're going to Zurich and back.
Cheers
Curt
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