Pig Joke

I hadn’t seen Martin in ages, not since school. I was in business and he was in biochemistry. We hardly talked, but I guess he remembered me as someone with money because that’s what he needed. I know he wouldn’t have called unless the situation was desperate. He obviously thought he had something worthwhile. He said it was like the monkey with his hand caught in the bottle. If he let go he would be free, but then he wouldn’t have the fruit. Occasionally I make investments and Martin had impressed me as a brain.

They had all been caught in the genome bubble. At first, everyone was afraid. There were a few successes and the pendulum swung the other way. Governments, companies, everyone was looking for a biochemist to shove money at. There were the inevitable disasters, huge liability lawsuits, and now everyone was terrified again. So this may well be an opportunity.

When I arrived at his door, I was greeted by a pig. My heart sank. It looked violently hateful, but it made a pleasant enough noise that resembled a greeting. As I followed it into the hall, I noticed that it had a wooden leg that thumped against the tile. Martin entered.

-You’ve met Seymour.

-I didn’t know you were Irish.
I responded.

The pig shrugged. That was more than a little disturbing, I’m not one for anthropomorphism, it’s one thing for an animal to recognize humor, quite another to criticize it.

-We have a lot to talk about, come with me.
Martin responded.

We left the pig behind. When we were out of earshot, I said:
-You gave it human genes.
Mixing genes had become a primary taboo after several disasters.

-No I didn’t.
Martin responded.
-This is far more subtle and interesting. What I have done is compared genomes attempting to isolate the characteristics of intelligence. By making small adjustments I have been able to improve the intelligence of most mammals. Not enough to compete with us in most cases, but still useful. Seymour is the exception. He is remarkable. We’ve built a special harness so that he isn’t limited by his trotters. He spends most of his time there. Let’s take a look.

As we walked down the hall, I heard a toilet flush. We arrived in time to see Seymour returning to a harness that allowed him to suspend himself and manipulate a keyboard while viewing a screen. He was reading a news web site.

-I was thinking we could get some work as a circus act, but everyone is so terrified after the human/animal disasters. How can I convince people that this is different? Seymour is all pig. I know I have something here. Can you help me?
Martin said.

-What do you have in mind?
I asked.

-We need money for the project. I’ve hocked everything. But more importantly direction. I’m a biochemist not a businessman. I have some good results. But where to go with them? What do you think, is this useful?

-I might have some ideas. First lunch.

We proceeded to the dining room where a haunch of ham was laid out.

-Martin, I’m Muslim.

-Oh. Please don’t tell Seymour.

Pig Joke, Part Two

Mel Gibson buys the pig joke story. Finds this great writer to create a screenplay. Decides to make it on the cheap so instead of animation uses three identical live hogs. For the peg leg scenes, they actually amputate one of the hogs. ASPCA goes nuts, but it just make more press for the movie. The hog was trained before the surgery to answer the door and get a treat. The peg leg is really annoying, but the hog wants the treat. It films beautifully. After the movie is made, they euthanize the hog. The hog gets written up; his work is compared to Ronald Reagan in Kings Row. Mel Gibson says:

-If I knew he’d get an award, I would have kept him.

Craters

Now that we have actual pictures of earth, it seems obvious to me that the Gulf of Mexico is a crater. There seem to be several other possibilities as well. Most seem to be in the Caribbean ocean. They can’t all be the same age. Why would comets tend to strike there?


There is a clustering of craters on the moon as well.

Smith, Marx, Schumpeter, Keynes, Mandelbrodt

There are two classes of economists: the apologists and the ones concerned with market place paradoxes. Adam Smith is the most readable economist. His use of the word corn is confusing, corn meant grain, or animal feed which now would correspond to gasoline. Otherwise, he wants to give you the grand tour and show you why the market place is such a great thing. The reason is that his paradox is unanswerable: the one who wins the game gets to change the rules. He desperately wants to convince us to stop being such chumps, in particular stopping colonialism, tariffs and government borrowing, good luck with that. All economics after Smith is embroidery. Marx’s Capital is the Koran of economic writing, much harder to wade through than Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Unfortunately, although Marx referenced Smith in other writing he did not preface Capital by saying you should read Smith first. He assumed that you would have read the earlier work that he was answering. Marx makes a lot more sense once you have read Smith. You are undoubtedly familiar with Marx’s ideas without having dragged yourself through Capital.

1. Labor theory of value, a reworking of Smith’s explanation of money
2. Dictatorship of the proletariat
3. Class Struggle
4. Business cycle caused by short term greed
5. Failure of colonialism (see Smith)
6. Centralization of production leads to unions
The United States attempted to answer the business cycle by regulating monopoly, banking and trade unions. As Smith and Marx would have predicted, the only regulations still enforced are the ones pertaining to unions.
Schumpeter’s answer is “so what”. It’s all part of the great circle of life. He talks indefatigably of “the creative destruction of capitalism”, not all that comforting if you are the one being creatively destroyed.
The other great apologist is Keynes. Keynes, beloved of politicians, points out that government borrowing is stimulative. The reason that Keynes deserves a very special place in hell is that he argued that it didn’t matter how they spend the money, the important thing is to borrow. Recent events give a counter example.
The banks, freed of regulation, packaged and sold their loans rather than managing them themselves. This allowed them to loan a lot more money. In order to make these securities palatable they included insurance on the loans provided for a fee as part of the package. Then the idiots bought their own packaged securities as investments.
Unfortunately, in order to prevent fraud the terms of the insurance required that the borrower default in order to pay off.
Call this the Mandelbrot depression. His book, The Misbehavior of Markets, published in 2004, explains that prices are fractal rather than discrete statistical events. The previous price has a lot to do with the current price, and in that way is recursive. This means that the current financial models and risk measures are invalid. To put it simply when people say that the markets are “risky”, they are correct.
Fundamentally, it doesn't matter what the risk is when the dollar is falling. We, the American people, voted for that. Even before his election, it was obvious that George W. Bush didn’t care about deficits and that the electorate didn’t much either. When we Americans say we are opposed to deficits, it means social welfare, not borrowing.
Therefore, as the dollar falls and everybody heads for the exits, it is in the bank’s interest to push borrowers into default rather than discounting the value of the loans and the quicker the better while the insurance still has funds.
Since companies with cash reserves are takeover targets, the businesses were at the mercy of the banks.
If the government had not propped up the insurance, it would have been disaster for the financial industry but investors, those that remain, would have had their choice of discounted industries shorn of their debt; this would have been Schumpeter perfection. Instead, the banks couldn’t take the deal because they aren’t allowed to take a loss on the insured asset.
Even today in America, manufacturing employs more people than finance.
Therefore, of course, it is crucial how the government invests the money it has borrowed.
However, as Smith and Marx would point out, it will not be for the greater benefit.
To sum up, it is true that government has the means, through regulation and intervention, to flatten the business cycle but it is unlikely that it will operate in the general interest.

How to Replace a Kitchen Faucet

January 30, 2003

- I would like to be a plumber.

My heart lifts at this comment by Joshua, my fifteen-year-old son.. Parenting is a constant balance between insane euphoria and abject terror. I reply cautiously.

- You have to be careful about electrical shocks. It’s common to ground electrical equipment through the plumbing. You should also keep your tetanus and hepatitis shots current. There are opportunities to own your own business. Like anything else, if you’re good you should always find work. The hardest part is walking into the bathroom and saying,

- -This is going to cost twenty grand.

My kitchen faucet has been dripping. It’s getting steadily worse. I have become adept at moving the faucet to minimize the noise it makes. I could call the owner. A number of things in the apartment could be fixed. He could raise the rent. I could move. I prefer the present arrangement. I’m not working right now, which would make finding a new place more difficult. Six months ago, the board of the building had notified us that they would be inspecting apartments. They didn’t get to my apartment. I suppose they were after someone else. Still it seems irresponsible to be lowering the water pressure of the building. A small project in my child’s professed area of interest may be an opportunity for bonding.

I have in my possession a large channel lock pliers with rubber grips that I had originally used to remove bolts from the license plate on my father’s car. This is a master tool; it can open anything, except faucets.

My father’s ex girl friend, Karen, needs to visit the Home Depot for one of her crafts projects. Josh and I give her a ride. While there, I select an Allen wrench set. Undoing the Allen nut in the faucet, I strip the wrench. I am unable to remove the handle to the faucet. While at the Home Depot, I had surveyed the kitchen sink faucet repair display. In ancient times, I could have undone the faucet, and replaced the washer. This is no longer the case. I suppose there are people who write to the manufacturer and receive detailed instructions on faucet repair. Some of those people may even successfully dismantle their faucets, soak the parts in vinegar to remove the lime and then replace the damaged parts. If this project depends on my ability to figure out plasti-crap I may as well give up now. What would a plumber do? They would replace the faucet. Has anyone ever heard of a plumber repairing a faucet? This is America; we don’t repair, we replace. I am now able to jiggle the faucet handle and reduce the drip. I congratulate myself on avoiding the obvious diversion of repair. Josh advises me to hire a plumber.

The more expensive the faucet, the uglier it looks. I don’t want to get all Mies van der Rohe, but all I’m going to get from a faucet is water. I select the cheapest one from Mutual True Value.

Reading the instructions, it dawns on me that I have bought a replacement faucet, not a replacement faucet kit. I return to Home Depot and purchase two supply lines, some Teflon tape, and clear silicone caulk, as specified in the instructions. The supply lines are no longer metal. They are sensible long inexpensive plastic. At home, I practice trimming the end off a plastic supply line with a razor blade in a razor blade holder. The flattest cut is when I rotate the supply line under the razor blade. I put Teflon tape on the new faucet connections.

The first instruction is to remove the old faucet. I hear the grim chuckle from those of you in the audience with experience in these matters. Of course, the bolts holding the old faucet have corroded. They are impervious to my huge groove lock pliers. The cut off to the cold water works, but the cut off to the hot leaks. I decide that it’s about time I got a wrench set and I return to Home Depot. While there, one of their clerks sells me a compression cap that I can put on top of the hot water cut off while I am replacing the faucet.

I am able to remove the old hose assembly and install the new one. I want to be able to use the sink, so I reconnect the old hose to the faucet underneath; otherwise, the water runs out of the old hose connection. I can’t shift the corroded bolts, but they are holding a plastic piece that then holds the faucet to the sink. I don’t have to move the bolts. I just have to break the plastic. Then I attempt to detach the supply lines from the cut offs. My wrenches don’t have enough leverage.

If at first you don’t succeed, buy another tool. On another trip to Home Depot with Karen and Josh, I select an adjustable wrench with a large handle. It successfully loosens the supply line fittings. But when I attempt to screw on my cutoff cap, it is too small. I hurriedly put back the original supply line. On examination, I discover that I have half-inch compression fittings going to half-inch supply lines. The current standard is three- eighths. I suppose that in earlier times we may have had better water pressure.

At this point a professional plumber would have turned off the water in the apartment building, removed the old cut offs from the galvanized pipe and installed cut offs with a three-eighths compression fitting. Short of actually hiring the plumber, this solution holds little interest for me.

Returning to Home Depot I examine my supply line options and discover polymer twisted braid. I find a twenty-inch length that has a half-inch compression fitting at one end and one-half pipe thread at the other. This is so wonderfully simple that I feel guilty. It shouldn’t be necessary, but I purchase a half-inch compression cap. I ask the clerk if it is possible to step down the half-inch compression fitting to three-eighths inch and he tells me that he doesn’t have such an adapter.

Allow me my Ira Glass moment when I state the perfectly obvious as though I were telling you something. Up until now, this had been an amusement to distract myself from the realization that I can’t find a job. But I was tiring of this and the metaphor was becoming too obvious.

I test the twisted braid by replacing the cold-water feed on the old faucet. Examining the old supply line, I notice that it feels gloppy inside. I had noticed a brown residue on my dish drainer and had assumed that this was the consequence of living in a suburb, Highland Park, with old water main lines and accumulated corrosion. Indirectly I suppose it is, but the red glop coating the inside of the pipe doesn’t feel like rust. I believe this is a chemical added to the water to diminish lead poisoning. There are no leaks and the replacement was easy. The brass compression ring won’t come off the old supply line, trapping the two fittings above it. The ring is actually squishing the supply line. I realize that the brass ring is heated to fit over the supply pipe and when it cools, it forms a tight fitting. Figuring this out gives me a feeling of comfort. The twisted braid has little slack to it. My new faucet has shorter connections. Is the new supply line too short? I pull out the tape measure and this is the case.

It’s a game of inches. Imagine how proud the designer of the faucet was when they realized that shorter fittings would save money, packaging and breakage. Perhaps they live in a country with shorter people and lower counter tops.

I pick up Josh at his moms the next Friday evening. On our way to pick up Karen’s son Mathew for dinner, we stop by the Home Depot on North Avenue. This is the best Home Depot, and it is open 24 hours. There I find thirty inch twisted braid with half-inch connectors.

The next morning I begin removing the faucet. I remove the hot water supply line and screw on the half-inch compression cap. It leaks slightly and I put a bowl underneath it. The rags I keep under the sink are getting soaked and are stained brown. Removing the old faucet is difficult because its supply lines are the same length and it’s difficult to wiggle both supply lines through the hole in the sink. I bend one of the lines to get it through. The handle falls off the old faucet. Perhaps it would have been possible to repair it. I clean off the top of the sink where the old faucet was. I put the silicone caulk on the new faucet base. The new faucet supply lines are staggered and much easier to fit through the hole. Josh holds the faucet in place while I tighten the connectors underneath. I attach the new faucet hose to the new faucet. I remove the compression cap and install my twisted braid. I said, I said, install my twisted braid. It connects to the faucet, but the not the compression fitting. I bought the wrong supply line. It has two half-inch pipefittings, not a pipefitting and a compression fitting. I put back the compression cap. I put the bowl underneath. Leaving Josh to bail, I change my wet shirt for a fresh one and set out for the Home Depot.

It’s Saturday afternoon and the clerk is busy. When he gets to me, he can’t offer much help. There isn’t a twisted braid that long with those fittings. He doesn’t have an adapter that will step down a half-inch compression fitting to three-eighths. He suggests a plumbing supply in Mundelein. The True Value clerk says much the same thing, including the plumbing supply in Mundelein. I drive by the neighborhood hardware store, but it’s been replaced by a lighting supply.

Returning to Josh, I wrap the hot water cut off compression fitting with Teflon tape and screw back on the compression cap. It holds. I don’t have a working faucet, but the condition is stable. Some of the water leaking out had come from the hose connection. I make a note to myself to wrap that connection with tape as well.

It’s interesting that the old connections hold without Teflon tape, but the new ones don’t. Is it because of differences in thread or composition?

That week, I look up Builders Supply in Mundelein. It’s on Armour. My internet connection is failing due to some glitch with passwords, but how big is Mundelein? I search the downtown and eventually ask the paint supply store for directions. The plumbing supply is not downtown, in fact it is barely in Mundelein and adjacent to Vernon Hills, off Butterfield road down from 60, across the track, behind something else. Obviously, this is a place for the trade. I imagine plumbers passing around the secret location.
I explain my problem to the clerk. He assures me that there is no twisted braid long enough with the correct fittings. He also assures me that there is no adapter to step down the half-inch compression fitting to three-eighths. He sells me two chrome coated copper thirty-inch supply lines and a pipe cutter.

I proceed from Mundelein to Oak Park. There I pick up my girl friend, Christine, to take her to the Stones concert at the Arena. The date goes very badly. The next day I realize that the plumbing supply gave me three-eighths supply lines. Christine invites me to lunch on Friday. Christine once told me:

-The next guy I marry is going to know how to fix stuff.

So this is all her fault. Plumbing isn’t her thing but she offers to look at the pipes. After lunch, I drive up to the plumbing supply store and return the three-eighths supply lines. They don’t have half-inch, thirty-inch supply lines in stock, but I can order them. I order three just in case. They are ten dollars each.

Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations starts by asserting, “The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of the skill dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.”

I wash my dishes in the bathroom sink. Perhaps I can turn this newfound knowledge to advantage. I could advise other residents of the building. Christine is thinking of buying a faucet. She has a dishwasher. There must be a splitter after the cutoff to supply the dishwasher. It would have to fit on the compression fitting. My blood pressure shoots up. My head is snapping around on my neck like two gun Pete.

I pick up Josh Saturday morning. We run an errand he wants. Coming back to my place that evening after visiting Karen, we stop by the Home Depot. Josh complains but I remind him that we ran his errand that morning. He naps in the car. I have decided to indulge in some social engineering. I ask the clerk,

-I’m planning to install a dishwasher. The splitter should go after the cutoff, right?

He gives me a splitter. Examining it, I say,

-Oh, I have a half-inch compression fitting.

He responds,

-You need an adapter, hold on here it is.

The young man hands me a half-inch to three-eighths inch compression adapter. He shows how to attach it to the splitter. I ask him to show me where it is on the chart that Home Depot has posted of the fittings it has in stock and he obliges. I purchase two adapters.

Returning to the car, I show Josh the adapters with bitter tears. He doesn’t believe me. He mocks me. When we get back to the apartment, I rest. Josh is impatient. He wants to try it right away. He offers to do it himself. I courteously decline his offer. First, I disconnect the sprayer hose, wrap the connection with Teflon tape, and reconnect it. Then I remove the forlorn length of 20 inch twisted braid hanging from the cold-water compression fitting. I screw the adapter onto the cold-water compression fitting. I measure my plastic three-eighths supply line and cut it with the razor blade allowing for some slack. I put the two fittings on the supply line, the first from the sink, the second from the adapter. Then I heat the brass compression ring from the adapter using my stove and a screwdriver. I drop the ring on a plate and stick the line into it. I’m nervous that the ring won’t go far enough on the line and I burn my fingertip trying to push it up. Then I put Teflon tape on the fittings and install.

By now, you must have realized that I am a computer programmer.

When I turn on the cold-water cut-off, it holds. Even the hose doesn’t leak. But when I turn on the faucet, the water runs out the other faucet connection. I turn off the cold-water cut-off just to be safe. I put the three-eighths compression cap on the adapter with some Teflon tape. I replace the cap on the hot water fitting with the capped adapter. Then I measure off the supply line and proceed as before, yes, including burning my fingertip. When it’s time to install, I swath the fittings with Teflon tape. When I turn on the cut-offs everything holds but not that much water comes out of the faucet. Removing the aerator, I find some pieces of packing plastic that I discard. It works.

I say to my son,

-You know it’s pretty much like this in any job. Do you still want to be a plumber?

-No

-Why not?

-It’s wet.

-So?

-It’s not a good wet.

Of course, that’s not the end of it. I cancelled my order with Builder’s Supply Monday morning. I have to fuss with the cold-water fitting until it stops dripping. I have just received a negative invoice from Builder’s Supply.

I looked under Christine’s sink. She has a hot water radiator under there that makes everything kind of cramped. I didn't see where the cutoffs where. The waste from the dishwasher and the garbage disposal looks odd. If she were to ask me, I would recommend hiring a plumber. She says she has a handyman who can do it.

Raze Unity Temple

Some time ago, in Chicago’s Hyde Park, well, on the border with Washington Park, Laredo Taft built a statue of a concrete very close to sandstone. It was a variety of people, sharply cut, in a procession. He built the statue around a fountain and over time, it eroded as he meant it to do. The statue was the Fountain of Time and it was a performance piece. Eventually it eroded to nothing and then some stupid people decided to rebuild it at considerable expense since he obviously hadn't made it correctly. Today you can see a replica of Laredo Taft’s performance piece desecrating the site. Thank heavens there isn’t an afterlife or he would be furious. Admittedly, it still will eventually erode, but they completely missed the point.
Over a hundred years ago, some Scots in Oak Park decided to build a temple. They wanted to stick it to all the other churches in the area. Their point was that the congregation owned the church and not the other way around. They didn't use granite, limestone or marble. They didn’t decorate with gold leaf, statuary, carvings or expensive woods. They hired a smart young architect to build something a little pricy, but as comfortable and elegant as their own living room, if they were blessed with that much taste. He used poured concrete and the normal construction materials of the time. People pointed out that it wouldn't last, but that was the point, the building wasn't supposed to last, the congregation was. They could always tear it down, sell the land and move farther out when it came to that. Now the affirmation has become a desecration; so expensive to maintain that the building receives government grants for its upkeep. They have become the temple of Wright. Thank heavens there isn’t an afterlife, those Unitarian Scots would be spinning like tops.
The Romans considered Jerusalem an outpost of the Persian Empire and the Romans hated the Persians. The Roman travesties included perpetual slavery, institutional torture, messing up the calendar so that the land was destroyed rather than lying fallow and oppressive taxation for the purpose of building monuments.
The Roman Catholic Church, for all its faults, teaches that no matter how beautiful something is, no matter how much you love it, everything of this world has an end.
Now, Oak Park is building a combination hotel and condominium glass spire, designed to overlook the temple, ignoring the neighboring religious strip mall along Lake Street. The temple has become the tourist attraction driving the development. It’s hard to imagine anyone with a larger ego than Frank Lloyd Wright, but I am certain that he would be appalled. Thank heavens there isn't an afterlife.

Arizona Supports Illegal Immigration

The horror of the news media is not that they lie to us, but that they frame the question. The recent depiction of the Arizona statute is a perfect example. On the one side, you have the softhearted liberals concerned with racial profiling, on the other the hardnosed conservatives determined to stop illegal immigration by any means available. Neither of these depictions is accurate, yet they satisfy our prejudices. Implicit in the discussion is the assumption that either one is opposed to illegal immigration.

Let us consider the supposedly intractable problem of illegal immigration. If in fact we, the American people, were determined to do so, it would be quite easy to solve. Why are illegal immigrants so valuable? Because employers pay them low wages. Why can employers do that? Because they have no rights. If we want illegal immigrants to be less valuable, give them more rights, it’s that simple. Specifically cease deportations and award unemployment compensation.

This doesn’t mean opening up the country. Rather than wasting time chasing the immigrants, prosecute the employers. We do that a little, but not nearly enough to be effective. The penalty should be far greater than the benefit of low wage labor. There are well known ways to circumvent this, for instance hiring contractors. So make every employer responsible for every person on their job site.
To put some bite into it, offer illegal immigrants a generous bounty for each employer they turn in. This would make them radioactive. It’s a lot cheaper than a stupid wall.

When some poor working mother is socked with a $100,000 fine for paying Consuela to watch the kids and Consuela gets $50,000 to turn her in, there will be no illegal immigration.

I know some are desperate to get Halliburton another contract, creating a national identification card. With the right laws, we don’t need no stinking badges.

This would still leave the refugees, but that’s a very small subset. If they can’t get a job, then who cares? Some might give them charity, but be cautious, they might claim they were employees.

Instead of rounding people up, the INS might offer to repatriate people, perhaps for a small fee, just to cover the administrative cost of assuring that they are actually here illegally and that they are returning to their own country.

Problem solved, of course, it would never happen, the laws would never pass. Employers are the people with the money. Arizona’s economy would collapse without illegal immigration. Arizona is not upset with illegal immigration, what concerns them is that the illegals are getting uppity and demanding citizenship.