Iron Man 3

Shane Black, who made his bones writing "Lethal Weapon," "The Last Boy Scout" and other crash-and-burn action films, was the perfect person to take on "Iron Man 3," and not just because he worked with the franchise's star Robert Downey Jr. on 2005's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." The new film's not great, but it's consistently involving because the tonal shifts are so abrupt. One minute it seems to care a great deal about what's happening, the next it's sneering at the notion that anyone could care about anything that happens in a movie. 

For a franchise on the brink of fatigue, this attitude seems just about right — especially considering that all of the Iron Man movies are more self-aware comedies than dramas, with overlapping, often improvised-sounding dialogue and winks at the audience which suggest that the filmmakers are fans of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's affable Road series. This is the kind of film in which the hero can swear revenge against the villain for injuring his friend, then a few scenes later earn big laughs from the sight of Tony Stark in Iron Man regalia tottering down narrow stone steps like a drunk drag queen in nosebleed heels. "A girl and a couple of lame quips, that's all you got?" a female assassin taunts Tony. "Sweetheart," he replies, "that's the title of my autobiography."

Of course "Iron Man 3," which pits Tony aganst an Osama bin Laden-style terrorist-guru known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), is a lot more brutal than the old Hope-Crosby pictures. In fact, its violence stretches the PG-13 rating to the breaking point, with lethal (if mostly bloodless) gunplay, and moments of wanton cruelty that would be jarring if the film weren't a cartoon fantasy in which pain and the laws of physics are largely theoretical. (As in his other screen appearances, Tony survives high falls and supernatural body-blows that would pulp a real person, but it's all of a piece with the film's dream logic.)

The story reunites most of the recurring cast, including Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts (CEO of Stark Enterprises, and Tony's girlfriend), Don Cheadle's "Rhodey" Rhodes, aka War Machine (re-christened Iron Patriot, and enlisted in the ongoing War on Terror) and Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan, who's still guarding his quipster boss with big brotherly devotion. There are new gadgets, including a segmented "prehensile" Iron Man suit whose pieces are controlled via a receptor implanted in Tony's body and fly through the air, locking onto his arms and torso part-by-part. There's a love triangle — more of a tension triangle — involving Tony, Pepper and a supposed botanist named Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall).

And there's a mystery — or perhaps I should say "mystery," since any sentient moviegoer will be able to guess how all the pieces lock together: Who is the Mandarin? What does he have to do with the dashing, charismatic entrepreneur-scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who wants to sell Stark Industries a metabolizing substance called Extremis, which can create new limbs and heal sick bodies, but has certain, er, side effects? How does Maya fit into all of this? Can the combined forces of the U.S. military and Stark Industries stop the Mandarin from bombing us into oblivion? Barring that, can they at least prevent him from simultaneously interrupting every broadcast in North America with his sermons on the moral failures of military-industrial capitalism? (His sentiments are warmed-over Noam Chomsky, but they're brilliantly edited, with flash-cuts of terrorists training and stuff blowing up. Unlike bin Laden, the Mandarin knows it's not enough to stand in front of a camera and rant; the images need to sizzle, baby!)

Tony's adversaries are visually fresh, even though, with two notable exceptions, Black and his cowriter Drew Pearce haven't given them characters to play. They pass as regular people but can morph and re-form like the T-1000 in "Terminator 2," their core substance looks more like molten lava than molten steel and their eyes glow a hellish crimson. During a fight with former Army-colonel-turned-Mandarin-henchman Eric Savin (James Badge Dale, chewing gum a lot) Tony mocks the bald, red-eyed assassin by calling him "Westworld."

Downey is as anti-sentimental and hilarious as ever — he's basically young Bob Hope with biceps -- but from certain angles he looks like a pumped-up Kevin Smith, and I found this distracting and eerie. As his best pal and partner in biomechanical heroics, Cheadle has an easygoing authority and matches Downey quip-for-quip and gunshot-for-gunshot, like last time. He could carry his own comic book picture easily, but if it were as inconsequential as most Marvel projects, I'm not convinced that would be a great use of his talents. Paltrow is tough and endearing when she's onscreen, which isn't often enough. 

As the Osama bin Laden-esque villain the Mandarin, Ben Kingsley steals the movie, and I wish I could say precisely how without spoiling a wonderful surprise. Guy Pearce's torso, showcased shirtless in a fight scene, steals the movie right back. He must have spent six hours a day at the gym for months to look that ripped; you could grate lettuce on his abs. The compositions and editing are industry-standard, mostly loose and chaotic, and if you see the movie in 3D (actually post-converted 3D), you might have trouble telling exactly what's going on during the darker scenes, because the glasses dim the image so much. 

A couple of days after seeing the film, I can't recall a single beautiful or even memorable shot, though there's a skydiving action sequence two-thirds of the way through that's one of the greatest airborne setpieces in movie history. Given the amiable glop that surrounds it, I can't imagine how it found its way into the movie, though; most of the action isn't so much directed as covered, and its themes are articulated with about as much care. "Iron Man 3" builds on the first film's political cynicism by suggesting that politicians and arms dealers dream up foreign policy crises to consolidate power and make money, but it doesn't develop this notion in detail, because if it did, the audience would tune out. As in most comic book blockbusters, both the heroism and villainy are personal, good apples vs. bad apples, and the story's latent pacifism is eclipsed by the joy that Black takes in blowing things up and gunning people down.

Hollywood alpha-male sleaze was an undercurrent in the first two films, manifesting itself through hot cars, glittering parties, and strip-club style booty shaking; "Iron Man 3" puts those same tendencies in the spotlight. Black's grinning machismo is a bro steroid, making creative muscles that were already well-defined balloon to grotesque proportions. This movie is the "Entourage" fantasy of Iron Man. Whenever a character barges into another character's bedroom, you're faintly surprised when there are only two people in the bed. One major character has a serious drug habit and the bad guys' relationship with Extremis has overtones of addiction as well. 

Tony and Rhodey dominate the action and own the story; Pepper spends long stretches of the picture pinned inside what looks like a defective Nautilus machine, but at least she gets to banter with Tony first. Maya doesn't get to do much besides express remorse over her, um, connection to the mayhem, though she does have an unexpectedly touching conversation with Pepper that's filled with regret over bad roads she's taken. When Tony Stark's cliffside home is destroyed in a chopper attack — a moment prominently showcased in trailers — the audience gasps as if the film had shown a maniac slashing the Mona Lisa, and within this film's value framework, it does seem an obscenity. It's the greatest swinging bachelor pad ever put on film.  At long last, Mandarin, have you no decency?

From his breakthrough as a screenwriter in "Lethal Weapon" to his directorial debut with 2005's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," Black has carved out a niche as a borderline parodist of crash-and-burn action, serving up moldy macho clichés while making fun of himself (and the audience) for loving them so much. The prototypical Shane Black hero shambles around presenting himself as a soul-dead cynic who's tired of the same old same old, but within an hour or so, he's rescuing people, swearing vengeance against evildoers, and sailing through the air unloading handguns. His stories straddle the midpoint of of the kidding/not kidding scale like a little kid standing atop a seesaw on the playground, shifting his weight around to make the opposing ends rise or fall. 

Along the way, Black sprinkles self-aware jokes about the rules and traditions of the genre as if he's Bertolt Brecht's meathead kid brother. Even his screenplays treat commercial screenwriting conventions as a big shared joke. "Remember Jimmy's friend Henry, who we met briefly at the opening of the film?" Black asks in the script for 1991's "The Last Boy Scout." "Of course you do, you're a highly paid script reader or development person."

There's a brief subplot teaming Tony with a fatherless child that you half-expect will mutate into Daddy Issues sentimentality, but it doesn't, because Tony doesn't roll like that. Downey narrates the beginning and end of the picture. I wish Black had gone all-out and had him narrate the entire thing, a la "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," with asides into the camera: "Hey, you know what I'm gonna invent next? A Hulk signal. The next film'll be 20 minutes long."

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It's a Disaster

Seven friends and one newcomer gather for a Sunday “couples brunch.” Because most of them have known one another for years, and because they are fairly petty and duplicitous, they embed covert barbs and hidden agendas in almost everything they say and do. Conversations appear familiar and convivial on the surface but carry a disconcerting undertone of cattiness that’s almost a private language.

Even before they sit down to a feast of mimosas, Tracy’s vegetable crockpot stew-that-started-out-as-soup and Emma’s vegan quiche (Lexi’s new trendy thing is not eating animal products, so everybody has to suffer), they are annoyed to find that the smartphone reception in the neighborhood is spotty and the cable is out. Then the electricity goes off. A neighbor in a bright yellow hazmat suit stops by to borrow some D batteries and informs them that several dirty bombs have been detonated a few miles away, in downtown Los Angeles. Hedy, the scientist in the group, estimates they have about three hours before enduring slow, agonizing deaths by tasteless, odorless VX nerve gas. It’s the start of a really awkward afternoon. 

“It’s a Disaster" is a comedy. The casting of David Cross (“Arrested Development,” “Mr. Show”) and several Second City Chicago alumni, should tip you off to that. But I’m not sure I’d describe the movie as a “black comedy,” although the specter of imminent annihilation is, I grant you, a little on the “dark” side. This is more like a comedy of manners — really bad manners. The humor is indirect and relatively low-key, like the random sirens outside that nobody pays any attention to. (Why would they? They’re just sirens. Only later do the insistent wails of emergency vehicles take on greater significance.)

The movie’s funniest touches are quiet flashes of character, expertly timed and nimbly played by a deft ensemble. “It’s a Disaster” is consistently funny, but you wince more often than you laugh out loud. It’s like a Christopher Guest improvisational farce with the volume turned down to 5. 

Hosts Emma (Erinn Hayes) and Pete (Blaise Miller) are preparing to drop their own relationship bombshell on their friends. Hedy (America Ferrera) and Shane (Jeff Grace) are stuck in a six-year engagement with no end in sight. Lexi (Rachel Boston) and Buck (Kevin M. Brennan) fancy themselves as free-spirited rebels (she plays the glockenspiel, man). Nervous Tracy (Julia Stiles) is introducing her friends to mild-mannered Glenn (Cross) on their third date. 

The movie’s sense of humor is expressed in its opening credits, which appear over a slow reverse-zoom on a vintage black-and-white photograph of a tropical beach, with palm trees and a couple of rustic, thatched-roof shelters in the foreground. At some point you notice a huge column rising out of the water in the distance. Eventually you see that it’s topped by a mushroom cloud. It’s an image of the 1946 Bikini Atoll nuclear test. That’s the way things detonate in “It’s a Disaster”: gradually building up to climactic revelations (like Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” and Ravel’s “Bolero” on the soundtrack), always teetering on the brink of … disaster. 

The film’s premise appears to have been adapted from Luis Buñuel’s famous 1962 satire “The Exterminating Angel,” in which a group of aristocrats gather for dinner and then find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the dining room. “It’s a Disaster,” written and directed by Todd Berger, traps its privileged Angelenos in a handsomely remodeled California bungalow, the plausible rationale for their confinement being the presence of deadly nerve gas outside. The crows don’t seem to be bothered by it, but you know crows. Probably nothing can kill them.

I read somewhere (and sentences that begin like this one are the stuff of which awkward brunch conversations are made) that Berger’s comedy was rooted in the characters’ inappropriate reactions to their situations. But I don’t think that’s quite accurate. What’s funny is that, apart from acknowledging the whole impending death thing, they do exactly what most people do all the time: They lapse into denial and retreat into the familiar patterns of behavior they’ve become accustomed to, as if stubbornly determined to act just like themselves even under the most extreme of circumstances. It’s easier to get outraged over some newly discovered relationship betrayal than it is to wrap your head around a possible alien invasion or nerve gas attack, which you can’t really do a whole lot about with a single roll of duct tape, anyway. 

While it’s always bad form to give away a comedy’s jokes, in this case there isn’t much that anybody could give away because the best material isn’t dependent on punch lines. Julia Stiles and America Ferrera prove themselves adept comedic actors, and they’re in good company. While we know that David Cross is a genius of funny, it’s still amazing how much he can get out of an inconsequential throwaway line like, “Mmmm, good carrots.”

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A mysterious sci-fi relationship primer

A romance, a thriller, and a science-fiction drama, "Upstream Color" tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss. It's the long-awaited follow-up to the equally sophisticated 2004 time travel drama "Primer" by American indie wunderkind Shane Carruth, and it's every bit as good. A young couple are connected by a singular, mysterious experience, a form of hypnosis caused by body-snatching maggots that alienates them from everyone around them.

"Upstream Color" is about pattern recognition, but it's also about how a couple's inexplicable attraction is fostered by (shared?) trauma. Immediately after Kris (Amy Seimetz) is introduced, she's abducted and, for lack of a better word, hypnotized. For reasons that are never made explicit, a thief subjects Kris to mind-and-body-controlling maggots. The experience completely throws her routine out of whack: She loses her job, and bankrupts herself without knowing why. Once that ordeal is over, she finds herself weirdly drawn to Jeff (Carruth), a man she initially feels no connection with, but soon can't stop bumping into.

Post-brain-washing, Kris and Jeff's intertwined lives are presented through a drunken haze. Their relationship develops at a brisk pace, and while it's ambiguous to what extent Jeff and Kris have had the same thing happen to them, the two keep bumping into each other. Their motives are not always clear, even to themselves, but that's because they're never not struggling to figure out what's happened to them, and why everything now seems alien and menacingly opaque.

Kris and Jeff's bond is established and developed by small, telling gestures. Carruth bombards viewers with information, but he does this in small, unassuming ways, like the first time Kris hears Jeff describe a scene from his childhood. While they eat dinner, Jeff tells a story from his past. Kris interjects a detail, then lets him excitedly continue while she quietly wonders why his past sounds just like her own. This is the first of several conversations where Kris and Jeff seem to share each other's memories. In a later even, Jeff describes with photographic accuracy exactly where in his old office building Kris is as she tries to exit. And in an even later scene, after several heated conversations about grackles and starlings (it might also be just one conversation that goes in several different directions) Kris accuses Jeff of confusing his memories with hers. Eventually, it's uncertain whether Kris is retracing Jeff's steps, or vice versa.

The complex bond between the two characters is defined by questions that they don't ask each other, and gestures that don't have meaning outside the relationship itself. "Upstream Color" is about how, once co-dependent attachments are formed, people create new contexts for their lives, effectively distancing themselves from their identities as individuals. Kris and Jeff aren't just themselves anymore, they're a couple, redefined by their shared experiences, including those from before they met -- like when Jeff connects himself with Kris by describing what it was like to be ostracized by his peers after making bad business decisions that even he can't fully explain.

It's unclear how Kris and Jeff are linked to Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), a man who runs a pig farm and makes ambient noise music by distorting natural sounds on a synthesizer, or how Sampler facilitates the growth of the maggots. But finding answers to these questions is of secondary importance compared to watching the effect that certain triggers, like the color blue, or passages from Thoreau's "Walden," have on Kris and Jeff. As a couple, Kris and Jeff advance towards a new future together, one characterized by abstraction, but defined by a genuine sense of wonder.

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Sequester Shocker: It Feels Like Nothing's Changed

It's been over a month since the automatic federal spending cuts
known as "the sequester" kicked in and Reason TV's Kennedy reports
from the suddenly-mean streets of Washington, D.C.

Before sequestration began on March 1, President Barack
Obama warned that budget trims of up to $85 billion in 2013 would
force brutal and devastating shutdowns of programs related to
everything from vaccination to school
lunches. The director of the National
Zoo told
the Washington Post he feared he might have to shut
down popular exhibits featuring lions and tigers. 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano told
travelers to expect much longer lines at airports
due to cuts for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The White House even
cancelled tours of the president's home.

So just how brutal is post-sequester life in the nation’s
capital now that as much as 2 percent of annual federal spending is
on the chopping block?

About 2 minutes. Produced by Joshua Swain. Written by Kennedy
and Nick Gillespie.

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TV's YouTube channel and like and share this video! Scroll
below for downloadable versions of all our videos.

For Reason's coverage of sequestration, go here.

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Vid: Sequester Shocker: It Feels Like Nothing's Changed

It's been over a month since the automatic federal spending cuts
known as "the sequester" kicked in and Reason TV's Kennedy reports
from the suddenly-mean streets of Washington, D.C.

Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,
supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

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Atlanta School Teachers Are Being Prosecuted Like They're Mobsters

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has posted mug shots of 35 educators booked for allegedly colluding to raise standardized test scores. 

A 73-year-old principal, a middle school secretary, elementary school teachers, and other school workers are accused of being behind the nation's biggest cheating scandal.

Prosecutors are going after them under a racketeering law originally enacted to target the mafia, and they face prison time for allegedly changing students' test scores. Many of the teachers had bonds of $1 million or more that they had to argue to get lowered to six or five figures. 

The scathing indictment of mostly black teachers has sparked allegations of racism from the Concerned Black Clergy and a prominent former mayor, The New York Times has reported. Rev. Timothy McDonald, a spokesman for Concerned Black Clergy, called the indictment "overkill" at best.

“Look at the pictures of those 35,” he told the Times. “Show me a white face. Let’s just be for real. You can call it racist, you can call it whatever you want, but this is overkill. We have seen people with much deeper crimes with much less bond set.”

It's clear prosecutors meant to send a strong message by arresting so many teachers after a sting operation that enlisted at least one third-grade teacher to wear a wire.

Teachers and principals are being accused of systematically and brazenly changing students' standardized test scores for possibly as long as a decade. These scores spiked when ex-superintendent Beverly Hall ran the school between 1999 and 2010, causing state regulators to become suspicious and start investigating the mostly minority district.

Hall, whose name appears at the top of the indictment, could go to prison for 45 years. She previously had a stellar reputation, and her lawyer Richard Deane told The New York Times that "not a single person" has alleged she helped them cheat.

The indictment says Hall placed "unreasonable emphasis" on meeting test targets and ignored signs of rampant cheating while handing out bonuses to staff at schools with high scores. A potential 45-year prison term for Hall certainly seems harsh over such allegations.

Throwing a lot of educators into jail with pretty big bail seems harsh too, especially since the bonuses they allegedly colluded to get reportedly ranged from just $750 to $1,000.

Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Jackson, like the Concerned Black Clergy, has rushed to the teachers' defense and accused the media of unfairly skewering them.

"Yes cheating is awful," she writes on her blog. "And so is conviction before a fair trial. I believe every accused person deserves a fair trial under a set of laws that promises to be just and balanced. I don’t support public hangings. It is barbaric."

Jackson added, "Prosecutors, judges and jurors make mistakes and overreach."

SEE ALSO: 'Former Superintendent Of The Year' Could Go To Prison For 45 Years

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We Asked 9 Real Guys Their Biggest Financial Deal Breakers

Money is never a more sensitive subject than when it comes up in relationships. In fact, fighting about money is one of the biggest predictors of divorce.

But it doesn’t have to be: Here we explain how to have the money talk—and why it’s so important.

And—newsflash—not only can knowing how to talk about money make your relationship more peaceable, knowing that you know how to handle it makes you more attractive to your significant other.

Don’t believe us? We asked nine guys ages 28 to 40—some married, some about to be, some on the market, some straight, some gay—to reflect on the financial issues they take into account before getting serious with someone.

Hear how they really feel about everything from the “wallet reach” and cheap tippers to settling down with someone who has a lot of debt.

LearnVest: What do you think of ‘the reach’—when your date reaches for his or her wallet when the check comes?

“It’s appreciated and the polite thing to do. Within the first three dates, the guy should politely say ‘I got it,’ but the woman should offer. It shows she isn’t being a user.”
Kevin, Westfield, NJ

“‘The reach’ is a bit awkward—it’s like, ‘I’m going to make a very obvious, slow-motioned movement just to be considerate, but I’m expecting you to pay.’ The gesture is nice in a way, but honestly, I just want a woman to give a sincere ‘thank you’ afterward. I’d prefer she say something like, ‘Would you like me to help pay?’ It acknowledges the elephant in the room in a direct, but polite way.”
Greg, Houston, TX 

“Depends on when it happens in the relationship. A girl can’t go wrong doing the reach early. It’s the safe play. If there was no reach after date number two—or an offer to pay the tip or, ‘At least let me treat next time’ – then that’s a problem and would give me a little pause.”
Brian W., New York, NY

At what stage of the relationship should a significant other start picking up the tab?

“I’m very old-fashioned, and I still think the person who asks someone out should pick up the check. At least on the first date. I think it starts pretty naturally from the beginning of a relationship and gets easier over time.”
Pat, Pittsburgh, PA

“I think the bigger deal is kind of the opposite—I’d know I’m close to ‘something real’ if we stop thinking so much about who gets what and we started thinking more like we’re making decisions like a pair and less like two individuals.”
Dan, New York, NY

“I think after three or four dates, or once it has become an exclusive relationship, it is probably time to start sharing the cost.”
Brian W., New York, NY

How do you feel about dating an over-spender?

“Won’t do it. Not interested.”
Dave, Philadelphia, PA

“If a girl is an over-spender with a ton of credit card debt and a closet full of stuff she never wears or uses, I think it demonstrates an undisciplined ‘live for the day’ type of attitude. I would be fine dating someone like that but that is as far as it would go—dating.”
Kevin

How do you feel about dating a spendthrift?

“HATE IT. Perhaps I don’t have much willpower, but having money for the sake of having money isn’t something that works for me.”
Pat

“Would not enjoy that.”
Brian S., Covington, KY

“I have never dated one, but would not like to. YOLO, and you can’t take it with you.”
Chad, Richmond, VA

How do you feel about dating someone who makes more money than you?

“Totally fine, as long as it isn’t used as a weapon for leverage in other aspects of the relationship.”
Frank, New York, NY

“No problem. I think I’d like it, actually. Ego is not important to me, but what is important is understanding the consequences of that high salary. Making good salaries typically means more responsibility, working more and sacrificing other parts of your personal life. If that negatively affects the relationship, that’s not good. If kids are involved, it becomes more complicated. How does it impact the family? Plenty of dual-income families are successful, but it’s important to have a good, strong understanding of the true costs and benefits.”
Greg

“I don’t really care, as long as it’s not too much more. If the other person was making $1 million a year, that may be a problem.”
Dave M.

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Here's What The Babies From 'Baby Geniuses' Look Like Today

Leo, Myles, and Gerry Fitzgerald all shared the role of twins Sly and Whit in the 1999 movie "Baby Geniuses."

Now, the Fitzgerald brothers are incredible hockey players and all three of them committed to Bemidji State University to play hockey starting in the 2014-2015 season. The triplets have dominated as the top three leading scorers on their junior hockey club team, the Victoria Grizzlies (via Deadspin).

Here are Myles and Gerry golfing with some friends (they are the shorter guys of the group):

You can see Leo's photo here >

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What It's Like To Share A Stranger's Home

ALL WE KNOW of Maya S. is the back of her head. Her thumbnail indicates she is blonde with a bun and a floral-print shirt. There are no photographs of her face in the apartment even though it’s otherwise lived-in, cozy. Just as her Airbnb ad described it. When I borrow a pair of mittens that hang from her coatrack, I hope to whomever that she doesn’t accidentally catch me wearing them around the neighborhood, masquerading as Maya S. on the cobbled streets of Copenhagen.

We touch other things around the apartment too, not just the mittens: a DVD set of My So-Called Life, knit blankets she hadn’t left out for our use, shampoos and conditioners in languages we can’t read. We flip through her coffeetable books and watch her copy of Party Monster during an unanticipated snowstorm. I marvel over the magnetic strip on her kitchen wall that holds all of her gravity-defying knives, and once I use her shoddy internet connection to email her: “How much for the mirrored Michael Jackson Bad magnet?” She writes back, “I’m glad you like it, but I love it too much to sell. Sorry!” I love it too, and am also sorry.

Maya S. has a shower I would never think to call a shower. Here, there are no glass doors or mounted showerheads. Instead, it goes like this: Enter the tile-floored bathroom. Unfold the shower curtain — which hangs from a circular rod on the ceiling — until both the door and the toilet are hidden from view. Stand in front of the sink, where you stood earlier to wash your hands and where you’ll stand later to apply your makeup. Find the handheld showerhead, which dangles limply from the wall. Apply water as needed. Our first few days, we consult with one another on how to best avoid drowning Maya’s foreign elixirs and spare toilet paper rolls but soon it becomes intuitive, like how else would one shower?

We share Maya’s life, even though we’ve never met her.

Many things go this way — lighting the stove, restarting the wireless router, making the coffee. There is no abundance of empty outlets; when we need one we have to be very particular about what deserves to be unplugged and what doesn’t. But by Day 3, we know where the wireless signal is strongest (the intersection where hallway meets living room, on the right-hand side) and which room is most suitable for blow-drying our hair (the bedroom).

Coming home after a long day of walking and shopping and drinking becomes a routine we quickly adapt to. This key opens that gate, and this one opens the door facing the courtyard, and this last one lets us into our third-story apartment. Her third-story apartment, we know, but for now it’s ours. We have rituals: Take off the shoes, turn on the lights, adjust the heat. Then we put away our bounty — dishware shoved in suitcases, goat cheese thrown in the refrigerator, bottle of wine in hand. One of us opens the wine and readies the DVD player while the other cooks, then we gather on the couch and screen the night’s selection from Maya’s collection of DVDs. Each of us has our own blanket to warm our feet.

The two of us are used to living together, just not here. In college we shared bedrooms and once we got places of our own, we shared our couches with one another — hers in Chicago, mine in Brooklyn. In Copenhagen, we share morning coffee and long walks along Nyhavn and beers in dark taverns where everyone smokes indoors. We share meals of cheese and bread, falafel from the restaurant down the street, and train rides we don’t know how to pay for. We share the not-shower and the floating knives and the coffeetable books. We share Maya’s life, even though we’ve never met her.

We do try to meet her, though. Maya tells us she is staying in Copenhagen, in someone else’s home, while we have our visit. By Day 5, we have stared at her bookshelves and closets and lotions long enough to decide that we like her and want to experience her Denmark. We ask her out to a drink and she politely declines, referring us to a bar she likes in the neighborhood instead. We drink in every bar on our street before we fly back to our respective lives.

A year later, I will search deep in my inbox for information on Maya’s apartment that was ours for 10 days and find that it is no longer listed. Perhaps she’s moved or grown tired of sharing her life with people like us.

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David Stockman Is Outraged — And A Lot Of Powerful People Won't Like What's In His New Book

A few years ago I walked around David Stockman’s backyard. I was admiring his stone walls. We fell into a conversation about rocks and masons. David has a good eye for stone, and he knows the proper way to lay it up (A balance of symmetry and chaos, with the least amount of mortar possible).  I was pleased to learn that he holds stone masons (all artists) in much higher regard than lawyers, bankers and politicians. My kinda guy.

We talked about the macro/micro issues at length — Stockman knows the numbers and the history. He has an interesting perspective on the global economic scene. I thought about the meeting later. I concluded that Stockman was not just passionate about the state of affairs — he was out-raged. I wondered why.

Stockman is still out-raged. His new book, The Great Deformation, is his opportunity to vent some of that emotion. He does a pretty good job of it. There are a dozen “names” who will cringe reading it.

This is a history book. It’s a detailed account of the key events since the Depression that have shaped modern finance. I love history, and I’m familiar with those events. Stockman’s spin on financial history makes for a very good read. There’s something for everyone. For example, were you troubled by the bailout of AIG, and TARP? If so, you’ll love this chapter:

Paulson’s Folly – The needless Rescue of AIG and Wall Street

Do you worry that Bernanke has overplayed his hand with monetary policy? Stockman rips him apart:

The Bernanke Bubble: Last Gift to the 1 Percent

or

How the Fed Brought the Gambling Mania to America’s Neighborhoods

Do TV talking heads influence Fed policy? Stockman says “yes.”

The Rant That Shook the Eccles Building: How the Fed Got Cramer’d

Worried about U.S. indebtedness to foreign central banks? That’s covered in:

Monetary Roach Motels

Stockman puts meat on the bones to some old stories. A few examples:

Nixon took the USA off of the gold standard in 1971. The motivation and timing was Nixon’s burning desire to win the 1972 elections. He devalued the dollar for a short-term boost to the economy. Tricky Dick rigged the global currency markets to achieve his ends. That makes Watergate look like small beer. Very high stakes poker was played. Nothing new today.

During WWII the Fed capped long-term interest rates at 2.5 percent. To hold that level, the Fed bought up all the supply (A slightly different version of today’s QE). The rate cap continued until 1951. How it ended (and the secret fight between Truman and the Fed) is history worth studying. This is a window into what will happen when the Fed is forced to end the current QE. Not surprisingly, it was 5 percent inflation that ended cheap money in 1951. How do you think Bernanke’s QE will end?

A central element of the US economy is Roosevelt’s New Deal — Stockman shreds it:

The payroll tax has become an anti-jobs monster

In truth the trust funds are both meaningless and broke.

The fast approaching day of reckoning is thinly disguised by trust fund accounting fiction.

There’s plenty of one-liners; a few of the many I found amusing:

On George Kaiser‘s “loss” in Solyndra: (How not to make friends in Tulsa)

by essentially “shorting” Uncle Sam, George Kaiser stands to harvest a 4.6 times return on his sham investment to “rescue” Solyndra

On Elon Musk (How not to make friends in SoCal)

That a megalomanical promoter like Elon Musk could walk off with half a billion in taxpayer money, blown in less than four years, and make himself the toast of Hollywood in the process is powerful evidence that the putative conservative parted has vacated the ramparts of the US Treasury.

On Bernanke (“befuddled academic“) and Janet Yellen (“career policy apparatchik“): (How not to make friends at the Fed):

these hired hands keep the carry trades well lubricated and generate continuous  opportunities for speculators to extract vast economic rents from deformed financial markets

Bernanke is the godfather of the debt zombies.

On former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and the AIG bailout:

in one of the most egregious derelictions of duty every recorded, Paulson and his posse of Goldmanite hotshots hastily and blindly shielded these behemoths (the TBTF banks) from even a dollar of loss on their AIG insurance policies.

On economists:

New Deal revivalists Like Paul Krugman are essentially telling fibs and peddling historical legends is not offensive merely because it distorts the distant past. These legends actually compound the deformations of the present by rationalizing policies that cannot succeed and will only bury the nation deeper in debt.

Glenn Hubbard was of the opinion that the Wall Street-coddling policies of the Greenspan-Bernanke era had been a roaring success.

The preposterous Fred Mishkin headed the posse of debt-bubble deniers who dominated the Fed’s supporting cast. In a major study he concluded that the only bubbles in Iceland were those welling up from its famous hot geysers.

Keynes fancied himself a dandy, of course, and would never have been caught wearing the equivalent of Gandihi’s loom. But when it came to nations and their unwashed masses, it is not at all surprising  that he thought the nationalistic and autoartic Nazi Germany was the most likely candidate for early adoption of his program.

 

My only disappointment with The Great Deformation is that there is very little in the way of what could be done, versus what is being done. Stockman does offer up a few thoughts of what might be considered. These will get more than a few eyebrows raised on Wall Street and in D.C.:

- Abolish deposit insurance, strangle the Fed and shrink the banks.

- Adopt a Super Glass-Steagall. Abolish bailouts.

- Eliminate the Electoral College and establish strict term limits.

- A balanced budget, eliminate economic subsidies, shrink the federal government.

- Impose a 30 percent tax on wealth to reduce debt to 30 percent of GDP (assumes a $10T tax on the top 10 percent — think Cyprus on steroids)

- Eliminate income taxes and replace it with consumption taxes.

This is all blue sky stuff. It sounds alright, but it’s not feasible for the U.S. to consider any of these measures. Stockman acknowledges that his list will never see the light of day,  “They would never be adopted in today’s regime of money politics, fast money speculators, and Keynesian economics”.

Stockman sees nothing but trouble ahead for the U.S. He realizes that the changes that are needed to avoid the big fall are simply not in the cards. Now I understand why he’s so out-raged.

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