Why Oh Why Didn't I Take the Blue Pill?

Cypher: "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite and chews]... Ignorance is bliss."

— The Matrix

Well, it's been about a week since I unplugged from the Matrix social media in the form of Twitter. So far, the Prozac, Xanax, and vodka tonics have kept my DTs (delerium tweetens) to a dull roar. But I must admit I can't resist feeling for the empty plug in the back of my skull every now and then, and I miss all the wonderful imaginary friends and admirers I had collected there. The call-and-response format of the medium is highly addictive to prolix egomaniacs such as myself, and its realtime interruptions and distractions are a pleasing way to fill up the frequent, dull downtime which plagues an investment banker's day-to-day existence. (Twitter is ideal for telephonic drafting sessions and conference calls, for example.) One might even begin to suspect it was specifically designed to keep specimens such as me plugged happily into the battery piles of our Silicon Valley overlords.

At least for now, however, I remain escaped and at large. In addition to all the flattering attention and ego gratification, I miss the constant flow of clever tidbits, quotes, and links which people I followed fed into the stream. I also miss sharing the amusing and intriguing nuggets which I discovered with my followers. This forum is not appropriate for such—at least the way I have traditionally used it—and I have no intention of shaking one demanding monkey off my back only to transform this site into another. There is also the question of appropriateness, since I already try the patience of those readers who come to this site expecting wisdom—or at least amusing tirades—about things financial with poetry, pictures, and other innumerate drivel. Perhaps I will find a way to share such items in another way. I am experimenting as we speak.

In any event, friends, family, and colleagues in the real world seem to be pleased with my recent return to undistracted consciousness. The only one who is truly displeased with me is the Woman in Red, who complains I have abandoned her to other, less attentive digital louts. Sometimes I feel bad about this.

But then I remember she doesn't really exist anyway. Right, honey?


© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Adiós Muchachos, Compañeros...

Tired of the life I lead,
Tired of the blues I breed,
Tired countin' things I need,
Gonna cut out wide and that's the truth,
Get a brand new man while I got my youth.

Tired of the clothes I wear,
Tired of the patches there,
I'm tired of the crows I scare,
Gonna truck downtown and spend the moo
Get short vamp shoes and a new man too.

— Pearl Bailey, "Tired"

Well, it appears that I have quit Twitter. Again. Too much of a time suck, too many real-time demands on my attention, have overwhelmed the incontrovertible value of the real friendship and relatively constant stream of valuable, interesting information and correspondence my acquaintances have shared with me there. I will have to replicate the latter in some other less demanding, less addictive way.

As far as the former, I would simply refer you to that old chestnut, intoned sonorously by Leonard Nimoy to William Shatner O so many moons ago:

I have been, and always shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper.

* * *

See you in the funny papers.


© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

What's in a Name?

But that's not what most of us do. Someone, let's say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain. A speaker who is on the far end of this chain, who has heard about, say Richard Feynman, in the market place or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can't remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman. He knows that Feynman is a famous physicist. A certain passage of communication reaching ultimately to the man himself does reach the speaker. He is then referring to Feynman even though he can't identify him uniquely. He doesn't know what a Feynman diagram is, he doesn't know what the Feynman theory of pair production and annihilation is. Not only that: he'd have trouble distinguishing between Gell-Mann and Feynman. So he doesn't have to know these things, but, instead, a chain of communication going back to Feynman himself has been established, by virtue of his membership in a community which passed the name on from link to link, not by a ceremony that he makes in private in his study: 'By "Feynman" I shall mean the man who did such and such and such and such'.

— Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity ¹

* * *

My name is not TED.

I venture to offer this little corrective, Long-suffering Readers, in order to clear up some misunderstandings which seem to have crept into the minds of a few of you. Notwithstanding my belief that the vast majority of you understand what a pseudonym is and why I purpose one here, I detect hints that some of you may have lost your bearings on occasion and begun to identify the author of these pages—me—with the persona I adopt here. This, you may well imagine, is a mistake.

"TED," of course, is simply an acronym of my true moniker, a convenient shorthand for the full pseudonym I use to conceal my true identity. But I do not pretend it does not carry connotations and referents, both public and private, which may excite a stronger identification of me with the constructed personality I present in these pages. I confess this is not entirely accidental.

Ted is common shorthand for the name Theodore, from the Greek Θεόδωρος (Theodōros), which means "God's gift." I leave it as an exercise for my readers to discover how this may be relevant to an arrogant, supercilious, opinionated investment banker living and writing on the island of Manhattan in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven. No peeking.

My true name, however, is not Ted. Assuming for the moment one subscribes to the notion that given names influence destiny or convey meaning beyond acting as mere referents—which I do not—this makes sense, for if I were truly God's gift to investment banking, society, and/or women, as I often trumpet in these pages, you may rest assured most everybody would feel that God is handing out some pretty chintzy gifts.

My given names were granted me in honor of an unfortunate relation who reportedly flew his plane into the side of a mountain in some long-forgotten war. I say "reportedly" because the fog of war, distance of time, and the natural proclivity of my family to dramatize quotidian events with the Sturm und Drang of Götterdämmerung may have put a slightly higher polish on the event than facts warranted. Sound familiar? In any event, you may now see why I prefer to think that names are not destiny.

* * *

Neither, on the other hand, are literary personae real individuals. I promulgate an arrogant, bombastic, naughty, slightly larger than life personality in these pages for comic effect, emphasis, and fun, not because that is who I truly am. It's fun to pretend to be a Big Swinging Dick. It's more entertaining for you, too, and it attracts more pageviews. This last, frankly, is the primary reason this onanistic opinion-fest exists in the first place. Finally, it draws chicks like moths to a flame. (See what I mean?) But the persona is not me.

Now don't fret that I plan to drop the disguise in favor of some misguided attempt at transparency or—God forbid—sharing. All the reasons I hide behind my pseudonym remain in full force and effect; I will only forgo the pretense once Steve Schwarzman and Henry Kravis drop theirs and marry in public on the steps of City Hall. In the meantime, just don't confuse the man behind the curtain with the Wizard of Oz. I have many valuable things in my gift, but yacht rides on the Mediterranean are not one of them.

But feel free, Dear Friends, to continue to call me TED. I will know to whom you are referring. It just isn't me.

* * *

Now, about that champagne, Natasha...


¹ Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1980, pp. 91–92.

© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

The Problem of Evil

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Dirge Without Music"

Hat tip Katherine C. James.


© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

The Cheapest Substance in the World

Humility:



Tim Harford on error, the God complex, and making "good mistakes." Should be required viewing for politicians, scientists, economists, and every other subject matter "expert" out there.

Now I'm not trying to deliver a nihilistic message here. I'm not trying to say we can't solve complicated problems in a complicated world. We clearly can. But the way we solve them is with humility, to abandon the God complex and to actually use a problem solving technique that works. And we have a problem solving technique that works.

Now, you show me a successful complex system, and I will show you a system that has evolved through trial and error. (08:11)

There will be a quiz later.

(via Paul Kedrosky)

© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.