I
thought Rashard Evans made a very perceptive comment pre-fight to UFC
190, Rousey v. Correia; he said it was Ronda's imagination
that separated
her from the pack. I couldn't agree more. The thing I love about
watching her fights -- and the Gracie breakdowns -- is her ability to
see two moves ahead, or adjust on the fly, improvise, and pivot to other
possibilities. She's like Coltrane, improvising like crazy in a
stream of consciousness way, but from an unshakeable bedrock of classic
theory.
You put elite skill level together with the creativity of a top flight
artist and the mental toughness of Godzilla and you have athletes like
Muhammad Ali, Rickson Gracie, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird,
Joe Montana,
Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax... and Ronda Rousey.
Then there's Leticia Bufoni. Being an LA boy, I couldn't help but be exposed to
skateboarding although my first loves were football and basketball. But
skating has an element of freedom I admire and the rogue, non-bullshit
attitude perhaps best embodied in LA legend Jay Adams.
Leticia, I think, reflects that attitude. If it's seemingly at first
odd to put Ronda and Leticia together in a post, I thought of it because
both possess this quality; they are of course highly accomplished and
yet self-possessed. They own themselves before anything and that sets
the table not just for themselves, but for anyone searching for meaning
in this upside down world. Particularly young women.
That they're both LA girls -- Ronda by birth, Leticia via Brazil -- is just icing on the cake.
Then there's Dick Fuld. The reprobate just can't take a page from the von Bulow playbook, can he? No, he's gotta shoot his putrid pie hole off about ... well, who gives a flyin' fuck what he shits, anyway? Evidently, the New York Times does. Why? Well, again, who gives a ... OH NEVERMIND. Here's Susan from LA who wrote a comment.
My family lost a considerable amount of money when Lehman Brothers went under in 2008. As mere stockholders, not only were we at the back of the line, we were so far back, there wasn't even a line to be seen.
To see this guy, prancing around without a care in the world, speaking as if all the water (and blame) means nothing to him and he's carrying on as before, is infuriating.
Why isn't he in prison? Why hasn't he (and others) been required to divest himself (a la the Madoffs) of all his ill-gotten gains to compensate the small investors who lost their savings to this massive fraud?
I don't care that his mother loves him. I find him reprehensible (and I'm someone's mother).
[T]he resolution of
two cases last week clearly indicates that enforcement actions for
conduct leading up to the crisis are pretty much done, with no real
finding of liability for violations.
When the fourth estate is so firmly wrapped in the arms of EM08, it's little wonder the biggest crime spree in history was successful. I've written about how the sin of omission is the msm press' main act, but here's one I'd never anticipated: the truth! By coming out and telling us that those entrusted with protecting us are basically done, well, how can we argue with that, right? Let's just move on now, shall we? Like leaving the Lakers game after a loss. There's always tomorrow. Between this nonsense and the statute of limitations, EM08 puts another feather in its cap, and the evil empire can get back to yachting in the south of France.
One bit of important data emerged: Ernst & Young will go stand in the corner for a minute for its role as Lehman's accountant. Since Enron, this has been a topic never broached in either the msm or indies: who were the banks' accountants? GM's? Chryslers? AIG's? Fannie's?
Yogi
Berra once said that “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Unlike
the final out or winning run in a baseball game, determining when
cases arising from the 2008 financial crisis will end is a bit harder
to discern. But the resolution of two cases last week clearly
indicates that enforcement actions for conduct leading up to the
crisis are pretty much done, with no real finding of liability for
violations.
In
one case, the Securities
and Exchange Commissionresolved
fraud charges against Richard F. Syron, the former chief executive of
the mortgage giant Freddie
Mac,
and two other senior executives related to statements regarding the
company’s exposure to subprime mortgages. The case did not even end
with the usual settlement in which the defendants neither admitted
nor denied liability. Instead, it concludedonly
with an acknowledgment “that
no party is the prevailing party.”
In
the other case, the New York State attorney general, Eric
T. Schneiderman,
reached a $10 million settlement of accounting fraud charges against
Ernst & Young for its role as the auditor for Lehman Brothers,
whose collapse in September 2008 in the largest bankruptcy in
American history ignited the near meltdown of the financial system.
Although Mr. Schneiderman asserted
that the resolution showed
that auditors can be held accountable for violations, DealBook
reported the
accounting firm’s statement that
“after many years of costly litigation, we are pleased to put this
matter behind us, with no findings of wrongdoing by E.Y. or any of
its professionals.”
Both
cases took direct aim at conduct at the center of the financial
crisis, and neither yielded anything close to a finding of actual
wrongdoing.
The
S.E.C. dropped its investigation into Lehman Brothers in 2012
despite an
extensive report by
Anton R. Valukas that concluded that management was aware of
accounting maneuvers used to make its finances look stronger than
they were. No one at the firm ever faced a civil action, much less
criminal charges, and the modest payment by Ernst & Young looks
more like a nuisance settlement.
In
addition to the Freddie Mac defendants, three Fannie Mae executives,
including its former chief executive, Daniel H. Mudd, were
charged by the S.E.C. in
December 2011 with the same type of violations regarding the
company’s exposure to subprime loans. These were among the few
cases to take aim at the management of a top player in the subprime
mortgage market for its role in the financial crisis.
The
problem the S.E.C. faced in the Freddie Mac case was that there was
no accepted definition of a subprime mortgage, so proving that Mr.
Syron and others intentionally made misstatements about the effect
of those loans on the company’s portfolio was almost impossible.
The case against the Fannie Mae defendants remains outstanding, but
it is unlikely the S.E.C. will obtain much more than what it
obtained from the Freddie Mac executives, which included total
payments of $350,000 that were covered by the company’s insurance
policy.
Prosecutors
have been successful in
using a provision of
the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act,
better known as Firrea, to pursue civil cases against banks for
violations of the mail and wire fraud statutes for misstatements
about subprime loans bundled into securities that were sold to
investors. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid
multibillion-dollar settlements for Firrea violations. The law
carries a 10-year statute of limitations, so cases from the
financial crisis remain viable.
In
February, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said
in a speech at
the National Press Club that he had given federal prosecutors 90 days
to decide whether to file charges against executives for misconduct
related to mortgage-backed securities. That deadline is fast
approaching, and there has been no indication yet that a case will be
filed against any individuals.
Banks
have been willing to settle with hefty payments, but to date only
one individual, a former executive at Countrywide Financial, has
been found liable for a violation. Although Firrea remains a potent
tool, evidence from the financial crisis is undoubtedly becoming
stale because fraud cases, unlike fine wine, do not age well.
DealBook reported
last November that
prosecutors were considering filing civil charges against Angelo
R. Mozilo,
Countrywide’s former chief executive, but nothing has
materialized. Mr. Holder’s 90-day deadline may push prosecutors to
file a few cases against individuals, but the likelihood of any
being pursued against a top Wall Street executive looks to be almost
nil.
For
all the billions of dollars paid in penalties by banks and Wall
Street firms, the sense of dissatisfaction with how prosecutors
investigated those involved in the financial crisis remains
pervasive, especially when companies enter into multiple agreements
that allow them to avoid charges for repeated misconduct but no
individuals are named. The Justice Department has
threatened to
“tear up” a deferred or nonprosecution agreement if a company
commits additional violations, but whether that will happen remains
to be seen.
Even
that shift drew a rebuke from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who described
it in
a speech last week as
a “timid step.” For corporate misconduct, she said, “no firm
should be allowed to enter into a deferred prosecution or
nonprosecution agreement if it is already operating under such an
agreement — period.”
With
the era of financial crisis cases drawing to a close, the main lesson
the Justice Department seems to have taken away is that the focus
should be more on individuals who cause corporations to engage in
misconduct rather than just the organizations themselves. In a
speech last Friday at
New York University, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal
division, Leslie R. Caldwell, reiterated the point that the primary
target will be those inside the company who are responsible for
wrongdoing.
Federal
prosecutors expect cooperation for corporate misconduct, but
self-reporting will no longer be enough to consider a company to be
cooperative. “True cooperation, however, requires identifying the
individuals actually responsible for the misconduct — be they
executives or others — and the provision of all available facts
relating to that misconduct,” Ms. Caldwell said.
If
anyone still had a notion that companies should be loyal to their
employees, the Justice Department is trying to send a message that
such feelings should fall by the wayside as prosecutors focus on
culpable individuals in organizations. For companies, the
dissatisfaction with the lack of signature cases from the financial
crisis means increased pressure to cooperate, lest they be made an
example of a new “get tough” policy.
The
lifestyle that Robert Rizzo enjoyed during his run as Bell city
manager included a stable full of thoroughbreds, among them a gelding
named Depenserdel'argent — French for "spend money."
And
Rizzo had plenty to spend, with an annual compensation package that
swelled to $1.5 million in one of Los Angeles County's poorest
cities.
Beyond the trillions hoovered up by psycho bankers and bureaucrooks, there's perhaps the question of EM08: Why has no one gone to jail?
Well, if "EM08" is used as I define it -- government and corporate psychopaths preying on the underclass --then ex City of Bell city manager Robert Rizzo and his cohorts sitting on ice is a lesson. Now, Bell is in the east portion of LA, southeast to be more precise. It's a tiny, about 40k populated city, all brown, blue collar. That these bureaucrook scums, some of whom were brown, speaks to just how seductive money is. When you jack anyone innocent it's bad, but when you jack your own kind, well, speaks for itself. Ask Jews about Bernie Madoff, Muslims about Boko Haram or ISIS, or Koreans about kid slob in Pyongyang. Critics of the death penalty say that it's not a deterrent, and, in fact, statistically, that's apparently true. But that's for capital crimes. EM08 is in another category. Rather than bore you I think what I'll do is make an index of crimes and players, as extensively as I can, in another post. But that's a big project. For now, let's be content with the following story below. We can't say for sure whether jailing Rizzo and his shithead cohorts was the catalyst for change, but it sure seems coincidental coming a year after jailing those psychos. And now, faces of evil:
Asian sellout? NAH! It's love, even if he woulda been bricklaying.
Extra chili on the fries. Oh, and Skittles. Lots an lots a Skittles.
Bureaucrooks as only crazy LA can do, in white and now new LA brown.
Yes, my cell mate was Bubba, and yes, I ate him. I am sahwee.
Public CEO at: publicceo.com/2015/04/city-of-bell-scores-top-grades-for-open-data-access-one-year-after-trials-conclude
City of Bell Scores Top Grades for Open Data Access One Year After Trials Conclude
One year ago this month, former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo was sentenced to 12 years in prisonfor his role in what became known as The Bell Scandal. Five former elected Bell officials were convicted of corruption for paying themselves salaries of up to $100,000 a year for part-time positions.
In a city where one-quarter of the residents live below the poverty line, their elected officials not only bilked the city out of millions, they left it unable to afford the experienced administrators and staff who are now needed to replace them.
But first, the good news: The City of Bell now boasts one of the more open municipal websites when it comes to accessing data. Not only are city procedures and salaries posted, but Mayor Nestor Enrique Valencia points says the names of the people earning those salaries are listed as well. “Before the scandal was exposed, we didn’t even have a website. For years, if you clicked on it, it was the same online picture of a little girl and boy with the caption, ‘Website under construction.’ Our new Finance Director has since turned things around.”
That would be Josh Betta. He’s so good at his job that, during his tenure as Finance Director for the City of Glendora, he received the Certificate of Achievement, the highest form of recognition for governmental accounting and financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United Stated and Canada. He regarded Bell as a city worth saving.
“The idea of having a useful and viable website is simply good business,” said Betta. “The challenge is letting people know it exists. After they find it, the challenge for users is perspective. Sure, you can see our salaries but if you want to know whether a salary or increase is appropriate, you have to find the contract pertaining to that union. It’s also on the website, but you’ve got to do the work. It’s not all laid out for you.”
Which is why Mayor Valencia wants to take the website a step further by at least making that contract easy to find. “Visually,” Valencia says, “I’d like to see a tab where people go right to the specific things they’re looking for, but personally, mindful of those fake bonus rewards that were exposed in the scandal, I want us to post total compensation. Not just salaries but pensions, health care benefits and any potential, legitimate bonuses as well.”
While Betta boasts that the city’s website earned an A-minus grade in 2013 from the Sunshine Review, an organization that evaluates the transparency of government websites, Valencia points out that Bell has replaced one image problem for another: It can’t afford to hire quality administrators and support staff. Valencia says the city’s interim city manager has moved on, and both Financial Director Betta, and the Community Development Director are also leaving.
“Our current city manager did great work,” said Valencia. “Our Finance Director, who was key to this turnaround, is moving on. They’ve done their work and other cities are able to pay them more money. We just don’t have the funds to compete.”
And that fact alone causes the mayor to wonder if Bell can survive as a city. “If you can’t hire the right people and they won’t stay for whatever reason, it questions the sustainability of a city. We need good, dedicated professionals with proven experience. Right now, I’m proud of what we’ve done to turn things around. We’ll continue making data easily available online and other cities should follow as well.”
Rancheras were made fun of by us East Los kids, and I suppose the obviousness and sometimes corniness of these popular Mexican songs brings that on. But, like American pop songs, every once in a while, good stuff shines through.
Here's the pretty and popular Lucero, singing a tale of love lost, first in the studio version, then live.
Some years ago, I began to
produce paintings that expressed my best and worst impulses set out
in the context of public spaces. It was time to give my inner devil
an airing. Making virtue of vice, I imbued anonymous figures with
swaggering power, elevated faceless nobodies to subject status and
filled the streets with stalking female mastodons, all in the service
of getting even.
Well, adversity loves company
and, living in New York, I found myself in the perfect place to
observe the tribulations of others while forgetting about my own. So
many nuisances at a stone’s throw.
Those paintings were dark,
crowded and monochromatic. As I became more and more absorbed in the
project, I found an unexpected conflict beginning to emerge. As I
fell more deeply in love with the act of painting, my work became
more resonant. My brushwork, palette, depiction of light and air……the
paintings were becoming more, well beautiful. Today I see the
disconnect between some of my subject matter and my method of
depiction as a source of strength…and subversion. It’s a willful
act of seducing the viewer into staying with me in the picture.
My work explores the
ever-modulating space between aspiration and reality. Its an
uncomfortable space for some, that sense of not quite being where or
what you think you are – a mental state filled with frisson not
unlike the combustible edge of colliding urban neighborhoods, its
corporeal equivalent. After depicting just such city spaces for many
years, I grew to realize that the concept of an Edge - or more
precisely the gap between them - was as much a state of mind as a
physical reality and therefore eminently transportable. And so you
see before you paintings embracing a variety of settings reflecting
my everyday life, my travels grand and mundane, realized and
imaginary.
Many of these paintings may look
like directly observed events, but they’re not. I make liberal use
of the infrastructure of the world around me and, using a variety of
sources including memory, produce paintings that are entirely studio
inventions. My paintings reflect the insights and doubts many of us
share but often can’t find the language to express. I’m luckier
than most because over time I’ve developed the voice to articulate
these ideas. In fact, I’d say that my paintings are all about the
small idea. If my work is successful, if it has significance, then
each painting represents a building block which, when seen over the
life of a career, serves a greater purpose, a larger idea that is
expressed in the fullness of time.
A new book by Zac Bissonnette goes into the Beanie Baby Bubble uses that manic time to delve into the why of collective mania. Today, with bubble mania alive and well around every corner, we now have skinny jeaned pencil necks creating fart eraser apps market valued at $50 billion. Does this make sense any more than losing one's mind over dumb stuffed animals?
Think about another bubble burst phenomenon:
...the power of the revolutionary new technology,
assisted by artful manipulation of public perception by interested parties, induced
a collective hallucination that made investors ignore such considerations.
They persisted in ignoring them for several years, until ... the inevitable disaster struck. [emphasis mine]
Sound familiar? It should. But this isn't the dot com fiasco, nor the runup to EM08. It isn't this century, nor even the last. Citation's here.
A running point I have with my friend, TB, is given all of the psychopathic activity in finance, for instance hedge fund managers that get an edge via inside info, that casinos and card rooms by comparison are beacons of fairness and honesty. Someone who sits at a poker table in Vegas can be very sure that the game is a fair one, because it's not only highly regulated, but policed and prosecuted. Not the owners of this world. Evidently they can stomp around at will, free to create mayhem without fear.
Fear. It's an important aspect of EM08. The trillions hoovered up in the EM08 tsunami have created a vast divide in America, one that I find it hard to believe we'll ever recover from. I'm no math wiz, but the numbers on every front are terrifying. On the street, it's created a culture of fear among the working class, specifically about the present and down the line for their kids and country. Back on top, the evil empire dines on toro for a snack, and there's an utter lack of fear.
I've said before that I believe EM08 is three phases: The run-up and crash of '08, and the second phase, maximum extraction, which we are now in. That means power is doing everything it can to grow bigger and badder, and the evidence is overflowing.
Digression: Check out the Dan Dimicco interview from yesterday. I find his straightforward take not only refreshing, but pragmatic and on point. This country is at a crossroads, and the way we turn in the next few years are crucial. Dimicco reminds me of my mother's generation; no horseshitting around, let's get to work and produce. Let's unleash positive energy in the form of creativity and innovation bolstered by hard work. In a word, let's get our entrepreneur on.
Instead, the bureaucrooks went all in with a bunch of psychopathic criminals, the true super-predators, and we have what we have. It's sad.
And what of EM08's third phase? I used to say it'll be "Judgement Day" or some other dramatic sounding turn, but of late I've begun thinking that maybe phase two and three are a synthesis. In other words, maybe we're already in the crash. It's the feel good crash, buoyed by the collective, proven American ability to believe that somehow, someway, we're, *I*, am going to make it. As I've noted before, some historians believe the second most influential Nazi was Goebbels, which is a way of taking us back to the top: "assisted by artful manipulation of public perception by interested parties." To not know the tools of the devil is to be subject to them. Ask Eddie Bernays, behind the curtain.
Which reminds me of the saying, the most enslaved is the slave that believes he is not enslaved. Or is unaware of or willfully ignores it.
Plush Life Why did people lose their minds over Beanie Babies?
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers science, the law, and LGBTQ issues
A
5-year-old boy holds an armful of Beanie Babies while shopping with his
mother at the Zany Brainy Toy Store on Sept. 2, 1999, in Brentwood,
Missouri.
Photo By Bill Greenblatt/Getty Images
In July of 1999, I traveled with my
family to Tenby, Wales. The town is said to be picturesque, but I have
no memory of its scenery—except for a small toy store we passed on our
drive in. As soon as we settled into our hotel, my sister and I begged
our father to trek to the shop and search for the Britannia Beanie Baby,
sold exclusively in the United Kingdom. The Britannia bear wasn’t just a
toy, we explained; it was an investment, projected to be worth
thousands of dollars within a decade. Our father capitulated and bought
us each a Britannia bear, which we dutifully kept in mint condition
with the tag intact, reveling in its rarity while dreaming of the day it
would be a hugely valuable collector’s item.
One month later, the company that developed Beanie Babies abruptly
announced that it would stop producing the toys at the end of the year,
both anticipating and precipitating the burst of the Beanie Babies
bubble. Sellers panicked, buyers lost interest, and by the start of the
new millennium, Beanie Babies had swung from an economic and cultural
phenomenon to a tired punch line. Today, the Britannia Beanie Baby sells
for $10 on eBay. My own Britannia lies buried in a box in the back of
my closet along with hundreds of other Beanie Babies, where it has sat,
untouched, for 15 years.
From this distance, it’s easy to laugh at Beanie Baby fever, to mock
it as just another pointless fad in a chintzy, hollow decade. But in the
latter part of the 1990s, Beanie Babies were so much more than a fad:
They were a mania, an obsession that ensnared not just gullible children
but also otherwise responsible adults who lost all sense of perspective
over these plush playthings. People sold—and bought—some rare Beanie
Babies for $5,000 each and expected others to skyrocket in value
within a decade. (Collectors were careful to keep each toy’s tag
attached and protected by a plastic case; a Beanie Baby’s worth was said
to fall by 50 percent once the tag was removed.) Looking back, it’s
clear that the Beanie Baby craze was an economic bubble, fueled by
frenzied speculation and blatantly baseless optimism. Bubbles are quite
common, but bubbles over toys are not. Why did America lose its mind
over stuffed animals?
Zac Bissonnette’s new book The Great Beanie Baby Bubbledoes
an excellent job explaining the basic economic factors behind Beanie
Babies’ success. Ty Warner, the mastermind behind the toys, had a
remarkable talent for manipulating supply and demand. (He’s also a
borderline recluse and a profoundly troubled man; among other things,
Warner repeatedly dated the same women as his father—at the same
time—and became a plastic surgery addict.) First, Warner understuffed
his toys so that they were flexible and “looked real,” in his words.
Second, he sold only small batches of each new Beanie Baby to
independent businesses, refusing to supply large quantities to big-box
retailers and fixing the price of each toy at $5. Third, Warner
“retired” every animal after a fairly short amount of time, introducing a
new toy in its stead. This strategy created a near-hysteria each time a
Beanie Baby was released, sending fans rushing out to local stores to
buy the new toy before supplies disappeared forever.
All of this explains, in simple market terms, how Warner manipulated
supply and demand to build a frenzy for his product. But Bissonnette’s
book is disappointingly short on psychological explanations for why
Americans were eager to shell out at least hundreds of millions of
dollars for rather conventional toys. (The total spent on Beanie Babies
is unclear because ever-secretive Warner refused to release his
company’s earnings.) In one sardonic passage, Bissonnette cites Sigmund
Freud’s belief that “the root of collecting” lies in “sex and toilet
training,” as “the collector … directs his surplus libido into an
inanimate object: a love of things.” Bissonnette also hypothesizes that
collecting Beanie Babies “reflect[s] a regression to the soothing and
comfort provided by objects during childhood,” and that the acquisition
of a scarce, valued item activates our endorphins.
While Freudian theory hasn’t held up well to scientific analysis,
some sort of mental disturbance might account for the more extreme cases
of Beanie Baby addiction—like the retired soap opera star who lost his
children’s six-figure college fund investing in the toys, or the man who
committed murder over what a detective described as a “Beanie Baby deal
gone bad.” But does it really explain what sent millions of
Americans—soccer moms and CEOs, blue-collar workers and yuppies, Ph.D.s
and high-school dropouts—utterly bonkers over a brand of plush stuffed
animals?
Frances
Mountain, left, sorts out Beanie Babies with her ex-husband, Harold
Mountain, in a Las Vegas courtroom in 1999. The couple was unable to
split the collection by themselves, so they spread it on the courtroom
floor and divided it up under the judge’s supervision. Maple the Bear
was the first to go.
Photo by Reuters
A paper
by David Tuckett and Richard Taffler, two economics professors with
training in psychoanalytical theory, suggests Bissonnette’s conjecture
isn’t that far off. Tuckett and Taffler specifically examine the dot-com
bubble, but their theory applies to all modern bubbles. According to
the economists, humans occasionally view exciting new creations as
“phantastic objects,” which overwhelm us and skew our sense of reason.
Our brains begin to tell us that by obtaining these “magical” objects,
we will achieve some profound level of satisfaction—something akin to
transcendence. The thrill of the chase then muffles our ability to
rationally evaluate the actual worth of the object, and others’
willingness to go along with our fantasy reinforces our suspension of
logic.
All this theorizing may sound like so much argle-bargle. But the meat
of Tuckett and Taffler’s thesis builds on a famous theory of bubbles by
renowned economist Charles Kindleberger. According to Kindleberger,
every bubble has four basic stages: a grand new development that shocks
the market; “euphoria” over that development; a sudden “boom” in sales
and speculation; and, eventually, panic when the bubble bursts. Tuckett
and Taffler approve of Kindleberger’s model, adding a
coda—“revulsion”—to describe the collective hangover society experiences
when it realizes it has invested in junk.
In the Kindleberger model (with the Tuckett/Taffler twist), Beanie
Babies are a kind of magical object whose plush perfection captured the
imagination of a small subset of early adopters. Soon Beanie Baby
collectors sprang up to spread the toy’s transcendent joy, and then
everybody needed each new Beanie Baby to complete his or her collection.
But Warner limited the number of each animal produced, leading both
buyers and sellers scrambling to purchase new releases and, in the
process, wildly overvaluing their worth. Eventually, the fantasy
faded—for most people, after all, Beanie Babies do not bring about
nirvana—and the bubble burst. Buyers lost interest, sellers struggled to
offload their surpluses, and the whole country felt rather gross about
fixating on stuffed animals.
Andrew Odlyzko, a mathematician and bubble expert, proposes a simpler theory explaining speculative panics in his study
on the British Railway Mania of the 1840s. Odlyzko credits Railway
Mania in part to a “collective hallucination,” an extreme form of groupthink
wherein a significant chunk of society feverishly buys into a shared
dream with no regard for the skeptics and naysayers. (Some scholars think Jesus’ resurrection might have been an acute instance of collective hallucination.)
The existence of groupthink has been confirmed in a rich assortment of studies,
and Odlyzko’s theory expands the idea to economic bubbles. Under his
analysis, the initial coterie of Beanie Baby collectors comprised an
in-group that shared the great secret of Beanie Babies’ worth. As more
people discovered the toy, they yearned to learn this secret and partake
in the impending financial success of the Beanie Babies market. Soon,
millions of Americans were gripped by the conviction that they had
discovered an easy path to personal wealth. And thanks to their
collective hallucination of Beanie Babies’ worth, none of these
collectors ever realized that the only thing driving the Beanie Babies
market was their own conviction that the toys were valuable.
These theories may explain the mass delusions that enabled a large
chunk of the country to believe that a $5 Beanie Baby could eventually
be worth thousands. What they never quite get at, however, is that
initial spark of fascination: how the ineffable appeal of Beanie Babies
turned them, and not one of a thousand other 1990s trends, into a
collective mania. That allure can probably never be quantified.
But those who once loved Beanie Babies may still remember it. I certainly do, because I remember when I got my very first Beanie Baby. I was 7 and had just woken up from adenoidectomy surgery to see a family friend through the anesthesia haze. She leaned over my bed and laid Bruno the Bull Terrier Dog by my head. I grabbed Bruno, closed my eyes as the room started spinning, and threw up. Bruno stayed with me through my convalescence, and long after I lost interest in Beanie Babies, he remained perched on my nightstand. There was something sweet and comforting and innocent about him, something so tender and gentle and warm. Bruno was the kind of toy Ty Warner was trying to make for children when he accidentally created a speculative mania for adults.
In 2013, Warner pleaded guilty
to tax evasion after admitting to hiding millions of dollars in a Swiss
bank account. He was sentenced to probation but may face years of
prison time if the Justice Department’s appeal is successful. Bruno the
Bull Terrier Dog now sits at the back of my closet with hundreds of
other floppy, forlorn toys. Today he sells for 36 cents, with the tag still attached.
Perseverance and hard work are often touted as the roads to success. But I remember once as a kid I hit a rough patch. It was a confusing time, and I reached out to someone who told me, "You're doing a lot of the right things, except perhaps the most important one; The way you look at things. Attitude is altitude, and altitude is consciousness."
Ten minutes. In reality, it was a matter of seconds but for Lance
Thomas, Gordon Hayward’s halfcourt attempt lingered in the air for an
eternity before the ball painstakingly made its way to the basket,
clanged off the rim and fell to the court.
The buzzer blared, signaling Duke University’s two-point victory in
the 2010 NCAA championship game over Butler University. Jon Scheyer
jumped on Thomas’ back in celebration, sending his co-captain to the
ground in a burst of chaos and excitement. Thomas hit his head on the
court.
“I opened my eyes and confetti was falling all over me,” Thomas said. “It was amazing.”
Five years later, Thomas remembers the vivid details of the moment
from his space in the New York Knicks’ visitors locker room at TD
Garden. He has played in just two more games in the NBA than he did
during his four-year career at Duke – a slower paced journey than he
expected, but one he has embraced.
Thomas knew when he lifted the trophy the night of April 5, 2010, it
did not guarantee him a spot in the pros. He returned to campus (with a
hero’s welcome) to complete the semester and graduate. As June neared
and NBA hopefuls prepped for the draft, Thomas did not expect to hear
his name called. He had averaged 4.8 points and 4.8 rebounds as a
senior, a ways away from strong consideration.
Thomas still believed he could play in the NBA, though. Instead of the draft, he viewed the D-League as his best route.
“I wasn’t really a guy who was on the radar like that,” Thomas told
Basketball Insiders. “I was a proven winner, but I wasn’t really putting
up NBA numbers to put myself in position to be drafted in the first
round or anything like that. My main thing was, I just wanted the
opportunity to show that I could be an NBA player. When I had the
opportunity to play in the Development League, I was like, this is a
no-brainer. I want to do that and try to prove it.”
Thomas was selected by the Austin Toros in the second round of the
2010 D-League draft. He was far from Cameron Indoor Stadium, but he
described the Toros fanbase as “very great.” He wasn’t there for the
hoopla anyways. Thomas credits the coaching staff for working
extensively with him on the skills he needed to take the next step and
making him feel like he had a chance to accomplish his goal.
“It’s competitive,” Thomas said of the D-League. “It’s like a bunch of crabs in a barrel. Everybody wants to get to the NBA.”
The following summer, he was named to the U.S. team for the 2011 Pan
American Games, a squad made up of D-League players during the lockout.
From there, he received a training camp invite from the then-New Orleans
Hornets. Thomas bounced around between the Toros and the Hornets before
earning an NBA deal for the remainder of the season after a pair of
10-day contracts.
“A lot of days are tough,” he said. “ There are days when you just
never know what’s going to happen – the trade deadline is coming up, the
last two days of your 10-day contract, things of that nature. I’ve
never been a guy to look over my shoulder. I just go for it. I never
wonder what if.”
Thomas appeared in 106 games for the now-Pelicans over three seasons,
averaging 3.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 12.4 minutes. When the team
released him in November of 2013, he decided to pursue basketball in
China for the Foshan Dralions.
“Of course you always miss (the NBA),” he said.
He was determined to make it back. Last September, the Oklahoma City
Thunder signed Thomas. He averaged 5.1 points and 3.4 rebounds in 20.5
minutes over 22 games, including 13 starts, before being traded to the
New York Knicks in January as part of the Dion Waiters-Iman
Shumpert-J.R. Smith deal.
The changes weren’t done yet. The Knicks waived him two days later,
only to re-sign him on a pair of 10-day contracts. The New Jersey native
is now posting a career-high 9.3 points and 3.4 boards in 24.6 minutes
in his latest stop close to home.
Teammate Quincy Acy, who competed against Thomas in the Elite 8, has seen growth since their college years.
“He brings his hard hat to work every day,” Acy said. “He mostly
played the four in college and now he can guard the one through five.
That’s a testament to his hard work. (His journey) says a lot about him,
his perseverance and his will to get where he wants to go. Nobody can
tell him what he can’t do.”
Thomas understands success in the NBA is a process. He has never been
one to rush his progress and is willing to be patient, putting in the
work necessary to stick in the league. Knicks guard Shane Larkin noted
the extra time he spends at practice and describes his work ethic as
“100 percent pedal to the metal.”
“I never expected anything; I’ve never been like that,” Thomas said.
“I’ve always wanted to take the next guy’s head off if I’m competing
against him. I think that’s what’s fueled me to continue to play this
game. My competitive nature and drive has gotten me where I’m at.”
The memories of winning a national championship at Duke will always
be special to Thomas. The sound of the final buzzer and downpour of
confetti are still clear in his mind after journeys through the
D-League, NBA and overseas. He wants to be remembered as a person who
“worked his butt off, and on top of that he’s a winner.” If that means
paying his dues over the past five years, he’s all in.
“I really have no regrets with how my career has turned out,” Thomas
said. “It’s been unique, to say the least. Everything I’ve had or
accomplished in life has never been laid out on the red carpet for me. I
think all the things that have been thrown my way in regard to this
game makes my story that much better.”
Then there's Leticia Bufoni. Being an LA boy, I couldn't help but be exposed to
skateboarding although my first loves were football and basketball. But
skating has an element of freedom I admire and the rogue, non-bullshit
attitude perhaps best embodied in LA legend Jay Adams.
Leticia, I think, reflects that attitude. If it's seemingly at first
odd to put Ronda and Leticia together in a post, I thought of it because
both possess this quality; they are of course highly accomplished and
yet self-possessed. They own themselves before anything and that sets
the table not just for themselves, but for anyone searching for meaning
in this upside down world. Particularly young women.
