Brentrance and Brexit

June 27, 2016
I woke up this morning in my Brooklyn bed for the first time in 10 days. It was 4:00 am when Ivy rolled in, roaring to start her day before the sun rose (acknowledging it from our bedroom window - Look Dada! So beautiful! - when the sky began its awesome daily hue evolution), experiencing the easy side of jet lag and its 5 hour shift from the previous week and a half in England... The impetus of the trip was cousin Piera's wedding, which was an absolutely stunning camping party at a farm in Devon. While we were granted…

Debt: The First 5000 Years

July 31, 2013
Since Introduction to Macroeconomics with Professor Michael Claudon in my Freshman year, I have been passionately infatuated with the study of money and its profound effects on every aspect of our civilization and society. It is one of life's greatest marvels that something so ephemeral, dependent completely on a communal belief in its power, could be responsible for almost everything that man has ever made. How could we be so motivated by scraps of metal and paper that we would organize our entire lifestyle and human existence around it? I have always been both fascinated and repulsed by our obsession…

AC

August 13, 2010
The myth. The Legend. Atlantic City. Saying I went to AC is a bit misleading since we didn't leave the Tropicana Resort for more than five minutes, a brief foray into a somehow unnatural natural beach environment that felt awkward and uncomfortable from the moment we left "the bubble"; an artificial world with rules and lives that exist only within the cubic volume of highly conditioned air. It was not my first time in a casino, but it was the first time I have been in the company of casino royalty and treated as such. Eric is a gambler and…

Delivering Happiness

May 23, 2010
Caitlin sent me a link to an interview with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com discussing his upcoming book. She wrote this note: This interview reminded me of you because you're happy and enjoy spreading happiness to others. That's why I love ya!! That is probably the nicest compliment I've ever gotten! What else is there besides happiness? It is the only real currency... all else is just a means of achieving it. And who better to spread this message than one of the richest men in the world? He gets it; he has accomplished more in the technology and business…

Oil!

May 14, 2010
On April 20, an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico caused a massive leak a mile below the ocean's surface. It was clear then that we were witnessing an historical catastrophe, and now, three weeks later, the oil continues to flow unchecked into our environment. Estimates of the damage have varied from bad to horrendous, and now there is video of the underwater oil geyser spewing forth its toxins into the environment. It is devastating. Having failed to contain it with a giant structure lowered to the seabed, BP admits that it's arsenal to stop the…

Freakonomics and Moneyball

May 13, 2010
I was an Economics major in college and anytime I tell people that they find it funny--probably because my job is playing music with kids instead of making money with money. I never had any interest in joining the corporate workforce but still found Econ the most interesting department at Middlebury. It incorporated so much about humanity, from history to psychology to our core values. The focus was usually money, but the how and why made the topic endlessly engaging. Stephen Levitt is an economist who brings the study into new realms; he sees the discipline as general tools to…

The Ascent of Money

April 20, 2010
I just finished reading Niall Ferguson's book and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the history of finance. It is a fascinating look at the evolution of money and mankind from hunter-gatherer to creditor-debtor. The Incas were perhaps the last great moneyless empire but they were eradicated by conquers intent on claiming the metal in their mountains, a symbol of wealth and power in their own culture; and while rocks and metals could be immediately traded or transformed into goods and services, bankers took the concept temporal with loans and interest, creating stocks, derivatives, insurance, mortgages and futures.…

Fired!

April 14, 2010
In the half of my lifetime that I have been working, I have been relieved of my duties twice. The first was at my very first job at an ice cream store, where I was accused of scooping kids cones too big. While she did have a point, I maintain that she was also completely crazy and not a person that I wanted to be working for anyway. The second time came last week, when I was told by a certain Upper East Side preschool that my one-day-a-week contract would not be renewed because "movement is more than just running…

Democracy?

January 23, 2010
Ever since I celebrated what I considered to be one of the greatest political victories of all-time, it has been a constant losing battle. Obama's victory felt like such a reversal of bad trends that had consumed our country during the Bush administration, but since that peak in November 2008, we have been subjected to more of the same; more bailouts, more troops, more gay-marriage defeats, more inaction on climate change. On Tuesday, my home state of Massachusetts dealt me a blow by electing Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. When Kennedy died, I cried. He was a a…

Bailout

March 17, 2009
A bail is a container used for extracting water from a flooding boat or a payment for extracting a criminal from jail. As a verb, it is to abandon a perilous situation. Bailout means using financial leverage to aid a failing industry. Any of these situations are bad, but the problem is that a bail is not a solution. Why is the boat flooding? Why is the criminal in jail? Why are we in such a perilous situation? We can scoop water out of the boat as fast as we can with the biggest bucket we can find and unless…