Michael Bales

Oklahoma school districts have removed To Kill a Mockingbird and A Raisin in the Sun from classrooms, per the ACLU: the74million.org/article/aclu-l…

My ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review of @andrewrsorkin's 1929 cc @APompliano @alex 1929 took me back to my senior year at Duke.  I’d long been fascinated by the prime movers who drove American business history.  My senior research project on Duke was a paper on several American titans - Charles Pembroke, the original founder of Coca Cola, Henry Ford and Thomas Watson Sr.  For some reason, my curiosity always gravitated towards the titans who built companies, not the financiers.  I would flip through old newspapers of their era and study their advertising copy - they used a ton of words, when video did not exist!  I was fascinated by the new production techniques, the scientific advancements and the expansion of consumerism and mass marketing. I couldn’t have been less interested in finance.  I read a bit about JP Morgan, and certainly the mystique of the Rothschilds was fascinating and interesting in an era before.  But my curiosity stopped there.  I didn’t pour through new financial or credit instruments invented.  I knew finance played a role in shaping the outcomes of the American business system, it just seemed to be that they were a supporting detail behind the Edison’s of yesterday and the Elons of today who were making and selling real stuff.  And worse, it all just seemed to me so wrapped up in government policy.  I remember reading a book about the farmer’s revolt in 1886 about silver policy.  Currency, it seemed to me to be the sacred business of higher powers and it would be the destiny of my own life to simply work on applications within the financial system handed to me. As I got older, I began to develop more of an appreciation for the wheels of commerce, but with a healthy skepticism of anything sold to me by Wall Street.  I lived in New York, but never on Wall Street.  I could sense its energy but was never an insider.  It was as if you lived next to electrical power plant and could hear a continuous low radiant hum.  I lived in 2008 and remember hearing from my advisor at Citibank that my “auction rate securities”, which had been sold to me as good as cash, were now “ill-liquid”.   I just went about building my business. 1929 tied together a few things for me: my curiosity of mass marketing, my experiences from 2008, and my interest in prime movers.  Actually, the era felt in part like a transitory period: scions of the original robber barons - Jack Morgan, Rockefeller Jr. Durant, and Mellon angling for continued power a new generation of upstart powers like Charles Mitchell and Thomas Lamont took the torch.  The focus, of course, was on Wall Street, and the ironic symbolism of rampant speculation during the period of prohibition was difficult to ignore. Some of the scenes were incredible - like the one in the Plaza hotel were reconstructed so vividly, it was almost like a movie in my own head - but how could it have been so accurate?  The book was magnificently sourced.  Sorkin must have poured through the private diary of Thomas Lamont, or the letters of Carter Glass.  Ever protective of my time, I was also initially wary of the 444 pages.  But, it went by fast.  It was paced like a narrative from Erik Larson (think the Splendid and the Vile, one of my favorites).   Well sourced.  Well paced. Having written about 2008 and now 1929, one can only hope Andrew Ross Sorkin’s latest book is a true prequel and not a sequel with a third act yet to come.  It is hard to not sense the parallels between those roaring 20s and ours.  RCA, the highly valued radio technology company poised to change everything.  Think NVIDIA.  A decade of runaway gains and expansion.  Trading brought to the unskilled mass public for the first time. Think Robinhood and Coinbase.  But perhaps the point is that there are lessons learned as well and powers like the Federal Reserve are better understood, to be wielded properly and proactively when needed.  I don’t think Andrew is trying to suggest a major correction is imminent.  Rather, he’s saying saying that the moment you I even learned that in Wall Street speculation in 1929 nearly killed Winston Churchill himself, who was hit by a car in New York desperately trying to get to a financiers house on the Upper East side.  Western Civilization may have turned out a lot differently, if not for a few inches.  But, like everyone else involved in the markets, Churchill took the battering (both physically and financially) and was ready to move on.  As Sorkin says, “societies are resilient”.  Churchill, the embodiment of resiliency, survived being chewed up and spit out by Wall Street. So did the American public in 1929, in 2008, and they will again.

***Voting for the MLS Community X Awards*** The nominees for Best MLS Western Conference Beat Writer are? 1. 2. 3. 4. #MLS

BREAKING: Santi Moreno failed to show up for Portland’s match tonight. Unexcused absence. Per sources: - Moreno told GM Ned Grabavoy he was leaving, as he pushes for Fluminense move. - Moreno on his way to Colombia - Timbers don’t want to sell MORE givemesport.com/santiago-moren…