Delusions about Democracy

 Democracy, like freedom, is a word which we in the west like to believe is generally synonymous with goodness, justice and success. Our leaders love to feed us this narrative since it tends to breed complacency and satisfaction and to stop us from thinking. Churchill’s quote about democracy being the worst system apart from all the others is often trotted out. Perhaps this is generally correct, but I find myself increasingly troubled but some nagging doubts. As ever, it probably depends on the context and on what exactly we mean by democracy.

 

This week I heard another great quote, this time one that was new to me. Mike Tomlin, venerable head coach of an NFL American Football team who are in the midst of a difficult transition, claimed that if he would start listening to the fans, then soon he could expect to be sitting among them. I like that concept and it feels true, though a coach who consistently makes decisions that fans dislike is also playing a very risky game. Based on the fan ideas I read online or hear during a game, following the fans would be a sure recipe for disaster. I will add journalists the list of groups whose ideas should be treated with a pinch of salt, despite it being their professional job to offer opinions to improve the performance of a team. In my experience these ideas are quickly proved wrong. A few years ago, a former player and respected pundit, Gary Neville, was given a coaching job, and he crashed and burned within weeks.  I believe that most of the journalists I read would be even less effective than him.

 

There are similar insights available in business. In this case investors and customers have immediate agency. But can you imagine a successful business where the employees, or any other stakeholder group, ran the day to day operation, or took frequent votes to determine direction? It is telling that business leaders, often some of the most vocal proponents of democracy, have the most dictatorial attitude within their own empires. In the business their call is for clarity of responsibility, and in most cases they argue for a single leader to be accountable for most decisions.

 

That is just as well. I have been involved in various employee engagement initiatives. They have their place, and can provide excellent feedback on matters such as culture, communication, motivation and respect. But don’t ask wide groups of employees to give decisive input on strategy or even for innovative ideas, unless you want to be disappointed and to fail.

 

Indeed, I believe that my primary business community, strategists, woefully undervalue themselves. Nobody denies that strategy matters; most would agree that it is a great a differentiator as exists in business. But most big businesses do not cultivate a career specialism in strategy. The academic literature is sparse to the point of embarrassment. Senior leadership teams seem to think they can do strategy as well as anybody else, despite usually having few relevant skills. When they need help they quickly call for outside consultants, who charge a fortune yet rarely stay long enough to make a difference and have very different incentives to the leaders they are advising. Can you imagine a leadership team trying their own hand at engineering, or outsourcing the activity to a consultant?

 

Most organisations demand an organisation chart that offers clarity of role and huge decision-making power to leaders. Churches do not meaningfully consult their congregations about doctrine or practice, and indeed the largest church has a singular leader deemed to be both infallible and chosen by God. Britain has spent the last two weeks mourning somebody with theoretically absolute authority. A military unit is defined first and foremost by a hierarchy of leadership, with subservience and obedience considered key attributes. Even in an artistic pursuit such as a choir or an orchestra, there is little room for dissent: one of my favourite conductors frequently states that choirs should not be democracies.

 

So there is almost no aspect of life where democracy is considered a smart mode of operation, and for good reason, yet we are supposed to believe that this is the best way to run a country. Every few years the management of the most influential parts of the enterprise is subject to a poll. The entire direction and strategy is subject to very frequent change. Furthermore, in many democracies there are parallel leadership teams, each with limited authority, required to reach agreement among each other for most important decisions.

 

This method of allocating power is surely superior to a monarchy or a system lacking any accountability, but it has very obvious flaws, ones which would doom any business in a competitive market.

 

To succeed, an enterprise in any field needs a few tenets in place. These include an agreed purpose, sets of goals covering multiple time horizons, and some priorities. The enterprise also requires talent to be available and effectively deployed, especially in leadership positions, and a sound governance structure for its operation.

 

How likely is it that a democracy can produce an operation that satisfies these requirements? In many cases, it feels very unlikely. To have a better chance would need very strong institutions acting in parallel with the elected parts of government, guided by a mature and sufficiently independent civil service. The election process practice matters too, enabling high quality, unbiased information to be available to citizens.

 

These factors help to understand how some democracies can endure while others founder, and how volatile an immature democracy is likely to be. Rating these factors can also show how vulnerable a democracy is at any moment, what needs protecting, and which claims by protagonists should be most closely scrutinised. Where there is gerrymandering, where there are too few or too many parties, where money has an undue influence, and where information can be warped by interested parties, democracy is vulnerable.

 

The weakest aspect in most democratic platforms is purpose, goals, and priorities. In a well-run company, that is where the leadership team can make most difference. But a typical party platform in many democracies can be reduced to a set of platitudes. The best we can hope for is one or two reasonably well-articulated policies, which can give an indication of competence and values. Often we don’t even get that.

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Rather than blandly claiming that democracy is always good and other systems always bad, we can assess the other systems to the same analysis. Does the leadership have a defined purpose and multi-period goals that work for the best interest of the citizenry? Does it deploy the talent available to it, and is there some internal accountability? Do those making decisions have sufficient unbiased information?

 

China is far from perfect, as The Economist and other intelligent commentators are obsessed with pointing out. But, if you view the communist party as a sort of civil service or business organisation, it does not do too badly against my criteria. It can certainly argued that it is better placed to deal with the issues facing its citizenry than most mature democracies. The recent concentration of power is a concern, but over the last twenty years the leaders have certainly got most of the biggest calls right. I can articulate the purpose and the goals quite easily and can see how these can benefit (most of) the citizenry. These goals are reviewed appropriately and translate into decisive and sustained actions.

 

I cannot be as complimentary towards most autocrats. Sadly, I also struggle to be as positive about most mature democracies, at least those outside northern Europe. If I focus my comparison between China and the USA, I can understand how one has been doing better than the other, and I certainly know where to place my bets for success in the immediate future.             

A time for business fundamentals

 I have only been an investor for one period of my life. Between 2011 and 2013 I had a spell with more cash on hand than obvious things to do with it, and enough time to work out how to open a stock market account. Since 2013 I have sold occasionally when I needed cash – either a company that I had fallen out of love with or a slice from a company that had done very well. I have only bought one company, Tesla, at the start of this year, far too late.

 

I have learned that one key decision in investment strategy is the desired frequency of trading. Some people trade nearly every week, trying to play the game almost as a job. Others refresh their portfolios many times each year. Nowadays that is a feasible approach because various websites make it so easy to trade, but I still feel that approach is not for me, mainly because I don’t want trading to become an obsession or to take up too much of my time. I have seen many people become wealthy and then spend an unhealthy amount of their time counting their loot, and it does not usually seem to be conducive to a balanced life. Perhaps these people did not heed yesterday’s rather confusing gospel.

 

So, partly out of fear of myself and partly laziness, I tend to stick with what I have most of the time. I even ration myself to once every two months to check how things are going. Maybe this preferred frequency will change in the future but for now it works for me. I only occasionally get angry with myself for missing out on perceived opportunities. I know how lucky I am to have any such opportunities at all.

 

What I realised more recently is that the strategy for frequency should be a key determinant of the strategy for where to invest. Day trading is about riding waves and trying to follow the herd. Investing is not like Vegas gambling because it is not a zero-sum game. If a stock or a whole market rises then everybody can win together. You don’t have to beat the competition; you only need to emulate them while they are winning. It is true that every trade has a counterparty, so somebody somewhere is losing, depending on how you look at things. For a day trader, however, that is over-thinking the issue.

 

A consequence is that it can make sense as a day trader to plough money into what appear terrible investments. The recent meme stocks are merely an extreme example of this point. We can all see that Game Stop is a terribly run company stuck in a market that has no future. But hey, if lots of people want to buy the stock then it will rise. Join the stampede and you will gain too, perhaps outrageously so, so long as you remember to jump off the bandwagon no later than everybody else.

 

The overpaid people on Wall Street would deny it, but their own strategies are almost as cynical. If there is a stampede, they must be a part of it because otherwise their clients will see lower relative returns and run to the competition. This goes some way to explaining the cryptocurrency boom, and even something as apparently dumb as Theranos, the company which claimed a breakthrough in blood testing without any proven technology to support the claim. How could everyone have been so dumb as to pile in and not question such plainly false claims? Well, if you are a junior trader you don’t have time or skills for your personal due diligence, and you don’t want your boss complaining about your returns going down. You suppress your doubts and buy with everybody else, remembering to sell with everybody else (or even a tiny bit ahead of everyone else) later.

 

If you are a portfolio tinkerer, you probably steer clear of such frippery, but you are certainly looker for waves that last longer. At the start of the pandemic, it did not take a genius to invest in Zoom, or Netflix, or even Peloton. The surprise was that this remained true even after their prices had shot up to levels that seemed too high considering fundamentals. Even when markets are supposed to be smart, waves last longer than you might think. The day trade herd mixes with the tinkering crowd to keep things going forwards. It is only in 2022 that such companies have become poor investments.

 

I have also learned that entire markets have wave characteristics, not just the individual stocks within them, so a frequency strategy needs to be paired with some insight about a market cycle. This seems obvious, but the problem is that most of us don’t have vast sums of cash lying about. The time when the market is turbo-charged is likely to be the time most of us are already leveraged. And the correction of 2022 was rather easy to foretell, but what are we supposed to do with all the cash we release by being super-smart and selling up? Cash hasn’t exactly been a winner in 2022, and property hasn’t either. Bitcoin, anyone? Most of us just have to ride it out and tinker at the margins.

 

This holds true for tinkerers but even more so for buy-and-holders like me. But I think I have spotted another possible lesson. When I made my investments, I tried to focus on fundamentals. I looked for sectors that seemed to have a medium-term following wind, based on demographics or established consumer trends or regulation or competitive situations. Porter’s five forces is a great mental model for that. Then I looked for companies I thought were well managed within those segments. I was sometimes wrong, but I was also sometimes right, and many of those same advantaged sectors and well-run companies persist even now.

 

In the meantime, at times I have been rather frustrated, not least by the Bitcoin or Game Stop crowds. In my mental model as an investor, people crowding into those areas are almost cheating. In less greedy moments I realise they are not; they merely have a different frequency strategy and are often being smart in that situation, even if they are eating my lunch.

 

But phases of the market may indicate the best moments for different strategies, and perhaps I was very lucky. In 2011-13 the market overall was at a low point, so it turned out to be a good time to enter. But the recovery was a tentative one and interest rates were still significant, so investors were somewhat cautious. Theranos and the others only started appearing once the market became frothy and interest rates tumbled towards zero. At that point the piling in strategy made sense, but not in 2011-13. 2011-13 was a time for fundamentals.

 

Now I am wondering if the wheel may be turning again and if 2022-24 may be a period for fundamentals again. Nearly everything is down, but those with poor fundamentals are the ones that have collapsed.

 

I am in no position to invest and am still cautious about my own behaviour, but maybe I will start looking at companies and sectors more closely again. My go-to publication for this, as for so much else, is the business section of The Economist, especially the Schumpeter column. My only issue is that so far in this unusual downturn, the business editors do not yet seem to have found their feet. I must be patient, a little cynical, and analytical.

 

Last week, the business section had a rather thin article about the strange strength of the labour market, which I twinned with the Bartleby column about somebody who has become a meme with a Tiktok video telling people not to be slaves to work – if anything a further symptom of a moment of worker power.

 

I liked an article noting that technology and other firms have started hiring Economists, because they know how to handle complex data. This is significant: I believe one aspect of next wave of AI will be about smarter slicing of data, beyond merely targeting ads. An example could be more subtle characterisation of outlets within a retail network, with assortments, atmospheres and practices varied according to segment. I twin this with the Schumpeter article about Starbucks, noting that the four closest Starbucks outlets to me serve radically different market segments, and that smarter tailoring could be a differentiator for the brand.

 

The article about European utilities noted a variety of possible paths ahead during the forced transition away from Russian gas. The final article was about beauty products, and this also interested me. During the “piling in” phase, start-ups could secure funding based on as little as an idea and a couple of influencers. Now the incumbents, who know more about supply, branding and sustaining consumer loyalty, are fighting back.

 

So the wheel is turning and the next year or two may see benefits in following fundamentals, both as managers and as investors. The energy transition (especially as regards batteries and other peripherals), the developing cold war with China, and smarter uses of big data can be added to established trends to form a fascinating context. Perhaps I will become a tinkerer, at least for a while.           

The Amazon Factor

 I always enjoy observing irony in current events. One of the great ironies, among so many, of the Trump presidency was that his greatest real achievement (in my opinion), the rapid development and successful deployment of vaccines against Covid, was completely undermined by his own supporters. Putin seems to have achieved very little from his reckless invasion of Ukraine, beyond the irony of uniting his adversaries and accelerating Europe’s transition to sustainable energy, thereby undermining the core basis of Russia’s own economy. Beware of unintended consequences!

 

Now there is a sweet irony that can be attributed to the hip progressive movement, people who love to complain about others getting rich even when that can benefit everyone, especially the people they claim to represent. The irony concerns the bête noir of that movement, Amazon.

 

I love almost everything about Amazon. Perhaps I am a bit biased, since the firm has done more than any other to sustain my own wealth since I had the good fortune to buy a few shares in the firm several years ago. We love to attack people like Bezos, and perhaps even people like me who cling on to his coattails like parasites. But I think Amazon has been of benefit to humanity and has the potential to support our development even further.

 

 I will certainly be holding onto my precious shares, in the belief that there is a lot more upside than downside, despite the squalls of 2022 caused by the return of sensible interest rates. One test I often apply is to imagine what would happen if a company increased its prices by 50%. Discounters and people like Walmart could not pull off such a trick because of competition and price sensitivity among their consumers, and others are limited by regulation. But I believe that Amazon could double its annual Prime subscription, and also impose fees on excessive returns, without losing many customers at all. They have kept prices low while following the sound retail philosophy of using a cost advantage to grow the business, but one day they will start looking for margin. And the value and quality of their service compared with any competition means they could do it and retain most of their base. For me, that shows a share with further upside.

 

We all have access to a wider range of goods at affordable prices thanks to Amazon and can lay our hands on them ludicrously quickly. Many small and start-up businesses rely on Amazon for marketing and distributing, benefiting them and their consumers. The cloud computing business reduces prices for all, and the streaming supports our abundant entertainment options.

 

But it is something else about Amazon that has tickled my sense of irony. They have revolutionised employment markets around the world, to the benefit of those seeking. Fair wage and fair treatment. Amazon have succeeded in restoring some balance between capital and labour where trade unions and countless left-wing politicians have manifestly failed.

 

It started a few years ago when Amazon decided to go big on fulfilment. I always found this decision rather strange, since it involved considerable capital and human operating costs, things which the tech giants generally avoid. But Amazon decided it could do this well, outcompete the established players such as Fedex, and create a lasting point of difference against other suppliers. It seems to be working.

 

The upshot is that Amazon has quickly become the second largest employer in the US, behind only Walmart. And these jobs are not for highly paid coders, but hourly paid work for people picking goods in warehouses and people driving trucks.

 

Progressives love to hate Amazon for providing these jobs, blinded by the profits Amazon makes and tales of how the jobs are demanding and demeaning. It is true that the jobs are far from glamorous. But progressives seem to assume that the alternatives for these people are as self-employed craft beer brewers and experimental artists. In reality, the alternatives are far worse, even when alternatives exist. Think of all the people sweating in semi-legal car workshops, or in the kitchens of small restaurants, or cleaning buildings. Compared with these employers, Amazon is a dream. They pay on time, are clear of expectations, do not tolerate abuse, and provide hygenic working conditions. A few truck drivers may struggle to find somewhere to pee while still meeting their quota, but generally hardships are few and conditions are fair. Progressives should be thrilled.

 

And Amazon seems to have moved the needle. When I write about the job vacancies I observed on my trip to Europe earlier in the summer, I quoted demographics, fewer immigrants, Covid and a few other factors as partial causes. But I missed one: many of the people who might be working in airports or restaurants are now at Amazon.

 

The same Amazon factor is noticeable in the US in similar markets. It is also affecting the public sector. Last week a report on the PBS Newshour showed how many local authorities were struggling to recruit people as garbage collectors or in other service capacities, and one hard-pressed manager bemoaned the fact that he could only offer $15 while Amazon was giving $18. Before, the excellent benefits and strong unionisation have meant that public sector leaders could usually find recruits to replace retirees. This appears to be no longer the case.    

 

So now central banks are facing an unusual dilemma. Cooling down the economy has in recent decades been rather easy: tweak interest rates upwards, and soon unemployment will trend upwards to cool demand. Most of the cost would be paid by the marginal workers with fewer skills or in the wrong locations, but hey, rather than people holding wealth.

 

Now the central banks are raising rates rather quickly, yet the labour markets remain buoyant, at least in the US and some other developed markets. There have been some announcements of layoffs, but the ones I have noticed have been from over-hyped technology companies and some old economy companies like Ford, and it is notable that Ford are firing their office staff rather than anybody on a factory floor.

 

Sadly, it is all likely to be somewhat temporary. For decades we have heard predictions of how many unskilled jobs would be permanently lost to automation. It feels strange to be observing precisely the opposite. We can thank Amazon. But we should note that those same jobs driving delivery vans and picking goods off shelves are ripe for replacement by robots, especially once driverless vehicles start to gain serious traction. Amazon is no doubt aware of the possibility, and banking on it to maintain their cost advantage in the coming decades.

 

But meanwhile we have an economy that progressives have dreamed of, one where labour has as much leverage as capital, even at its less skilled end. What an irony that two of the causes have been the feverish recruitment of the bête noire of progressives, and blowback from the anti-immigration policy of the racist capitalists. One group lauds the reason by suffers the outcome, while the other loves the outcome but hates the cause.          

The China Deal

 2022 will be remembered for the Russian assault on Ukraine, an extraordinary choice by the Russian leadership. I still believe there is a dimension to the situation that is not yet in the public domain, because otherwise the decision seems not just reckless but seriously ill-judged; indeed it seems likely that ultimately it will lead to the fall of the regime. Sadly, there will be a lot more blood to spill and nuclear risk to endure before that endgame can be reached.

 

As far as countering the Russians is concerned, I still believe that the Biden administration has performed excellently. The CIA (and MI6) are clearly still very strong in matters Russian, and on this occasion being set up to fight yesterday’s war has yielded a bonus. The western strategy, unspoken because of its cynicism and cost in Ukrainian suffering, is to play for a winning draw. Once initial defeat was averted by Russian ineptitude, accepting a defeat became unnecessary and politically unacceptable. But playing to win carries too many nuclear risks to countenance. Hence we see a stalemate, a situation likely to endure for several more months or even years.

 

I am also convinced that 2022 will go down as a year of lost opportunity by that same Biden administration. The Russian invasion created a window of opportunity for a reconciliation with China. The Russians provided the pretext to reset the narrative, and the strategic incentives for both China and the US to be partners are huge. Sadly, most political incentives in the US work in the opposite direction, but I do believe that a more far-sighted State department could have perhaps pulled off a historic deal.

 

Rather than merely sniping about their lack of vision, I spent some time pondering what the parameters of such a deal could look like. That way I could confirm my belief that the strategic conditions exist and go further in assessing what the blockers are and how they might still be overcome.

 

Any holistic deal with China must have three broad components. There would have to be a chapter for sustainability and development, a chapter for trade and a chapter for defence and strategic interests. Each chapter could be supported by a set of reformed institutions for global governance.

 

The first chapter would be the easiest to draft and enforce and have the most obvious benefits to the signatories and to the rest of humanity. The world faces a climate crisis for which the solutions are clear but the political will lacking. Much has been done to reduce poverty, infant mortality and malnutrition, but the task is far from complete.  Covid has highlighted a different set of risks, but science has the demonstrated potential to mitigate these too. For me one of the saddest moments in the whole pandemic was witnessing Doctor Fauci being forced by political imperative to equivocate in having worked with China to understand Covid and other pathogens. Surely such cooperation can only serve to benefit all of us?

 

Strong goals already exist for all of these challenges, from the updated UN millennium development goals to the latest COP climate goals. China clearly sees the benefits available, and already actively participates in many global fora, while the US quietly and valiantly takes the lead in scientific research and funding. But too often the execution is stymied by narrow national and commercial interests and by political cowardice. It would not take a huge stretch to eliminate most of these obstacles. Perhaps the most significant step would be to reform the governance and mandates of the World Bank and the IMF to be more representative of global population and GDP. It was worrying to see how both of these bodies were able to sanction Russia: the cause was just in this case, but a truly global body (rather than a western dominated one) would not have been able to take such steps. A reformed global aid structure could reduce the incentives for individual nations to plough their own furrow with schemes such as Belt and Road.

 

The second chapter would be about trade, and this also need not be difficult to draft or to execute. There have been backlashes against trade in many parts of the world, but the potential net benefits remain huge. Countries need stronger policies to help those citizens negatively affected, and the true costs of transport (including environmental costs) should be considered, but otherwise specialisation will lead to cheaper and more abundant goods for all, notably those most in need.

 

Once again, the “rules based” system needs some reform so that it is no longer a “western imposed” system. China needs to agree to follow the rules, including for intellectual property. But trade is good, and the EU provides excellent templates for its governance, including for regulations around product quality and items such as privacy. Over time, trade pacts can develop to include more services.

 

An annex to the trade chapter would be required to handle controls on human movement, including for education. It feels weird that the US appears to be drifting towards a cold war with China, while its streets and its educational establishments become ever more populated by Chinese faces. Goals of free movement are laudable, but politically tough and requiring long transitional periods and stipulations on those choosing to migrate.

 

The tough chapter would be the one for defence and security. Again, the goals are not too difficult to envisage; the challenge would be to provide a palatable and trustable path and to find roadmaps to deal with a host of thorny issues.

 

China, the US and everybody else (except the leaders of Russia and North Korea and a few other renegade places) have a clear interest in progressive nuclear disarmament, and indeed in disarmament generally. One neat provision that most might accept in a more trusting climate could be that every dollar spent on national defence should be matched by a dollar committed to global peacekeeping. The global bodies to keep the peace are those with the greatest need for reform, and the Russian veto would initially be insurmountable, so a parallel security body to the UN, including all but the renegades, may be necessary during a transition.

 

Then there is a long list of conflicts and frozen conflicts and historical anomalies to handle, and therein lie the toughest nuts to crack. In most cases it will be impractical to reach an immediate solution, notably because such diplomacy tends to brush over the reasonable wishes of local actors. The places where clear agreements up front would be required are Taiwan, Russia and North Korea. For Taiwan, a Hong Kong type process envisaging eventual reunification would be the major concession to China to make the whole deal possible. In return China would need to clearly distance itself from Russia in its conflict in Ukraine (and its frozen conflicts elsewhere). China can still maintain a policy of not interfering in domestic affairs of other countries, yet be clear that the Ukraine situation is in no way domestic. In the case of North Korea, it is a matter of agreeing an endgame while waiting for the dynasty to implode. China would need to accept refugees and a responsibility to finance redevelopment of North Korea, but the US and its allies would need to agree to some regional disarmament in return.

 

For sure such a deal would be tough to pull off even in propitious circumstances, and the context today is far from helpful. Yet I would argue that it will only get more difficult over time, and Russia’s belligerence does offer a window. Other parties, most especially the EU but also the parts of the UN and existing institutions that are not western puppets, would need to be closely involved.

 

It is clear to me that the main block towards such a deal lies with the American mindset and its politics. With Trump in the wings, China would be mad to agree to anything without a US legal basis that could not be reversed. And Biden’s domestic capital to spend on this deal would be miniscule while the Republicans are in full MAGA mode. But it would be nice to see any evidence that the Biden team could even contemplate such a historic outcome and would start to chip away at public attitudes towards China.

 

I will dream on.   

How did I become so weird?

 Every so often a situation leaves me thinking that I live on a different planet to the rest of humanity. I still recall one occasion during a choir rehearsal when the Star Wars movies came up in conversation. It was clear that every other member was animated and engaged by the topic, while I sat in bemused silence, having never seen any of the films and not really understanding why anyone would want to. It sticks in my memory because these were people who I thought were like me; many were of my own generation and level of education and experience and of course we shared a common passion for singing early music. I went home pondering my weirdness.

 

I have similar experiences whenever I am with my wife’s extended family, as I was last weekend. On these occasions I can use my excuse of demographics, because I am one of the few who is not of Philippine extraction and few of the group are close to my age. But even so my weirdness always strikes me at these gatherings, as I sit patiently at the side of conversations I don’t really relate to. Shopping is always one topic of difference; for many of the group an afternoon at an outlet mall is their idea of heaven, while for me it is much closer to hell.

 

This week I have decided that my conclusion is rather lazy, and I should challenge it, I came up with three sub-questions. Am I truly weird? If so, how did that happen? And does it matter?

 

I think I can answer the last sub-question first. I don’t think it matters at all. Why should it matter, since variety is the spice of life? I have the blessing of a reasonable level of self-confidence, so I don’t go around equating weirdness to abnormality or inferiority or suffering attacks of anxiety or depression. Perhaps this self-confidence is one explanation for the weirdness itself since I don’t go out of my way to conform. I feel that I have a full enough social life, including the blessing of love from many sources. And I don’t think my weirdness, such as it is, creates an unacceptable challenge to others – I don’t go around groping or fighting or (nowadays) bullying. True, I find it difficult to contribute to some conversations and in some events, but I generally have the patience to sit to the side when that happens; I have always been blessed by a contentment with my own company; perhaps that forms another licence for weirdness.

 

For the first sub-question, I am probably not very weird at all, and it can be a bit arrogant to lazily live in a mindset that I am. As humans, we are all remarkably different to each other, and therein lies our magic.

 

In vaguely stressful situations, we can convince ourselves that we are strange or don’t fit in. I used to hate going to the sort of parties where you stand around making conversation with people you don’t know very well with a drink in your hand. I always felt that I was the only one standing around on my own, shunned by everybody else and too inadequate to be worthy of anyone wanting to converse with me.

 

After suffering through this on many occasions, I made some resolutions. First, I would not be desperate. Unless there were people I knew or people inviting me to join a group, I would be content to stay on the side and be patient. I realised soon enough that nobody was looking at me or humiliating me, and that it would not be long before some kind soul would come and talk to me. Secondly, while alone I consciously observed other people. Surely enough I always discovered that a large minority of other party guests were in the same boat as me, nervously alone and afraid to mingle. Indeed this held true for most of the guests who were not in groups of friends who they arrived with. I was not unusual at all! After a while I could even summon the courage the approach some of these people myself. Now, while I can’t say I actively enjoy such gatherings, they no longer fill me with dread.

 

I can us the same techniques in other situations to test out the extent of my weirdness, and they always yield the same answer, that I am not weird at all. It may seem as though everybody else at a gathering has common interests that diverge completely from my own, but that is misleading. There are always others on the sides, I do not stick out as an aberration, and if I am patient and make some effort then I can find others who are a bit like me in some respect.

 

So I am not so weird after all, and when I convince myself that I am weird, it is often displaying an arrogant superiority complex. Look, everybody else is obsessed with their phone, and cannot stop themselves taking mindless photos, and display countless other pieces of evidence of their inferiority! Clearly this is not a healthy way to be thinking.

 

So I am not uniquely weird, but in fact everybody is weird, in that we all have our unusual traits. At last, this gives me a healthy place to explore the second sub-question. What are my most unusual traits, and how might I have acquired them?

 

In a random group of a hundred people, like in the game show, where would I be in a class of one? There is the Star Wars thing, to which could be added an animated or superhero movie, indeed any movie not about credibly real people doing credibly real things. What else? Among those with smart phones, mine probably has fewer photos stored than any of the other ninety-nine, and I probably care less than any of the others about how I might look in a photo. I probably spend less time scrolling my phone and grazing material such as ads, social media, celebrity gossip, or news than any of the others too. I am also probably the most cynical and resistant when it comes to brands and product claims. In Trader Joe (a rare brand that I somewhat trust) I will consciously choose the items not labelled as organic, because I do not trust the claims or marketing and link the word “organic” only to the word “overpriced”.

 

How did this all happen? There are bound to be a million reasons, but I think I have discovered two critical ones.

 

The clue to the first root cause comes from thinking about the person I know who displays most of the same unusual traits. That person is my sister. And the common link is our mother. As the excellent Progressive ads like to tell us, we all turn into our parents eventually, and that is an especially painful realisation for both me and my sister, because we both struggle to admire our (deceased) mum. But my paragraph of strange traits matches her character very closely. She hated all films. She cared not a jot for grooming or appearance. She shopped only on price and was acutely cynical about brand claims. My sister and I both love certain types of film but the other traits have been passed on, by the magic combination of genetics and environment. We are both turning into our mother, and we would be smart not to deny it.

 

The trait missing from mum’s personality is the one about grazing and celebrity. Mum devoured the Daily Mail each day and tracked TV celebrity gossip avidly. So that tendency must come from somewhere else. In my case, I suspect the key factor was living in countries where I did not speak the native language between 1996 and 2012, the period when information became ubiquitous and visual and when smartphones and social media took off.

 

During this time, I lived in countries where English was spoken well. As someone too lazy to learn local languages very well, I did not lack for much. But I was somewhat removed from the culture, and the gossip. I always would claim that I could follow a conversation but could never get the jokes. Social media and celebrity culture depend on such nuance.

 

Perhaps to compensate, I got into the habit of doubling down on deep content. I follow sports, but the whole long game rather than the highlight reels. I read The Economist and Guardian Weekly from cover to cover but barely glance at the pictures and have become very cynical of other sources. I blog, but resolutely (stubbornly?) refuse to include any pictures.

 

I am pleased that I took the time this week to ponder the questions about weirdness more deeply. The conclusions are clear. I am weird, but so is everybody else, and that is OK, indeed wonderful (though no cause for arrogance). Cocktail party survival techniques are valuable. One advantage of living in a large city where I speak the native language is that I can find others who share most of my weird passions, should I wish to. And, should we care, we can probably trace a lot of our own weirdness to a handful of root causes.                

Stresses, Scams, and Biased Judgments

 It felt very good to get home from Los Angeles last week, even though the apartment feels emptier without our son. I took away a rather negative view of LA. IT has taken me a few days of reflection to realise that perhaps I my judgment was not entirely fair.

 

Even the airlines seemed to line up in favour of New York over LA. On the outbound journey, we were delayed four hours, with barely an acknowledgement and no apology. On the way home, everything went unusually well. The airline allowed us to swap our middle seats for two together. The plane departed right on time and took a short flight path. The journey was improved by reading an Economist end to end (I could not find a seller in LA until the airport), and a wonderful British film called The Duke – Jim Broadbent is a hero of mine. Our luggage was first on the belt, and our taxi delivered us home before the flight had been scheduled to land. Would that air travel always worked out this way!

 

Our primary negative impression of LA came from the vast number of homeless people lining the streets. We frequented downtown and a neighbouring district, parts of Hollywood, various metro lines (subway and bus) and Santa Monica. Each of these areas were blighted by homeless, seemingly at all hours of day and night. Most of their lives seemed unrecoverable. Many were angry and vocal. Too many were young. Initially it made us feel unsafe, and it affected the hours in which we were willing to be outside. Once we had become more familiar, it just made us very sad.

 

We have a growing homeless problem in NYC too, but somehow LA’s seemed a lot worse. But after some reflection I reasoned that perhaps the difference was not so great. Firstly, our climate in NYC tends to drive the homeless indoors and into larger settlements. But then I wondered if the main factor was where we happened to be. How often in NYC am I walking the downtown or deprived areas after dark? How often am I frequenting the major hubs like the Port Authority terminal? Yes, I travel the subway in the evening frequently, but the trains are longer and better lit so perhaps the same number of homeless can appear less visible.

 

Then I wondered if other aspects of my negativity about LA might be equally biased. I considered how the trip was one of high stress that had little to do with its location. Three of us were packed tightly together trying to execute a tough agenda under time pressure in unfamiliar surroundings We had to find Lucas somewhere to live, then sign a lease and then furnish the place. We had to find accommodation and transport options that were somewhat affordable. And we all had to deal with the emotional stress involved in a major change in our lives.

 

It is no wonder we were somewhat stressed and that we took out our stresses by complaining about our location. We worked remarkably well as a team and achieved a great deal on the trip, but inevitably we had differing opinions, we bickered at times and each of us suffered moments of intolerance. We spent a lot of money, something which is never good for my mood. It is only afterwards that I can perhaps revise some of my opinions of the place where that stressful environment played out.

 

Then there were the scams. Scams are a part of daily life here in the US. Perhaps 50% of the phone calls I receive are from some bot lying me that my car needs servicing or that I owe the IRS a fortune. I have learned to quickly disconnect and move on without becoming angry. But in LA I was angry already, and then two original scams came along to make me even more angry.

 

Firstly, we parked our rental car in a regular downtown car park, one that clearly advertised that it only accepted payment by credit card. Trying to exit, my first card was rejected by the reader with an error message about a failed modem connection. With no practical option, I inserted a second card, this time with success. But the following morning came a massage from Chase inquiring about a suspicious use of that second card which had nothing to do with me. Congratulations to Chase for being so alert, and I accept that the hassle involved has been minimal – replacement cards have arrived today. But the experience still leaves a nasty taste, and some of that taste is directed towards the location where the scam happened.

 

The second scam came while I was walking to the rental car to return it to its garage, so at a time when I was already nervous (would the car have been stolen or damaged overnight? Might the rental company try to charge me for something?). This scam involved a call purporting to come from my electricity supplier, with another supplier connected on the call claiming that I had agreed a contract with them. This was a clever scam because the scenario was quite credible – we are bombarded with offers to change supplier. The purported new supplier tried to charge me $900 to cancel the non-existent contract, and then, the clever part, the person claiming to be from my actual supplier took a sympathetic tone but tried to charge me to rectify the situation. Only then did I twig that both callers were a part of the scam. Cue another bad mood.

 

We have plenty of scams in New York so it is ridiculous of me to blame LA. Now I am more relaxed, I can review some of my other harsh judgments. True, it is a calumny that the best real estate in oceanside Santa Monica has been used for a highway, but we have our own examples, notably Coney Island and Chinatown. It is sad that concrete and cars work against any sort of community feel and extend the California city far too far, but then we have Staten Island, Westchester and Nassau County doing similar things. Their climate is undoubtedly better; New York is truly horrible in summer. Both have garbage and smells, but we have more rats. Our drivers are less respectful and more reckless, our roads less well-designed and with more potholes. Perhaps our culture is better, but the vanilla musicals playing throughout Broadway to ill-behaved audiences are not really a credit to us, while the beautifully produced Dudamel performance we witnessed at the Hollywood Bowl was a credit to LA. Perhaps the comparison is not so one-sided after all.

 

Now I am starting to wonder if I am guilty of similar biases in my comparisons between the USA and Europe, during my current spell of negative thoughts about America. It is true that my recent trips to Europe have been in circumstances where my spectacles are likely to be rose-tinted, loaded with singing holidays, friends, family, great food, and relaxation. My comparisons need to be more specific, to check that they don’t just reflect more propitious circumstances.

 

I have not lived in Europe for ten years, so I don’t know about scams, but I am pretty sure that the legal environment in Europe is more orientated to support the consumer rather than the corporation. Why do these US scammers seem to be beyond the reach of the law? As for homeless, I remember my daily walk from Waterloo Station to Waterloo bridge in London, so perhaps Europe has its problems too. As for culture, there may be advantages on both sides of the Atlantic: in Europe I certainly don’t expect to be able to replicate the oasis of my Sunday mornings. California probably wins for climate, but I don’t recall anywhere in Europe being so horrible s a humid New York summer. 

 

But the cities and towns are surely much more attractive there, with less bad housing, fewer highways (and without potholes), more green space, more courteous and safer driving, better mass transit, and fewer rats and smells. The people of the USA would surely do well to work on some of these eminently fixable unflattering comparisons, instead of the relentless self-promotion of “The greatest city on earth” or the ludicrous “Tinseltown”.

 

So my conclusion is that I should be kinder to LA, but not necessarily to the USA as a whole. It is certainly a good lesson to temper judgments to take account of circumstances. My recent European experiences could almost have been tailor-made to make me feel positively, very unlike my stressful LA experience.         

Clues to a District

 I have spent much of the last few weeks travelling. For two spells, I have had the joy of helping our children to settle into new lives. In Utrecht, our daughter had already started her job and selected her apartment, and my role was the practical one of moving her stuff from the other side of the country and embellishing it with a few purchases from IKEA. Now, in Los Angeles, my wife and I are helping our son. In his case, his job starts imminently, and together we have had to find an apartment and then assist with the same moving process. Thank goodness for IKEA!

 

It has been an instructive few days in downtown LA. The office of our son is in an iconic modern building in the heart of the city, and he made the smart move of deciding to live initially without a car and concentrating the apartment search very close to his work. So we booked a hotel less than a mile away, half way between downtown and a gentrifying district called Koreatown, with the intention of viewing several places on foot.

 

My mental model for Koreatown was Flushing, a bustling Asian district near us in Queens with bursts with chaotic energy twenty-four hours per day. As soon as we started walking on Sunday morning, that illusion required rapid adjustment. There was the office, towering ten blocks to the east, and I assumed there was Koreatown, a few taller buildings ten blocks or so to the west. But where was the bustle? Even when we made it to Koreatown, the streets were wide and most buildings low-rise, and there were few people, except those passing by in the cars and parking in the many lots for shops. True, Sunday morning is hardly the busiest time of the week even in New York. But this was not Flushing. This was Anytown, USA.

 

Then we spent two days getting to know a whole series of micro districts, all within three subway stops or fifteen minutes on the bus from each other, all walkable, though maybe not comfortably in the midday heat. We had an immediate need to understand these micro districts as potential places for our son to live. We had to use all our senses and to look out for important clues.

 

Perhaps the most useful clue of all has been the density of Starbucks locations. Near our hotel there are no Starbucks at all. In Downtown itself there are many Starbucks, but the density tails off very quickly after a few blocks in any direction. One way to define the gentrified part of Koreatown is to map out where there are Starbucks and where there are no Starbucks. By this definition, Koreatown has clear boundaries; Western avenue to the west, Vermont to the east, a block north of Wilshire to the North and eighth avenue to the south.

 

Within the Starbucksified area, people walk with confidence rather than loiter. Other retail establishments are branded, have attractive shopfronts, but also security. There is garbage on the street, and also a few tents where homeless people sleep, but the prevalence of both is lower. The clearest sign of gentrification (apart from Starbucks) are the number of blocks that have been converted into apartments by developers and are advertising for new tenants.

 

Once you leave this area, the signs for tenants are still there but are haphazard and hand-written. Apart from a few fortresses of fast food chains, the retail establishments are bodegas, or thrift shops, pawn shops, or simply boarded up. Many cars are very old and look like they have been parked in the same spot for a long time. The clearest sign of a lank of gentrification (apart from the absence of Starbucks) is that everywhere seems to close at 8.30pm, even the liquor stores, bodegas and food outlets. This is not an area to be outside alone after dark.   

 

Then there is downtown itself, a place of extraordinary contradictions. There are many high-rise office buildings a few high-end malls and some swanky restaurants. The corporate community is well served, but it is also noticeable that these establishments all employ security and do not open late. The developers have been even more active here than in Koreatown, perhaps taking advantage of some zoning changes or simply of depressed prices during the worst of the pandemic.

 

But there is little feel of destination or community. The grid of wide streets works against pedestrians, and for some reason the sidewalks are populated by hundreds of apparently dead e-scooters, giving the impression that a bomb has gone off and everybody has scarpered. There are also blocks surprisingly near the heart of the city with vacant lots and offering cheap parking. The rents for lots here must be miniscule compared with Manhattan.

 

I can’t imagine that the corporates and the high-end developers will allow the place to remain so marginally safe for very long. But how did they allow it to go so far downhill in the first place? The impression is that the corporate citizens all arrive by car and depart by the same means, using the local facilities during the day but anxious to escape within their automotive fortresses after their working days have finished. Hopefully an influx of young professionals into the newly renovated apartments will change that dynamic.

 

I cannot help but compare the centre of LA with the centre of Utrecht. There are clues in Utrecht too. In the less affluent areas, most retail establishments are unbranded, many offering cheap fast food, and the supermarkets are smaller and sell necessities rather than luxuries. But everywhere stays open until midnight, the streets are well-lit, and it feels safe to walk everywhere. The dividing lines seem to be more a result of careful urban planning than of wealth attracting wealth and poverty attracting neglect. I am sure that once we rent a car, we will find gated enclaves within LA of unimaginable opulence. Utrecht’s opulence is unstated and humdrum. But Utrecht’s poorer areas still have some civic pride, and the denser ones might even attract Starbucks.

 

We will fulfil our mission, guided by the abundant clues and thankful that our son has a budget that allows him to cluster with the up-and-coming rather than the down-and-out. There will be many advantages for him in LA, and, thanks to Uber, he might be able to enjoy them without needing to buy a car.

 

But there is something sad about this city, and for me it does not reflect well on its residents, its politicians, or its nation. Our hotel has a few European tourists in it. What will they say about America when they go home, after having worked out the need to retreat to their room after 8.30pm (and hopefully having not learned that the hard way)? Even the LAPD seem to have given up on this district, resorting to helicopters for any patrolling that we have seen.

 

Searching for root causes, an important culprit is the car. The centre of Utrecht was built before cars existed. New York has such constrained land that the car has not been allowed to dominate. But in LA the needs of the car determine the city. It has sprawled and sprawled, and hence segregated and segregated. Because of cars and roads, nowhere has the human density to build a true community (like Flushing). And the car has enabled most residents to become blind to the misery around them. They can simply drive around the worst districts, or in the worst case drive through them with the car doors securely locked. As a concept for a city, I can imagine little worse.