Many of the things that make the human experience impossibly rich are possible only when our basic needs are fulfilled.  Recession and financial peril threaten the things we love.  That’s true for anyone, regardless of origin or circumstance.

Yes, finance overlaps politics and policy and flouts boundaries that I’d prefer to stay away from in this forum.  But the die is cast: “too big to fail” should be a clue that it’s “too big to ignore.”

Goldman was doing business as market maker for CDOs while its proprietary trading took positions against some of the products it was working with on the other side. Are the evident conflicts of interest in this situation outside the norm for an investment bank? These kinds of conflicts must be commonplace, and the ability to work with capital in these ways are part of the attraction to risk that is a hallmark of investment banking. Fees alone are not enough to support outsize bonuses and average salaries that push into the high six-figures.  The line between investment banks and hedge funds is very blurred with one frequently doing the other’s bidding, as was evident in Abacus.

The unfortunate problem of investment banks offering highly complex investment vehicles as institutional investments is that nearly everyone—including those averse even to the risk of fixed income—ends up becoming an unwitting investor.  Yes, IKB is a large and sophisticated investor, but they are investing with the money of many small and unsophisticated (and probably risk-averse) investors.  While Goldman’s legal responsibility is solely with IKB, its moral responsibility extends to the millions who invested in leveraged subprime debt because of the market that Goldman made.

They say: “We make the market.”  Investors at all levels should demand: “Make our market grow.”  When these markets are for products so abstract that even “sophisticated” investors (not to mention the people packaging them) are baffled, one must ignore the prestige of the market maker and turn to investments that are truly analyzable.  That’s the recipe for making the markets grow.

I agree with Blankfein’s assessment.  Can regulation change this crisis in the culture of finance, a culture that clearly thrives on asymmetric information and the ironic poetry of selling someone a bad deal?

There is only one kind of regulation that could begin to modulate this behavior in America.  It would be a broad-based consumption tax that extends to online commerce of all kinds.  The greed of global finance reflects in concentrated form the obsessive consumption of the contemporary developed world.  The world economy is not driven by firms like Goldman; it is driven by the hard work and hard spending of people in the developed world.  As long as there is stiff competition for the output and consumption of these people, firms will do all they can to court them by working towards access to capital that only firms like Goldman can deliver in sufficient quantities.

People want and expect more, and the current system is the best yet devised for achieving that goal for the fortunate few—who already have significant earning power. But are people really getting their money’s worth?

As long as the calculus in the minds of the movers of the economy (remember, it’s the people) is that more consumption equals greater happiness, the path followed by international captains of finance will not waver.  More consumption has been proven not to increase happiness, but it is difficult to “settle” for less after having had more, even if one is happier with less.

Social responsibility begins on Main Street.  Maybe it should be called trickle-up economics.

The danger of enacting new rules that truly shift the balance into making the U.S. an unattractive base for some of the world’s best financial minds must not be ignored.  If Wall Street moves to the Cayman Islands where it will be able to continue crafting derivative investments for which no valuation estimate can be accurately derived and for which the risk is incalculable, there is no benefit to the U.S. or the global economy.  In fact America’s position will be weakened.

Such an outcome must not occur, and I don’t believe it will.  If the legislation can keep its focus achieving the big goals, the relatively smaller goals—like keeping Wall Street as the center of financial innovation—will take care of themselves.

I don’t believe it is.  Earth has little to offer to life that may possess the capability of intergalactic travel.  The advanced technology needed for this kind of travel would require the capability to harness huge quantities of energy that probably surpass what is delivered by the Sun we orbit.  It frankly wouldn’t be worth the trouble to life that can make it here.

In spite of disagreeing with the conclusions that follow from his disavowal of the search for intelligent extra-terrestrial life, I agree that active SETI is a foolish enterprise and that Earth needs a more tightly-regulated global outlook on this kind of intentional transmission into space.  Earth is a planet but also a space capsule for all of life as we know it, and we must take better care of it from within and from without.  It often takes the mind of a genius to help us recognize this.  In Hawking’s case, it’s the galactic perspective.

The intriguing subtext to most of the suppositions on the part of the media is that Goldman had 100% certainty that its positions were going to earn outsized returns. There is no question that risk was involved and that its bets, with a different set of circumstances, could have led it to a similar fate to Bear Stearns.  The media mythologizing of Goldman’s prowess is not an accurate representation of the facts.  Yes, Goldman may have been incrementally smarter than Bear, Merrill, Citi, etc., but there is no question that it was luckier.

While Timberwolf turned out to be a bad deal for its buyers, the comments currently being circulated from those on the Goldman side of the deal are not evident of wrongdoing.  Goldman could have been wrong about it being a bad deal for the buyer. The media appears to forget this, again contributing to the myth of Goldman outflanking the mortgage meltdown on its wits alone.

Back to material information: if Goldman withheld material information from the buyers of Timberwolf, this is serious wrongdoing.  If they truly knew that it was a bad (or misrepresented) investment, the gloves should come off at the SEC.  This investment was a wolf in wolf’s clothing, but they weren’t telling.

Due diligence on the part of the buyers of the investment package may have revealed Paulson’s hand and stance.  The large European banks that were the primary investors here must take the blame for their losses.  Goldman claims that the deal was not profitable in the end for them either, however the promotion of the fund manager would suggest otherwise.  One may hope that the trial would bring to light any deal between Paulson and Goldman that ultimately may have made it a profitable venture for the investment bank.

Whether or not that was the case, the extreme moral hazards that accompany extreme sums and limited personal risk are at play.  It is a matter of degree.

Was Goldman’s role in this deal ultimately that of a book-keeper set to make money whether its investment failed or not?  It gets back to the question of disclosure and material information.  On any given day, a banker may advise one investor to sell and another to buy, content simply with the fees both transactions will earn for them.

This is the nature of this part of the game at all levels.  Goldman will avoid SEC sanction, and its reputation on Main Street as the bank that outsmarted the housing meltdown will be tarnished.  At least everyone can feel good that their disdain is not just reserved for the little guy; it’s for the big guys, too.

The tape recorder, its wheels spinning in nefarious machination, is a brilliant and important symbol in the film.  Once set in motion, the wheels turn and govern the acts that will follow and cannot stop until the act is brought to conclusion.  While the recorder is a tool of Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi), it serves to link him with Bree by way of her psychotherapy sessions.  The startling frankness with which she speaks and the direct camera work makes these scenes appear as if pulled from a documentary.  The camera documents Bree; the recorder documents Cable.

Ebert is probably correct in questioning the effectiveness of the film as a thriller, however the visceral impact of Klute would be far less if it were entirely focused on character study.  Foreshadowing and premonition, conveyed so effectively here, raise the bar in this standout of 1970s cinema.

Certainly the snappy interface and rows of colorful album art icons are enticements to skip to a different recording.  This is why I sometimes prefer to use the Front Row interface when listening–so the temptation isn’t there–or turn off the monitor altogether so that it isn’t a distraction.  There are ways to deal with the problems that iTunes poses to serious listening.

Does this mean there is still a place for the CD player? Not for me.  The advantages of using rewritable memory to store media are too great to leave any room for a CD player.  But there is a certain level of committment to a recording that comes from physically handling its media any time one wishes to access it.  This is entirely absent from computer music (meaning digitally stored recording on rewritable memory) and needs to be an element of future technology.  Cover flow, though I don’t use it, is a step in this direction.

Is it simply nostaglia that makes me believe this? Not at all.  Physical media matter. Take Amazon’s Kindle:  it is not a book.  It simulates some aspects of a book but eliminates nearly all of a book’s sensory aspects.  The reverence and expectation with which one may open a book, or even a CD jewel case, has become part of the experience of dealing with encapsulated art.  This cannot simply go away without diminishing the significance of the data (and art) they contain at some level.

What about newsprint? I do not have the same feelings about newsprint.  Ephemera were created to be ephemera, and digital screens suit them fine, probably better than paper ever did.  These feelings say nothing about the art and craft that make good journalism.  For this I have a high reverence.

Back to recorded music.  For recorded music to remain an art and not decline to a commodity, the physical element of handling a container for a recording must persist. No, iPods do not count.  It must be something unique to each recording.  Album art is also insufficient.  There must be a physical connection to the act of being ready to listen. So think before you double click; let’s wait and see what virtual reality brings.

Boswell’s father ultimately succeeded in having his son follow a career in law, a field in which Boswell never obtained professional success to match his father.  What makes the London Journal fascinating, more so than its brilliant style, is its honesty in documenting the feelings of self-questioning that are a part of becoming an adult.  His weaknesses and depression are also documented in its pages, giving the very real impression that the formative experiences of his youth are preserved for all to witness.

That Boswell’s life is still a vivid thing for us to appreciate is the result of the singular application of his talents to that purpose.  As a person of significant shortcomings and weaknesses, he expressed and brought forth through his writing his best qualities and made great literature, even though this did not bring him professional success.  Boswell finding his calling in writing is a tremendous inspiration.  He lived a great life because he chose to make it great, and he will forever give the gift of letting us appreciate it.