Inflection Points

(WSJ graphic)

After interviewing politicians of all stripes, WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan says that the old order has collapsed: [bold added]

the great story of the past dozen years or so has been the collapse of the postwar international order that created systems and ways of operating whose dynamics and assumptions were clear, predictable, and kept an enduring peace. You can say the fall began when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2022. Take your pick, it’s over.

I saw a broad and growing sense in Washington that American domestic politics, or at least that part of its politics that comes from Washington, is at a similar inflection point. That the second rise of Donald Trump is a total break with the past—that stable order, healthy expectations, the honoring of a certain old moderation, and strict adherence to form and the law aren’t being “traduced”; they are ending. That something new has begun. People aren’t sure they’re right about this and no one has a name for the big break, but they know we have entered something different—something more emotional, more tribal and visceral.

Your humble retired blogger has had five employers--all private sector--in his career. All had layoffs and reorganizations. My first experience was in 1980, and, although I was the deliverer, not the recipient of bad news, as a 27-year-old manager it was an upsetting experience; they didn't teach about this in business school.

What "stable order", Peggy? The American majority who never worked in the Federal Government have watched for over one generation as no one seemingly was ever fired for laziness or incompetence. Government employees just put in their time and received a guaranteed pension and medical benefits that exceeded anything most normal people ever got.

So the Trump Administration is firing people? Maybe some don't deserve that fate, which by the way I also thought back in the 1980 layoff that I experienced. Welcome to the real world, guys.

It's Over

Sam Wo after hours (Stephen Lam/Chron)

Last month we lamented the imminent demise of San Francisco's Sam Wo restaurant. Alas, there was no white knight:

After 117 years (with a three-year pause during its relocation to 713 Clay Street), the Chinatown institution served its last barbecue pork noodle roll on Sunday...It feels both poignant and fitting that Sam Wo shut its doors just days before the Lunar New Year.

Sam Wo's closure is due to two commonplace factors: changing tastes and the inability of a family operation to find anyone in the next generation(s) with the desire and ability to run the business. The latter was the missing ingredient, because there appeared to be enough sentiment from Chinese-American fans, near and afar, to provide the capital to keep it going.

Sam Wo had a good run, but it's finally over.

Gung Hee Fat Choy

Cute, with big eyes and a smile

Happy New Year! It is the Year of the Snake, which is a symbol of wisdom, intuition, transformation, cunning and stealth. Snakes are also linked to wealth, good luck, and prosperity.

The lunar New Year is the most celebrated holiday in Asia, yet the snake is a difficult animal to make appealing.

It’s the biggest holiday on the calendar, and a time to ring up big sales.

But it’s tough to build a marketing campaign around a coldblooded, sometimes venomous creature with no arms or legs...

The years of the Dog, Sheep and Rabbit offer huggability. The pig has Peppa Pig to lend it cuteness and star power. Even the rat can bask in the reflected glory of Mickey Mouse. Cows have eyelashes.

For designers, the only options are extreme: Present the snake as a different, cuter animal dressed up in a snake outfit. Or go all the way and give the snakes arms, legs or ears. Lose the forked tongue. And definitely tone down the scaliness.

One aspect of the lunar New Year that never seems to go out of style, regardless of one's feelings toward the zodiacal animal, is the receiving of money-filled red envelopes (Cantonese: lai see; Mandarin: hong bao). Now that our elder status has put us on the giving end of the red-paper custom, I have a partial answer to that age-old question: can money buy affection? The answer is yes, if one is content with a superficial, short-lived expression of the same.

Gung Hee Fat Choy!

The New Asceticism

(Washington Post graphic)

Asceticism is not new, dating back at least to the ancient Greeks. Asian religions have practiced it for centuries, and many Christians and Jews in the Bible led ascetic lives.

A less extreme version with no religious overtones, "no buy 2025," has sprung up this year.

The “no buy 2025” trend encourages people to purchase as little new stuff as possible. Some people make lists of specific items they won’t purchase, while others vow not to buy any nonessentials.

While it’s occurring on social media, it has very real-life reasons for catching fire. There have been two years of higher prices and rising levels of debt for households. There was also a shorter holiday season that felt rushed, where many Americans on the lower income end cut back aggressively.

Instead of needing to have the latest and greatest viral products, people are finding it’s better to focus on what they already own...

An idea like no-buy has trended before on TikTok (last year, 20% of Americans tried the “no-spend” challenge, says fintech company Chime). Google searches for “no buy challenge” are up 40% year-over-year, while “no spend challenge” searches have hit an all-time high, Google says...

People also are adhering to “project pan,” a similar trend to no-buy that spurs people to finish all their skin care, makeup or body-care products before buying replacements. Some are even combining no-buy with project pan.

Elysia Berman, a 35-year-old who works in the beauty industry in New York, had a credit-card and loan balance of almost $49,000 from feeling pressure to dress a certain way for work. Last year, she decided to focus on lowering her debt.

Berman has used up almost 100 makeup products she’d purchased and received over the years. Now she plans to do the same with skin care products. Her no-buy list includes clothes, beauty products, perfume, jewelry, home decor and books, and she plans to cut down on takeout orders and make it to her Pilates classes to avoid cancellation fees.

“It really forced me to re-evaluate my habits,” Berman says. Since she started last year, she’s paid off $35,000 of her debt and will be done paying it off by April.

Although macroeconomists believe that high consumer spending is a sign of a strong economy, your humble blogger applauds the effort of many individuals to keep their credit cards in their wallets.

There are few actions that are better for one's well-being than paying down debt and/or adding to savings. It's a slow path to happiness but, speaking from personal experience, is one well worth taking,

Even the Nvidia Tree Doesn't Grow to the Sky

On November 30, 2022 OpenAI's ChatGPT provided to the general public an inkling of what Artificial Intelligence can do, and Nvidia stock. then $16.91, has never looked back. NVDA is the clear-cut leader in making the fastest chips that power AI models, and the largest hyper-scalers like Microsoft and Google regularly order tens of $billions of Nvidia's most advanced chips every year.

One week ago China's DeepSeek released two products, DeepSeek-R1-Zero and DeepSeek R1 (aka "Reasoner"), that showed that it is possible to produce AI that is nearly equal in performance to the most advanced models with lesser chips. The stock market reckoning occurred earlier today.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.1%, driven by a 16.9% dive in Nvidia shares. Nvidia dominates the market in advanced AI chips. Its stock had surged more than 10-fold since early 2023—achieving a more than $3.3 trillion market valuation until Monday—as tech giants announced hefty outlays on AI.

Enter DeepSeek, which last week released a new R1 model that claims to be as advanced as OpenAI’s on math, code and reasoning tasks. Tech gurus who inspected the model agreed. One economist asked R1 how much Donald Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs will affect Canada’s GDP, and it spit back an answer close to that of a major bank’s estimate in 12 seconds. Along with the detailed steps R1 used to get to the answer.

More startling, DeepSeek required far fewer chips to train than other advanced AI models and thus cost only an estimated $5.6 million to develop. Other advanced models cost in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called it “AI’s Sputnik moment,” and he may be right.

DeepSeek is challenging assumptions about the computing power and spending needed for AI advances. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank last week made headlines when they announced a joint venture, Stargate, to invest up to $500 billion in building out AI infrastructure. Microsoft plans to spend $80 billion on AI data centers this year.

If DeepSeek's numbers can be believed, its R1 costs less than one percent (1%) of other models. Even if this was an exaggeration, the cost differential is so vast that Nvidia's valuation fell $589 billion today.

Chips have progressed so rapidly that the industry grew lazy. Why program efficiently when you can "brute force" solutions through advancing hardware? DeepSeek proved that paying attention to software practices can be enormously productive.

Game on!

The Beam in her Eye

Mariann Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC, has attracted controversy over her sermon at the national prayer service last Tuesday.

As homilies go, your humble blogger found it to be well within mainstream Episcopal thought. She called for unity and its "foundations": dignity, honesty/truth, and humility. She had completed her sermon on Monday but felt that she had to add something more:

"I found myself thinking, there’s a fourth thing we need for unity in this country — we need mercy," she told RNS in an interview on Wednesday. "We need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy. And after listening to the president on Monday, I thought, I wasn’t going to just speak of it in general terms."

The result was a sermon, delivered from the cathedral’s pulpit on Tuesday morning as President Trump and Vice President JD Vance sat quietly just a few feet away, that pleaded with the president to have "mercy" on people who stand to be disproportionately impacted by his administration’s policies — namely, LGBTQ people and immigrant families.

"In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now," Budde said. "There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives."

She also made a plea for immigrants and refugees, a reference to Trump’s promise to enact sweeping deportations and his executive order stopping almost all refugees from entering the country starting Jan. 27. The majority of immigrants, Budde said, are not criminals, but "people who pay taxes, and are good neighbors."

I have two problems with the final section of Bishop Budde's sermon:

1) in a call for "mercy" she is really asking the President not to enforce the law. Perhaps she had become so accustomed to the Biden Administration's selective approach to enforcement (open borders for favored groups, lawfare against Republicans) that she thought that President Trump could do the same. The President said that he would not politicize the administration of Justice, and until he demonstrates otherwise should be given the benefit of the doubt. The right place to change minds is Congress, and the Bishop should have faith in the strength of her arguments to change the hearts of the nation's lawmakers.

2) President Trump's opponents almost all think that he is an emotional, impulsive narcissist. If Bishop Budde really believed that of the President, the wrong way to influence such a man is to berate him in public. The more effective method to get help for "transgender children" and immigrants who lack "proper documentation" is to show respect to the President in public, then approach him quietly for assistance after the prayer service. It's hard to believe that the Bishop would rather show off her antipathy to Donald Trump (on display in June, 2020) than help the people who need it. I hope I'm wrong about her motivation.

After the break is the text of Bishop Budde's sermon from the Guardian.

Buying Into the Vision

SpaceX valuation: it's a puzzlement (Nabaum/WSJ)

Ever since SpaceX demonstrated proof of its concept of reusable rockets, your humble blogger hss yearned for a piece of the action. However, SpaceX is a private company, and investment has been limited to a few private investors...until now. Through the magic of financial engineering and developments in capital markets it is possible to have a (small) ownership interest in Elon Musk's spacefaring company.

On Dec. 3, a little fund called the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (ticker: XOVR) announced it had made privately held SpaceX its top holding. Like many outside investors, the ETF bought SpaceX through a special-purpose vehicle. An SPV is a private fund created to hold a specific asset. The fund paid $7.5 million, the equivalent of $135 per SpaceX share, says Joel Shulman, ERShares’ founder and chief investment officer.

On Dec. 12, XOVR publicized an additional $10 million purchase, raising its stake in the SpaceX SPV to 12% of the fund’s total assets. It paid an “implied” $185 per share on Dec. 11, says Shulman.

“Very fortuitously,” he says, SpaceX offered shares to private investors at $185 apiece at almost the same time, valuing the entire company at around $350 billion. XOVR then marked up its SpaceX position to $185, an instantaneous gain of 37%.

Even if the $350 billion valuation of SpaceX can be justified, the limited availability of shares through this arrangement ensures that much of the gains will go the structurers, not the ETF investors.

I'll wait for the public offering,

Property Crime: the Zeitgeist is Changing

There have been two "home invasion" robberies in Foster City in the past five years. Before 2019 your humble blogger remembers that there was another one, the victims being an Asian family. Asians are reputed to keep above-average amounts of cash, jewelry, gold and other valuables in their homes.

When home invasions were first reported decades ago, both perpetrators and victims were of Asian descent, especially since the youthful criminal gangs knew which houses to hit. The knowledge that Asian homes are ripe targets has spread to crime rings of other ethnicities.

Some of the stash recovered (SJ police/Mercury News)

Headline: San Jose--Police arrest three suspects who allegedly stole $1 million in jewelry, cash from Asian families in South Bay.[bold added]

Authorities on Wednesday announced a joint law-enforcement operation that netted the arrests of three suspects who together allegedly stole about $1 million worth of jewelry, designer purses and cash by targeting Asian families living in the South Bay.

The three men struck homes in San Jose, Cupertino, Saratoga, Campbell and Mountain View starting in June 2024, stealing at least 700 items across nearly 80 separate burglaries, San Jose police Chief Paul Joseph said at a news conference. Officials expect the number of robberies associated with this burglary ring to increase as they connect unsolved cases to the suspects...

The three suspects were identified as 25-year-old Alberto Ibarra Vallejo, 28-year-old Gonzalo Valencia Ramos and 46-year-old Jaime Martinez Arroyo. They were arrested Jan. 16 by SJPD officers with the assistance of the Stockton Police SWAT Team, Joseph said; the suspects are residents of Stockton, Hayward and French Camp, he added.

In the arrest operation, authorities uncovered evidence, including hundreds of jewelry pieces, foreign currency, family heirlooms, luxury watches and purses, Joseph said. They also found five firearms, Joseph said, adding that at least three were confirmed to have been stolen...

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said that his office is pursuing the “most serious criminal charges” for the three suspects, adding that they are already facing 72 felony counts of burglary. Rosen dropped the thick complaint packet on the podium with a thud to illustrate “the weight and the seriousness of the crimes that these individuals committed,” he said.

Authorities also said they will seek hate crime enhancements for the suspects’ sentencing because they targeted AAPI communities...

Jail records showed all three suspects in custody Thursday on a no-bail status, with a court date set for Feb. 3.

The suspects are charged with 72 felony counts and have been held without bail. They may also be charged with a hate crime because the victims are Asian while they are not.

Note that there have been no reports of injuries, yet the suspects have had the book (so heavy that it lands with a "thud"!) thrown at them for property crimes. The woke doctrine that property is unimportant appears to be repudiated. I wonder what (or who) has changed the zeitgeist?

Yakking It Up

Not having to don a coat and tie for work--as your humble blogger did for most of his life--does not necessarily mean that men can cut their clothing budget. A nice cotton shirt will no longer do.

American Trench's yak shirt ($249)

A well-turned-out guy must wear a "luxe material", for example a shirt that contains 10% yak wool.

While [Jacob] Hurwitz believes the 10% of yak wool definitely contributes to his bestselling shirt’s softness, he hastens to add that the fabric, otherwise “high-grade” cotton, has been scrupulously “brushed” to amp up that tough-yet-tender effect. As he explained, the fabric goes through a “comber, which has little picks that pull fibers out and create that fuzzy texture.”

And, yes, Hurwitz and his team considered the yak fabric’s potential to offer his customers talking points and even bragging rights. “The yak factor really helped drive the sales,” he said, noting that the shirt, new for American Trench this past fall, “crushed” for the brand, selling better than any previous shirting in its lineup. The yak, he stressed, “added something exotic. It would be a lot less interesting to go around saying ‘I have a really soft cotton shirt.’”

We should not be overly critical of this latest trend in men's fashion. In a blind touch-and-feel test, the $249 10% yak shirt beat out a $998 64%-cashmere button-down from Todd Snyder. Cheaper and better, that's what capitalism is all about.

Trump Effect is Alive in California, Too

There is no one definition of the Trump effect, but everyone pretty much knows what it means: the changes that people and organizations unilaterally make in anticipation--and now the reality--of Donald Trump becoming President in 2025.

Despite being the leading state of the new Trump resistance, even California is abandoning battles that it can't win. [bold added]

(Pnoto by Eric Gay/AP)

The California Air Resources Board announced last week that it’s continuing to improve the state’s air quality and reduce harmful pollutants with other programs but has withdrawn four requests it had submitted to the EPA, including one to phase out sales of new diesel-powered semitrailers and buses by 2036 in California.

...The board was anticipating pushback from the Trump administration for federal approval for stricter emissions regulations around semitrailers and locomotives. It also withdrew a rule that would have prevented locomotive engines older than 23 years from operating starting in 2030 while promoting zero-emissions technology to transport freight.

Because California is by far the most populous and wealthiest (measured by GDP) State in the Union, it can "export" its Progressive values by forcing businesses to comply with its requirements. For example, by forcing California diesel-truck operators to convert to all-electric, these operators are very likely to use these EV's in other states, because it's too expensive to maintain and operate two different kinds of equipment.

A Biden EPA would have agreed with the export of green values beyond California's borders, and a Trump EPA would not. California backed off without, as the saying goes, any shots being fired. There's a new sheriff in town.

Good Things in Small Packages

Your humble boomer-blogger is embarrassed that his first three guesses about the subject of this article were wrong:

Small joints have become big business in California

Is the piece about 1) restaurants/bars; 2) the place where bones of the body meet; 3) prison? Nope, it's marijuana. [bold added]

Big men don't need big joints (SFGate)

Small joints have become big business in California. The state’s biggest pot brands have followed suit, recognizing the reality that many customers don’t actually want that much weed in one session. Micro joints “have exploded” in popularity in the last few years according to Eli Melrod, the CEO and co-founder of the dispensary chain Solful. He said his company is now working on releasing its own version of the bite-sized blunts under the house brand.

Micro joint fans say their benefits are plentiful. The smaller portion allows them to easily be finished in one sitting, as opposed to a larger joint that might require you to put it out and carry around a smelly half-smoked joint in your pocket. Modern pot is extremely potent, so many cannabis users simply don’t want to smoke a full gram joint...

[Chad] Heschong said the only small joint he had previously seen was a half gram, but he took the concept even further by releasing a joint that’s just 0.25 gram. Selfies sells the joints in two-packs, 12-packs and even 28-packs, which he said have become very popular for weddings and other parties where people want to share cannabis with a big group.

At our wedding in the last century we just served alcohol and food. Then, as now. I lacked imagination.

The Inauguration: A Few Impressions

I haven't ever viewed an inauguration live until today, but the superior audio and video quality from an indoor controlled environment promised to make the event, whatever the content, watchable. It also helped the visuals that the attendees did not need to wear heavy winter gear inside the Capitol rotunda.

The singing by tenor Christopher Macchio and choirs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the United States Marine Band was in tune, vibrant, and clear, thanks to the indoor acoustics. The most notable number was a short first-verse-only a cappella rendition of "America the Beautiful" by Carrie Underwood, who invited the audience to participate after technical problems disabled the pre-recorded accompaniment.

It took a few seconds for Ms. Underwood to settle in, but she finished strong. Your humble blogger was moved as the camera panned over the attendees, who, regardless of their politics, knew the words to America's unofficial anthem.



As for the Inaugural speech itself, I found it disappointing. I had hoped for a soaring description of the transcendent ideals that animate the new President, with details to be filled in later at the State of the Union address. Instead, we had a mini State of the Union that went into some of the moves he will make immediately.

I understand why he chose to make the speech he did. He's a "common sense" businessman who disdains lofty rhetoric for specific actions. Moreover, he makes himself accountable, something a mere mouthing of a "more equity" platitude doesn't do. Maybe that's what we need now. although I do yearn for a little John F Kennedy:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage...

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty...

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

Who Gets the Credit?

The lady minister preached about one of Jesus' most well-known miracles, the conversion of water to wine:

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."

His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.---John 2:1-11

The lady minister said that Jesus did not perform this and other miracles to "dazzle" or prove that Jesus is the Son of God but "to show forth the light and the love of God."

We are now in that period in late January when football players who perform spectacularly sometimes give thanks to God or Jesus first, then talk about the details of the game. Most viewers initially listen through secular filters and think that real credit should be given to thousands of hours of practice and coaching, but a game "hero" has traditionally earned the right to say what he really feels, as long as he's not too preachy. The interview quickly moves on to football.

If one thinks about how to apply today's Gospel, the teaching is not really about the football player's talent, the game's outcome, the players and coaches who contributed, or even his gratitude to God for the above, although that was undoubtedly his intent.

The real story is about how God's glory is revealed in the events that have just occurred, a philosophical attitude that is often derided in fiction ("The surgeons saved his life." It's a miracle! Thank the Lord!)

Global Warming: It's Now About Time

(Planet Observer/Getty/Chronicle)

Anthropogenic global warming, insist its believers, is nearly all-powerful in its ability to influence nature, but the following assertion sounds extreme:

Climate change is literally impacting time itself

The Earth’s spinning, however, has recently begun to speed up and the length of the day has started getting shorter, for reasons not fully understood. In fact, research by a geophysicist in California finds that it’s only a matter of years before an extra second will need to be subtracted from universal time, rather than added to it.

This possibility is raising concern because many computers, which have been programmed to handle an additional second, aren’t designed to lose a second, threatening to create glitches in systems governing aviation, financial markets, healthcare and more. It’s reminiscent of Y2K, when widespread bugs were feared when the calendar flipped to 2000.

The research, published last year in the science journal Nature, also finds that such a negative leap second and its potential problems are being delayed, perhaps surprisingly, by climate change. Ice that is melting around the Earth’s poles is sending water – and mass – toward the equator and consequently slowing the planet’s rotation, counteracting the faster spin.

“A second doesn’t sound like much,” said Duncan Agnew, author of the recent research and a geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a communication to the Chronicle. But, as he explained online: “In today's interconnected world, getting the time wrong could lead to huge problems.”

Agnew’s head-scratching projections are based on the complex and still largely unexplained physics of Earth’s rotation.

As we all know, the planet takes about 24 hours to fully spin around. But because of several factors, this timing varies ever so slightly. It’s also hard to predict. The variation was basically irrelevant until the age of computers, when milliseconds became make or break for things like stock trades and rocket launches.

Earth’s rotation, for thousands of years, has mostly slowed, the biggest driver being the changing tides that come with the gravitational tug of the moon. Currents in the planet’s outer core, which scientists are still trying to figure out, also have slowed the spin. But the core can speed up the spin, too, which may be what’s been happening recently. Additional leap seconds have become a lot less frequent the past two decades.

Since about 1990, Agnew says, the warming climate has become an additional factor, working to slow Earth’s rotation and increase the length of the day. He likens the effect of melting polar ice and the spreading meltwater on the planet’s spin to the inertia of a spinning skater: When the skater spins with her hands over her head, she rotates faster than when she extends her arms to the sides.

“Global warming has proceeded to the point that its effects are showing up in how fast the whole Earth rotates,” Agnew said. “This change in rotation has never been seen before, and this re-emphasizes that we are living in a time when unprecedented changes are happening.”

By extrapolating trends for Earth’s core and other factors affecting rotation, Agnew finds that without the melting ice, a leap second would need to be subtracted from universal time as soon as next year to account for the faster spinning planet. Now, a second won’t have to be removed until 2029, he says.

To summarize: the earth's rotation has slowed over millennia because of the moon's gravitational pull; however, the rotation has recently sped up due to (poorly understood) actions by the earth's core. Now melting ice caps are slowing the spin again. Changes in the earth's rotation add or subtract "leap"-seconds, lengthening or shortening the 24-hour day, respectively.

Even if we accept that ice sheets are melting, a strong faith in the accuracy of computer models is required to believe that the effect on the oceans will slow earth's rotation. Nevertheless, it would not be surprising if the alarmists have taken the hypothesis as proven, and that they're already trying to find a scientist who will claim that slowing earth's rotation by a second every few years is a bad thing.

The Scales Fell From Her Eyes

Ignoring decades of contrary experience, your humble blogger speculated last week that the LA fires "may well be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of Progressive dominance in government." Notable commentators across the political spectrum are coming around to that view.

(WSJ graphic)

Inside-the-beltway Republican and Trump-hater Peggy Noonan ("I don’t like the SOB, I think him a bad man") remembers when her family lost everything in a New Jersey fire in 1969:

you never get over a fire. It’s serious, it’s sobering. Losing what you have changes you, the precariousness and impermanence of things enters you in a new way.

And it will change California.

If your first thoughts during a catastrophe are political then maybe something in you has gotten too tight and reflexive, but if your thoughts don’t come to include the political then maybe something in you has gotten too unreflective and rote. All disasters have political reverberations. I suspect for California this will in a general way involve a new shift, a reorientation toward reality.

Government, on whatever level, exists first to keep citizens and their property safe. That’s the bottom line: keeping people and what they have in one piece. Safe from fire and from crime, safe within a criminal-justice system that works and protects people. People need an electrical grid that works, a clean water system, sufficient police. It is hard to do these primary and essential things, hard to see to them every day and improve them wherever possible. It takes concentration and focus.

In California as elsewhere ideology has allowed—and encouraged—unrealism about the essential responsibilities of government. It encourages a dispersal of forces and attention. But even though ideology and philosophy are a part of the California story, I want to focus on the practical. California’s political and governing classes have for decades been preoccupied not enough by the primary responsibilities of government and too much by unquantifiable secondary and tertiary issues—world climate change, notions of equity.

If even Peggy Noonan says that its governing classes have been suffused with "unrealism," then you know California is ripe for change.

Blue Skies Over Union Square

Just twelve months ago JPMorgan Chase CEO and Democratic Party supporter Jamie Dimon was highly critical of San Francisco and its future: [bold added]

“San Francisco is in far worse shape than New York,” Dimon said in an interview Thursday on Fox Business.

“I think every city, like every country, should be thinking about what is it that makes an attractive city, you know, its parks, its art, but it’s definitely safety. It’s jobs, it’s job creation, it’s the ability to have affordable housing,” Dimon said. “Any city who doesn’t do a good job, it will lose its population — just tax more and more, it doesn’t work.”

560 Mission (Chron photo)

What a difference a year makes: JPMorgan to sign new lease expanding its presence in downtown S.F. office tower

JP Morgan will renew its lease for its longtime offices at 560 Mission St., committing to 280,000 square feet of office space.

The new term of the lease will be for five years in the 31-story office tower known as the JPMorgan Building. Real estate firm JLL represented JPMorgan in the deal. JPMorgan declined to comment on Thursday.

Previous reports show that JPMorgan occupied about 220,000 square feet in the tower previously, and its lease renewal represents a significant expansion in the building. Real estate market insiders say that JP Morgan has been working to consolidate some of First Republic Bank’s former employees into its 560 Mission office.

JP Morgan's new leases are just a fraction of the floorspace that First Republic Bank cancelled in 2024 when the latter was absorbed by JPM. Nevertheless, with the installation of billionaire businessman Daniel Lurie as its Mayor San Francisco feels like it has turned the corner. Restaurant and bar owners are optimistic.

Like Union Square used to be(Instagram)

“[The JPMorgan Healthcare Conference is] one of the best conventions of the year, and it affects us from the bottom up,” said John Konstin Jr., co-owner of John’s Grill at 63 Ellis St., which on Wednesday saw a crowd of conference badge-wearing patrons line up outside its doors ahead of its 11:45 a.m. opening. Konstin said that he brought former staff members back to work at the restaurant in preparation of the big week, which he expects will bring as many as 1,000 patrons to John’s Grill over the next three days.

“We are busy, lunch to dinner, nonstop during the conference,” he said, adding that the last six months of 2024 were “out of this world for us.”

“Business has been booming, and going into January with JPMorgan, I hope that continues,” he said...

“First and foremost, we have blue skies, that puts everyone in a good mood. But what I think is the important thing about today and this conference is what you see here (in Union Square): People sitting down and collaborating outside of the pressures that we normally deal with from our offices and behind our computers,” said Ali Tehrani, a partner at Amplitude VC, a venture firm in Canada. “This conference is really about breaking down silos, and what happens outside of the conference or in between sessions is critically important. You get to stress-test your ideas and concepts with another collaborator, versus doing it yourself.”

Lockdown Mode

After reading about it, I gave Lockdown Mode a try:

Lockdown Mode disables or restricts such commonly used tools and activities as photo sharing, payment applications and use of unsecured local networks—all features that attackers often exploit to install spyware through phishing attempts and malicious downloads.

Unsolicited FaceTime calls and messages from unknown contacts are blocked. Standard features of modern messaging, like preview links and automatic media downloads, also are disabled. Links to images or files appear as plain text URLs without previews or direct opening options. Popular features like Apple Pay become limited, too. When someone sends money through Apple Cash, recipients see only a generic notification rather than specific payment details. Payment integrations also become more limited in third-party apps.

Users can still approve access to trusted websites and applications for more flexibility. But in return for beefed up security, Lockdown Mode essentially transforms iPhones, iPads and Macs into stripped-down versions of themselves.

Accessing the feature on the iPhone is easy. Go to Settings>Privacy and Security>Lockdown Mode, then press a series of buttons to restart the phone.

The only drawbacks seem to be that there now are constant reminders to set Lockdown mode on my other Apple devices (iPad, Mac) and that the phone works more slowly.

Trading speed for more security is worthwhile for this non-power user, and I will be using Lockdown Mode when I go out of town.

Mange: the Last Straw

In California citizens with a license can hunt coyotes. However, the general rule is limited because firearms, including archery equipment, cannot be discharged within 150 yards of occupied structures. An exception to the exception is that an owner or his agent may hunt coyotes on the owner's property.

Coyote hunting may be further restricted by local ordinances. San Francisco, not surprisingly, bans coyote hunting and their trapping and relocating. Coyotes have been steadily encroaching on humans, and it would not be surprising if people who are worried about attacks on pets and children start pushing back.

Coyote with mange (Presidio Trust/Chronicle)

There's another reason to stay away from canis latrans:

Wildlife officials in San Francisco are warning that a rise in sarcoptic mange among local coyotes could pose a threat to domestic pets.

The highly contagious skin condition, caused by microscopic mites, can easily spread from coyotes to dogs, the Presidio Trust said in an advisory to residents. While rare, the disease could also affect humans.

Wildlife experts are advising pet owners to leash dogs and keep them away from wild animals and to report any sick or injured coyotes to authorities.

Your humble blogger senses that the pro-wildlife anti-urban branch of wokeness has peaked. The Santa Cruz wharf collapsed because repairs were not permitted during the nesting season of unendangered seagulls. Protection of the endangered delta smelt has been blamed by President-elect Trump for Los Angeles not having the water needed to fight fires. With their human advocates soon to be in retreat, wild coyotes' days appear to be numbered.

After the Fall

House rich, cash poor: the 3 cities with the longest
tenured home ownership have astronomic house prices.

We are in that fortunate group of Bay Area homeowners who bought their homes in the late 20th century. We stretched to make the purchase in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in 2025 our houses could well have a market value of $2 million or more. As I've heard many middle-class homeowners marvel, "I couldn't afford to buy my house today."

Some Pacific Palisades homeowners had similar good fortune but have seen it all disappear this past week:

The fires also wiped out the homes of Californians in the middle class who bought into affluent neighborhoods decades ago, when the properties were still within reach for teachers, plumbers, and nurses. After years of rising home values, many of them have the bulk of their wealth tied up in homes that are now ash...

Now, those middle-class homeowners face a crushing housing crunch. Los Angeles was already experiencing an acute shortage of homes. Its real-estate prices are more than double the national level. In the wake of the fire, thousands of people desperate for temporary housing are flooding a cutthroat rental market, where bidding wars are breaking out for leases. Some are considering leaving for good.

Then there is perhaps the most daunting prospect of all for those who have lost their homes: battling with their insurance companies to rebuild...

For those who lost their homes, much of the value of their properties is in the land they still own, but rebuilding on it will be a long and expensive process. It’s unclear how many homeowners in these areas lack insurance or are underinsured. A number of leading insurers have stopped selling new home-insurance policies in the state. State Farm said last year it would not renew 69% of its property policies in the Pacific Palisades.

From an objective standpoint these fire victims are not worse off than the poorest members of our society. However, their precipitous fall is frightening to those of us who identify with them. There but for the grace of God go I.

Judge Not

(Peanuts from Dominican Friars)

There is a disturbing trend of judging whether victims of natural disasters are worthy of receiving aid depending on their political leanings. There was documented evidence of discrimination against Hurricane Helene sufferers who were Trump supporters, and the internet is rife with worry that the incoming Trump Administration will withhold aid to fire zones that are Democratic strongholds.

Apart from the immorality of dispensing aid based on an individual's politics, it bears reminding that disaster victims, like the vast majority of Americans, pay the taxes that fund these government services. They are entitled to receive these services regardless of their political speech.

Finally, we should always remember that not everyone in an area leans in the same political direction. By broadly discriminating against the people who live in a locale because of their politics, you will inevitably hurt the minority who are on "your" side.

that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.-----Matthew 5:45

Up in Smoke

LA Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom tour the ruins of the
Palisades business district (Photo by Thayer/TNS/Chron)

Chronicle "reporter" Kurtis Alexander says we should go easy on criticisms of politicians for their responsibility for the LA fires:

If you were to scan social media for what was behind this week’s deadly Southern California wildfires, you might think leaders in Los Angeles and Sacramento went out of their way to push policies to invite disaster.

The mayor of Los Angeles cut the city’s fire department budget, one pervasive criticism goes. The fire department hired the wrong people, others say. The city didn’t fill the reservoirs that feed the fire hydrants, another asserts. The state didn’t send enough water from Northern California for the firefight, yet another criticism goes.

While the series of wind-driven fires that has blasted Los Angeles County certainly exposed government shortcomings, media experts are quick to note that many of the accusations circulating online are less about real problems and more about pushing an agenda. And some are flat-out wrong.

Should you care to read the rest of the editorialist's (not "reporter"'s) defense against accusations of poor water management (both LA and statewide), emphasizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion over merit, misplacing budget priorities, and why we shouldn't dismiss climate change so quickly, click on the link above.

Your humble blogger understands that people have been overly quick to seize onto these criticisms but also understands that the Progressive ideologues who have run California for a quarter-century are responsible for that portion of the disaster that cannot be laid at the feet of Mother Nature.

And that portion will be significant, no matter how hard the people in charge will try to deflect the blame.

[Note: the Mayor and Governor's tight-lipped expressions aren't typical of sadness or concern. Could it be because they both realize their political futures have gone up in smoke?]

SF Public Toilets: Reason for Optimism

April, 2024: The $200,000 toilet in Noe Valley (Chron)

San Francisco was understandably mocked when a public toilet was estimated to cost $1.7 million. After contractors donated time and materials and specifications were scaled back, the toilet was completed for $200,000.

Based on that experience, San Francisco has streamlined future toilets and "small" public works projects:

Now officials say they’re able to build one toilet in Bernal Heights’ Precita Park for $262,000 — a huge savings. Officials said the project timeline will also be significantly reduced, shrinking from roughly 17 months to just nine...

The savings at Precita Park stem from the use of a prefabricated design and legislation around new cooperative purchasing rules introduced by then-Mayor London Breed in April that allow the city to purchase goods directly from suppliers. [Rec and Park spokesperson Tamara] Aparton told the Chronicle those rules changes mean the department can make several projects currently in the works cheaper to build, such as the new outdoor gym at Kelloch and Velasco Mini Park in Visitacion Valley and a turf field replacement at Raymond Kimbell Playground in the Western Addition.

Aparton said the cost savings for Precita Park’s bathroom should be “very” replicable across other projects.

Normally I'd be highly skeptical of their cost projections, but San Francisco officials should get the benefit of the doubt from the favorable outcome of last year's Noe Valley toilet project.

The Fire This Time

Palisades neighborhood (Swope/AP/WSJ)

Measured on the basis of lives lost (85) and acreage burned (153,000) the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, CA is still the most destructive wildfire in California history. However, the ruination of Pacific Palisades, home to the rich and famous, is far more likely to change the future of California.

Pacific Palisades is known for its scenery, with views of the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a quiet, secluded atmosphere. The neighborhood sits between state parks and the ocean, offering residents easy access to hiking and the beach.

While it is populated with high-end homes and gated communities, there is also a small, walkable downtown with boutiques and cafes. Celebrities who have bought homes in the area include Reese Witherspoon, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garnerand Steven Spielberg...

The typical home value in Pacific Palisades is $3.4 million. Sixteen homes on the market are priced at $10 million or more in Pacific Palisades, according to Zillow. In neighboring Brentwood, 18 properties meet that threshold.

When the rich and famous encounter the California government's multi-year delays in granting rebuilding permits, that may well be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of Progressive dominance in government. Add to that the difficulties in finding homeowners' insurance and the incompetence in water management and wildfire prevention, the conflagration that engulfed Pacific Palisades may well start a metaphorical fire in the halls of Sacramento.

U.S. Master Tax Guide

I have ordered a copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide nearly every year. It's a handy one-volume guide to tax law; on the back cover publisher Wolters Kluwer calls the 944-page tome "the tax professional's quick reference."

Real tax professionals disdain the MTG. Their libraries contain the Internal Revenue Code, the Regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, and court cases. Combined with a research service or two, a full set of publications would cover an entire wall. All the information is available through online subscriptions, so an extra wall is no longer required.

As for me, I like riffling through pages to look up stuff, so I will continue to get a hard copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide. It reminds me of how it used to be in the old days, and yes, I am no longer a "real" tax professional.

High Electricity Rates: the Policies Californians Voted For

(Photo from CalMatters)

California's push toward clean energy has resulted in the second highest electricity rates (behind Hawaii) in the nation: [bold added]

“California’s electricity rates are among the highest in the country,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. “On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation.”

The increase in electricity bills has been nothing short of shocking, especially when compared with the overall inflation rate.

“Average residential electricity rates in California have grown faster than inflation in recent years, rising by about 47% over the four-year period from 2019 through 2023 compared to overall growth in prices of about 18%,” according to the report from the Legislative Analyst, a nonpartisan group that provides the state Legislature with advice and information.

The report blames:

— significant and increasing wildfire-related costs.

— the state’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction programs and policies.

— differences in utility operational structures and services territories.

These causes are the result of man-made policies, which means that California is getting in the way of its own green ambitions. High electricity prices discourage drivers from turning in their gas-powered cars, and homeowners from switching out their natural-gas furnaces, stoves, and water heaters. (For the record I'm not getting rid of my fossil-fueled cars and appliances unless they can't be fixed.)

They shouldn't be too upset because Californians are getting the policies they voted for.

The 12th Day of Christmas (Reprise)

Now that Congress has certified the election of Donald Trump, normalcy has begun to return to January 6th. Perhaps in a decade or so, the events of four years ago will have receded to history's dustbin, where they belong. Knowing that the events of that day will pass, I wrote this on January 6, 2021.

Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi (unfinished)

Brittanica: [bold added]

Epiphany, also called Feast of the Epiphany, Theophany, or Three Kings’ Day, (from Greek epiphaneia, “manifestation”), Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.

Epiphany is one of the three principal and oldest festival days of the Christian church (the other two are Easter and Christmas). Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other Western churches observe the feast on January 6, while some Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Epiphany on January 19, since their Christmas Eve falls on January 6.

A half-century ago churches held services on January 6th no matter what day of the week it was. It was on the Feast of the Epiphany, not Christmas, that the pageant was held when the kids dressed up as angels, kings, shepherds and, of course, Joseph and Mary.

I've played most of the parts, but never Joseph. Joseph was not a desirable role to us kids--everyone else had better costumes or appurtenances like a shepherd's crook. As we got older we began to understand Joseph's honorable decisions when he found that his virgin bride was pregnant.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ---Matthew 1:18-19

An angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary was bearing the Son of God, Joseph went ahead with his marriage to Mary, and the rest is history.

On a day when too many people have acted ignobly, give a thought to Joseph, without whom there probably wouldn't be any Christmas--or Epiphany--to celebrate.

Objects of Worship

(Lehman/SFGate)

Privately owned Mt. Shasta Ski Park has installed a 20-ft. statue of the Virgin Mary at its base:

Standing at about 6,600 feet on Shasta’s slope, the statue has become a focal point for discussions on the intersection of faith, culture and the natural landscape. While some view it as a meaningful tribute, others see it as an unwelcome addition to one of the region’s most revered mountains.

Opposition arose from the usual suspects: those with a beef against Christianity and those who view the culture as oppressive colonizers of Indian lands.

Ann from Chico, California, declared, “Keep religion out of skiing!!!! We ski to enjoy the beauty of nature — not to be preached at by religious NUTS.” Donny from Redding called the statue “an annoyance and waste of resources.”

Shawnee Kasanke, a critic of the statue who was raised near the mountain, told SFGATE the statue symbolizes a painful history. “These types of statues erected on sacred land represent the devastation caused by missionary colonizers and their disrespect for and attempted erasure of Native traditions, sacred spaces, and ways of life to many of us,” she said.

The statue could have been ugly and harder to defend, but by conventional standards it's beautiful. Pitted against the mountain, a statue is easy to ignore; to the critics I say go in peace to look at the thousands of trees, of which there are dozens of species.

(pinterest image)

Your humble blogger sees Mt. Shasta occasionally when driving to Oregon along Interstate 5. Yes, the mountain is an outstanding example of the magnificence of God's creation.

But it's hard to feel religious when one's first memory of the mountain's image was a drawing on a soda can.

No Congratulations are in Order

For decades boys' performance in school has lagged that of girls. Recent studies show that boys are catching up, but there's no joy in why that's so:

Girls have lost ground in reading, math and science at a troubling rate, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of student test scores across the country.

Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe. Boys now consistently outperform girls in math, after being roughly even or slightly ahead in the years before 2020. Girls still tend to perform better in reading, but their scores have dropped closer to boys.

The findings suggest that pandemic learning loss hit girls particularly hard in ways that haven’t been addressed by schools. The most recent test scores show that girls haven’t yet recovered. This comes following longstanding gains for girls and women in educational attainment.

Theories abound why girls seemed to suffer more during the COVID lockdown:

Shutting down schools might have hurt girls more because they tend to do better in school generally, said David Figlio, a professor of economics and education at the University of Rochester who has studied gender gaps in education. “Girls have a comparative advantage in school and you take schools away, they’ll suffer more,” he added.

Another hypothesis is that girls took on more household duties during the pandemic—including taking care of younger siblings—so were less able to focus on school.

Boys can catch up to girls by bettering themselves or because girls have gotten worse. When the reason is the latter, no congratulations are in order,

It Concentrates his Mind Wonderfully

Billionaire Ron Shaich founded Panera
Bread (Abramsom/Getty/WSJ)

If New Year's resolutions haven't been effective, try thinking of yourself on your deathbed. Ron Shaich refers to these envisionings as "premortems." [bold added]

It’s a habit that began as a response to the death of his parents in the 1990s. His mother was at peace with herself when she died, he says. But his father was “racked with regret and remorse” about decisions he made and the opportunities he missed. What he took away from their experiences was the last lesson that his parents would teach him—and the most profound of them all.

Don’t wait until the end to decide if you are proud of your life. Do it before it’s too late. Do it while you can still do something about it.

“I realized that the time to be having that review was not in the ninth inning with two outs,” he told me. “It was in the seventh inning, the fifth inning and third inning.”

Ron Shaich did not invent the term:

In business, the concept of the premortem was coined by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, and the late Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called it “a brilliant idea.” The goal is to identify all the potential sources of failure on a project to improve the chances of success—to imagine how and why things might go wrong instead of explaining after they have gone wrong. “So that the project can be improved,” as Klein once put it, “rather than autopsied.

A premortem can focus the mind better than composing yet another list of resolutions.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.--Samuel Johnson

California's High Home Prices in the 1970's

California home prices achieved separation
from the rest of the U.S. in the 1970's (psmag)

One aspect of Jimmy Carter's Presidency of which I was unaware:

Carter’s presidency was No. 1 for California home-price gains

During Carter’s four years in the Oval Office, California home prices jumped 90%, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. No presidential term since Carter’s has produced a larger California home-price surge.

High housing prices are not unequivocally good; they benefit sellers but hurt buyers, and with sizable numbers on both sides politicians should try to cater to both (e.g., lower taxes on capital gains, faster permitting).

In California during Jimmy Carter's term, the State government was a huge beneficiary of the runup in home prices. Property taxes were ad valorem, i.e. based on the market value of homes, and had increased dramatically. There were numerous widely accepted anecdotes (though extrapolation would be unreliable because sellers did not have to disclose their motivation) of fixed-income seniors who were forced to sell their homes due to property tax increases. State legislators made no move either to lower taxes or rebate surpluses. The stage was set for Proposition 13.

From the State Board of Equalization's 2018 California Property Tax - An Overview:

On June 6, 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a property tax limitation initiative. This amendment to California’s Constitution was the taxpayers’ collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and a growing state revenue surplus of nearly $5 billion. Proposition 13 rolled back most local real property, or real estate, assessments to 1975 market value levels, limited the property tax rate to 1 percent plus the rate necessary to fund local voter-approved bonded indebtedness, and limited future property tax increases.

The home-price increases during the term of President Carter are an interesting phenomenon but are historically important because they spawned a nationwide taxpayer revolt that still echoes in the politics of today.