I remember times in grammar school when we discussed time capsules. I remember thinking the idea of putting aside contemporary “artifacts” was clever, but I never became excited about them. I wish I could remember the years we engaged in the exercise of choosing the items; Maybe I was in the fifth grade (1989). I wish I could remember the items we chose, as I have no recollection of thinking about impactful social movements that year. (I do remember caring a lot about reading Where the Red Fern Grows with our teacher, Naomi Era.)
I wonder what artifacts would best describe 2020 to future fifth graders.
Protests
This past Friday was Juneteenth. I admit feeling a sense of guilt and embarrassment as I listened earlier this week to commentators reflecting on the number of American’s who might not be aware of this day in American history. Yea, I fell into that category. I invested some time into reading a bit about the day.
One video I watched attempted to connect the dots between the lack of inclusion of Juneteenth in certain history texts as one of many examples of institutionalized racism. Another example offered was the rationale for the Civil War presented in certain text books. I recall learning at East Hills Middle School, by way of a certain seventh grade teacher, that the Civil War was definitively not about slavery. This teacher encouraged us to view that slavery was simply one example of the much bigger issue of states’ rights. I also recall a subsequent instance, as a freshman at Notre Dame High School in Easton, Pennsylvania, when I responded with the “states’ rights” answer to “what was the primary issue leading to the American Civil War” and the surprised, and pleased, reaction on the teacher’s face. I remember him asking me where I learned that and where I went to eighth grade. He was pleased.
Over the past weeks, we have seen examples of police brutality and despicable treatment of fellow Americans; We have also seen examples of police marching with their fellow Americans in protest. Like most social issues, the simplicity of certain objectives, such as equality, equity, and justice for all, can become complicated when contemplating policy response. I found this analysis of how to handle statues in last week’s Economist. I thought the analysis was pretty reasonable:
Statues become flashpoints at times of social change because they honour the values, and reflect the hierarchies, of the times in which they were erected. What some in one era celebrate, others then and later often reject—hence the battles over statues of Confederate heroes in the southern United States, many of which were put up long after the civil war to defend white supremacy. Yet statues also provide a record of a country’s past, and the desire to respect and understand that history of commemoration argues against dismantling them. It is these conflicting urges that make this area so tricky.
It would be foolish to throw overboard all those figures who have in any way offended modern morality, just as it would be to preserve every bronze villain just because he’s ancient. Great figures should have a place in public spaces, even when their record is tarnished. As a rule, someone whose failings were subordinate to their claim to greatness should stay, whereas someone whose main contribution to history was baleful should go.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the June 20, 2020 print edition under the headline “Marble monsters”
Maybe the best contribution to a June 2020 time capsule would be the Twitter video below. It reflects the angst of this time, and also presents a basis for some optimism.
In New Jersey police have literally started marching with protesters.#BLACK_LIVES_MATTER
— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) May 31, 2020
pic.twitter.com/w6FJ3qowUG
Robin Hood and the gamification of day trading
Another appropriate, yet incredibly sad, contribution to a time capsule would be Alexander Kearns’ suicide note. More info can be found at this link. In summary, this young man, who took an interest in finance, apparently took his own life after being shocked at a loss he incurred. (One awful detail is that he may have simply misunderstood the actual loss he incurred…) He included the following question in his note, “How was a 20 year old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage?” Indeed. Some more details are included here:
“I thought everything was going fine,” says Bill Brewster, Kearns’ cousin-in-law and a research analyst at Chicago-based Sullimar Capital Group. His father said he was loving the markets and really enjoying investing, Brewster told Forbes, “and then on Friday night, we got this call from his mom, and he had died.”
Kearns apparently fell into despair late Thursday night after looking at his Robinhood account, which appeared to have $16,000 in it but also showed a cash balance of negative $730,165. In his final note, seen by Forbes, Kearns insisted that he never authorized margin trading and was shocked to find his small account could rack up such an apparent loss.
“When he saw that $730,000 number as a negative, he thought that he had blown up his entire future,” says Brewster. “I mean this is a kid that when he was younger was so conscious about savings.”
20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies By Suicide After Seeing A $730,000 Negative Balance, forbes, june 17, 2020
I heard about the trading platform Robin Hood over past months. I had not paid it much attention. More recently, accounts of Robin Hood platform users engaging in seemingly insane activity, such as investing into the equity of bankrupt Hertz, started showing up in my various news feeds.
I invested some time into looking at the platform. Scott Galloway wrote about it this week in his “No Mercy No Malice” blog here. From my review, his assessment is spot on. A few observations from my own review of the Robin Hood website that reinforces @Profgalloway’s take include an options and crypto trading platform that includes specific appeal to FOMO (read: “Fear of Missing Out”), a gold trading platform that promotes access to margin accounts, and a clever strategy for generating referrals by giving stock to customers. (Yea, what could go wrong?!)
The gamification of this platform and appeal to its customers’ overconfidence is a real issue. Hopefully, the team at Robin Hood goes beyond the (admittedly on-point and appropriate) BLOG-post here and finds ways to grow their platform’s influence while being more responsible.
Maybe, rather than including the suicide note, a better contribution to the time capsule would be the following article, based on this quote. “In February, there were roughly 1,000 accounts that held Hertz. Today, that number is nearly 60,000. Most of the accounts that added Hertz over the past several weeks have been buying just as the stock has steadily decreased from around $8 a share to its current $1 per share price.” I mean, Hertz filed for bankruptcy the prior month… smh…
Banks’ financials
As a total aside, I spent some time looking at recent financial results of some banks that operate in Central-PA. Specifically, I looked at Jersey Shore State Bank, Kish Bank, Northwest Savings Bank, and PNC. I reviewed data from the FDIC, as well as the most recent 10Qs. I will return to this after the Q2 data is available.
There are no contributions to a 2020 time capsule warranted based on this simple review. But I do find the amount of variation in cost of funding across these four banks to be interesting!
Fathers’ Day
Today is Fathers’ Day. I spent some time looking at old photographs. Below are a few shots of my dad, Andreas, and me, with Camilla and Holger, as well as Mary and Aya.
I am hopeful that our children, if they opened a time capsule from 2020, will feel compelled to shake their heads at the circumstances that we found ourselves in decades earlier; particularly as related to Covid-19, social unrest, and habitual trivializing of details, including both those scientific and financial. Then, I hope they marvel at the inflection point that occurred in 2020, and the urgency with which the global community turned quickly to take steps to become more just, humble, and informed. Yea, that is my hope.
Post-script: As I spent some time catching up on my perpetually growing piles of magazines earlier this afternoon, I came across this rather hilarious piece by Libby Gelman-Waxner. I tried to track Ms Gelman-Waxner via standard methods (i.e. Twitter search and Google) and concluded that, per the ultimate arbiter of truth (i.e. Wikipedia), Gelman-Waxner is actually a pen-name for Paul Rudnick, under the character of “a deranged Manhattan wife, mother and “Assistant Buyer of Juniors Activewear.”” I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. 🙂