So we haven't spoken in a while. How are you doing? That's nice. Anyhooo...
The last time we spoke, I was on my way to Las Vegas and in the midst of some run bad (a.k.a. play bad, downswing, crap burgers). Right before I went to Vegas, my laptop decided to put a stop to my poker playing and overall Internet usage by having an aneurysm. I have been without Internet access (on my laptop) or over a month, 6 weeks to be precise and to be honest I haven't gone through the DTs. I think the time off from poker was good and gave me time to do other things, like reading, exercising, laundry...
I will hold off from getting everyone caught up to date on my life.
So a few days ago I received a new laptop and put Cake poker (juicy stakes) on so that I will be up and ready to roll in to the run good. My family and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of food and alcohol. Today I was given a day off and decided to make a trek out to the local casino for some hot 1-2 live NLHE action. The first 2 hours were quite stale and pretty soon I was down $180. I didn't lose any huge pots, just constantly missing flops and having other players call my c-bets. Finally I was dealt AQ suited in LP and raised 3 limpers to $12. I flopped top 2 pair and had the UTG limper donk in to me for about 1/2 the pot. I min raised and he called only to donk the turn which was a low brick card. the pot had grown and I just raised all in. He thought for a moment and called with his worse 2 pair. The river was kind and I got back to even. That's why you don't limp call a raise preflop with A5o out of position. An orbit later I pick up JJ in MP and raise to open to $10. I get one CCer on the button and the SB, a bad LPP 3 bets to $30. I have the 2 villains covered (SB just by a little) and decide to call and see the flop. The button obliges and WHAMO- Jc 6c 3s. The SB C-bets $50 and I am in no mood to call with a flush draw out there. I raise to $100 and the SB calls with a confused look on his face. I am now putting him on pocket 10s, or Queens through Aces. There's a chance he could have AcKc here because he's a passive player without the present nuts, but that doesn't matter because I flopped a monster.
The pot now has $290 in the middle and there's no way I am doing anything, but shoving just about any turn if given the chance. The turn is the 5c and SB checks. I go all-in and he is dumbfounded. I can only put him on an overpair and more likely than not, he has a big club in his hand which must be the only reason he's even considering this call. By the way I have played this hand, I have a set or a King high flush at least. How can he consider this call with a non-club overpair? Well, he takes 5 minutes and even asks if I will show after folding. I don't respond and he unhappily folds. I give him a little consolation by saying that I had him beat. He tells me that he had pocket Queens with no club.
Anyways, I end my 4 hour session soon after and leave up $170 which is nice.
Hopefully this will be signs of good poker things to come because October sucked some major donkey balls for my NLHE game. The good news is that I am still learning and have been getting much better at not tilting. Just let the game come to you, don't force it.
Have fun and I will talk to you soon.
As you can see, the month started off rather well, and then I hit a combination of runbad, play bad, and perhaps variance. I was happy to finally finish up, albeit for very little. This was the 2nd month that I have been focusing on my online NLHE game more serious than ever before. I started off August as a bad, cold calling, LAG and managed a winning month. I began shaving off the LAG image throughout September, yet had hands like KK<QQ, AA<KK, trip 9s lose to flush on the river (standard) KK<AA, all of these all-in pots either when I was ahead or preflop.
I went back on to Deuces Cracked to watch some micro stakes NLHE videos and felt as though I was gaining some good info. I watched the 2nd series of "New Kid on the Block", by Sean Nolan and began another more recent series. I have been posting more hands on 2P2 forums and have been "grunching" a lot more hands as well to see if my thought process is in line with others. I still have a long ways to go before I feel comfortable with my game, especially when it comes to the prospect of moving up to NL10, not only from a BR perspective, but many other facets as well. Bad results have been hard to deal with at times and I can see myself tilting much more than I had hoped for at this point. It's obviously not the money as NL4 is nothing compared to amounts I have won or lost in the past. It's the thought that I suck at poker. I went through this a bit, if you recall from earlier blog entries, while learning LHE. My results had some big swings and I would live and die with each session, which is not healthy in any regard. I am more frustrated than ever because I am starting at the lowest level and having a difficult time being a winning player. When I look up results for some of the other names I am up against, they all are major losing players. The one consolation so far is that I have only played about 12,000 hands since August 1st and that is quite a small sample size to go off of.
I am hoping to continue the process of truly learning NLHE and feeling confident in my game, so that if and when federal legislation is passed, hopefully by 2014, I will be ready to grind out some cheeseburgers. Oh well. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from any of you out there. I will be off to Vegas in a little over 2 weeks so I hope ladyluck has some good things in store for me there.
Auf Widersehen!
If you've ever read my blog before, you'll probably remember that I like a good scotch to drink and occasionally a nice, light cigar (preferably robusto). Last year when I went with some friends to Las Vegas, I really looked forward to a cigar bar called Casa Fuente. It's right near the bottom of the escalator near the Forums Shops inside of Caesars. The have some nice scotches to match your cigar as well as some specialty drinks that they are known for. The day I went with 4 other friends was memorable not only for the cigars, scotch, and comraderie, but for the fact that Dick Butkus was signing autographs across from the cigar bar in a sports memorabilia shop. My friends and I got the chance to meet him and take some pictures.
This year, I will be traveling to my spiritual home in the desert once again, but not with a group. Originally I wanted to go with my wife, as she is a big fan of Las Vegas, but with 3 kids all under the age of 6, it's rather difficult to get child care even for a 4 day jaunt. Instead, I will be making the pilgrimmage alone. Yes, my wife trusts me, which she has every reason to. I love you honey!
I am already feeling the excitement of Vegas and am looking up other Scotch bars that I can relax in. I cam across this list, which is reassuring and will go well with my intention of eating some nice steaks. I had never heard of the Freakin Frog before and am looking forward to making it out to the UNLV campus if time permits to taste some of the owners myriad of scotches.
The last time I was in Vegas with my pseudo bachelor party-like amigos, we did a lot of group activities, such as eating, drinking, gambling, and gambling. No, I didn't go to a strip club! I love you honey! During that trip, I missed out on 3 important things that I wanted to accomplish while in Las Vegas. Playing poker, drinking scotch, and sipping a big gulp sized Pina Colada poolside right after breakfast. This trip will be a redo, if you will, in order to check those things off and enjoy some relaxation time, sans children. I love my 3 kids more than anything else, but one does need some "me time".
Well, I'm sure you get the drift of this post, so I will bid you adieu, as I need to get back to researching things to do on my Las Vegas trip. Auf Wiedersehen!
So August was officially my first month of seriously focusing on NLHE for online poker. I posted quite a bit in the micro full ring NLHE forums on 2+2 and reread through Ed Miller's No limit Holdem-Theory & Practice. I started off the month rather well, and then hit some terrible coolers in my last 500 hands. At one point, I lost trip 9s to a flush on the river which in itself, is no real cooler other than the fact that the villain in the hand check raised the flop with a Queen high flush draw and shoved the non-flush turn for more than 1/2 his stack. The very next hand, I flopped a set of 8s and got a player to shove all-in on the turn once again, but he had 2 pair and a nut flush draw. He missed his flush, but hit an Ace on the river to make a better full house. That combined with pocket Kings running in to sets made the end of August quite disappointing. The following graph doesn't include about 1,000 hands at the beginning of the month due to some hand history problems, but I was up almost 3 buy-ins at that point.
My plan for September is to not look at any results purposefully and just focus on making good decisions. I find myself thinking about my session results which skews my decisions making when up against a player with a large stack of chips in a big pot. I played my first September session last night and still am making mistakes. I hope to be much better by the time I fly to Vegas near the end of October. Thanks for reading and have fun.
As I attempt to take NLHE more seriously and actually read up on strategy, post in the 2+2 forums, and basically start all over again at the lowest online levels, I find that I am forced to take a long look at myself not only as a poker player, but as a person. I have described in past blogs, that I tiled very easily when playing poker. That has improved over the years, but not as much as I would like due to the fact that I approached losing sessions as an indictment of my overall ability which is a ridiculous thing to do. I would go from bubble to bubble of tilt, so to speak rather than really making a concerted effort to change my way of thinking so that I wouldn't allow this to happen. It was obviously challenging to do so when running bad, playing bad, losing money, or all of the above.
I believe that I mentioned a few posts back that I have been "gambooling" a bit more when I go to a nearby casino that doesn't have a poker room. I've been playing the $10 slots and winning, luckily. This was my attempt at an exercise in learning not to care about losing money. I would limit myself to the amount I could play or lose and although I wanted to win, the point was to let go of being afraid to lose money. Now this was just one small step in trying to change my outlook on poker and there isn't much strategy in playing a slot machine. It was a very basic step in disassociating myself from playing scared. There were times when I lost $400, to $500 in a matter of 10 minutes. Luckily I won a bunch of money which allowed me to continue playing slots as well as take that money and play poker at my local casino.
The one problem with not caring about the amount of money is the slippery slope of playing well. In poker, the basic bottom line is to win money. I don't want to go to the opposite extreme and just play wild because I have no value for money (which has not happened). I began focusing on NL4 online, which is basically playing the smallest stakes on CAKE poker. $4 is the maximum buy in to start with, and the big blind is .04 cents. As I have stated in past posts, I have played NLHE before and even won some money in a tournament soon after Black Friday, but I have quite a bit of work to do, not only to get the fundamentals of the game in to my brain, but to then catch up to where the above average player is. The last part is going to be the big challenge. given the fact the I don't have as much free time to spend studying and playing poker. So far I winner at NL4 since I made an effort to play better and learn, but recently have had some tough hands that cost me 4 buy ins. Combined with a 2 buy in loss at the live tables last week, my focus of not valuing money at the poker table has been faced with some resistance. 2-3 years ago, I would have had some major blowups and tilting behavior, but this time around, I had less of a blow up or tilting behavior. I still tilted a little, but nothing like before. I consciously told myself that I needed to focus on making good decisions and not looking at the win or loss. It worked for a while, but I still allowed my emotions to get the best of me at times.
One thing I am doing this week is to take more time to post in the poker forums so that I can keep my mind on making good decisions and learning about common situations that will arise. If I just try plugging on and playing poker, I may not learn the fundamentals as well as I would like. The other thing that is more of a long term challenge for me is to not look at my results when playing online. I have the auto rebuy set and keep the HUD display over my stack. There are times, that I have to check how much I have in a hand, but that won't give me a clear idea of where I am at win/loss wise. Beginning in September I am going to make an effort not to look where my bankroll is at so that I can just focus on making good decisions in each hand. I don''t expect to be completely successful, but you have to start somewhere.
It has been a while since I have given anything resembling a update for my online poker challenge. Right after Black Friday, I decided to cash in some gold cards on Cake poker, which at that time was one of the few online poker sites that US players could use for real money games, and grind my bankroll up Ala Chris Ferguson style. I didn't plan on following all of his rules, but it would be an interesting test, given the fact that any winnings would be gravy and online poker legislation was not going to be happening anytime soon. Things were rocky at first, especially as I dove in to NLHE, but by the end of the year I had stopped playing poker as much as I would have liked. I didn't feel serious about keeping my game up and being a stay at home dad was becoming more and more challenging itself as my 3 sons were all toddlers.
I still was playing poker on CAKE from time to time, but it was at the lowest stakes and I was basically maintaining my $50ish bankroll by earning rakeback for the amount I lost, which came mostly at LAGGy NLHE play. In the middle of the summer, I decided to start rereading Ed Miller's NLHE book, No Limit: Theory & Practice as well as looking at the NLHE forums in 2+2. Once I began to refocus my game, things immediately got better with respect to my winnings.
Since July 12th, I have won around 12 buy ins at NL4 (which is $4 max-100 BBs) over the course of 4,000ish hands. I plan on moving up to NL10 when my bankroll hits $250. I am currently at $150ish in my bankroll and would like to see where my win rate is after 10,000 more hands. Hopefully I came have some more leaks plugged over the next 2 months so that I won't get fleeced when I go out to Las Vegas in late October. On a side note: I have been playing a good deal of slots at the local casinos as a way to let go of my fear on losing money and slots are a good way to lose money. The only problem is that I am winning a lot more than I am losing. I won $700 earlier in the summer, another $300 in July, and then hit a jackpot of $1,400 a week ago. The trick is to play the $10 slots rather than the .25. You will lose more, but when you win, ho ho ho ho....when you WIN!!!
Here is the 3rd rough drat installment of my financial crisis/online poker piece. Obviously I have yet to get in to the online poker part. just as a reminder, this is a rough draft that needs corrections. Thank you for any feedback.
The Savings and Loan crisis of the mid 80's was a fresh wound when the calls for deregulation started up again. Like previous financial crashes, the S&L debacle could have been a reminder that unrestricted behavior on the part of banks without supervision will most likely cause financial destruction on some level, but because the cleanup was done in an efficient manner compared to those catastrophes before, opponents of regulation could point to the inexperience of smaller institutions and their risky behavior that put them closer to the inevitable tipping point of insolvency. Large Wall Street S&Ls took financial hits as a result of the crisis, but came out on top having rid themselves of regional competition. This gave them clear site of a new target in the global financial sector and they had a relatively new weapon at their disposal in the form of the growing derivatives market. The $160 billion bailout of the S&L industry did little to slowdown the money churning lobbying effort of the large banks to seek further deregulation and in 1987 they had a new hero. On June 2nd, 1987, then President, Ronald Reagan nominated Alan Greenspan as the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Alan Greenspan was a staunch advocate of deregulation and was in favor of letting the market take care of itself, while his predecessor, Paul Volcker was against allowing barriers to be torn down that would allow large banks to become even larger.
The Treasury Department at that time, like Greenspan, was in favor of allowing banks to get bigger in order to better compete with financial institutions around the world, namely Europe and Japan. George D. Gould, Under Secretary of the Treasury, was reported in the New York Times as saying,
''If we are going to be competitive in a globalized financial-services world, we are going to have to change our views on the size of American institutions,'' Mr. Gould said. ''People are going to have to accept that some big American financial institutions will need more capital to be competitive.''
Those who sought out less restriction believed that as the financial products became more complicated, the competition for capital investments became unbalanced due to the lack of regulation in foreign markets. The United States no longer had the largest banks in the world which was what many on Wall Street were looking to regain. Gould cited more lenient restrictions on the part of foreign banks in areas of capital to asset ratio as well as their ability to offer a wider variety of underwriting services to go with the everyday banking that had put them ahead of their American counterparts. Asian countries were experiencing a higher than normal growth rate and Japan was in the midst of their own bubble with rising home prices, low interest rates, and easily obtained credit.
Hans Angermueller, vice chairman of Citicorp said, ''We have been the beneficiaries of living in a relatively insulated big economy, and only recently have we found out that the Japanese can make automobiles better than we do, We are discovering that the same thing may apply in the financial services area, and to meet that challenge, we need to get leaner, meaner and stronger. We don't do this by preserving the heartwarming idea that 14,000 banks are wonderful for our country.'' Greenspan is later reported as saying that given the current banking environment, ''I do not have a fear of undue concentration of banking powers.''
The Congressional Research Service released a report in June of that year on the subject of commercial banks vs. investment banks, in which they reiterate the reasons for supporting Glass-Steagall, citing "...the distinctions between loans, securities, and deposits are not well drawn." Banks that would be able to issue securities and take deposits are in nature at odds within those activities. Securities have a larger risk associated with them and institutions that take deposits are intended to minimize risk. The report acknowledged how American banks were losing market share to their deregulated foreign competitors and it advocated for legislation that wold reduce the "conflicts of interest". "The securities activities that depository institutions are seeking are both low-risk by their very nature, and would reduce the total risk of organizations offering them by diversification."
Later that summer, Congressmen, Charles Schumer wrote an Opinion piece in the New York Times speaking out against repealing Glass-Steagall and the possible negative effects of large Wall Street banks. Schumer responded explained that in his opinion, Japanese banks had grown because of a similar regulatory protection from outside competition. Schumer also cited the fact that American banks had seen more profit in the mid 80's than that of the their large foreign competitors and warned of the classic risky behavior in financial markets.
"The banks’ proposals also defy common sense. Given the chance to speculate, some institutions are going to gamble poorly. This in turn will undermine confidence in the whole banking system. The recent experience of the thrift industry reinforces this lesson." Schumer goes on to say, "A bailout of the much larger commercial banking sector, if it got into a similar problem, would make the recapitalization for thrifts seem insignificant...Today's bankers promise they will be more careful. But to accept their assurances runs counter to the simple principles of fairness and common sense."
It seems that Schumer, who was an advocate for the Garn-St. Germain Act of 1982, had a bit of a turnaround in light of the rampant fraud and gambling of the Savings and Loan crisis.
In mid October 1987, called Black Monday, global financial markets plummeted, starting in Hong Kong and quickly working west like a financial Tsunami through Europe and then the United States. There are many causes that have been cited for the sudden drop, with Program Trading being one of the most popular, in which computers conduct rapid executions of strategies based on inputs. Proponents of this explanation state that once the crash started, those who were holding portfolio insurance derivatives were forced to sell with each down tick movement, hauntingly reminiscent of the stock market crash of 1929.
Economist David Mullins was asked to head the Brady commission for the purpose of investigating the causes of Black Monday. The conclusion directed a great deal of blame on derivative traders and portfolio insurance. 2 years later Mullins was nominated to fill a vacancy for the Federal Reserve board of Governors under George W. Bush until he left to be a part of John Meriwether's hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management. Others attribute the cause to global monetary policies as well as the collapse of the US-European bond markets that had a ripple effect in other areas of the Global financial sector. The Dow Jones fell 508 points (22.61%) which became the largest one day percentage drop since 1916. By the end of the month world markets had fallen from 22% up to, in some cases, 45%. The DJIA did not reach its high of 1987 for another 2 years.
Despite the tremor in the vastly intertwined global financial markets, Alan Greenspan continued to voice his opinion that Glass-Steagall should be repealed. "Warning that banks will become the dinosaurs of financial services if the Depression-era law is not repealed, Greenspan said that the Fed believes banking can be tied to securities underwriting without subjecting federally insured deposits at banks to the risks inherent in the stock market." "The risks can never be fully eliminated, but they can be sufficiently contained to be acceptable," Greenspan said. In February 1988, the GAO released a statement, summarized by Charles Bowsher (Comptroller General of the US) answering the concerns raised by Congressmen Edward Markey, as to the possible outcomes with the repeal of Glass-Steagall. In the view of the GAO, the integration of the banking and security shows how the Glass-Steagall Act may be antiquated, yet the nature of financial innovation may not be entirely stable. It's "...potentially dangerous because it has not allowed for the systematic consideration for the legal and regulatory structure needed to better reflect the realities of today's financial marketplace."
The statement summarizes the supporting legislation needed in the opinion of the GAO in order to preserve the safety and soundness of the banking system as well as protecting the consumer’s interest. Maintaining an adequate level of capital reserves in order to cushion against losses and keeping the bank holding structure in order to preserve liquidity are the classic problems in most cases of financial downturn. The GAO raises the question of how far should the Federal Reserve go in times of financial crisis. The report goes on to state that "Ultimately, the degree of comfort that one has with the repeal of Glass-Steagall depends on one's faith in the regulators' abilities to effectively oversee the newly allowed activities..." This report reflects the concerns of a changing financial sector that, like technology, was growing no matter the obstacle. The underlying concern raised was how new legislation would better support and protect the changes of a diverse market place. The GAO warned of the possible confusion and complexities of a cutting edge investment area that could end in a crash much similar to 1929 despite its technological leaps. What many knew, unwilling to admit was that for all the changes the world had seen, ultimately human desire for riches may be it's undoing.
This is the 2nd post of my grand financial/online poker opus. I used the Stock Market crash of 1929 as a bit of a prelude to the modern lead up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, which in the opinion of many renowned economists and journalists, started in 1979. Thanks for reading.
With the passing of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1932/33, banks were separated into 2 areas, commercial and investment. Not only did this cut down the size of the banks in the late 1920's, but the potential economic damage that could be caused by a widespread contagion. Banks no longer were able to use customer deposits in the same way as before, which was viewed as reckless gambling. The separation also helped to cut back on the conflicts of interest by banks that profited by customer loss. The act also created the Federal deposit insurance corporation, otherwise known as the FDIC. It insured customer deposits in Federally approved banks up to a specific amount, which could potentially assuage fears in times of financial crisis, as in the late 20's and early 30's. Another important provision in the Glass-Steagall Act was Regulation Q, which stopped the practice of interest bearing checking accounts on customer deposits which supported aggressive competition amongst banks to attract more capital during the 1920s, termed "the race to the bottom". Regulation Q also limited the amount of risk that a bank could put it self in and encouraged investment in substitute areas like money market accounts and other banking alternatives which supported competition. At the end of the day, the Glass-Steagall act was put into place in order to stop systematic risk while protecting consumers. Another important event was the construction of the Federal Savings and Loan insurance corporation which was created as a part of the National Housing Act of 1934. It's intention was the same as the FDIC with respect to insuring deposits in Savings & Loans companies as well as stopping the failures of financial institutions across the country.
This brings us to the mid 1970's when the Savings and Loan industry was facing the first of 2 major challenges. The S&L industry was having a difficult time competing for capital in a slow growth economy facing high inflation. Depositors were taking their money out of Savings and Loan companies and putting them into market accounts which earned more in times of high interest rates. The second hurdle the lack of customers given the fact potential home owners had a harder time qualifying for a mortgage which meant less customers for the S&Ls. In 1979, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates again as a tool to curb inflation which put S&Ls at a breaking point.
In 1980, congress passed the first of 2 major acts of deregulation in order to help financial institutions especially the hurting Savings and Loan industry. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act removed the power of setting interest rates by the Federal Reserve and allowed financial institutions the ability to charge any interest rate they chose. It also gave banks the ability to merge and S&Ls could offer checkable deposits. The Savings & Loan industry was now able to compete on what at first appeared to be a more even basis for customer deposits than before and with the additional deregulation the S&Ls could use that capital from mortgages sold in to the secondary market to reinvest in order to seek better returns. The S&Ls commonly sold those mortgages to larger Wall Street banks that not only paid lower than face value for them, but re bundled the mortgages into a pool and resold them to the S&L industry as government backed bonds charging high fees. Another way the larger banks were ahead of the curve in light of the deregulation of 1980 was the fact that they had the liquidity to offer higher interest rates to their customers which in turn attracted investors to their stock.
According to a study published in the "Journal of Finance", entitled, An examination of the impact of Garn-St. Germain Depository institutions Act of 1982 on Commerical banks and Savings and loans, "...present evidence that the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 provided a wealth transfer from non-Federal Reserve System member banks and Savings and Loans (S&Ls) to Federal Reserve Member Banks. Furthermore, Cornett and Tehranian (1989) find that the banking deregulation passed in 1980 benefited stockholders of large banks and savings and loans but produced negative abnormal stock returns for small banks and savings and loans."
S&Ls were forced to compete by offering higher than normal interest rates compared to the assets in their portfolios which caused them to be insolvent. By 1980 many of the already distressed institutions were failing. This raised strong concerns in Congress that if S&Ls were facing these desperate conditions, then the entire financial system could be at risk if a large percentage of Savings and Loan industry went under.
"The changes in the economic and financial conditions resulted in a demand for further reform of the financial system, and eventually, the passage of the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982." (pg.3)
The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was intended to give further support to the housing industries on both the lender's side and borrower's side. According to William K. Black, the Act was based on legislation first put forth in Texas, which at the time was one of the most profitable states with respect to their Savings and Loan industry. It deregulated many areas of Commercial loans by expanding the areas of lending and home loans by financial institutions. They could now offer a wider array of mortgages with less restrictions on who they could sell them to. S&Ls could now lend at a higher ratio compared to the capital they had. The Act also allowed more lenient accounting rules with which they would report their financial stability which made them appear to be more profitable. They were allowed to increase the percentage of commercial and consumer loans within their portfolios led to an unbalanced business acumen that would later prove costly. They were also allowed to invest, for the first time, in state and local government revenue bonds.
These areas of deregulation were meant to make the market more fair and balance, especially for the smaller financial institutions like small S&Ls the ability to compete with larger banks as well as non-regulated entities, like money market funds and brokerage houses, but in reality, it gave the large banks pathways to capital that regulation hadn't allowed before. This perpetuated the inequality in competition which put pressure on the S&L industry to take on more risky investments and "sell short" in a long term market. This act, in effect, created a "race to the bottom" with respect to deregulation by the Federal government and the State governments in order to compete for S&L charters. It was easy for financial institutions to switch between being a Federal Charter or a State Charter while being backed by the FDIC. The attraction was what the institutions would be allowed to invest in under a given charter. The S&Ls naturally went where there was the least amount of regulation and oversight. As a result, the S&Ls grew at an enormous rate and were able to leverage their risk more so than ever before without having to back up their loans with capital.
The icing on the cake was that there was little to no oversight, especially in States like California and Texas where the loan default rates were higher than average. The Savings and Loan industry was experiencing a housing boom in the mid 80's in the light of deregulation. Smaller S&Ls that were once insolvent were now climbing their way out of failure and looking forward to successful endeavors, until 1986. The Reagan administration continued its policy of tax cuts with the passing of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which may have been the final straw in breaking the back of the Savings and loan industry as well as popping the housing boom of the mid 1980's. One of the provisions in the Tax Reform Act was to remove tax shelters in the area of passive real estate investment, both in housing as well as commercial investments. This helped to cause a decline in housing prices which forced investors to sell which then compounded the problem by lowering prices even more. As prices fell, investors defaulted, and the institutions holding the mortgages in portfolio, especially small S&Ls, were forced to sell those mortgages which caused housing prices to fall even more.
As the dominoes fell in one institution, so did others on down the line, much like 1929. Home owners defaulted at a high rate, smaller financial groups like S&Ls quickly became insolvent, and bond holders who were not insured lost their savings. By the late 1980's the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation itself was insolvent due to the number of S&L bankruptcies which numbered in the thousands. Tax payers, many of whom had never used a Savings and Loan were paying the cost of this debacle which was estimated at $160.1 billion. That amount was not including Federally insured S&L losses before 1986 or after 1996. As it was in the financial crashes of 1893, 1907, and 1929, capital had to be injected in order to stop a systematic crash that could have very well shut down the entire U.S. economy which in turn could cause a world wide contagion.
In hindsight, the Savings and Loan crisis of the mid to late 80's appears to be one that was manufactured out of ignorance, ego, and recklessness. Government on both sides of the aisle believed that the Financial sector would act in the best interests of home owners, investors, and their own institutions by being responsible and regulating themselves. They were wrong.
Due to the fact that I have very little time to work on the extended blog post that I had been talking about dealing with government's policies towards the financial sector and online poker, I though that it would be a good idea to post some of the sections that I have finished in hopes of getting some feedback in any way shape or form. I have not listed the sources that I have used or quoted, so please give me some slack. There are a lot of links to list and this is just some rough pages, if you will. Thanks for your understanding.
The Stock Market Crash of 1929
The 1920's were a time of innovation, speculation, and mass consumption driven by a boom in the areas of investment and production. Soldiers returning from World War I were looking for jobs and had money to spend. Initially after the war here was a short, but deep recession as demand had been slowed to a near standstill. Innovation of products was an important channel to kick start the economy. Factories that had once been focused on wartime production, were soon churning out products for a population returning to normalcy. This boom was also supported heavily by 3 consecutive Republican Presidents, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Harding's strong belief in lower taxes, reducing the debt, and a economic philosophy of laissez-faire markets, would be the impetus for the golden twenties in which Calvin Coolidge would take credit and Hoover would have to deal with.
The supply side road to economic recovery ushered in a time of mass consumption of products once a luxury like the automobile, radio, air conditioning, home electricity and Hollywood movies. Another side of innovation came in the form of financial investments. New products were in high demand and companies needed capital to supply their growing customer base. The stock market, which was once for large commercial businesses, soon became a game for the masses. Everyone wanted their chance at making a fortune which after all was the American dream.
Many on those in business and finance saw this as a way to increase their own fortunes. Charles E. Mitchell, president of National City Bank (now Citibank), and president of National City Company, which became the largest security issuing entity in the world, saw an opportunity in the everyman. His salesmen started to target individuals as investors and advanced millions to his sales team for speculation. The 1920's were marked by a cosmopolitan sensibility that helped to instill the idea of upward mobility. Unfortunately for the masses, there was an increasing disparity of wealth. The wealthiest 5% Americans were making over 33% of the income. How was the average person able to get in to the market and amass their own fortune? Credit.
One of the new slogans of the decade became, "Buy now, pay later".
Everyday people were getting in on the stock market craze based on margin buying. At the time, the market had seen a six year rise that appeared to have no end in sight in early 1929. The great American economist, Irving Fisher proclaimed that "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
In March of 1929, soon after Herbert Hoover's inauguration, there was a growing unrest on the part of investors over the fact that the stock market was largely dependent on borrowed money. By August of that year, brokers would regularly be lending more than 2/3rds the face value of the stock being purchased. More than $8.5 billion was out on loan which was more than currency in circulation. The Federal Reserve debated asking for regulation of the stock market and the practice of buying on margin, but ultimately stayed silent. Monday, March 25th saw a large sell off of blue chip stocks which continued on Tuesday. A small panic had begun on the part of investors. Those who had bought on margin, usually only 10%, were hit very hard and could not cover their stocks. Brokers sold off those stocks which caused the market to fall even more. As prices dropped more margin calls were triggered and so the dominoes began to fall. Credit became increasingly difficult to find as interest rates quickly went up to 20%. Banker, Charles E. Mitchell, worried about the whole system, as well as his own fortune, stepped in and through National City bank provided $25 million in credit to bring relief for margin calls. This capital injection helped to stop the bleeding and possible collapse in March of 1929.
In the following months the stock market continued to climb even though the economy had begun to slowdown. Steel production declined, the construction industry slowed, and the demand for automobiles fell sharply, yet the phenomenon of speculation pushed stock market prices higher. Borrowing soared to record heights as some blue chip stocks increased by 50% that summer.
In early fall of that year, Congress debated the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill which would increase tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods in the effort to protect farmers and American jobs from foreign competition. It was also seen as having strong negative effects from an international standpoint which are some of the reasons why it has been cited as a cause for the overall instability by investors in early September. The market began a roller coaster ride up until late October. A week before "Black Thursday", many highly respected bankers, like Charles Mitchell and Thomas Lamont of Morgan bank were saying how well the economy was and the only direction was up.
On Tuesday, October 24th, amidst rumors of economic uncertainty, the stock market lost 11% of it's value right at the opening bell. It continued to fall through the early afternoon. Some of the leading Wall Street bankers, like Thomas Lamont, Albert Wiggin, Charles E. Mitchell, and Richard Whitney, decided to pool some money together and buy large amounts of shares in Blue Chip stocks at higher than normal bids in order to demonstrate their faith in the market in hopes that it would curb the sell off as it did in 1907. There was a temporary respite and the market closed that day only down a little over 6.3% which was small compared to the direction it had been going earlier in the day.
The crash had been staved off, but as Newspapers began to write about the instability of the market and the prospect of Herbert Hoover refusing to veto the Smoot-Haley Tariff act, the general consensus was that there was no better time than the present to get out of the market. October 28th, termed "Black Monday", saw a drop in the market of nearly 13%. "Black Tuesday", October 29, close to 16 million shares were traded, and the Dow lost an additional 30 points (11.73%).
Banker William Durant thought that he could support the market with a steady stream of capital in the form of purchasing stocks, but it was not enough. The market continued to fall and hit a short term bottom of 198 points by mid November. It then had a rally, going up to 294 in early April of 1930, then once again began a long and steady decline which hit rock bottom in July, 1932 when the Dow closed at a little over $41.
Many economists of the times had been warning of the coming crash of the stock market, but were not taken seriously by Wall Street or investors who had been borrowing money on margin. Roger Babson had been forecasting a stock market crash for 2 years, yet he was dismissed as unpatriotic until September of 1929, the height of unrest over the market's dependence on borrowed money. Billions of dollars disappeared in a matter of days in October of 1929. The stock market crash, although not considered the direct cause of the "The Great Depression", was a broken rung on the ladder of American and global economic stability.
Regardless of one's stance of the reasons for the stock market crash of 1929 or the ensuing depression, one thing that is always true of these historical events is that the mass population is effected. Jobs are lost, savings are lost, homes are lost, families are lost, dreams are lost, and faith in the system is lost. The practice of speculation in the stock market was like a long wonderful party at which the booze flowed freely and the music never stopped. That is until the next morning when the bill had to be paid, the house had to be cleaned, and the hangover was in full effect. Like many parties that lasted too long, the police, or in this case the government, intervened too late. In 1933, they passed the Glass-Steagal act which created the FDIC and put limits on the behavior and expansion of Wall Street and banks to say the least. It was the beginning of a regulated and responsible form of Capitalism in America that had been needed since before the dawning of the 20th century. Pandora's box was finally closed...
So, as I said in my previous post, I have started to play more poker, mostly online, but I am finally concentrating on improving my NLHE game. I have been rereading Ed Miller's 1st No limit book and have been listening to some of Bart Hanson's old "Deuce Plays" podcasts. I've also been posting a lot more in the live low limit NLHE forums on 2+2. It's a nice feeling to be back in the swing of poker and surprisingly, I have not missed LHE as much as I thought I would. It is after all, my first love when it comes to poker, but given the landscape of the online poker scene at CAKE, there's just not a big enough player pool for me to build a bankroll, find good games and move up.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I am officially a winning player at NLHE in the .02-.04 stakes. I know that doesn't sound like a great feat, but for the year 2011, I would just mess around and play ultra LAGgy at NLHE which meant losing quite a bit. When I did start to play a bit more serious, I would not hand read that well and just donk off when faced with big turn raises. I am now focused on improving my game which helped quite a bit the last time I played live at my nearby casino. I had a bunch of fish at the table with one decent LAG. I got an old man to spew off a buy-in to me with K4s while chasing a flush draw. I hit a bunch of sets and had another player hand over a buy-in when I hit set over set. All in all, I was up 2 1/2 buy-ins which was a nice confidence booster.
I have also had some luck at the slots machine. In the past 3 months I have won close to $1,000 playing $10 slots which is always a nice addition. I know that you can't depend on winning lots of money at slots, but the lesson that I have been focusing on is not to view gambling money as real money which in turn, has helped me to not be so afraid, especially at the live poker tables. I am hoping this will help to concentrate on hand reading and picking good spots.
Some more good news is that I have booked a trip for 1 to Las Vegas in the mid fall. I have been rather worn down from the Summer with my 3 sons. Obviously I love my children more than anything, but it does get tiring to be the referee of a 5 year old and two 3 year olds. Let's just say that I have become sick to death of Star Wars. I am hoping that a little Las Vegas RnR will recharge my batteries. This time I am going alone. No boys club being rowdy and arguing. Just me, a cigar, some scotch, and the pokerz. I do plan on throwing in some rest by the pool with a Pina Colada time as well, but I am hoping to play a good amount of NLHE and see where my game is at.
As always, thank you for reading and any and all comments are welcome. Have a fun rest of your summer.
I know that it has been quite a while since my last blog. I was a bit overloaded with all of the things that I wanted to do, but could not attempt at the same time. That and the fact that my 3 kids were all home in late May for summer vacation and you can imagine how much time a stay at home father of 3 boys has. My last post, from what I can recall, mentioned a bad live outing at the poker tables, both live and online. That was a cue for me to take a little break from poker and focus on some other interests in the very little free time I had. I was working on finishing the first half of my treatise on the subject of legislation of the financial sector v.s. that of online poker, but I became burnt out over the subject, so I took a break from that as well. I am planning on getting back to that and am giving myself an easy due date of 2013, which I hope will be before actual legislation of online poker at the federal level.
I do plan on getting back in to blogging on a semi regular basis on a myriad of subjects, but then again, I have set goals for many things in the past 16 months and none of them have fully come to fruition, so I won't hold my breath either. One thing that I happily stopped doing was Facebook.I was getting a bit tired of posting comedic updates and looking for responses, which was my form of entertainment given the fact that I don't directly interact with the outside world, except for going to the grocery store and other errands. I haven't decided if I will go back on Facebook at some point in the future, but I would like to spend the 2nd half of 2012, Facebook-free.
Another area of loss I am looking forward to is my weight. I have always been a skinny person probably more gangly than skinny, but you get the picture...I would like to ensure that I am healthy so that I am around to bug the hell out of my kids for centuries to come. I have started to eat more salads, drink less alcohol, not have bacon double cheeseburgers with special sauce as often and eat chicken that is not fried. The next step will happen in the fall when I have more time to start running again given the fact that all 3 of my sons will be in school for at least 1/2 the day during the week.
I have started to become interested in opera again and bought season tickets to the Lyric opera this next season. the subject of music or more specifically, singing is a difficult one for me because I aspired to being an opera singer and it was a major passion in my life. I guess you could say that it was my first love. I feel as though, opera and I are trying to become friends after the difficult and painful decision to break it off. I have never become friends with an ex-girlfriend, whom I was crazy for, so I am not sure how this one will go either.
Anyways, I hope to hear from any of you out there, except for the Russian bots that try to get me to their ad sites. I hope all is well and the next installments will probably be poker related once again, to be more specific, I will pick up in my poker history series which if I am not mistaken, is the year 2010. I also had an interesting interaction in the 2+2 poker forums with an old adversary, named Dragon1893, which would be a great beginning for a little post on the history between he and I as far as online poker goes. Have fun, enjoy the heat and I will talk with you soon.
This morning I woke up, fed my 3 sons breakfast, poured a cup of coffee and sit down at the computer to see the latest news. The big story, obviously, was that President Obama had stated in an interview that he supported same sex marriage, which was the first time a sitting President of the United States had taken this stance. I jumped on to facebook to check things out and saw a post referring to the recent Time magazine cover that had just hit news stands, so I looked it up on the news and saw the picture, posted above. I was a bit taken aback, to say the least, but not for the reasons that you may think.
I read the article that accompanied the picture to get a better idea of what was behind the cover before I solidified my opinion. The New York Daily News article gives a basic summary of the story of Jamie Lynn Grumet, the 26 year old mother (above) and her 3 1/2 year old son, standing on the chair in camouflage pants. You know, the one with his mouth on his mother's boob. Jamie Grumet believes that breastfeeding is not only good for a child with regard to nutrition, but to parent-child bonding. She, herself, claims that she breastfed until the age of 6. She cites this as a contributing factor in her feeling secure.
She said she remembers the being breast-fed and the positive feelings associated with it.
“It’s really warm. It’s like embracing your mother, like a hug. You feel comforted, nurtured and really, really loved,” she said. “I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it’s from that. I never felt like she would ever leave me. I felt that security.”--NY Daily News article
I, in no way, disagree with the basic premise that breastfeeding a child is a very positive experience, for both child and mother, for a myriad of reasons. I support the fact that this person chooses to continue breastfeeding her child and raises him in the manner that she believes is best. the article also reveals that she has an adopted child from another country. She states that breastfeeding helped forge a bond between her and the child as well as help comfort him during the possible traumatic experience of being in a completely new environment. At the end of the article, Grumet is quoted as saying,
“There are people who tell me they’re going to call social services on me or that it’s child molestation,” she said. “People have to realize this is biologically normal. It’s not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture.”
Once again, I support her rights as a parent and her decision to do this. The only problem I have is with the cover itself. Now before you start calling me a prude and a misogynist who's not comfortable with seeing something natural and beautiful, like breast feeding, let me be very specific. In the article, Grumet is quoted as saying that breastfeeding helped her "feel nurtured and really, really loved...I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it's from that."
The imagery on this Time magazine cover does not give me the sense of nurturing or being really, really loved. You have a woman standing with one arm around a toddler, looking at the camera, with a look that does not say, "bonding moment" to me. Then you have her son standing on a small chair, with his mouth on the mother's breast as he stares directly in to the camera. How is this an example of a "very positive experience"? Is this how breast feeding is normally done in their household? Of course not, but my point is that this cover seems to be for shock value alone, which is what bugs me. Now, once again before you start hurling names at me like, curmudgeonly, sexist, white man, who should have been born in the 19th century, I understand the value of shocking imagery that can push the envelope and the conversation at the same time. I just don't think this cover is one of them.
The biggest problem I have is the boy. Here is a 3 and 1/2 year old boy who doesn't understand the situation he's being placed in and has complete trust in his mother to do what's best for him. He is being dropped in to the midst of a rather controversial subject and he has not say in the matter, nor is he mature enough to make the decision if he was given the chance. the imagery comes across as stark, uncaring, and almost exploitative. Was this pose necessary to promote the content of the article, specifically the warm nurturing feeling that this boy and his mother get from the hug-like bond of breast feeding even at 3 and 4 years old?
When this young boy grows up, he may very well defend this cover and be very proud of it, as I hope he does, but he may also have to fight through the jungle of nature when the nurturing factor of his parental bonds aren't there to protect him. That is quite a ball & chain to hand over to this child before he can even understand the enormity of what he has been assigned to. I don't believe that this is a horrific thing or that it should be taken off the new stands and I still defend the mother's right to decide what's best for her children, even though I may not fully agree. In the end, I think that this cover does more harm to the message as well as to Jamie Lynn Grumet's nearly 4 year-old year-old son Aram, than good. Then again, what do I know. I was given formula.
So, much of what I have said with regard to planned posts and goals can be compared to Axl Rose's, magnum opus, Chinese Democracy which only took him 10+ years to record. My knee started hurting again a few days ago after playing with my 3 sons, so I won't be attempting a restart of running any time soon. I have not been to a casino in quite a while and my last time out was a disaster. I have been playing online at Cake poker rather consistently, but only for shits N giggles. My bankroll is a little over $80 is an all-time high since post Black Friday. Speaking of online poker, I stalled in my magnum opus on the subject as I was getting a little burned out. In my defense a lot has been happening in the debate over online poker legislation, but there has been legislation going on. I am starting to feel a small spark on inspiration coming on, so I hope to finish up the first part and then move on to the second half which will discuss online poker.
I've also considered blogging about some other subjects that I find interesting, but whenever I get close to the keyboard, I lose interest due to the fact that I don't feel that my thoughts in cyberspace make a whole helluva matter to anyone, not that I ever thought they would in the first place, but I need to kick myself in the ass and just do it. I have started singing again due to the fact that I have some more regular free time on my hands to practice. I hope that with my children all being in school come the fall, I will have even more time to devote to improving as well as other things like blogging my curmudgeonly opinions. For anyone out there, thanks for staying put, if that applies and I hope to talk to you very soon.
So it's been quite a while since I have posted anything, but I have reasons. I haven't felt like writing. Well, thanks for stopping in, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Y'all come back now ya hear?!
To be more specific, I was 85% finished with the 1st half of my magnum opus revolving around the hypocrisy of the government's policy towards online poker, but I became a bit worn out on the subject, so I am letting it sit on the shelf for a little while to see if I don't become more excited about it. So, even though I hadn't posted much in the last 2 months, I had been doing quite a bit of writing.
Another reason is the fact that I haven't been playing much poker as of late, whether that be online or at a card room. The last live session I played was back in early January, if I recall, and I stunk up the joint as I was down $300 due to being on my D+ game. been getting in some hands on Cake Poker (NLHE & LHE), but nothing too serious. I had built my bankroll up to $72 once again only to see it take a quick nosedive back down to $48. I am now hovering in the middle $60s hoping to breakthrough the glass ceiling.
I have also begun to (again) to practice singing on a semi-regular basis given the fact that my 3 sons are on a, more or less, regular schedule. I hope to have even more uninterrupted time in the fall when they will all have school in the afternoons. As I wrote before, I had been practicing singing a little over a year ago, but different interruptions caused me to suspend that hobby until now. I am looking forward to the fall not only because my kids will all be in school, which will be great for their social life and learning, but my wife and I have season tickets to the Opera which will be a nice treat each month of the year. I've been listening to a good idea of opera, not only for enjoyment, but to critique the singers I hear and pick out, from a technical standpoint, what I like and don't like. I hope it will help me in strengthening my abilities as well.
It's been a while since I have posted an entry about poker, so here goes. I haven't had the chance to play much poker, although I have been thinking about it a great deal. As you may remember, I am in the process of writing a treatise on the hypocrisy of governmental policy towards online poker. What started out as a multiple blog entry has now morphed in to a blog paper on the subject. Since I am a stay at home father, I don't get much uninterrupted time to research and write, so I am far behind schedule which has been exacerbated by the fact that the more I research the more I need to research. I am about 45% complete and I hope that the 2nd half of the paper goes much faster as things come together. It's all part of the plan.
To give everyone a little update on the poker challenge I started back in April, things have been moving at a snail's pace for the past 3 to 4 months. Real life has gotten so busy that I have little time for either online poker, or live poker. As yo may remember in a previous post back in October, I was focusing on my NLHE game online which fell off the proverbial cliff. I have slowly moved in a positive direction, thanks in large part to rakeback from Cake Poker. I am no where serious as to my development as I would like to be, but I just don't have the time to devote to my game in the way that I would like, so this is how it has to be until my 3 sons get a little older.
The live poker has been a little bit better than my online results. I've only gotten 3 sessions in since the beginning of October, but am up $300 in 8 hours of play which was a nice recovery from the 3 buy in loss back in late August. I'm rather happy how I played in my last 3 sessions, not only because I am up, but I am taking more time to make decisions, consistently focused on the action, especially when I'm not in the hand, and applying that information when I am involved. I am still on the uber nitty side which helps my image and gives my bets a bit more respect, but I have time to learn the game and develop my gears. Right now I have 1st, 2nd, and reverse. All in all, I am +$634 for the year playing live NLHE over the course of about 44 hrs. This is obviously an incredibly small sample which doesn't mean much, but was important in giving me an idea of the concentration and patience I need to work on so that I can be on my "A" game whenever I play poker, especially if the time ever comes when I have the ability to put in 2-3 sessions per week. Anyways, thanks for reading, have fun, and I will hopefully start posting the fist 1/2 of my paper in the next 2-3 weeks.
As I approach the inevitable certainty of my 20 year high school reunion, I cannot forget, no matter how hard I try (and I am still trying), that I was a 3 year member of a show choir. My name is Figaro and I have used jazz hands. I had always wanted to perform, but hadn't sung before with the exception of the countless sold out arena performances that I had conducted flawlessly in my room with a music stand as the microphone. I repeatedly got the 20,000+ crowds on their feet with renditions of Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" and then silenced them with "Yesterday".
The loophole I used to get in to show choir my sophomore year was the trumpet and they were looking for 2 new members. Luckily for my trumpet playing, only one other player auditioned. That got my foot in the door and sonn it was off to the races. By my senior year in High School, I was one of the officers, the dance captain, and teen age heart throb wannabee of show choir. I think I just threw up in my mouth...
Thinking back on those years, I have a lot of mixed emotions. I enjoyed being involved in music and performing which would turn out to be the road I pursued in college, but there was a great deal of "drama" in show choir which remain as a reason why I have no interest in going back to my 20 year high school reunion. As I mentioned earlier, I have been trying to forget this part of my life for quite a while to no avail, especially when a few years ago, a certain TV show came out with the gut wrenching title, "GLEE". Once I saw the first commercial, I knew that this horrific display of futility would never stain the beauty of our 52 inch flat screen HDTV. Of course my wife set it on unlockable DVR which means...
...that's right, I would be forced to experience small doses of GLEE. I was surprised that in the first episode, a male choir teacher was fired for manhandling a male student. Later I read that this was based on an actual event in the late 90's/early 2000's when a male high school show choir director had had an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of the girls in the group. To my further shock and awe, the choir in which this happened was in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago and even more surprising was the fact that the the male choir director had been in a neighboring high school show choir to mine around the same time.
Time passed and whenever my wife wanted to watch the increasingly annoying world of GLEE, I made myself leave the room for fear of retribution. Much like the times that I had watched American Idol, I could not help myself from making negative comments about the characters, the plot line, and the fact that this high school had countless professional studio musicians ready to perform at a moments notice without music or rehearsal. Last fall, I overheard the all too familiar sound of cliche "mashups" and inappropriate sexual dialogue, alerting me that GLEE was being watched. Then it happened. A male student and a female teacher started kissing. Are you fucking kidding me? Now, I am not a avid watcher of the show so I can't say how the plot went in this direction, but anyone who has been following the news over the past 15 years would know that this is nothing, but an incredibly irresponsible choice by the writers.
It has become rather common to hear of a female high school teacher having a sexual relationship with a male student. Just a few months ago, a teacher in Northern Illinois was let go for allowing a male student whose family had moved to live with her for a short time and up to that point, there had been no evidence of a sexual relationship, although I wouldn't be surprised if that hadn't been the case. I remember going to see the comedian Dennis Miller back in 2005 while on vacation in Las Vegas and one of his jokes was,
"Hey female teachers in the audience! Stop fucking your students ok?"
Soon after asking my wife to rewind the scene so that I could understand the context of what was happening, I had a strong visceral reaction towards the show, which she echoed. The show, GLEE is very popular and is watched by a wide range of people. It has also been praised for it's confronting the issue of homosexuality and the inherent difficulties faced by teens who are either afraid to come out or terrorized on a daily basis. But plot points such as the romanticizing of a teacher-student relationship derails that effort and in my opinion, hurts the cause of gay advocacy, whether that be for civil rights, same sex marriage, or the plight of gay teens across the country. The writers of the show set the characters up as role models of sort as the issues that they confront are also problems that many of the audience face. A large demographic of GLEE are teens from 12-18 years old who are hardly mature enough to fully understand or appreciate the nuances of what some of these messages are. Kids tend to take out the glorification of performing and the overly sexualised apparel that goes along with it in addition to the stream of big name guest stars who pelvic thrust their way to water cooler relevance.
After rereading the above paragraphs, I realize that I must sound like a naive, curmudgeonly, out of touch old fart who has no understanding of how things have changed since the time I was in high school and I may agree with that in some small way, but I would not be at all shocked if someone were to tell me that situations like the ones presented on GLEE are happening on a regular basis in real life. As I said before, it's commonplace to hear about the blurred lines of interaction between the youth and the youthful. With each year that I was in show choir, eighteen to twenty years ago, I learned more and more astonishing news that entailed my director. Classroom hangovers, drinking with students, a couple of relationships with students after they had graduated, and explicit conversations that would have gotten any Calculus teacher fired on the spot. Regardless of the regularity of extracurricular tutoring that was commonly found in a 1980's Rob Lowe feature, the presence of it on shows like GLEE does nothing, but send the wrong signal to inexperienced kids who want to fit in. The reality of TV is ephemeral as can be seen in the redundant story lines and mid season cancellations of relabeled premises, but the hyper-sexual content lacking any justification is just a form of porn marketed to teenagers similar to Camel cigarettes. This advertisers wet dream of cross marketing and synergy amongst the generations may very well give way to a cultural recession that could have Orwellian consequences in the form of right wing fanatics proposing legislation that would restrict progressive movements for the gay community and the liberties of women's right to choose. Oh wait...they already have.
Whenever my wife has some time off, I try to get an outing, or in this case, two to the casino about 45 minutes from where I live. There are a few closer casinos, but they don't offer the amount of poker tables that will allow me to get in a game soon after arriving. Last week while I got a chance to get out to the Hammond Horseshoe twice to play some NLHE $1-$2. The last time I had played any serious poker, let alone live, was in Las Vegas back in September when I joined a group of five other friends for a faux-bachelor party over a long weekend. I played poker a disappointing two times then which was basically nothing due to the fact that I was trying to be part of the group. I wish I had just gone to the pool and drank some Pina Coladas instead. Anyways!!!
I made the trip out to the Horseshoe and quickly got into a 1-2 NLHE game. My first hand I picked up pocket Queens and raised a limper to $14. I got a drunken coldcall from a guy immediately to my left who ended up folding on the turn when I hit my set and bet $55 in to a $65 pot. NAILED IT!!
Next big win I had pocket Kings which took down a nice pot. Things evened out for a while until I hit a set of 6s which once again took down an nice sized pot to put me up almost $2oo in the first hour. Soon after that , I young reg joined the game who had fleeced me a 4 months earlier when he caught 2 pair on the turn vs my small flush only to hit a 4 flush on the river to beat me. I limped with pocket 3s and he iso raised me to $16. I called and hit quad 3s. He fired the flop and checked the blank turn. He folded to my large river bet even though the final board totally nailed his preflop raising range. I made it up to +$300 at one point and finished my 4 hour session at +$271.
The next trip was a few days later which ended up being uneventful as I slowly lost $100 in the first 2 hours only to make it up in the last hour and cashed out exactly even for the shortened session. I was quite happy to have the positive results as well as feel the excitement for poker that has been waining, especially online due to the lack of games, post Black Friday. I am still working on the Part 1 of my magnum Opus which will ultimately have to do with online poker legislation. the first part is an extensive survey into the history of deregulation starting in the 1920's and then jumping to the modern era (circa 1980). I was hoping to have finished it before New Year's , but I feel as though I have to do more research in order feel comfortable with my facts. I hope to have it for you soon. Have fun!
If you are the author of a blog, then there is the obligatory posts that one must write and I am no different. With that being said, this is my "New Year's Blog entry" on the past year and my goals for the next, in no discernible order. 2011 was a wonderfully challenging year for me that tested my limits and questioned my sanity. It was a year of goals and failures, both being important to one's growth and education. This past year reflected my areas of expertise and the many areas of limitation that I want to overcome. 2011 reminded me that I am human and riddled with faults that I don't want to be chains like Jacob Marley.
The year started off on a high note, so to speak, as I was engulfed with teaching myself how to sing, once again. When I say "teach myself", I mean taking lessons with my musical mentor. That unfortunately came to a screeching halt with some family drahma which overshadowed my interests, like any family issues do. I was forced to make some tough decisions that were for the best, IMO, but was derailed from myself once again. I used what was left of March and April as a spring board back in to Online Poker, which had taken a back seat to music only to be thrown out the window by the DOJ when Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Absolute were shut down. Thanks a lot Osama Bin Laden. I no longer could have my Cake and eat it too.
I made some new goals to build an alternative online bankroll and separate live roll as well only to have that fantasy put on hold, by the happy realities of being a stay at home father of 3 sons under the age of 5. They have been the reason why I am not beating myself up for the countless stretch goals which I have not been able to complete in any way shape or form which leads me to my last effort of self improvement (a.k.a. an exercise in futility). The Chicago Marathon
I made the goal of taking up running again which I hadn't done seriously in 15-18 years when I was in Cross Country. I had always been an above average runner who never reached my potential which was reason enough to become more healthy and active for the sake of my family and a little ego boost to boot. The first 5 weeks went well until one day I couldn't straighten my left leg without excruciating pain. A little rest with the addition of scotch persuaded my inner procrastinator to take some medical leave which I have yet to recover from. This leads my to the 2012 portion of this entry which will hopefully set the tone for the new year:
I am hoping that if I make my goals smaller, more reasonable, and attainable, that I may be able to reach and larger, stretch goal, like the Chicago Marathon, not necessarily in 2012 like I had wanted, but perhaps in the next year or two. I have so much going on as a parent, that any individual goal I make beyond that becomes unrealistic due to the scheduling conflicts inherent in taking care of 3 kids. I can only hope that this realization helps to decrease any peripheral pressure that I have place on myself in the hopes of any self improvement. Ironic, isn't it?
