The Frustrated CFO

Quote of the Week: No Retirement in Your Future

  "Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous.  When I was sixty-five I still had pimples."

           George Burns

           1896 - 1996

 The Frustrated CFO's Comment:  At this point, the best my generation can do is to look for humor in our situation.

The Wealth of the Nation: Observation #3

Just like every other New Yorker, I have experienced the rush of LIE's giant billboard ads coming at me on the way out of and into the Midtown Tunnel on numerous occasions.  You cannot really avoid the experience - there are just too many possibilities that can draw you that way: JFK, LaGuardia, US Open at Flushing Meadows, its next-door neighbors the Mets, your relatives in Queens, your suburban friends with their Near Long Island homes, and maybe even rich acquaintances with summer residences in the Hamptons.  Hey, it's possible you just like sitting in traffic for hours.  Whatever is the reason, the majority of people who live in or visit NYC have been exposed to the visual calls of various brands, upcoming movies, TV seasons' premiers, etc. strategically positioned on that particular spot between the boroughs.

Liberal extremists and snooty hipsters unconditionally reject all forms of commercial publicity as the front-end of consumerism (yet, they all support it by the sheer fact of having facebook accounts and iPhones).  But I'm no hypocrite - I don't simplistically dismiss advertising and even consumerism itself as evil.  In full honesty: quality objects are quite necessary in my life for aesthetic, utilitarian, vain, and psycho-therapeutic reasons.  Quality being an operative word, of course.  Unfortunately, the majority of contemporary promotions target general public that cannot afford quality anymore.  And it has been reflected on the ever-changing billboards.

Over the years I've experienced a broad spectrum of reactions to the images coming into my view on LIE.  At worst, they've ranged from "Who the hell is this ad for?  Billionaires?" to "God, that's just cheap and ugly!"  And at best, I have been pleasantly surprised by the resurrection of a high quality classic (Longines); awed by the first digital installation (FreshDirect); excited by the success of a small business (7 for All Mankind - unfortunately, they sold out to a global conglomerate VF within a couple of years); inspired by the social changes we have witnessed (Queer As Folk).    

Sadly, in the last couple of years my reaction range narrowed to one very intense sliver of irritation, but at least the billboards were largely occupied as recently as four months ago.  Imagine my surprise last weekend when I saw that less than 50% of the boards were actually covered by promo bills.  I don't think I've ever seen them like that.              

No, wait!  There was a period back in, I believe, 2012 when a lot of ads had to be taken down and boards dismantled due to the strict enforcement of the billboard laws related to the size and distance requirements.  But it is safe to assume that both the space owners and advertisers overcame the regulation hurdles, since, as I said, I just recently saw practically all billboards occupied.

So, that's not it.  What then?  Two things, really - the national impoverishment and the incurable social-media degeneracy.

You see, the billboards are not cheap.  It's not Super Bowl prices ($4.5 million for a 30-second spot this year), but still - an LIE billboard rents for about $30K per month.  And that's at the time when every single company that targets the consumer market with its goods or services MUST make room in their advertising budgets for GoogleAds (which also owns YouTube), iAds, facebook, Twitter, etc.  

Multiply that consideration by the wavering consumer confidence (I don't care what the "official" numbers are showing) compounded with the dwindling buying power and you come to the point when even the companies selling the highest volumes of consumer goods have to start making tough choices: whether to allocate $300K per year to a physical spot with a maximum of 210,000 possible views a day (LIE's 2014 auto throughput) or to a virtual spot tied to some viral YouTube video that generates 5 million views in 5 days. 

The empty spots along the expressway testify to the choices the companies are making.  It's totally opportunistic, of course.  Moreover, from my POV it's also totally short-sighted - there are so many existing and potential problems with online advertising, I intend to write a separate post on the subject.  It is possible that we are yet to see the times when advertisers will be fighting for the physical publicity spaces.  But for now, more and more billboards along the highways and on the City's buildings will go empty. 

I have a feeling that even the famous and fabulous digital screens at one of the most visited places in the world (50 million visitors a year), Times Square, may end up going dark at some point.  After all, nowadays the tourists and locals alike are mostly looking down at their electronic devices, not up.  So, it would be only fiscally prudent for the consumer-oriented companies to spend $1M-$4M a year (2015 rates) some place else.

And I find it very telling that the most gigantic (the whole block, 77 feet tall by 323 feet long, 20 pixels big) and the most expensive ($2.5 million for EVERY 4 WEEKS) LED advertising screen was taken by the company that makes billions on online advertising - Google.  They can actually afford it easily. 

Of course, the blank billboards are good news for graffiti artists like Rambo - more real estate for them! There is a poetic justice in that: the promotion of consumerism gets replaced by the guerrilla art.  Historically, the explosion of street art always went hand-in-hand with the economic downfalls.  That's why in the past it frequently (and expediently) turned into Prop Art - going from philosophical expressionism straight into political activism.  People should remember that as a valuable lesson in social science. 

In my opinion, it's not accidental that the crumbling of our ecological and socioeconomic environments coincides with the aesthetic degradation we are experiencing right now - when people bow to false idols and nepotistic, masturbatory garbage is passed as the "contemporary art" by the pushers from auction houses and big-name galleries.  I can only hope that real artists will fulfill their soul-changing mission and force people to look away from their little crack-emitting handheld displays and up at something awesome and powerful.          

WTF, Greece? Or The Luxurious Arrogance of Poverty

The funny thing is that I went to Greece precisely in the last moments of their Euro-backed temporary prosperity - in August of 2009.  By the end of that year, the Greek government had no choice but to come clean and admit that they "slightly" understated their national deficit, by like... 112%.  After that it all went down the hill and now we know where Greece really is - in deep shit.

It's a beautiful country!  Very beautiful and very proud of its history and culture, its ancient glory.  Sometimes to a fault, but that's another story.  Meanwhile, in this one I must say that, while our own Greek experience was nothing short of fantastic, we just knew that the shit will hit the fan pretty soon.  There were signs, both metaphorical and tangible.   

Towards the end of our trip, massive wildfires broke out in several areas.  On the morning of our drive to the Athens International Airport for the flight home, the vile smell of the scorched earth was already clinging to everything in the capital and its suburbs.  It felt as if we were escaping a cinematic doom, with the burning forests chasing us away.  Greeks and their theatrics! 

My fiscally attuned mind picked on far less dramatic, more subtle hints.  Small, but significant things; especially peculiar for a country that has an official status of "developed" and boasts "a high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living."

For example, practically every person we've met there had relatives in the US; and not second or third generation immigrants, but people who left in a past decade or so.  Since Greece has been a stable democracy for at least 35 years and it is pretty homogeneous racially, these people are obviously not political refugees.  Like for the majority of immigrants, their underlying reason for leaving the homeland is economic.

Also, there were scores people in their 50s and 60s who have already retired.  That actually could've been considered a sign of wealth, indicating significant personal savings.  Except that was not the case - all these people were relying on substantial government pensions.  Speaking of wealth, quite a few of more or less prosperous Greeks have businesses locally but reside in the US, Canada, Australia, and Germany, pulling substantial chunks of their capital out of their home country (Greece readily allows dual citizenship). 

The brand new (opened only two months before our arrival) Acropolis Museum, standing right next to the undergoing massive restorations Parthenon, simply blew my mind.  It is extraordinarily impressive!  With data from several sources I was able to estimate that,  between the museum and the archeological site, their owner, the Ministry of Culture, had spent $320 million (at the Euro/USD conversion rate of the time).  I wondered how a country of 11 million people with 2008 GDP smaller than Exxon Mobil's annual revenues could possibly afford such undertaking!  Well, it couldn't - the Greek government dipped into Eurozone lending pool to finance these projects.  And that brings us to the current stalemate.    

God!  There are so many economic, political, and social reviews out there on the subject of the Greek disaster, it would be just a waste of time to try to stick another two cents into the cacophony of bullshit prediction and "analytical" speculations.  Moreover, most commentators seem to be focused on the problem I've noticed back in 2009 and already pointed out above - the youngish pensioners.  So, what else there is to say?  Yet, I know a thing or two about countries that de facto belong to the third-world realm, but delude themselves into believing that they are big international players!  Hence, I may offer some additional insights. 

You see, average citizens don't get ideas of grandeur and prosperity out of thin air.  Every Emerald City has its own Wizard of Oz.  And those are always people of power with national (and international) reach; invariably they are all liars. 

With some nations (e.g. Russia) it's enough to bluntly smack green glasses of absolutely empty, never-ever fulfilled promises straight onto the noses of the countrymen and they will believe that they are surrounded by jewels.  In other countries, like Greece, the illusions must be more finessed - you actually have to give something tangible to people to make them believe that their lives can be no different than, let's say, in the Netherlands, or Sweden.  

As I said, it gets tricky:  In Scandinavian countries, citizens themselves are charged with an obligation to fund their state benefits through heavy income taxes.  But Greek politicians who rode to power on social programs have no resources like that - there is not enough domestic income to tax.  The national wealth is not real, it's just pretend.  What to do then?  Not to worry - it's all thought through: If your country is a Eurozone member, you have a shortcut - you can qualify for member loans (Acropolis, pensions, welfare - everything from the same Euro pot). 

The Prestige of this magic trick is this: in order to qualify the Greek government lied to everyone internally and externally - they falsified data, facts, statements and whatnot, obscuring the fact that the national wealth is not really there.  And no matter what people who benefited from thusly financed cushy social programs think, these opportunists had only their own personal interests and political aspirations in mind.

Of course now it is difficult to take any benefits away!  Greeks don't want to give them up.  Oh the luxurious arrogance of the poor!  They want to keep all their benefits and their pride intact at the same time - get their debts forgiven, receive more money.  They feel entitled! They are one of the oldest members of the Eurozone!  If their European comrades want to keep the Union intact, they will bite their tongues and save their Greek brother, no matter what!  Plus, no terms and conditions! 

This attitude manifested itself on 07/05, when 60% of the country voted in support of saying "No" to the bailout package that was on the table at the time.  The CNN Breaking News I've received that day said that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that

"this will force Europe to hand over more money with less austerity attached, and cancel some of Greece's enormous debt."

For a hot second there it seemed that pride will become the top priority; that they'd rather starve standing up then eat kneeling.  Greeks were celebrating in the streets of Athens.  Where is all that pride coming from amidst all the lying and data falsification?  And who can afford to be proud when your national economy is in a state commonly known as a "free fall" and your banking system is in a virtual shut down due to empty vaults?  I don't know.   

But then, only four days later, they retracted and accepted the original offer:  zero old debt forgiveness; the bailout in the conventional form of loans; compulsory pension cuts and tax increases to make sure that the Greek government can serve this new debt and the old debt, i.e. pay interest to the lending Euro-brothers.  And now Mr. Tsipras says "YES, PLEASE" and is willing to battle his own MPs to ratify the requirements into laws! 

Doesn't it all sound like some sort of a kindergarten (aka political) game of delusional children?  But hold up!  The conditional bailout is not a guarantee.  Will Greece pass all those mandatory economic reforms as laws?  Will the PM be able to pull through?  The 6 million Spartans may still have a chance to keep their grand stance instead.         

The unspoken truth is - if that what happens tomorrow, it will be the best possible outcome for the European Union.  I mean, none of the members can really afford this bailout (Remember? France wants to sell Mona Lisa to cover exactly 0.1% of its own national debt).  It would be a much better fiscal option for other countries to let Greece follow that Exit sign straight out of the Eurozone.  

Post Scriptum to Pseudoscience Post: Michael LaCour

A week ago I posted my comments on pseudo-economics  and a couple of days later someone drew my attention to Michael LaCour's mess.

That's right, I am not up to date on my bullshit news!  And if some of you are not either:  Michael LaCour is a political-science PhD aspirant at UCLA.  Last year, he successfully pushed through academic approvals and straight into mass media his research, which "empirically proved" that voters' opinions on gay marriage could be positively shifted based on a single 20-minite conversation with an LGBT person relating his/her story. 

Of course, it was a fake!  Not only the results were falsified, the entire study was a fiction.  As I was trying to explain in the previous post, there is a lot of this shit going on, especially in social sciences.  Surprisingly, it got exposed as a fraud within just one year!      

Oh, my!  What a case in point!  Or rather a case in multiple points I've been addressing from time to time.  Here are a few:

Point 1.  Nowadays, you can literally fake anything - data, documents, careers, personae and personalities, talents, beauty, courage, loyalty, honesty, news, finances, science, art, national histories, even entire lives, as long as you wrap it in an impressive package and  your lies hit the right spot in the target audience. The gullible, superficial, ignorant, and plain stupid majority of contemporary humans make terrifically fertile soil for all kind of schemers and fakers to sow their poisonous seeds.  What used to be a crime of skillful con artists and corrupt governments has become a way of life for quite a few people; many of them very successful and well known.        

Point 2.  Nobody is doing their job and/or paying attention.  It is impossible to count how many times I brought up this issue, both in writing and in conversations.  LaCour's blatant fakery passed with flying colors through multiple stages of mandatory academic, "accuracy-liable" reporting, and widespread public assessments.  Faculty advisers, peer reviewers, editors of research journals, social justice non-profits, mass-media reporters and their respective editors - they all accepted and approved the study's premise, methodology, findings, and conclusions.

Even LaCour's "co-author," Columbia University political science professor Donald Green didn't bother to check the validity of the data presented to him.  (This is how it works, by the way, in academia in all countries - you need some professor's name on your papers to get them published).  I can vividly see all these people, too impotent to engage any critical reasoning, speed-reading the first and the last 10 pages of the paper and being bedazzled by colorful charts and tables of numbers. 

Point 3.  Media and public perception will always prevail over reason and truth.  Because for the past several years gay marriage has been one of the hottest topics on the journalistic radar, publication of the study in Science magazine worked like a spark for the international print media engine.  As the result, the research was headlined in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, and This American Life. 

Because people read about it in these "respected" newspapers and magazines (oh, they've failed us so many times - but people don't want to learn), nobody questioned the fact that the study contradicted the times-proven concept that the vast majority of people tend to hold on to their social and political opinions regardless of what they read or hear.  Moreover, everyone's daily personal interactions are miniature studies in people's staunch stubbornness and inability to absorb opponents' arguments; alas, that was also ignored.

It takes an extraordinary power of persuasion of some very special people who possess illuminating brilliance of the mind, impressive oratory skills, and innate guruship (all of it at the same time) to alter minds and souls.  And I don't think you can find 100 of those in Los Angeles, or the entire state of California, or any single nation.  Hell, let me be honest - I think it would be hard to find 100 people like that on this entire planet.

Yet, the confused liberal do-gooders got so excited about the "scientifically proven" possibility of influencing potential voters through a simple tool of a 20-minute conversation, many of them shook their donors' wallets and scraped their budget barrels in order to fund multiple LGBT canvasing projects.  Are you ready?  Ireland's Yes Campaign publicly connects the successful legalization of gay marriage in that country six weeks ago to their use of LaCour's paper as a template in targeting conservative voters with personal stories' recounts.  Not the years of political struggle, constitutional law reviews, tremendous cultural shifts of the past 20 years affecting generations of people in many countries, but one single (and short) conversation!      

Point 4.  Common sense is all you need to see the truth.  (It's getting to be my mantra, isn't it?)  David Brookman, another graduate student at University of California (only in Berkley, not LA) took a quick look at some of the input data presented in LaCour's research and went like, "What the fuck?"  Or something to that effect - I wasn't really there.  He didn't need any heavy investigative machinery or extensive computer modeling - just simple arithmetic in his head: 10,000 of "recorded" contacts at a disclosed incentives of $100 a pop, that's... $1,000,000!!!  Who the hell funded this scientifically uncertain PhD research in the first place?  (The fact that nobody, not even the co-author, has put two and two together before Brookman did literally makes my blood boil.)  And was it some highly reputable survey organization that handled this substantial sum?  Nah, the name didn't ring any bells, like at all.  After that it was just unspooling the lies.  

Point 5.  The unrepairable damage of pseudoscientific bullshit.  They come in different shapes and forms, and they can manifest themselves right away or in the distant future, but there is no question about it - nothing good ever comes out of pseudoscience and falsified research.  Whether it's Nazi's eugenics providing foundation for racial extermination, or "medical cures" of homosexuality destroying lives, or pulp sci-fi replacing healthcare and education for millions of people around the world - some terrible fallout always follows. 

Without getting all preachy and embarking on a rant about the amorality of LaCour's con, let me instead mention its two more tangible negative outcomes.  

As soon as the fraud was exposed,  The Wall Street Journal (one of the original heralds of the "revolutionary" findings), in a typical swing to the other extreme, gave its editorial page to some conservative "scientists" to vent their righteous indignation.  These theoreticians, of course, couldn't possibly miss the opportunity to denounce all of social science (I guess, that includes Economics) as unscientific and nothing more than "liberal wishful thinking." 

Because so many civil-rights advocacy groups associated themselves with LaCour's bullshit and, as I mentioned before, spent gifted, bequeathed, and granted funds replicating the experiment that never was, they discredited themselves as organizations and people who didn't know what they were doing.  Even staunch supporters feel embarrassed by those leaders who succumbed to someone's unscrupulous methods of advancing their academic careers.  I am guessing, a few non-profit heads will roll.

And truthfully I cannot possibly feel sorry for these fools.  Just like I didn't feel sorry for Bernie Madoff's victims.  These people want to hear the "good news" so badly, they become eager and willing participants in these not-so-clever schemes.   

Mad Max vs. Fat Amy, or Sad Accounting of Regressive Tastes

Generally speaking, all benchmarking techniques can be defined as ranking of a process or a product against another process or a product with similar specific metrics of known values.  Financial benchmarking in particular focuses on the comparison of the financial results with a purpose of assessing overall competitiveness and productivity.  The beauty of this research tool is in its potential to uncover some underlying reasons behind the comparative results.

While it's difficult (yet not impossible) to apply generic correlative methodologies to such subjective, ambiguously immeasurable, and predominantly qualitative characteristics as artistic values of cinematic products, fiscal aspects of the movie-making are not only comparable (as previously outlined in Arts & Entertainment by the Numbers III), at this point they are the chief driving force behind the big-screen output.  It's that competitiveness, y'all!  "C.r.e.a.m get the money.  Dolla Dolla bill y'all."    

Let's not forget that financial results are accounting reflections of the micro-economic patterns of supply and demand.  Movies, being consumer products, specifically depend on the behavior of the consumer market; even more categorically - on the tastes of the viewing audience.

With that in mind, I would like to sketch out a simplified financial benchmarking exercise based on the most recent installments of two movie franchises (identical products competing in the same markets) that came out on the same day, 05/15/15 (another identical metric) - Mad Max: Fury Road (a terrifyingly believable upgrade of the post-apocalyptic high-octane series with Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and Nicholas Hoult) and Pitch Perfect 2 (a hard-to-believe Cinderella-type contemporary chick-flick-with-singing about an a capella group on the road to stardom with Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, and Elizabeth Banks; the latter also produced and directed).

Mad Max opened on more screens: 3702 vs. 3473, yet Pitch Perfect 2 made $69.2 million (230% of its rumored $30 mil budget) during the opening weekend - $23.8 mil more than Mad Max whose $45.4 mil barely returned 30% of its $150 mil budget.  Here, in our blessed USA, the fiscal gap between the two movies keeps only expanding: As of yesterday, Mad Max's domestic gross ($143 mil) was already trailing Pitch Perfect 2's by $34 mil. 

Numbers don't  lie: A handful of them is all we need to clearly show that American general public prefers to see a movie full of inexplicable plot turns and dialogue pearls akin to

"Fat Amy: Listen, I don't want you guys to fight.  You're Beca and Chloe, together you're Bhloe and everyone loves a good Bhloe."

instead of taking a hard and honest look at the future that already awaits us around the proverbial corner, notwithstanding the high cinematic standards, tight script, awesome directions in all divisions of the process, and NO CGI (!!!)

Of course, making back multiples of the budget and fattening the pockets of producers and distributers pretty much guaranteed Pitch Perfect 3, which is already set to be released in 2017.  On the other hand, if people behind Mad Max: Fury Road had to rely only on the US distribution, the $7 mil deficit would pretty much kill all the chances for the filming of the next installment - Mad Max: The Wasteland.  Thankfully, there are international distribution channels.

And overseas results are quite opposite to what we observe here at home.  The universal appeal of Mad Max's sci-fi realism yielded the film $202.5 mil of foreign revenues, making the total box office as of yesterday $346.10 mil. 

On the other hand, I can't even imagine how translators deal with that Bhloe crap in the subtitles.  So, it is not surprising that Pitch Perfect 2 made only $94.5 mil outside of US, with 51% of that coming from English-speaking countries of UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.  In many countries the movie stayed in the theaters only for the opening weekend.    As the result, its worldwide box office now totals $272 mil, or $74.1 mil less than its competitor in this example. 

That's gross, of course.  Nowadays, it's hard to overcome a $120 mil budgetary differential.  Thus, the singing chicks are still $46K more profitable than the depiction of our damaged Planet and her marred inhabitants.

One can argue that today $150 mil worth of resources is too high of a price for any movie, good or bad.  And I agree, but spending any resources at all over and over again on crap that furthers the process of human degeneration is simply criminal.

Quote of the Week: Amidst Silly Shenanigans "The Blacklist" Sometimes Hits the Truth on the Head

"They are... part of a global conspiracy; a shadow organization that spans across every continent and has for the last three decades; consisting of leaders in world governments and the private sector.  Some call this group the Cabal.  The world you live in is the world they want you to think you live in.  They start wars; create chaos; and, when it suits them, they resolve it.  Cabal members will move more money in the next quarter than the World Bank will in the next year.  Their alliance affects a sea of change in every aspects of human life.  The value and distribution of commodities, money, weapons, water, fuel, the food we eat to live, the information we rely on to tell us who we are."

                                                            The Blacklist, episode 2.22

                                           Written by  John Eisendrath and Jon Bokenkamp

The Frustrated CFO's Note (to explain the post's title): It's impossible for an intelligent person to take the action-packed storytelling about spies and secret agents at face value, even if the writers manage to sneak in ideas and opinions that resonate with one's own political, social, and world views, which frequently happens on The Blacklist.  The very basis of a good thriller about things that are "known only to a few" is that shit is mostly made up.  Luc Besson once said that La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional were as much sci-fi creations as The Fifth Element.  What pushed The Blacklist into the shenanigans territory for me was the recycling of the "unknowing daughter of the KGB agent-mother" plot turn.  I guess it's difficult for J.R. Orci to shake off the Alias baggage.        

The Frustrated CFO Recommends: Black Mirror

If you can stomach the naked truth about the world we live in, about your surroundings and yourself; if you are ready to actually see a clear depiction of the pile of unbearable scum that the human species has become, watch Black Mirror.  Pay attention and look hard  - it reflects Homo Technologiae  and its self-made surroundings at its realest.

And for those who don't look at the world through the pink glasses of delusional denial, what a joy to know that there is Charlie Brooker and his cohorts at Zeppotron!  What a gratifying experience to realize that there are like-minded people out there!  

Thank you, to everyone who has been working on this reality-fiction anthology and to those at Channel 4 responsible for its distribution.  And special thanks to the executives at Netflix who are continuously bringing narrow-niche products like this to their 60 million global subscribers.  

It has been reported that the show is  a big success in the US.  Well, I don't know if everyone understands that they are looking at their own reflections.  Nevertheless, this gives us a shred of hope, doesn't it?    

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Joke of the Day: Are You Fracking Kidding Me?

One of the walls in the lobby of the building where my office is located is entirely covered by multiple monitors.  Together they work as one giant HD screen.  This is what techies call a video wall.  To the best of my knowledge its primary feed is CNBC.

Most days when I leave the office I see in passing Jim Cramer still going Mad about Money. But today I had to leave a little earlier and the only money manager ever to tell the general public not to use their retirement and college funds for stock-market speculations wasn't on yet.  

I have no idea what was on, but from the corner of my eye I saw flashing on the screen

EARTHQUAKES ARE LINKED TO FRACKING?

Eh, dah!  Are you fucking kidding me?  Is that even a question?  Who the fuck told these people that they could rape the Earth every each way and not to hear her scream?

I am glad, though, that it was there, hanging on the wall for a minute - at least someone in the prime media is talking about this abhorrent crime.    

Musings Over People's Deficiencies, or the Division of Labor Extreme

A few weeks ago, this young artist I know went to a party - a sort of a mingling of, let's say (trying to be as vague as possible), people in creative fields.  Afterwards, I asked her how it went and the first thing that I got back was actually a rhetorical question: "Why do people suck so bad at organizing things?"

Turns out the party was arranged by a couple of guys who were "minglers" themselves and volunteered to spearhead the process; apparently, with an unsatisfactory result.  I can hear some of my readers saying with all-knowing intonations, "This is why you outsource to professional event-planners or employ support staffers with event-organizing responsibilities."

And they are correct.  I rarely go to parties myself, but the last two I attended were a huge Gala (over 700 people) and a small Gala (250 people).  The former was put together by a "big-name" event-planning firm and the latter by the event chairman's personal assistant.  Well, those were pretty large affairs with complicated programs and minor celebrities in attendance.  But a regular cocktail and/or dinner party? 

To tell you the truth, every time people start calling expensive coordinators to manage some itty-bitty occasion I have the same mental image: Steve Martin's remade father of the bride questioning his wife (Diane Keaton) on why two people who successfully run independent businesses need any help in putting together a wedding; let alone help of some guy with an unidentifiable accent (Martin Short) and his smug assistant (BD Wong, which is uncanny, cause he was one of the celebrity guests at that big gala I mentioned above).  

You probably think, "Why don't you try it yourself?"  So, let me assure you that I do have experience of rolling up my sleeves and stepping into party-planning when nobody else around is up to the task; most recently for a celebratory corporate festivity for my company with 80 guests.  And, yes, I am a control freak (at least I admit it) and sometimes it is a contributing factor into my taking charge of things, but honestly it was either doing it myself or wasting thousands of dollars on outsourcing. 

Let me remind you that I am a career CFO with multiple interests - I don't do parties, professionally or as a hobby.  Yet, 18 months later people are still talking about it.  And I promise you I didn't do anything out of the ordinary - I simply approached the problem in a logical and systematic way.  That was the very reason the project fell into my lap in the first place - people always rely on my common sense.

But that's a rare commodity nowadays, common sense, isn't it?  And the lack of it causes the trend of ultra-narrow specialization we observe today.  I am not surprised at all that those artistic types couldn't organize a decent party.  Haven't you noticed?  The majority of people around you are good primarily at one thing (if they are good at anything at all): performing their paying jobs, or looking pretty, or being social, or shopping, or cooking.  A person who is "good with people," usually sucks with numbers.  The hard-working breadwinners are mostly useless in their households.  Overwhelming number of people don't even have hobbies these days.  And those with fun-and-leisure faves are too preoccupied to do well at work.

And don't even get me started on the narrow professional specialization cultivated by headhunters and HR specialists too limited to comprehend the concept of adaptable competence!  They perverted the idea of "transferable skills" into exact matches of specific employment in a specific type of company of a specific industry.  Instead of assessing whether an applicant is capable of applying his expertise to ANY business situation they go through a checklist of specialized tasks.  You may be the strongest professional they've ever met, but if you don't collect enough check marks on the roster of narrowly defined projects, you will not be considered.  

How can we be surprised then that people are losing their capacity for systematic thinking both at work and life when they are stuck doing the same shit over and over again?  I'll tell you a secret: I never hire anybody whose resume shows 20 or even 10 years of static employment, no matter how "prestigious" it is.  Adaptability is one of my top 10 key factors of the value assessment.  I like my Renaissance people!             

The scary level of targeted specialization we have reached at this point is not evolutionary or revolutionary; and it's not economically beneficial and "progressive."  This is the aftermath of the intellectual (and physical) laziness that spreads into larger and larger segments of the general population like a pandemic.  The spoiled brats from all kinds of walks of life don't want to do elementary things themselves; they demand to be served, and, the shrinking minority of  enterprising people take the opportunity to supply such services - the natural laws of supply and demand are still struggling against nothingness.

On the opposite side from the utmost lethargy, but causing exactly the same regressively narrow results, is the other extreme - that glorified "focus" on your job and the job only.  Well, mental health specialists define the intense preoccupation with a narrow subject or activity as one of the main characteristics of Asperger syndrome.  And that's a mental disorder! 

Evolutionary speaking, we were never supposed to be this labor-differentiated, because  diverting the responsibilities for all your needs to others humans undercuts your personal chance for survival.  I am not talking pro-level pilotage in every task of life, of course, but there is basic shit you should be able to do yourself! 

And yes, that includes coordinating a simple gathering of people to everyone's satisfaction if the need arises.  I am not saying "Met Gala" with spectacular celebrities, but an ordinary function for 100 regular schmucks should be pretty manageable.

The same goes, as another example, for vacation planning.  One should be capable of tailoring his own decent vacation without paying for some generic package thrown together by an absent-minded leisure-industry professional who knows nothing about you and your companions.

And you should be able to make your place of residence livable without paying $300K fees to a "professional decorator" who will additionally charge you $50K for each made-in-China table lamp that you can buy at Lamp Warehouse in Brooklyn for $3K.  I am not saying Architectural Digest spreads, just a tasteful arrangement of furniture and some tchotchkes that make you feel at home.

And there is no need to call a handyman for bulb-changing, or picture-hanging, or installing a new toilet seat.  Unless, of course, it's a multifunctional state-of-the-art accessory that you've got yourself from Japan via Amazon.  I am not talking about using dangerous power tools to carve a brand-new lock into your door either - such types of amateur endeavors are reserved for very special people, but at least buy yourself a screwdriver.

And I am sorry, mathematically challenged people, but it is not funny anymore that you cannot (and don't want to) balance your checkbooks.  In the age of electronic payments, smart-phone deposits, massive hacking attacks, and readily available devices that can remotely override the security of every plastic item in your wallet, it is really dangerous not to reconcile your cash ins and outs with the bank records.  It's not a goddamned Newton's binomial theorem either!  Just pure arithmetic!  

And green thumb or not, one should be able to plant a seed and tend to it with sufficient care and persistence until it flowers or bears fruit.  Nobody is expecting award-winning roses and pluots here, but carrots, tomatoes, and onions can be managed by a child.

And not being able to cook a simple meal for yourself?  That's just pathetic!  What the hell are you going to do in the absence of the online orders and take-outs?  Chew raw pasta?

Yet, we hear all around us:

"I am totally retarded when it comes to cooking.  I can't even boil an egg!"

Or, "I wouldn't be able to sew a button to save my life!"

That "save my life" turn of phrase is not accidental, by the way.  The day may come when it can have a very literal meaning. 

Gender Equality: Taylor Swift and the Pussy-Cats

Yes, I watched the video and I laughed at the glorious Internet headlines.  Well, what can I say?

To me, the really sad thing about the delirious puppets featured in the Bad Blood video is their conviction that they are real.  Even sadder: because they generate 8-figure annual earnings, have some pull in their closed-off entertainment realms, and are constantly followed by TMZ - they think that they are badass, that they represent the ultimate "Girl Power."  

Well, the truth is they represent nothing but silliness, artifice, and utter emptiness.  What are these little Girls are made of?  Digitally enhanced voices, and unmemorable music with the life expectancy of butterflies, and silly meaningless lyrics, and even sillier antics, and fake emotions, and amateur face-making, and PR-boosted media frenzy, and airbrushed images, and a whole bunch of CGI.  That what these little Girls are made of - not a single fresh thought, not a single lasting idea.  I mean, they hit such level of dilettante mediocrity in that video, it's hard to soldier through it.

Even worse, they don't realize that they are objects AND instruments of manipulations by the men with real power. 

You see, it serves the men's ambitions quite well for this type of Girls to be celebrated.  The dominant gender wants their pedestrian, shallow, benign values to be imprinted onto general public.  These girlish marionettes are very important -their individual contributions into the dumbing of the masses is incredible!  But this video opus is something special!  It amplifies the Girls' damaging effect: together they stay united - not as powerful human entities they think they are, but as a bunch of well-compensated Barbie Dolls on display.  Of course, all girls want to be just like them!  It's the Toys"R"Us effect!    

And for the hetero-male audience?  It's the same ages-old flesh peddling: hooker looks, non-existent clothing or skintight latex, seven-inch heels, and, as a bonus, the all-time favorite subject matter - the catfight.

The bitching kittens are not a threat to the gender disbalance at all.  On the contrary, with every step they make and every sound they utter, they throw away everything women were able to gain so far in the hard-fought struggle for equality, for the right to be treated like humans rather than members of a particular gender.

That's why the male record executives and agents who HANDLE these Girls keep pushing their sissy, non-threatening projects so hard - the more of it is out there polluting every visible and audible media, the less there is room for something real and stirring!       

If these girly bitches really cared about Female Power, they would go and hide their painted faces under their huge pillows in their oversized doll houses.  Their withdrawal from the toolbox of mass manipulations would really benefit the women's fight for equality. 

And you, Joseph Kahn, The Bride is coming for you.  Now, that she is done with Bill, she can find time to teach you a lesson or two.  Because, there is homage and there is cheap, uninspiring imitation.  And you wouldn't know the difference even if it ruptured you with a katana.