Finally, you can short your house

Here's a stick I gotta get on. When I bought my house in the middle of 2005 - just minutes before the market peaked and started its long, sad decline - I spoke with many of you about my prediction that the investment would decline in value and my desire to short the investment. At the time, most people looked at me even funnier than they were already - after all, I was supposed to be celebrating the acquisition of a new home for my family in a wonderful community (it really is a wonderful community). But instead, I was warbling about designing a vehicle to short the investment, to protect myself against the declining value, much like one can short securities and commodities. Unfortunately, at that time, no nut-case thought any such possibility was sensible.

Roll forward a couple years. Now the idea has not only escaped the realm of my personal lunacy, but the product has been designed and is available on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange! Have a look here if you do not believe me. I have yet to figure it all out, but there is now the (theoretical) possibility for me to buy protection in the futures markets against my house's continued value decline. This is something that I plan to study. If I am going to lose my shirt, I may as well keep my shorts!

I guess we're not scared enough

What would the United States be if there were not some major threat for the population to fear aimlessly? 9/11 must be too distant, Iraq must have numbed to many, and Pakistan and Iran must be too complicated. Heck, even subjects like carbon emissions, starvation and slaughter in Africa, elimination of the rain forests, and natural disasters in Bangladesh and Indonesia all are a little thin for the US media. Yawn.

Good thing there's China. Those guys are trying to kill our kids, if you believe the media. Every week, there is another story about another Chinese-manufactured toy that has to be re-called. And their dastardly currency policy - when will the US persuade them to let the thing reflect what the US thinks it's worth? But most recently I was entertained by a couple headlines. Yahoo!'s front page ran a cover story over the weekend about satellites and how they avoid orbital collisions. Amusingly, the "sub-question" below the headline was "Will China shoot down satellites?" I guess I am so out of touch that I have missed the recent China policy of shooting down satellites** - good thing the ever-sharp editorial crew at Yahoo! was there casually to scare me out of my pants.

Also, the New York Times Sunday paper ran a story about rock concerts in China. Apparently, concerts are getting more profitable there, so stars are traveling there to perform. The photograph of the latest star to show up in China was amusing - a shot with the star at the center, on the stage in the distance, framed by massive close-ups of two police security guards. Thanks to the New York Times, I now know that concerts in China are tightly-secure affairs, and the presence of the police can overwhelm the concert itself. Never mind the state of security at public gatherings in the US - the Chinese are just so strange!

Reflecting on the stream of enemies that the US Government and media has had us all afraid of over the span of the 20th and 21st centuries, it is amusing to watch the commencement, in earnest, of the next chapter. Welcome to the China House of Horrors.

** It turns out that the Chinese have inexplicably tested a satellite missile. How much can we make of that over the next months? I can't wait to find out.

A World Diminished

The World was lessened substantially this week when scholar and Emory University Law Professor Harold J. Berman passed away in New York City. Professor Berman was a leading thinker in so many important fields, including Law and Religion, Russian Law, Chinese Law, his beloved World Law, ethics, history, culture. He was a true Renaissance Man, except that he did not just dabble in anything. He was excellent in everything he pursued. His many writings and their popularity go a long way to make that case.

But much more than what he wrote, for me, was his boundless personal energy and his pure desire to see his students fly. He was a teacher in every way. He carefully planned his lectures and his informal seminars so they were designed to bring out the best in the participants. He never retreated from difficult subjects that might have put off his audience. Instead he plowed forward until the students had become better people. He welcomed odd or left-field thinking, especially if it shed light on his topics that he had not seen before. And he profoundly respected those with whom he worked. He was far and away the single greatest influence on my education, having taught me central things about the world that I had missed throughout my youth and the plentiful opportunities in my liberal and earlier legal education.

I had not seen Professor Berman for a number of years. The last time was at his home on Martha's Vineyard. We joined a family dinner there, and the discussion was as expansive and enticing as his classes had been. The conversation was disciplined and challenging, and ultimately enlightening. All that at a picnic table over grilled steaks and apple pie. I will always treasure that memory. In this world cluttered with unimportant junk, mis-information, and lazy analysis, I will miss you dearly Hal.