After posting 41 entries since initiating this blog in late 2007, I've decided to take a break of several months to, as they say, recharge my batteries. Later today Donna and I leave for 10 days in Venice, a trip prompted by the Biennale, which opens later this week.

Close to a century ago, humorist Robert Benchley was dispatched by his newspaper to Venice. Upon arriving, he cabled his editor, "Streets flooded, please advise."

Back to you later.

Ciao,

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Here’s your assignment: You’ve just been elected President of the United States. Your most urgent Cabinet appointment is Treasury Secretary, the person who will lead us out of the worst financial abyss since the Depression. Read More...

On December 8, I wrote that the praise for “Obama’s initial slate of financial appointments has been almost unanimously effusive. But not from me.” I lamented “that a great opportunity was missed – the appointment of Joseph Stiglitz to either Treasury Secretary (instead of Timothy Geithner) or head of the National Economic Council (instead of Larry Summers).”

Stiglitz writes that the administration’s proposal to deal with the ailing banks is one that replicates “the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down…overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency…” Read More...

Healthcare -- A Realistic Opportunity

Academia -- Two Tough Choices

Financial Perps -- Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

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For several days in mid-February, the news was dominated by the airline crash near Buffalo that killed all 50 passengers and crew. Hours of live television coverage of the crash site and days of newspaper articles forced the economic crisis off the front pages. Though it was the first fatal domestic airline crash in 2½ years, it still served to reignite fears in those who view flying as unnatural and dangerous.


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Are you a visual person? (How can you answer no to a question like that?) If so, you’re in for a treat. I’m going to share with you three pieces of eye candy, and in one case, an additional pleasure for your ears. First is a gem from the visual arts world, the second from photography, and the third from the world of opera. The common denominator? Incredible technology married to incredible visual (and aural) accomplishments. Or, in the language originated by the late Caltech Nobel Laureate Roger Sperry, the right brain meets the left brain.

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The Inauguration
The Speech
The Dinner Party
The Inauguration Balls
Purple Gate Hell
The Poem
...and other observations from a memorable week

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To go to the inauguration?
Two election observations
On the cultural front
The unusual Clinton Foundation donors
You do what you’re named
Going for it on fourth down
Predictions
A golf story

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Three years ago we commissioned Elyn Zimmerman to create a site-specific work at The Falls, our home in Litchfield County, Connecticut. In 2007, she completed and installed the work, Archeos 2005.

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On the Economic Appointments
On the Election Results
On Automobiles
On Microjets
On Pet Peeves
On iPhone Apps
On Architectural Progress
On Art
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Almost 21 months ago, Barack Obama threw his hat into the presidential race. Having prevailed in a bitterly fought primary, he now faces the final test -- tomorrow’s general election. Because there are so few pundits proffering opinions on the outcome (hah!), I thought that I’d help fill the vacuum by sharing my thoughts with you. Actually, I have just two predictions. Read More...

Two weeks ago, the evening before we were to leave our Manhattan apartment on a 10-day trip to London, we received a phone call informing us that our Tesla Roadster would arrive the next morning at our Litchfield County home. We immediately headed north. Nearly three years after ordering the car, and a year and a half after its initially promised delivery date, it arrived.

It was worth waiting for.

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Thinking of traveling to London? Now’s not a bad time. The pound is down from $2.10 during our last trip to “only” $1.73 today. As a result, prices have dropped from out-of-sight to merely jaw-dropping. But the weather’s perfect, the art and theatre scenes are lively, and you’d never know a worldwide financial crisis is enveloping us. Somehow, the looming trickle-down poverty hasn’t yet trickled down from the world of the Masters of the Universe to the ordinary restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues. London streets are jammed, the energy is high, and life goes on. So we’re here to take to take it all in, including a bunch of plays and a lot of art.
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On Politics
On Polls
On Economic Equilibrium
On Music
On Football
On New Orleans
...and a few other things



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My explanation for the economic chaos (and politics, philanthropy, computer industry reminiscence, Lime Rock, and followups on electric vehicles, Lunar X Prize, Eclipse Aviation).

In 1983, screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy, Marathon Man, All the President’s Men, Princess Bride, et al.) wrote Adventures in the Screen Trade, a brilliant and entertaining analysis of the movie industry. His unforgettable takeaway line that summarized the entire 436-page book, the phrase that captured the essence of Hollywood, and now the single best explanation of why we’re in such a economic mess: “Nobody knows anything.” Read More...

How do we explain the creative process? How does an artist, a writer, a scientist, starting with nothing but an idea, create something from nothing? How does a novel emerge from a blank page, a painting from an empty canvas, an invention from a curious mind? Read More...

When we accompanied the New York Philharmonic on its historic trip to North Korea for its February 26 concert, the question that we were asked most often was, “Why?” Why was an American classical music organization invited to perform in the capital of a country with whom we’ve technically been at war since 1950?
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Three years ago, renowned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude electrified the art world -- and particularly New York City -- with their creation of The Gates in Central Park. Like all their previous large installations, The Gates was on display for only a limited time (16 days), and then it was dismantled and destroyed -- all 7,503 gates and their saffron-colored fabric panels. Only the memory -- and millions of photos -- remain.
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Okay class, pay attention. Here’s today's business problem: 

It’s 2006. You’re hired to run the largest performing arts organization in the world, a 125-year-old household name. Every year, you stage over 200 performances per year of a couple of dozen different operas. Your performances are heard by millions of radio listeners around the world. And until the year 2000, your ticket was the hardest to score in New York City. 

But in the last six years, everything’s gone awry. Attendance has declined sharply. Costs have risen every year. Philanthropic contributions have flattened out. The endowment is woefully inadequate. Competition for the cultural dollar is soaring. There are signs of organizational complacency. And even though your audience is disappearing, you have no marketing organization in place to try to offset the decline. 

What to do? Can anything be done? Is there a solution?

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Day One of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee, and we were fortunate enough to have had dinner with him last evening. Fresh from his victory speech in St. Paul and a day in Washington, D.C., at the Senate and at AIPAC, the Senator arrived at the fund-raiser in a private Manhattan home...
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How would you like a feel-good story? A really good one?



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What should we conclude about the future of science and innovation in the United States? Clearly, it is science that drives innovation, and innovation that drives America’s economic growth and ultimately determines its living standards.
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In the old days, the conventional wisdom on Wall St. was that mergers were exciting, they created value, they just were good. And the bigger the merger, the better. In recent years, however, mergers, particularly among large-cap companies, have not been looked upon so favorably. And the results mostly bear out this skepticism. But of all the megadeals in the last 10 years that have engendered opprobrium, few have rivaled the negative views of the combination of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer.
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Let's see. You're 82 years old, you're the father of the geostationary communications satellite, and you've won medals and honors and prizes all over the world presented by presidents and kings and other ne'er-do-wells. What to do now? Retire? Take up golf? Smell the roses? The answer, if you're Harold Rosen, is none of the above.
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North Korea is a country with whom we’ve technically been at war since 1950. It’s a country that lost close to a million people to famine in the late 1990s. A country that prohibits its populace from contact with the outside world. International TV, travel, cell phones and the Internet are denied them. It’s critically short of food, energy, and most of the trappings of modern life. It has a nascent, and potentially threating, nuclear arms capability...

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology Read More...

Here I am, sitting at my computer in our comfortable apartment in Manhattan, looking at the beautiful skyline and Central Park. Yet just a few days ago, unbelievably, we were in North Korea, a country that comedians might describe as Albania without the glitz. Except that North Korea is no laughing matter.
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After months of anticipation, we landed 36 hours ago in Pyongyang, North Korea. The purpose? Ostensibly, to attend the New York Philharmonic concert at the invitation of the North Korean Ministry of Culture. But the real reason was to witness history.
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The flight from Beijing lasted only one hour twelve minutes, but it took us into a different world. We flew in a chartered 747 (provided gratis by Asiana Airlines). There were 260 of us – the musicians from the New York Philharmonic, orchestra staff, board members, patrons, and 60 members of the world media with cameras and microphones at the ready.
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After two weeks in Japan and China, we leave tomorrow for North Korea. The "we" includes about 260 New York Philharmonic orchestra members, staff, board members, patrons and international media. Today, I'm blogging from Beijing. Tomorrow, from Pyongyang. Read More...

For the last 11 days, Donna and I have been wending our way from New York to Albuquerque to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Kyoto to Shanghai. Soon we’ll be in Beijing, Pyongyang and Seoul. A three-week trip, with lots of long airline (and bullet-train) trips that lend themselves to catching up on reading that pile of books that has been sitting for months on the bookstand shouting “read me.”

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A few days ago, I visited the Albuquerque headquarters of Eclipse Aviation, one of the most exciting (and expensive) start-up gambles in the aviation business. Eclipse has made a bet that there is a huge market for microjets – smaller, cheaper, twin-engine aircraft. A volksplane, if you will. Admittedly, at $1.6 million, the Eclipse 500 is for relatively well-heeled volks. But compared with competitive jet offerings, it sells at a fraction of their cost.
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In three weeks, Donna and I will take off from Beijing, along with the New York Philharmonic, 60 members of the world press, several more board members and a number of other interested parties in a chartered Asiana 747. Our destination -- Pyongyang, North Korea. Read More...

The movie There Will be Blood has been hailed with near unanimous critical praise. The word among the cognoscenti is that it’s a lock for Best Picture. Thus it was with high expectations that I recently attended a showing. Well, Oscar sure thing or not, the principal accolade it got from me during its two hours and thirty-eight minutes was my most-glances-at-my-watch-during-a-movie award. Seventeen glances, if memory serves me.
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If any form of culture merits the opprobrium of elitist, it is the visual arts. Works of art are spread around the world, are priced out of sight, and many are in private hands, rarely or never seen by the public.














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I was a technology analyst for Morgan Stanley in the late 1970s, about the same time that personal computers were introduced to the world by Apple, Radio Shack and Commodore. Settling on an Apple II in early 1978, I became an indefatigable proselyter for the PC. When visiting institutional clients, a regular part of my job, I was paid to talk about tech stocks. But all I wanted to talk about (and demonstrate) was the miracle...
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Twice a day in every American city – indeed, in cities worldwide – for two- to three-hour periods, commuters drive into and out of central business districts. These periods, familiarly known as rush hour, are anything but rush.











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Fifteen years ago, my brother Harold, (father of the geostationary communications satellite) and I (father of two sons) started a company to build a hybrid-electric powertrain for passenger automobiles. Our goal was to...
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Well before the 1972 Olympics, in which he won seven gold medal and set seven world records, Mark Spitz established the world record for the 400-meter freestyle
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On its website, the Jockey Club states that it “is dedicated to the improvement of Thoroughbred breeding and racing...” Just how well has the Thoroughbred industry fared in improving the breed? In improving racing?
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