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Showing posts from August, 2019

Recession 2020? Our Salvation?

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The last five recessions are shown in vertical gray bars on this chart comparing the 10-year treasury yield to the 2-year yield.  As you can see, the yield as slowly worked its way back into negative territory once again, after a very long bull run . Stock markets were shaken August 14 by the fact that the 10-year yield on US Treasuries briefly turned lower than the 2-year yield.  I say "briefly" because it was an intraday reading.  By the close of the day the 10-year was higher, albeit by the thinnest of margins.  I learned long ago from the late, great Richard Russell to discount most intraday action where markets are concerned (unless you are a day-trader, which I am not).  It is the action at the close of the day that really counts. When the longer term treasury yields less than the shorter term one it is called an " inverted yield curve " (the first since 2007 ).  The 10-year vs. the 3-month treasury yield actually inverted back on May 15 without signi

Gaming Barbarossa: November 1941

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In November the initiative switches back to the Axis.  The mud is gone, now replaced by “Mixed” weather, which makes Air Bombardment more difficult and reduces the movement of all Axis Mech/Motor units by 1.  More importantly, the Axis get to choose only 2 panzer HQs as the Wehrmacht and its allies feel the strain of logistics and depletion.   Still, the Axis can afford to alter their main objective.  It no longer need to be Moscow at all.  With 26 VPs all they need do is capture and hold 4 more VP cities over the next three turns.  Two of those VP cities (Vitebsk and Smolensk) can be quickly pocketed this turn for capture later.  Out of Kiev, the German infantry concentration will drive toward Kharkov.  Meanwhile, the next objective on the Ukraine is Rostov.  If the Axis captures these four cities it will win the scenario (winning the war is another matter altogether and would require playing much deeper into the game). The Axis get a couple of weak infantry divisions which they use

Gaming Barbarossa: October 1941

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The nature of The Dark Valley changes dramatically in October.  This is when the rasputitsa sets in – the mud season.  Muddy weather slows everything down.  All Axis mechanized units lose 2 movement points to reflect the difficulty of making progress in the thick seas of Russian muck.  They also lose the ability to project a zone of control.  All other units (on both sides) lose 1 movement point.   A few other restrictions and penalties apply. Perhaps more importantly, the Germans lose half their panzer mobility.  Instead of the 1st and 2nd Panzer Armies having two chits each and the others having one, now the German player must pick ONE chit each for any THREE Panzer Armies.  The fourth army will only be able to move and conduct combat whenever a Move/Combat chit is drawn.  The overall effect makes the Axis more herky-jerky (like the Soviets) than fast and fluid (blitzkrieg) as they were in the first four turns.  On the Soviet side, the Counterattack! chit is set aside and replaced

Reading Neuroexistentialism

As long-time readers know, my life and beliefs have been greatly influenced by existentialist philosophy, particularly the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and John Paul Sartre .  Their ideas were informed by impressions they had of their personal experience, how if felt to them to be alive in their respective historic periods. Recent developments in neuroscience have bore factual fruit about human experience to which previous existentialists did not have access, and which challenge many of their underlying assumptions.  In Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience (2018) a range of essays by physicists, philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists survey the traditional existential landscape in the light of recent neurological discoveries about the brain.  This shifts the paradigm of relevant existentialism in ways that are both disturbing and enlightening. According to editors Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan , existentialism is now in it

Gaming Barbarossa: September 1941

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This is the last turn the Axis will enjoy so many advantages.  Due to some sub-optimal play on my part they are behind where they were historically.  I’m not sure they will be able to catch up now.  But we’ll see. Axis reinforcements include the strong 2nd and 5th Panzer divisions and the weaker 22nd Panzer, along with the Spanish Blue division.  They also receive their only mechanized replacements for 1941 – five steps – in addition to their regular four steps of infantry.  They have lost six total mechanized steps to date, so this will bring most of them back to full strength.  Since the 1st and 2nd Panzer divisions get two activation chits (for the last time) in September, all of the armored replacements will go to their weakened units.   By special rule, all remaining Soviet Tank corps are removed from the game (almost all of them have already been destroyed – it is wise for the Soviet player to attack with them early on and use them for casualties as needed).  These are replaced

Reading Proust: Time Regained – Lost Time and Youth

I started re-reading In Search of Lost Time on February 15 and ended July 13.  Right at five months.  In the beginning, after finishing a volume, I took a short break and read other books, so it didn’t start out as an obsessive reading like my first time.  But, this leisurely pace did not last.  I read the final four volumes almost exclusively, greedily racing through their exquisite prose.  Unlike the rest of the novel, Time Regained has no defined parts or chapters.  The second half of it centers around the party at the Guermantes, with a lot of memories and musings thrown in. We continue with Marcel’s considerations involving the three “intimations” and his discovery of the magic of Lost Time.  Intellect is not worth much where involuntary memory is concerned.  “For the truth which the intellect apprehends directly in the world of full and unimpeded light have something less profound, less necessary than those which life communicates to us against our will in an impression which