An Almanack

All the talk in the US is about National Health Care. A colleague, who always has his finger in the wind, whispers that growth area in medical research is Alzheimer’s disease. How can we, as a Physics Department, cash in on that? The signs that old people (we like to call ourselves middle aged, but that presumes we will live to be a 100: a frightening thought) dominate the national conversation are everywhere. Count how many Viagra ads come on during a political talk show. And compare to the number of birth control ads.

Not like in the sixties when the US was a young country. “Don’t trust anyone over thirty”, said John Lennon. He was right. Old men like to send young people into war; unless enough say “hell no we won’t go”. Even after the election of Obama, the US still mired in two wars for reasons that sound a lot like the domino theory of old. Yet, where are the protests?

What happened? (more…)

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I mentioned to a colleague that Varadhan, a mathematician of Indian origin at NYU, won the Abel Prize. One of the top honors in the field. My colleague turned to the person sitting next to him, a visiting academic, and said:

In the middle of all that corruption, they are good in statistics. It must be because the British were good at it.

He was expressing a common view of India as a corrupt place where nothing works, perhaps with an occasional genius. Even Americans whose knowledge of India does not extend beyond watching “Slumdog Millionaire” feel free to pass such judgment. (more…)

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Frank Rich, NYTimes

As if to confirm that much of our so-called legitimate financial world has been six degrees of separation from Bernie Madoff, GMAC’s chairman was none other than J. Ezra Merkin. In addition to presiding over losses of nearly $8 billion at GMAC, Merkin had a separate investment management business that threw away another $2 billion by feeding other people’s money (including the endowments at N.Y.U. and Yeshiva University) into Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

It is a small world at the top of the pyramid schemes of the Bush years. The impending bankruptcy of GM, with the hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake, is directly connected to its financial shenanigans. The “Real World” of blue collar jobs cannot escape the contagion of greed that brought down Wall St.

So who is J. Ezra Merkin? (more…)

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What Went Wrong? is the title of a book by the Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis about the Decline and Fall of the Islamic Civilization. There was a time when the Islamic Empires ruled from Spain to India and beyond. They had the best scientists, the most sophisticated literature. The basic degrees given out in Western Universitites today (Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate) are translations of Arabic terms used at Madrassas from Morocco to Egypt. The idea of tax exempt foundations to support research and charitable work is Islamic. The Shariah Law gave women the right to property, unheard of in the West till the eighteenth Century. And then it all fell apart. The Ottoman Caliphate lingered on as the sickman of Europe until it was finally abolished in the 1920s by the British.

Something like this is happening with the American Car industry. Obama just fired the Chairman of GM, the closest thing to a Caliph in America. (more…)

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Hat tip BIDMC

Looking at these smiling people, you would never think that the topic of the day was possible layoffs, reduction of employee benefits, and other such matters. As promised in my message a couple of days ago, we held the first of a series of town meetings yesterday to explain our financial situation and to solicit ideas and suggestions from people as to how we might meet this year’s budget gap. Keep those ideas coming. This company is about you. If you were not behind me I would not not be able to lead you to a promising future.
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