I’ve had quite a bit of fun writing to this blog. It began with as an idea from my therapist, in order to get away from some mental struggles that I had been having. However, I ended up having more fun than I thought I would have, being able to discuss current events with random other people around the internet. But, I here I am, saying that from now on I will be moving on to bigger and better things. This was fun, but this will be my last message. Take care everyone.

-Grant

A strike huh? Interesting. I think its admirable of students to stand up for what they believe is correct and to fight for future generations of students as well. However, based on what I know about this strike, its highly unlikely the university administration team will take any relevant action to help these students. The way I see it, the university simply doesn’t have that much to lose. Once they just dismiss all the ta’s that are on strike, I am certain that there are many more than are willing to take their place. If there aren’t any graduate students qualified to ta for classes, then the university could just have undergraduates fill the spot. There are plenty of undergraduates that would be willing to take up the position for probably even less pay. The reality of the situation is, the graduate students simply have nothing to bargain with.

What one really can take note of is how inconvenient this strike seems to be for the undergraduate population. It seems apparent that intentional or not, there is a wedge being driven between the undergraduate and graduate students at this university and I only think that it would negatively impact the graduate students overall. I did some more reading and found that there are many undergraduate students that are calling for an end to the strike, and are making similar arguments to me, saying that the strikers are being inefficient with their actions such as blocking access to campus, withholding grades, and some even went so far as to curse at people that crossed their picket line onto campus. In addition to these direct effects of the strike, it would also effect classes that are going on currently, as sometimes people cannot get to class, or there are classes without the necessary teaching assistants to make them run smoothly.

Back at my days at Yale, this never would have happened. We all had enough money to get through school because our parents just had the money. But if someone lacks the means to pay for their education with a teaching assistant job, I would just say to get another job. Nobody is going to just give you free money, and you have to work for everything in this world, like myself. Get a different job, work more than one job, whatever it takes to be able to make ends meet. After all, with a graduate degree in most fields, in the end one’s future salary could increase by tens of thousands, at least in my field.

Recently, over the last couple days, I’ve been getting back into watching basketball. I played quite a bit of basketball back in college, nothing too serious though of course. It was mainly a routine to pick up girls that would go to our games. Even though we weren’t good at all, we could all appreciate a good game of ball when we saw it. Kobe Bryant’s passing was of course a tragedy that we all talked about and lamented over, but my recent need to actually go into work and handle the various marketing crises related to the coronavirus outbreak has had me uncharacteristically busy. This last week, however, I decided to not watch Kobe, but watch undoubtedly the best player of all time: Michael Jordan. Just a simple search into Google revealed Michael’s best performing games of all time, and I consumed game after game, marveling at the complete and utter dominance Michael had over the world of basketball in his time.

Michael apparently was also recording saying that the only player who could ever contest him was the late Kobe Bryant because he “stole all his moves.” Regardless of Michael’s opinion, Kobe was a force to be reckoned with on the court: nobody can deny that they’ve never heard the phrase “Kobe!” shouted when going for some crazy jump shot. The other basketball greats of the 90s were quite something else as well. John Stockton, widely regarded as one of the best point guards of all time, is so smooth to watch. As he leads the NBA by a huge margin with assists, he is quite different from the modern flashy point guard such as Stephen Curry. Stockton is the all around team player, able to slip the ball through defenders and get it to his teammates to be able to make an easy layup. I really do prefer this old style, where teamwork is rewarded instead of individual, flashy play. Sure, watching a player run up and down the court going for solo plays is entertaining to watch, but the game has so much more depth.

There was also an interesting study I read regarding watching sports. It went something along the lines of those fans that get really excited at watching their respective teams play experience similar levels of chemical activation in their brains as the players themselves. This is quite interesting as it goes to show why there are so many sports fans in the world. Without playing the game itself, people are able to have quasi experiences of the game themselves.

There wasn’t much really in the world of news this week, so I just decided to ramble on a topic that was important to me on something that I did this week.

Trump acquitted huh. I don’t think anyone was surprised by the result, though it is interesting that people are still upset nearly four years after his election. For me, Trump has been a great president. My stocks are through the roof, with almost all of my portfolios making at least 10% in profits just this year alone. I really can’t comprehend what others have to complain about with this president. The market is outstanding, people are getting jobs, and most importantly everyone is making money. Who doesn’t love to make money? Money really is the key to happiness, especially in 2020 with so many creature comforts that money can buy. Even something simple like a Jacuzzi, which isn’t too much money at all provides such comfort. Then when people get even more money, they can even have others take care of them, with chefs and cleaning people and such.

Anyway, back on the subject of Trump, from what I understand people are really getting upset at his Twitter. However, to all those people I would just say: look at the results. So what if he tweets something that is atypical of a public figure and more in line of a personal opinion? As a businessman and investor, I am always looking at the bottom line. And the bottom line for this presidency is success. It can be argued that Obama set up the current economy for success after the 2008 recession, but for the past 4 years ever since Trump’s election, the economy has reached record highs only really dampened by the recent Coronavirus outbreak slowing down production and distribution of commodities around the world. Even to the groups that Trump is supposedly marginalizing, Hispanic and African American unemployment hit record lows under his presidency. All I’m trying to do is urge people to look past his surface level statements, which at some point may even be designed to work some political angle.

That’s really all I have to say about Trump. The people that criticize him really need to just grow up and look at the greater good that he is creating within the United States.

So, I came across this interesting article the other day, about how these rich people are paying colleges across the United States huge amounts of money to get their children admitted. Personally, this is pretty funny to me as when I was growing up my dad did the same thing. Of course my grades were pretty mediocre and I skipped class all the time in high school to go drinking out with my friends and whichever girl I was sleeping with at the time. Even with all of this, when I applied to Yale, I still got in somehow. I knew there had to have been other factors in play, but I didn’t really care as long as I got into the school that I wanted.

Regarding this scandal, however, I’m surprised that these people got caught. I wonder why the parents didn’t just make some sort of large “donation” to the school in their name instead of underhandedly trying to get some sort of deal with admissions officers, with the specific individual in this case, Douglas Hodge, having gotten his children in as false student athletes. Apparently he paid about 850,000 in total for four children, which is much less than my father paid for me. When I asked him after I graduated, he told me that he made a one million dollar donation to my school. Figures that this Douglas just got caught while trying to be cheap. In fact, this scandal goes deeper than just one person. There are around 50 people in total that have gotten caught and exposed for bribing their children into some college or other.

There are some people that consider this to be bad on principle, where the wealthy get to keep their children in the cycle of wealth even though those children have not done anything deserving of it. However, my argument is this: if a parent has worked so hard in order to come into such fortune, why should they not be able to spend it on their children ensuring their livelihood? I believe that when someone works so hard in order to make an amount of money, they should be able to spend it as they choose. What if those with money worked so hard to obtain it for the sake of their children? I’m not arguing that it is morally correct to bribe educational institutions with money, all I’m saying is that its not as wrong as people might think with the idea of the rich holding onto their position in society.

Modern society really seems to have a problem with rich people. I know the wealth gap is widening, but I don’t understand why there is a hatred towards the people that have succeeded the system rather than hatred towards the system itself.

Russia huh? Interesting. They seem to be the boogeyman of the west. Every time something goes wrong all I hear is Russia, Russia, Russia. I really wonder what they have to gain by antagonizing so many nations with their aggressive foreign policy and cyberattacks and whatever else they’re doing over there. Though this move by Putin is certainly quite interesting. If I were in his position I would certainly be doing everything that I can to try and remain in power, because like you said, its fairly likely that a man with power like him has made many enemies throughout his stint in office. Of course this is just some pop culture reference, but movies always have Putin and Russia as some ultimate evil while they do morally reprehensible things to their own citizens in addition to a very cutthroat political scene.

Even though Russia seems to be the western antagonizer, I still don’t believe they’ll do anything serious. They just simply can’t. They don’t have enough money, military might, and there literally exists an entire alliance of nations that exist for almost the sole purpose of an alliance against Russia. In fact, I think Putin should be much more focused about the quality of life in his nation and the fact that his nation’s GDP is so low, with many Russians on the eastern side of the vast country living in poverty. I was watching this guy on YouTube the other day while on the toilet, his channel is named bald and bankrupt I believe, where he travels to strange places sort of out of reach of most tourists. Anyway, he travels a lot around eastern Russia and former satellite states of the now disbanded USSR. What we can see from his videos is that the vast majority of these people live in quite poor conditions and are lacking basic infrastructure such as electricity and internet sometimes. There are some isolated towns that are so remote they seem to not even have been touched by the industrial revolution; they are complete farming communities that rely on their own production of food and resources.

As far as the Russian citizens go, however, I think Putin honestly does have their best interests in mind. It’s not like he’s just some selfish leader that lives a lavish life while his people suffer. I genuinely believe that he is trying to do right by his citizens and improve their lives, and if he believes he needs more power to do so, well then not only is he a political genius, but I suppose we’ll also see what else he can do for his country. There’s likely not going to be much effect on the United States in my opinion, but it’ll be interesting to see where this power takeover leads.

Recently I’ve heard that there is an outbreak of coronavirus in China. Basically, what this virus does is it infects your lungs and throat area similar to just the common cold, but somehow this version of the virus is killing people. Apparently this originated in some underground Chinese market selling illegally hunted wildlife, just typical of some third world country like China. Anyway, I digress. My main concern here is the trip that I had planned for China next month. With this outbreak the government seems to be shutting down transportation all in the Wuhan region, right next to where I had been planning on visiting one of my girlfriends. Aside from the transportation getting shut down I hear the virus is very contagious leading me to not want to visit her at all, which really is a bummer because the sex is almost to die for, but not quite. On another note, cigarettes in China really are something else. I swear they put some extra nicotine tobacco strain or something to make them really kick. Last time I was there smoking I almost fell down a set of stairs because the buzz hit me so hard I couldn’t even keep my balance.

Back to China though, my girl tells me that she’s having trouble getting meats and foods because at the local markets people are buying out many supplies in panic, as already 28 people have died and she says around 800 or so have been infected. I did a little research on my own as well and found that the government in China is actually trying to downplay the severity of the outbreak rather than trying to make all of its people fully aware of the extent and danger of the outbreak, which understandably is upsetting many people. There are a lot of online posts condemning the government (which is supposed to be a big no-no in China) claiming the governments irresponsibility handling the outbreak.

Going farther around the world, other countries in the region like Japan, Korea, and Vietnam are also reporting cases of the disease. Even here the United States has had its own case with surely more cases to come. After playing these games such as Plague Inc on my phone at work, and movies such as Rise of The Planet of The Apes, it surely leaves a lot of room for thought as to what this might be the beginning of… Those diseases always start small, but given some time and ignorance from worldwide governments they can completely come to destroy a group of people or even kill a majority of the world population.

Anyway, I’m sure all of this is quite useless speculation and of course none of it will be directly relevant to me. Kind of a bummer about my plans for next month in China, but I’ll just find something else to do, like always. Well, I have to get back to “work” now, so until next week!

Artificial intelligence sure is an interesting concept. Though I would say that the case mentioned in your blog post wasn’t necessarily artificial intelligence at work, but instead just a bunch of cameras and sensors. My buddy Josh, this huge computer nerd by the way, was talking to me just the other day about how he thought artificial intelligence was going to “end the world” and was trying to preach the ideals of some tech guy Elon or something like that. He was trying to say that these robots will somehow become smarter than humans and rise up to control the world. As if! How can a machine ever be smarter than a human, let alone think in the first place? It just doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, about the Tesla incident, it definitely would be pretty cool if cars could somehow drive themselves. I can only imagine the convenience of not having to nearly risk my life every night if I didn’t have to drive my car while drunk on the way home from clubs.

I suppose another implication of these computers would be on my job. In fact, if these computers can assist people with driving, I bet they certainly could manage investments and portfolios better than a human. Every day, essentially all I do is analyze trends and try to find new companies that are under the radar and undervalued. I know for a fact that if these computers with their near infinite power to think and calculate I would be out of a job. The implications on the stock market itself though would be quite insane, as it would leave the market entirely dominated by computers with nearly no human control….actually, maybe Josh was onto something with the ideas of these artificial intelligence machines controlling our world. Thinking even deeper, computers would replace nearly every skilled job that us humans do daily, and we can even make computers that create other ones, along with robots to do manual labor…thinking about this is quite disturbing actually, and now I really am beginning to recognize the seemingly inevitable outcome of the rise of artificial intelligence in our modern world.

Having stepped away from this post for awhile, I’ve now come back to realize that all of this technological progression is fairly likely to be irrelevant to me. As I am now in my 30s, I think it would be highly unlikely that there is significant technological progress on the scale that would lose me my job as an investment banker. Humans are still needed to make critical decisions, and even if advanced algorithms are used for small microtransactions, there is no substitute available to replace human intuition.

While what happens on the other side of the world really isn’t my concern much, it is noteworthy to discuss Australia’s current situation. It seems that Australia is experiencing some difficulties with some fires. My secretary told me that the fires are spanning an area of nearly half the size of our United States. I am actually quite concerned as I have quite a few business ventures in that country, and I’m sure that the fires will affect the mining industry that I’ve invested in down under. My friend at the office, Mark, was talking to me yesterday during lunch about how he used to date some girl from Australia. I really wasn’t listening that closely as I was more concerned with his new suit, which I believe the others were also eyeing as well. Anyway, that’s a bit off topic. When the guys and I were talking about the whole Australia thing, we thought it would be pretty neat if we all took a little vacation away from the office and actually checked it out.

Mark’s dad owns the company so we didn’t have much issue getting some time off. We flew the company jet all the way down to Australia itself, and one of our other friends, James, was so hungover on the flight there we had to make him sit in a separate area because he was just puking everywhere. Anyway, when we got there we were really just looking to get wasted and party. We tried going to some clubs in Sydney but honestly, the music taste was just so terrible and they didn’t have my favorite type of wine, so we just decided to do some coke in the bathroom and hire some hookers back at our Airbnb. Even though it is a little ironic that we didn’t actually end up visiting any of the national parks or any part actually affected by the wildfire, we still had a great time.

One of my real concerns with this fire is actually my Australian portfolio. My secretary tells me that mining companies that I own shares in have had to nearly completely cease their operations in the wake of this fire, and I am not pleased. I had another vacation to Malibu scheduled for this Thursday, but it looks like I am going to have to cancel it on account of this fire, and will have to attend a board meeting with our CEO that day instead regarding our assets in the country. Oh well, I didn’t have anyone to go to Malibu with anyway and I probably wouldn’t have had that much fun alone.

Well, this was all a rather incoherent ramble, but these are my thoughts and experiences surrounding the Australian wildfires. I’ll be posting regularly for the next few weeks as I experiment with this “blog” idea.

Hello. My name is Grant. I am an investment banker on Wall Street and I have a lot of money. And I mean a lot of money. My parents both went to Harvard and so did I. I have a lot of friends, or acquaintances, depending on how one would look at it. Us individuals of a higher class must keep up appearances, after all. To be honest, all of it is starting to get to me. The fake parties, fake people, all of it. It’s not like I can quite run away either because what else would I have? Everyone here is only your friend until you are of no more use to them. Oh well, I have quite a few material distractions. I have a fiance who I don’t care about, and I’m pretty sure she’s cheating on my with one of my colleagues at work. Either way, my life is otherwise great. I do coke in the bathroom at work with my other friends, who are all as clueless as I am, and party at night when not cheating on my fiance with my housekeeper. Anyway, that will be all for today.