Quote of the Day (Musician Maurizio Pollini, on Great Art and ‘The Dreams of a Society’)

“I think great art has entirely progressive aspects within it, elements that are somehow outside the detail of the text or even the political opinions of the person who made it. Art itself, if it is really great, has a progressive aspect that is needed by a society, even if it seems absolutely useless in strictly practical terms. In a way art is a little like the dreams of a society. They seem to contribute little, but sleeping and dreaming are vitally important in that a human couldn't live without them, in the same way a society cannot live without art."— Italian pianist and conductor Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024), quoted by Nicholas Wroe, “Maurizio Pollini: A Life in Music,” The Guardian (UK), Dec. 31, 2010

The image of Maurizio Pollini that accompanies this post was taken during a reception in Tokyo on May 17, 2009, by Dundak.

Quote of the Day (C. V. Wedgwood, on Officials With ‘Narrow Hearts and Little Minds’)

“The dismal course of the conflict [i.e., Europe’s "Thirty Years War,” 1618-1648], dragging on from one decade to the next and from one deadlock to the next, seems to me an object lesson on the dangers and disasters which can arise when men of narrow hearts and little minds are in high places.”― English historian C. V. Wedgwood (1910-1997), The Thirty Years War (1938)

Quote of the Day (Francis Sanzaro, on the Benefits of Walking)

“Study after study after study has proved what we feel, intuitively, in our gut: Walking is good for us. Beneficial for our joints and muscles; astute at relieving tension, reducing anxiety and depression; a boon to creativity, likely; slows the aging process, maybe; excellent at prying our screens from our face, definitely.”— Climber, athlete, and author Francis Sanzaro, “The Transcendent Power of Walking,” The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2022

Yes, walking can even feel good on a cold winter day, as seen here in this picture I took from nearly a decade ago in Saddle River County Park in Ridgewood, NJ.

Joke of the Day (Rita Rudner, on Prime Male Candidates for Marriage)

“Men with pierced ears are better prepared for marriage—they've experienced pain and bought jewelry.”—American stand-up comic Rita Rudner quoted by Lawrence Christon, in “Comedy Review: Rita Rudner Is Svelte, Pretty, Original American Princess,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5, 1988

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Teresa of Avila, on Truth)

“Never affirm anything unless you are sure it is true.” — Spanish nun, mystic and reformer St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Maxims for Her Nuns, in Complete Works of St. Teresa of Avila: Vol.3 (1963) edited by E. Allison Peers

Quote of the Day (William Simon, on an ‘Elitist Approach to Government’)

“The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated.”—American businessman, philanthropist, and Treasury Secretary William Simon (1927-2000), A Time for Truth (1978)

Twenty-five years ago this week, William Simon died at age 73. In both the public and private sectors, he appealed to a generation of free-market conservatives with warnings like the.

At the time, Simon identified this group as liberals who were threatening the foundations of America with a leviathan central government. But, nearly a half-century after the peak of his influence, with this bestseller, it is more apparent that this “elite” consists of financial sector titans who possess the arrogance of Gilded Age robber barons but all too little of the physical infrastructure they built.

I was reminded of Simon this past week after watching Drop Dead City, the recent documentary about New York City’s 1975 bankruptcy crisis. As Gerald Ford’s Treasury Secretary, Simon vehemently opposed bailing out the city, then, after the President reversed his earlier decision refusing aid, held out for more punitive terms, with treasury loans carrying an interest rate of 1 percent higher than the market rate.

All of this was pretty rich considering that, before entering government service in the Nixon Administration, Simon had been an extremely well-compensated bond trader—and he hadn’t raised a peep then about the extremely flimsy financial instruments and budget tricks used by New York City and Governor Nelson Rockefeller, then on a construction spree so wild that he was said to have an “edifice complex.”

It was all of a piece with the position maintained by the financial industry in general in these years, noted Village Voice investigative reporter Jack Newfield:

“The banks never warned the public about excessive borrowing, because they were busy making millions of dollars in commissions on underwriting the city's paper. The bankers made a pusher's profits, while the city slipped into addiction like a junkie. Then the banks suddenly ordered the city to withdraw cold turkey, or mug its own citizens."

A year after leaving the Ford administration to become a consultant for an investment‐banking house, Simon wrote A Time for Truth, part of a boomlet in conservative economics bestsellers that found receptive readers as the GOP sought a return to power, such as Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose and George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty.

He reputation for straight talking with observations that shaded from being outspoken to outrageous (e.g., the “the hostile collectivism unleashed in the 60's” set the stage for Watergate, not Nixon’s paranoia). Some of his more ardent admirers even hoped that Ronald Reagan would select him as his running mate for the 1980 Presidential campaign.

It’s too bad that Simon’s penchant for straight talking wasn’t matched by straight dealing.

No, I’m not saying Simon was a swindler. But it was more than a little disingenuous that, in the 1980s, the treasury secretary who had denounced using other people’s money and debt financing made staggering amounts of money with the same two practices in the private sector.

In 1982, Simon and his partner, using only $330,000 each of their own money, borrowed $79 million from Barclays Bank and General Electric to engineer a leveraged buyout (LBO) of Gibson Greeting Cards. Eighteen months later, they flipped the company, taking it public again and selling it for $270 million.

This transaction was a key moment in the Reagan era upsurge of private equity, the investment strategy of acquiring ownership stakes or control in companies not publicly traded. From a mere 24 in 1980 in the US, it has grown to more than 17,000 today. It was all part of an era of laissez-faire capitalism that, in many ways, has lingered on to today.

The problem was that the U.S. economy moved decisively away from manufacturing, according to Bad Money, by the late political and economics commentator Kevin Phillips. “LBOs and debt speeded manufacturing’s ebb, inasmuch as goods producers constituted a disproportion of companies affected, and when they were stripped of some assets and loaded up with debt, blue-collar jobs and futures were usually at risk.”

You could also call it “Simonomics,” to signify the influence of this conservative icon who hailed the genius of the marketplace. The influence of private equity on politics spread beyond Republicans to Democrats, with donors from these companies contributing to candidates who aligned with conservative positions on taxation, regulation, and economic growth.

Away from his work, Simon was a devout Catholic active in philanthropy, and a foundation he established continues to provide scholarships for inner-city students. One wishes he would have given more prayerful consideration to papal encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum and Mater et Magistra that advocated for social progress and justice.

TV Quote of the Day (Mitch Hedberg, on Turtlenecks)

“I hate turtlenecks, man. A turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy… All day.”—Stand-up comic Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005), appearance on Late Show With David Letterman, original air date Mar. 7, 1997