Monday, January 29, 2024

Economics: Antitrust - The Ghost Of Lenin

 


(Drivebycuriosity) - "Trust is good, but control is better", said Vladimir Lenin.
The late leader of the defunct Soviet Union initiated a mixed economy policy with a free market and capitalism, "both subject to state control" ( newworldencyclopedia ).

The Biden administration follows Lenin. Biden`s powerful bureaucrats don´t trust the CEOs of Americas biggest corporations, instead they want to control them and try to gain authority over their corporations. Biden uses a powerful tool: Antitrust. For a long time antitrust enforcement stood for the interests of the consumers   and tried to punish corporations for bad services, low quality & variety and too high prices (consumer welfare)

Soon after Biden became President he changed the concept of antitrust and the leadership of the agencies that enforce antitrust in the US: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Biden announced anti-monopoly researcher Lina Khan Chair of the mighty FTC and antitrust attorney Jonathan Kanter became head of the more than 800-person antitrust division of the Department of Justice (driveby ). Khan & Kanter belong to the Neo Brandeisian movement (named after Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1916-1939 wikipedia). The Neo-Brandeisians declare consumer welfare as irrelevant and want to expand the government’s role in the U.S. economy significantly ( pbwt.com dailyjournal promarket reason). 

 

              Ignoring Growing Competition 

In September 2023 Khan`s FTC filed a massive law suit against Amazon (172 pages ). The authority claims that Amazon is a monopoly and stifles emerging competition ( ftc.gov vox.com). The claim ignores Walmart`s fast growing online business (plus 24% YoY), the rise of e-commerce sites like Shopify, Wayfair, Etsy & Ebay and doesn`t take notice of innovative newcomers who are aggressively entering the highly competitive market, like TikTok`s online shop, the Chinese shopping app Temu and online shopping platform Shein ( driveby Temu nymag). The rapid growth of Amazon`s challengers indicates a healthy competition.

The real purpose of the law suit is to gain control over one of America´s largest corporations and to be in charge of Amazon`s business. FTC Chair Khan wants to tell Amazon what it can do and what not, how much the corporation charges their customers and how they deal with the business partners (nationalreview ).

Amazon became a behemoth because the corporation is very efficient and obsessed with cost cutting and delivering goods cheap, fast & reliably (consumer welfare). They have been constructing a network of huge fulfillment centers which are very efficient and save a lot of costs. None of these counts for the FTC. The Khan denounces efficiency for irrelevant and declared in an interview: “The word efficiency doesn’t appear anywhere in the antitrust statutes....  It’s not that any business practice that increases welfare or increases efficiency is fine" (promarket). FTC Commissioner Bedoya, a Khan supporter, claims that efficiency is unfair because efficient companies hurt inefficient competitors (ftc.gov ). 

In November 2023 Jonathan Kanter`s DOJ hit Google with a law suit, claiming that Google is monopolizing the market for online advertising (reuters searchengineland). Kanter ignores that users prefer Google`s search engine because their American competitors Bing (owned by Microsoft), DuckDuckGo and others are inferior. Kanter also does not care that Google competes against Meta (owner of Facebook & Instagram), Amazon and others and only has 29% of the market for online advertising (yalejreg ). Like his ally Khan, DOJ enforcer Kanter treats efficiency & consumer interests (consumer welfare) as irrelevant. He wants to gain power over Google.

There is more to come. Kanter & Khan aim to reign into Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Reuters reports: "The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are in discussions over which agency can probe OpenAI on antitrust grounds, including the AI firm's partnership with Microsoft" ( reuters). The New York Times also knows that Kanter`s DOJ prepares a sweeping antitrust case against Apple ( nytimes).  

That`s not enough: Since Twitter is owned by Elon Musk, Khan`s FTC is orchestrating an aggressive campaign against Twitter because the entrepreneur is not popular with the Democrats and the Biden Administration. "The agency sent more than a dozen letters to Twitter in a span of 10 weeks that contained more than 350 specific demands, thus creating a "substantial burden on the company's operations." ( npr.org wsj  judiciary  nytimes).

The aggressive law suits are not surprising. The Khan and her ally Jonathan Kanter have pushed their agencies away from settling cases and toward an aggressive strategy of taking companies all the way to court (Politico). Kanter intends to stop mergers even if they would raise efficiency and reduce costs (truthonthemarket ). The mighty bureaucrats are supported by Elizabeth Warren and allied with a "progressive" new strain in antitrust thinking, reports Politico. They intend to stop mergers even if they would raise efficiency and reduce costs (truthonthemarket ). 

 

 

                  Redistribution Of Power


FTC Chair Khan tries to expand her already extensive might and argued - in an article for a Marxist paper - that antitrust must be reconfigured toward the redistribution of economic and political power and away from concerns regarding price (lpeproject  realclearpolicy). The Khan claims that she has the "Rule Making Authority" and that she can decide what is & isn't "unfair competitive conduct" ( ftc.gov    twitter  uschamber ).  FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, another Khan supporter, demands that “antitrust should be used to accomplish political and social goals including racial equity” ( thecentersquare  crowell). According to former FTC-Commissioner Christine S. Wilson the Brandeisian FTC represents a Marxist ideology and tries to replace the market process of supply and demand by a continuously regulated environment (ftc.gov ).

The Khan follows Lenin and declared: "Market structure is deeply political. One reason is that all markets are governed by law. The structure of a market at any given time is the product of political decisions—made and not made—about how players in that market will be allowed to use their power" ( law.duke).

 


( ftc.gov)

 

Although neither Khan nor Kanter are democratically elected, both have the power to throw a lot sand into the gears of successful companies, which are the engines of the US economy. Their regulations and inquiries reduce Big Tech`s  abilities to further innovate because they are occupying management capacities and are slowing decision processes - making business more complicated and costly. Innovators and startups are getting discouraged when they know that strong growth will get punished.

 

Conclusion: Biden`s new trust busters are aiming for a leadership of unelected bureaucrats and they are using their growing power to punish merits, diligence, risk taking etc (calling merits "unfair"). They are not only burning more and more money of the tax payers for ridiculous law suits. The sued companies suffer enormous costs as well. Mergers get many months delayed, causing additional costs, and the defendants have to employ armies of expensive lawyers. The consumers are the losers. They have to bear these costs by paying higher prices and are getting reduced selection and quality of goods & services. Winners are bureaucrats, law firms and foreign competitors like Sony and Alibaba.

 


 

 

 

 

 


Friday, January 26, 2024

Books: The Grave Digger´s Bread By Fredéric Dard


 (Drivebycuriosity) - 
Fredéric Dard belonged to the most popular & prolific French authors of the 20th century (theguardian ). I enjoyed his crime mysteries "Bird in a Cage" & ""The Executioner Weeps" ( my reviews here    here). His novel "The Grave Digger´s Bread", another crime noir, is not as strong as the mentioned books, but I enjoyed it anyway ( amazon).

Like "Bird" and "Executioner" the story is told in first person. Again the protagonist meets a woman, this time the wife of a grave digger, which leads to serious consequences (this is still a spoiler free blog). I did not like the opportunistic & pathetic protagonist, but Dard`s style made me to care about him anyway. The plot is macabre - as the title suggest - and comes with the twists, which are typical for Dard´s book I read so far.

I plan to read more by him.


Thursday, January 25, 2024

Photography: Manhattan`s Billboards Redux




 (Drivebycuriosity) - I am fascinated by New York City, where I live since 2012. The metropolis is full of life. I am impressed by the sheer size of the city and her buildings. Part of the fascination are the huge billboards you can spot all over Manhattan. In the past I posted some image collections ( here  here  here).





I display here some pics I took in the recent months.

 


To be continued

 


Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Books: Lessons By Ian McEwan


 (Drivebycuriosity) - I like British literature and Ian McEwan belongs to my favorite authors. I enjoyed his novel "Machines like me", about AI, his kinky family tale "Cement Garden" and the spy story "Sweet Tooth" (my reviews here here here). I also like the movie adaptions of "Atonement" & "The Comfort of Strangers".

Unfortunately, "Lessons", his newest opus, doesn`t really work for me (amazon). The novel follows the whole live of a man in the second half of the 20th century, with a splash of alternate history. I still enjoy McEwan`s eloquent style and his frequent setting of commas.  

But inspite of all of the literary mastership, I couldn`t care less about the protagonist. I find him pathetic and his professional development - if there was any - chaotic; his relationships & complex family affairs are dysfunctional & confusing. It didn`t help that the plot jumps back and forth in history. And the sex scenes are timid.

The plot is spiced with historical events that happened during the protagonist`s live time like Suez Conflict, Cuba Crises or Chernobyl. But this events, so important they were, did not really influence the protagonist`s live and where just filling material.

There are still some strong scenes and one chapter is immense gripping (but I don´t tell which and why). McEwan`s description of the bleak live in Eastern Germany, the Communist part, before the fall of the wall, deserves a large readership. The author also shows his strength when he writes about sciences (page 294 ff) .

If a talented editor would have cut the novel down to 200 pages from about 400, "Lessons" could have been a strong novel. McEwan could do much better.

PS:  The descriptions of calculus, quantum mechanics and entropy are very clear and instructive. I quote some here that I don`t need to read the book again:

Spoiler alarm:

Schrödinger`s "cat`s state is unknown until the chamber is opened. In Schrödinger´s account it is both alive and dead until that moment. In the good outcome, at the reveal, a wave function collapses, while its other version continues as dead in a universe inaccessible to the owner of the cat. By extension, the world divides at every conceivable moment into an infinitude of invisible possibilities. 

The Multiple Worlds theory seemed to the protagonist no less impossible than Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

About entropy and thermodynamics: "In the Second Law, which was the third because they started with zero, he was reminded of a truth obvious to all householders. Just as heat bled out into cold and not the reverse, so order bled out into chaos and never in reverse... The dead never sprang into life, never became the living.....Everything, especially life, fell apart. Order was a boulder to be rolled uphill. The kitchen would not tidy itself".

Well said, Ian McEwan. Why don`t you write a science novel?

Monday, January 22, 2024

Contemporary Art: Collective Body @ Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York

 


(Drivebycuriosity) - Thierry Goldberg Gallery on 103 Norfolk Street belongs to the stalwarts of New York´s Lower East Side. There you can see works of less known and ascending artists. Recently I spotted another interesting group show, called "Collective Body" (thierrygoldberg ).

 




This post begins with Lorenzo Amos`"Girl Untitled" (2023) followed by some images by Ray Terran.

 



And another work by Lorenzo Amos, called "Wolo, I love you" (2023 ).

 

To be continued


Friday, January 19, 2024

Movies: Killers Of The Flower Moon


(Drivebycuriosity) - Martin Scorsese reached the age of 81. It´s time for the great opus, his "Alterswerk", to crown his impressive oeuvre (imdb ). 

With "Killers of the Flower Moon", a non-fictional book by David Grann, he chose the right topic: In the 1920s American natives in Oklahoma, the Osage people, are murdered one by one, because they owned land were recently oil was found. The killing of the "savages" did get not much attention by the law and the public. While Americans are obsessed with all the evil which is happening beyond the ocean, they are still blind to crimes on the natives, who once owned America.  

I was captured by the plot and the performances (you can find a synopsis here ). Leonardo DiCaprio impressed as a slow-witted guy, who could easy be manipulated. The audience could read his face when some half-baked insights were wandering through his mind, but not really arrived. Robert De Niro convinced as the shrewd puppet master in the evil games. I also liked the performance of Lily Gladstone, who has native (Blackfeet and Nez Perce) & European ancestors.

Thanks to Grann, Scorsese & Apple, who created and produced the movie, for throwing some light on an almost forgotten part of American history.


 

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Economics: About DEI And Boeing


(Drivebycuriosity) -   Two issues appear on my radar
these days: DEI and Boeing. DEI is they acronym for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It means that employees are not (at least not primarily) hired, payed and promoted by their merits. High work ethic, diligence and the will to work continuously and thoroughly are less important. Instead employees are chosen and treated by criteria like diversity (meaning race), equity and inclusion.  

This brings me to Boeing. The airplane producer has a lot problems. The most recent: "The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily grounded some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets pending safety inspections, after a “door plug” panel blew off the body of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in midair on Friday, Jan. 5, forcing an emergency landing in Portland (pbs.org ). Shortly before this incident the company had admitted that their 737 Max  might "loose bolts in the rudder control system" (abcnews ). In 2018 & 2019 already 2 Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed, killing hundreds of people (reuters ).

Elon Musk claimed that Boeing´s safety problems are caused by DEI: "Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening" (twitter).

Musk is right. Boeing follows DEI and displays that proudly on their website (image above  boeing.com ). Boeing`s DEI policy implies that the corporation cares less about work ethic & diligence. At Boeing the will to work continuously and thoroughly does not have priority anymore. More important are diversity, equity and inclusion.

 


 ( source)

Boeing´s DEI politics explain their safety problems. Imagine a worker notices that others are preferred even if they work less thoroughly because they fit into Boeing´s DEI concept. A diligent worker loses the initiative to work with the highest accurateness when this counts less. Why should he/she care anymore? Boeing`s woke policy discourages diligence & accurateness and opens the door for sloppiness and carelessness. No wonder that Boeing`s planes have a safety issue.

Boeing´s quality problems are also the consequence of Biden`s pro-labor and pro-union politics, which encourage preference for "underserved communities" and make it more difficult to enforce diligence and to discipline workers who are sloppy and careless. 

If Boeing would just be a bread factory then their DEI commitment would not do much harm. If their pastries would become inferior, they would go out of business. But when Boeing`s air planes are inferior and parts of them fall from the sky, it is a huge problem. Who wants to risk his live in a Boeing machine?

I would be not surprised if airlines in Europe, Asia, Latin America & Africa, who are not responsible to the Biden government, will purchase fewer Boeing planes and chose Europe`s Airbus or Chinese machines instead. Who needs woke Boeing anymore?

 

P.S. And it is even getting worse


 (source  source)

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Books: How A Small City Football Club Climbed Up To Germany`s First League


(Drivebycuriosity) - Football, in the US known as soccer, is big business. Clubs like Bayern München, Real Madrid, Manchester City & Paris Saint-Germain spend hundreds of millions to hire top players. Some of these top clubs are financed by oil sheiks, others by hedge fund billionaires. Red Bull invests a part of its huge marketing budget into Red Bull Leibzig, Red Bull Salzburg & Red Bull New York. Volkswagen owns VFL Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen belongs to the
pharma giant Bayer. Billionaire Dietmar Hopp, co-founder of Germany´s software goliath SAP, is the owner of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and financed the steep rise of the village club to Deutsche Bundesliga, Germany`s first football league. And big city clubs like Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund, Union Berlin & 1. FTC Köln, each rely on a huge fan base.

In summer 2023 the Bundesliga got a new member, a club from a tiny city in Southern Germany: 1 FCH Heidenheim 1846. The club`s home is a industrial place with just about 50,000 people. There is no white knight who finances them and no huge corporation as sponsor. It all grew organically. Heidenheim is supported by local businesses and has yet to gather a proper fan base.

The club was created 2007 by a spin-off from the local sports club and played in Oberliga Baden Württemberg, the fifth tier of the German football league system. In season 2008-09 Heidenheim rose to Regionalliga Süd, in 2009-10 to 3. Liga (league), in 2013-14 to 2. Bundesliga and reached finally in 2022-23 the Bundesliga.

The rise is a vision of Holger Sanwald, FC Heidenheim´s Geschäftsführer (CEO). He has the belief that even a small club could advance to the top, based on a dynamic regional economy. He believes in the support by regional but global corporations like Karl Zeiss (optics), Steiff (Teddy Bears), Voith (engineering), Hartmann (healthcare) and many mid- and small-sized businesses, including bakeries, doctor offices, workshops and such.

Heidenheim`s career was realized by Frank Schmidt, the coach since 2007, the longest time in Germany`s professional football. June 2023, short after Heidenheim`s "Aufstieg" to Bundesliga, Schmidt published "Unkaputtbar", a kind of autobiography ( 216 pages in German  amazon ). The term means indestructible, contrary to the German term "kaputt gehen". It´s a quote by another German football coach who praised Heidenheim`s & Schmidt`s very combative mindset.

Schmidt describes Heidenheim`s sociological & economical background, shaped by climate (highest and coldest stadium in German professional football) and the frugal regional "Swabian" mentality and gives a chronology of the club´s development, the greatest successes and disappointments, the arrogance of HSV Hamburg Fans ("On your knees, you peasants, Hamburg is your host"), how he became Germany`s record football coach and how he deals with defeat.  
 

Spoiler Alarm: The following paragraphs are mainly based on the book:

Schmidt, born 1974, portrays his obsession with football. In his youth he was an uprising player, tall & ambitious, and in 1993 he played in the U20 World Championship in Australia. Unfortunately time wasn`t on his side, years later he wasn`t fast enough for modern football. But he amassed a lot experience!

In 2003 he returned to his birth town Heidenheim and started as player (working parallel at Hartmann, responsible for internal corporation accounting & currency trade based on his banking education). In 2007 he replaced the former coach, who had been let go, first as interim coach and after 2 victories as head coach.


 

                            Second Chance

Being a tiny budget club Heidenheim cannot keep top players for long. If one gets attention, for instance as goal shooter, a bigger club wants to buy him (the contract between club & player). These transfers bolster the finances of little clubs. Therefore the coach often needs to find replacements who fit into the club and to Schmidt´s concept. Heidenheim´s  rise shows that the coach not only replaced "Leistungsträger" (high performers) successfully, he made the team even stronger.

 "Heidenheim is a chance for many players. We often chose players, who failed elsewhere. Players who start promising, but whose careers stalled. These are very good premises - as for the player as well as for us. Giving someone a second chance is not only human, it usually also pays back" .

Heidenheim`s coach chooses players who are capable to confront new situations without fear and are passionate. Schmidt wants resilience, the ability to never give up. He claims that mentality can be exercised and can been exemplified by the coach. If the coach strives to win always, then the team endeavors to win always as well.

Schmidt doesn`t measure a player on the goals he scores, but on how many chances he works out, and primarily, how he behave, after missing a goal chance and if he is unflinching

He likes challenges; when the team stands with "its back to the wall" he has to find a solution. "There is nothing better, then having a new idea to revitalize a difficult situation".

Schmidt lays the basis on athletic exercise, giving the team the strength to run more kilometers - and more sprints - than their opponent. But crucial is the willingness to reach the limits again and again and even to shift them sometimes. 

It is paramount to fight until the referee whistles the game end. No wonder that Schmidt quotes Churchill: "Blood, Sweat & Tears". He said after a tight but well deserved win: "Crucial was not that we botched chances, crucial was, that we continued after the botched chances." 

The book ends with the sentence: "We are not yet finished."


 


 ( source)


At the end of 2023 and the beginning of the winter break Heidenheim stands at place 9, in the upper half of the league which has 18 teams. At the end of the season - match day 34, two clubs on the bottom of the league will be relegated, number 16 has to defend their membership in 2 games against No. 3 of the second league. 

Now Schmidt has the greatest challenge of his career: In order to stay in the Bundesliga Heidenheim has to leave at least 3 clubs behind in the table.  

Good luck to Schmidt and 1. FC Heidenheim.


Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Contemporary Art: Derek Fordjour`s Score @ Petzel New York


(Drivebycuriosity) - Visiting Chelsea, Manhattan`s fancy art district is always fun. There are so many classy galleries and there is always something to discover. At Petzel on 25th Street I saw an exhibition with works by Derek Fordjour. The show was called "Score" (petzel ). The artist was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Ghanaian parents. He is now New York based.

 


On top of this post you can see "The Parthenon of Truncated Ambition" (2023, Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, glitter, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas) followed by "Ritual (NSO)" (2023, Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas)

 



 Above follow "Swimming Lesson" & "Mayweather Catering Company"


To be continued



Sunday, January 7, 2024

Literature: 18 Interesting Books I Read In 2023


 (Drivebycuriosity) -  As usual at the begin of a year, I  write about my favorites from the past year. Unfortunately, 2023 did not have the best book harvest. I struggled to get 20 interesting books together and ended with 18. 

But anyway, some publications are worth a recommendation:

My favorite fiction of 2023 was Frédéric Dard`s crime mystery "Bird In A Cage" ( amazon). The plot, set in Paris around Christmas Eve in the 1960s, is told in first person. Dard constructed the plot like an illusionist who leads his audience astray with an meticulous constructed but spectacular trick. Even though the tale is heavily elaborated the plot is still somewhat plausible. "Bird" is a perfect mixture of thrill & romance sprinkled with subtle erotics - so much fun. 

 

"The Rabbit Factor" by Finish author Antti Tuomainen ( amazon) was fun as well. The novel is also told in first person and set in Finland. It´s about a rational thinker, who has worked as a mathematician for an insurance company. The protagonist got fired and inherits a messy adventure park for children, where he has to deal with ruthless criminals. His world is set upside down, and he has to adapt to a totally new life and to deal with irrationality, menace & violence. But the novel is also about learning and to grow with one`s challenges, spiced with economics, management & labor relations.

 

Piero Chiara`s "The Disappearance Of Signora Guila" is an old fashioned mystery, slowly paced (amazon ). The novella (just about 100 pages) is set in Italy in the 1950s at Lago di Como, a lake shared by Italy & Switzerland. "Disappearance" is a kind of a law drama, or is it a farce? Anyway, Chiara tells about sometimes ridiculous relations between lawyer, clients & police. The use of the law - as told in this novella - appears absurd today, but also amusing. And the ending is very unusual.

 

Martin Holmen`s "Clinch" reminds me of Raymond Chandler`s & Dashiel Hammet´s hard boiled thrillers, but this tale is much, much, much more violent & brutal ( amazon). The novel is set in Stockholm in the 1930s, the Great Depression, told in first person. The protagonist is an ex boxer, still quick with his fists, a brute but smart with an analytical brain. Holmén`s writing skills remind me of Knausgard, who also has the talent to describe simple observations in an entertaining way. I enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions of wintry Stockholm, the frequent restaurant visits, the food & the booze. The novel touches many aspects including the influence of an horrible childhood, nightlife in 1930s Swedish capital, Stockholm´s queer community and more.


I got mixed impressions from Pulitzer Prize winner "Trust" by Hernan Diaz ( amazon). The novel has 4 parts (books), each written by fictional author. I like  part one, called "Bonds", a novel-in-novel about a hyper successful Wall Street investor & speculator and his wife. I was fascinated by the musings about the stock market and a description of the Roaring Twenties and the causes of the stock market meltdown starting late 1929. There are a lot cliches of course and some parts are overdramatic but Diaz`s prose is wonderful and there are passages full of magic.
 

I found novel 2 - a  fictional autobiography of another hyper successful Wall Street guy - rather tedious, there is way too much bragging and there are too many oversimplifications. And I did not care about parts 3 & 4 by a fictional woman, who had worked for the author of novel 2, followed by notes by the fictional wife from novel 2.

I continued reading Qiu Xiaolong`s series of crime mystery series, set in Shanghai, with part 3:"When Red Is Black" ( amazon). 2 detective inspectors are investigating the murder of a woman, who has once been a member of the Red Guards, a case which is very political. The detectives had to deal with the complex & very dense neighborhood systems, where the victim had lived, but also with their political superiors, which made their work even more challenging.

Xiaolong describes the peculiar mixture between socialism & fledgling capitalism, the expanding gab between social climbers and those left behind and the conflict of Mao believers and Western minded. The author covers the housing situation, medical care, struggling small businesses, Shanghai`s unique traditional architecture, Confucius`wisdom and much more. This all is served with a dry humor & some poetry and spiced with frequent descriptions of popular Shanghai meals. The author
lives in Canada where he can write freely and ignore Bejing`s censorship.

 

As usual I read a lot Science Fiction. Almost as long I live I am fascinated by scifi`s "what If..." concept.  My favorite of 2023 is:

"Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds, who belongs to my favorite authors ( amazon). The novel is a classic space opera and drama. The staff of a commercial space ship, who are mining ice comets ("pushing ice"), gets a new task and sets course to a Saturn moon, which suddenly behaves strange. This starts a journey which last much longer and goes much farther than expected.

"Pushing" is inspired by Einstein`s insights, evolution, cosmology and other sciences. Reynold described bizarre and intimidating environments, aliens,  spaceships & other artifacts. His weird universe could have been created by a cooperation of H.R.Giger (Alien) & Kafka on speed. But even the most outlandish events are plausible thanks to Reynold´s scientific background and his writing skills. Another strength of the novel are the abruptly changing social situations & conflicts. The plot is framed by 2 strong female characters. Both are challenging but somehow I cared for them anyway. 

 

Michael G. Coney`s "Charisma" influenced my thinking as well (amazon ). The novel, told in first person, is a complex mixture of science fiction, drama, romance & crime mystery. Scientists discovered numbers of parallel worlds, which are more or less similar to ours. Their timelines run either ahead or past of our time line. Some people, who are part of secret similar science projects on the different timelines, cross the lines and switch from one world to another. 

The narrator, a complex & challenged person, is one of them. There are a lot of surprises and sometimes dramatic & thrilling situations, spiced with romantics & erotics. "Charisma" is a dark philosophical tale. The story is of course highly speculative but based on logic and analytic thinking - almost scientific - which makes is very plausible.  

 

Since today´s scifi is mostly pathetic and obsessed with diversity, equality and other woke dogmas, I read some classics:

 

"Even The Gods" by Isaac Asimov is still up-to-date (amazon ). The novel is based on particle physics and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and describes in 3 parts the conflict between those who want to continue a revolutionary technology and those who contend it because of the enormous risks. Each part has different characters. Some are very exotic and have peculiar relationships and erotics thanks to the fictional physics of the novel. "Even the Gods" is brilliant, still cutting edge and much, much, much better than 99 percent of contemporary science fiction.

As usual I read some short story collections:

Stanislav Lem`s: "Cyberiad" - first published 1965 - is set in a far future where humans had expired and got replaced by machines, which are more or less intelligent ( amazon). It is a collection of funny fairy tales about cybernetic beings (highly advanced robots, not created by humans but by machine evolution), which are surreal, hilarious & mind boggling. The stories happen in a pseudo-medieval environment which reminds of Brother Grimm`s stories. Lem mixed sciences, like logistic, particle physics, quantum mechanics & cosmology, with absurd ideas and characters into a baroque & bizarre cosmos.

"Stories Inspired By The Fermi Paradoxcontains 15 tales ( amazon). I like 4 of them:

"Catching Rays" by David L Clements. The astrophysicist wrote a smart story with very original ideas about an alien contact based on quantum physics.
"Lost to Their Own Devices" by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a thrilling space odyssey mixed with militaristic science fiction, spiced with amazing ideas and a surprising twist.

"In The Beginning" by Gerry Webb is a mystery story set into a lush and rich future."The Worldmaker" by Rachel Armstrong describes dating in a sophisticated bar in an advanced future where people can control their moods by pheromone pills and other technologies - a glance into a new baroque.

 

The anthology "Infinity`s End" depicts 14 versions of a possible future (amazon ). Kristine Kathryn Rusch`s "Once on the Blue Moon" is my favorite. Murderous pirates overtake a space ship to find and capture a very valuable item. They didn`t calculate with one passenger: a 12 years young girl, who is stubborn, willful and very accomplished. Its a young adults story, but nicely told and lots of fun.
Seanan McGuire`s "Swear Not By The Moon". The heirs of dynasty visit Titan, the largest of Saturn`s moons, which is owned & colonized by their grand-grand mother. Their visit causes trouble.

Alastair Reynolds`"Death`s Door". Three very, very old friends are meeting, experiencing together strange and dramatic events. A very dark & surreal tale, as usual for Reynolds.
Stephen Baxter´s "Last Small Step". A small spaceship with only 2 passengers travels to the edge of our solar system to stop there another traveler from what he wants to do - a mini space opera.

Nick Wolven`s "Cloudsong". A sophisticate diplomat has to negotiate with a group of strange asteroid settlers who have a challenging claim - very exotic.

 
I also read some interesting
Nonfiction:

 

"Blood Red Snow" by Günter K. Koschorrek really went under my skin ( amazon ). Koschorrek had been sent to the Russian front as a common soldier, a machine gunner, following orders from higher ranks. First he served near Stalingrad, when the city was under siege from the Russian army, later, when the German Wehrmacht (Army) was finally retreating, on different places.

Koschorrek was lucky. Many of his comrades were killed or returned as cripples. But he had to watch daily that his comrades were butchered and killed, always on the brink to be the next victim. He had to suffer the cold of the Russian steppe and often he was undernourished.
He describes many grizzly & horrible situations, his existential angst, the growing confusion at the Russian frontier and the grief about the loss of comrades. Some combat situations read like a thriller. Everybody who is thinking about war against Russia and other unloved nations should read this book.

 

 I read more history of course:

 "Foundation: The History Of England From Its Earliest Beginnings To The Tudors" by Peter Ackroyd ( amazon). The book, the first in a series of 6, is lively written and kept my interest in spite of all the countless facts which filled about 500 pages. Ackroyd concludes: "Human history is the sum of total accidents and unintended consequences". "Everything grows out of the soil of contingent circumstance".

 

"The Normans - Power, Conquest and Culture" by Judith A. Green tells where they come from, how they come in power and how they influenced Europe´s political & economical system ( amazon). The author describes how the former Vikings infiltrated Italy and overtook many Italian cities, Sicily & parts of North Africa. She praises their mastery of sieges and their ability to assemble fleets and to use them both for transport, in sieges, and in battle. But she also reports how they developed the English law system (to the better) and how they shaped architecture, especially in London & Palermo. 

 

And there was some economics:

"Government Failure: A Prime in Public Choice" by Gordon Tullock et.al ( amazon).  Public Choice is based on the observation that politicians and bureaucrats behave just like other people and follow their self interest. While corporations strive to maximize their profits, politicians aim to maximize their votes and their power. Likewise bureaucrats seek to expand their influence, reputation & income, for instance by expanding their organizations.
Tullock defines "Public Choice" as "a scientific analysis of government behavior and, in particular, the behavior of individuals with respect to government". He criticizes that government ´cures`"are begun too soon, they do to much, and they are continued too long. Once a government cure is introduced, it stays for decades" doing more harm than good, for instance slowing economic growth. 

Tullock`s insights explain today`s antitrust activities in the US & Europe: 

- Competitors of successful firms want to harm their rivals or appropriate parts of their businesses;
- Firms disadvantaged by technological change seek to mitigate market outcomes unfavorable to them;
- government administrators want to foster their careers

 

I also refreshed old knowledge:
 

 "Infinite Powers - How Calculus Reveals The Secrets Of The Universe" by Stephen H. Strogatz  (amazon ). The title is overdone, but certainly Calculus is underrated, because it helps to understand so many things, it shaped the thinking of scientists, engineers and other supported technological progress and the growth of the global wealth. the book inspired my thinking about many aspects.

Calculus works with "differential equations. Such equations describe the difference between something right now and the same thing an instant later or between something right here and the same thing infinitesimally close by".

"An ordinary differential equation describes how something (the position of a planet, the concentration of a virus) changes infinitesimally as the result of an infinitesimal change in something else (such as an infinitesimal increment of time)".

 

"Helgoland - Making Sense Of The Quantum Revolution" by Carlo Rovelli (amazon ). The author defines Quantum Theory as "the theory of how things influence each other" and as "a theory that is at the center of the obscurity of science". Rovelli adds "taking Quantum seriously, reflecting on its implications, is an almost psychedelic experience".
The book´s title refers to an island north of the German coast, where Werner Heisenberg spend some time and developed his basic ideas which belong to the fundamentals of today´s physics.  Rovelli dives into the history of Quantum theory and sketches the contributions of Einstein, Mach, Heisenberg, Dirac, Schrödinger, Bohr and many more.

The text is mainly philosophical and strongly influenced by ancient texts written by the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (wikipedia ). According to Nāgārjuna (in the interpretation by Rovelli) "nothing exists in itself, everything exists only through dependence on something else, in relation to something else". In one word: "emptiness".



 

P.S. There were 2 books that I really disliked: 

The first was Donald Ray Pollock`s "The Devil All The Time" (amazon). The author, who belongs to the stars of contemporary American literature (!), created a freak show. Most of the characters are extremely poor, borderline dump and often exceptionally sadist & violent. Their interaction is beyond bad taste. Pollock`s language is exceptionally crude and often hyper gross. Apparently all the misfortune & cruelty is meant to be entertaining - and as the rave reviews show this strategy works with a certain kind of people. It seems that Pollock made fun of everything, being poor, being stupid, being violent, being sadist, being obnoxious, being queer. This might be entertaining for a while but its wearing out soon, getting tedious. 

"Lapvona" by Ottessa Moshfegh is even worse (amazon ). The author is another star of the contemporary US literature scene. In my already long life I have never read something which was so obnoxious and despicable as  "Lapvona". None of the 1,000 plus books I have read was so gross and abominable. The novel is a freak show and reads like something the Brothers Grimm hallucinated after indulging in some really bad mushrooms, but I doubt that these professors would have dove so deep in the mud. Many events and descriptions are beyond bad taste.