July 11, 2003

more bamboo network


 this guy pak
and his
 DPRK THING'S
FOR REAL 

i've emailed 
him 
back and forth
twice 

at 
moneyeye/pakman/@dotmail . com

he sent me this book
 he can't get pubbed 

 a couple excerpts
  follow :


 chapter 13 

              the heart of  the matter


    it was one of those nondescript mid manhattan high rises
the sort woody allen and sally sawdust dart in and out of
  when their cheating on mutual  friends.

 the same glass fronted lobby 
same dim sour lighting
 same podium style desk
 with the usual one of a kind 
 self inventions
stting  behind it
 reading or dozing  or picking at 
  the brim of his security cap.  

 this paticular edition
  a fat  pink one    as i remember 
a fat pink one
 with a meat ball sub waiting
wanting to get back to the next mouth full 
 sped thru his various
 whatnots on phone and buzzer
  and five minutes into the process
I’m on the 43rd floor 
looking for door B
 which appears after a sharp turn past
  an over dressed door A 
 down the end of a short corridor.
---------------------------------------------------------------
 

 my bell ring led to the swift appearence of “just another
    gook in black”
 as my uncle likes to call
 his sober clad countrymen

 . this one
  on opening up
 looks like he could be
 my cousin Brian from Encino 
 that is if  my cousin Brian
 could rip the limbs off a bear.
      “ good evening mr pak” 
he ‘d seen my picture
   some where evidently.

     “ general Noh is waiting for you”

   and he was, in a big chair, smoking a long filtered cigarrette
  and gleeming with late nite cheer.

So this was the terrible general Noh Dae Jo
 or so
I  say to myself anyways

 frail 

the guy looks 
frail.
 frail and glassy 

   “ welcome sir welcome” he roises
 and comes  at me
 shaking  my hand quickly lightly sharply.

     “ please take a chair.... sorry so spartan”

  he wasnt kidding
   no Bond eye feast here
 coming up  i’m  hoping for
maybe a 
 funk struck playboy pad  

  try  vip room 
at the bus terminal    .
       

   the General immediately 
  entertained me 
 with a little mockery.

      waving his left arm around 
like a broker .
  
 “  digs like this are the secret  charm
            of my line of work... we like to call them 
  surveillance rooms.... sounds high tech doesn’t it ....
   they aren’t....... .care for a cigarette?  mr pak
     a scotch and soda...... a bag of pop corn
   oh oh ofcourse not forgive me... this is america isn’t it
  .... your personal goals ah ..... i suspect ... call for
   a life laced up  with ah
endless  health and vigor.....  
the american dream  ahh .... hardly comes without 
  sacrifices does it mr pak...    .....  i must admit
  to you mr pak  ....  i myself am a very weak willed fellow”

now he was   waving his  arm around to   make
his  smoke streams
get away from
the front of his face. 

   “  three packs a day .......  and  ah butts are  only a small part 
   so many addictions    ” 
 
  saying this he laughed at himself 
and  frowned mildly   at the   cigarette
 burning in his hand .

 “ you bitch” he scolds
 and then throwing back his head slowly he 
  drew off a long hit
 “ take that ” 

what a production .

   i suspect   if    you  were around him  
yourself 
like i was for any decent interval at all 
   you couldn’t help getting uncomfortible
 in one way or other

 the details of this mans smoking 
 for one example
 ridiculous --
 no better  to call it   senseless --
 like the old fashion  way
 he had
of holding 
  his smoke 
 high up on his finger tips 
 with the palm of his hand  underneath.
 and then 
steering it around him as he spoke
like he was playing with a toy  airplane or a  boat in a tub 
 what could he be thinking

 Gestapo interrogator perhaps.
 
   but he was far too loose
 too swaggerless  
too 
 flexible 
to play that hollywood staple

 at least not  when, like now ,he was out 
of uniform  in a  plum shaded 
    liberace lounging jacket 
 and
 most likely  drunk.
      
    in fact  as i watched him redrape himself back
over his chair
 I thought  what  he’d  
really pass for  
 right about then
  was  
a first rate carnival snake 

 you know 
  drugged to gentleness
 fangs retracted 
  a cobra perhaps  
just now settling back  into his basket

 maybe theres
  the    toot of  a
 hypnotic flute in there .

  to say the least   his ease of purpose
 was not mine
.
  only god knows why
  after all 

wasn’t this  show time 
 
but   like a jackass
 i was struggling 
   with the tools of my craft

and making a fools jumble of it 

  trying to  organize my notes and switch on
 my recorder at the same time
    
    he gazed at me contentedly, puffing away 
slowly and spiralling  the smoke  out a  vent
 he’d fashion periodically  at the side of his mouth .

      clearly just  any old 
 uneasy  silence couldn’t 
           force him to fill it with chatter.

  “ ummhh” i said eventually  while still shuffling 
           “ lets see” 
              stuff all  slid off my lap .

  after a  fast
 (impatient maybe) 
 show of   teeth 
Noh decided  to unhook me
 by slinging some apple sauce.

 “ my a lot of notes  looks to me  like you’ve got the basis for
a whole  raft of questions there....   and audio equipment too.” 

   he started  gesturing at my  tape recorder  slowly clicking
  away  on the floor  next to me.

  “  well actually...I......I..”fumbling my retrieved papers 
   “ i i could start several different ways ....” 
      
  “ ah perhaps it would go faster  if  i just pushed off
  into the thick of it. what do you think?... 
perhaps if i  narrate it eh...... from the begining ..
    hows that strike you ? ”

 he sparkled his eyes at me   a moment
  was my head nodding yes?
     
 “ ah fine.... fine  ..... i’ll just dive on through’
 
but then he halted as i scrambled to regulate my recorder.

 “  ah please mr pak .... no tapings please
    other peoples tapings have a predictable habit
 of biting you  right  in the can  later ....we are recording every thing
   anyway ... superb system ..could hear a tick fart on it ...
we’ll give you a copy ...  maybe you can take some  written notes
though   anyway........  helps the brain sometimes 
     cut thru all  my bull ...... what do you think ?”
     
 i assured him i always took notes.

    “ ah a belt and suspenders type .....good ....good
         so... lets see... where should i  begin...  ah yes ....”

  and he proceeded.over the next 
    three  and a half hours  to spool out
    his   story 
     the whole story or at least 
   his  version of the whole story
  
  and here it is just as he told it
 in  his exact words 
 as recorded on tape  by his own system

let me preface this with a little tip 

  dont lapse during the many 
 massively selfindulgent   digressions
your going to  find  in this 
 
all i can say is remember 
 
 1  hes foxy he knows  way way more then 
he can staightly tell

    2. some of his  best  nuggets are buried
 under a platoon of nonsense 
 
   3. the on rush of the story is more 
  variable in its rate of progress 
 then the  kimpo river

stay with it 

over and over  you get these seemingly endless
 sluggish  meanders
 that in a phrase turn   to plunging ravines
headed arrow straight for the bulls eye
    
  watch out 

  4. then   god there’s the damn wordage 
 this piece of transcription
reads I guarantee as bizarrely
 as anything you or I ever
have read or ever  will read 
 there ive said it .
 i can live with it 
yes he really talks like that 


you’ll hit your limit of 
texas john connolly stories  and
   nights among the toe whores of copenhagen
  don’t  drop out please 
 this confection of his 
this  red shaggy dog tale 
contains the emblems of deep truth 
 
 good   folks the story’s  in there 

maybe hes 
made  it out 
of corn and lightning
but its  in there 

 I could have chopped gouged replaced 
 and repatched but to me  the rules were clear
   
 scattered among everything else
  in this garbage can of verbiage 
 i found unmistakeable    instructions

 decoded they all  say
one thing  “ leave this be”

     like the words of Goethe’s  Mephisto himself
  
“ nothing other 
not more not  less
  not above not below 
nothing other    
    contains the spell ”  
------------------------------------------------            

 the recording itself  arrived the next day
 at my office 
by hand delivery 
 
 there was a  note attached to it 
 a  typed note 
  
  “hears the upshot  of our interview mr pak 
           make of it what you can 
     dont worry it doesnt self desolve 
   take as much time with it as
 your editor will  allow .”
  



  and hand written at the bottom in tiny cunic letters  
 another note 




      “ god  have i been long winded here!!!!
                 sorry, you see 
                    its inevitable.
           It  comes from never
       telling the same story twice
                 sincerely
                            dae jo  ”

-----------------------------------------------

     mr kurtz speaks for himself




   “   well ah lets see.... perhaps a little back ground...
   its 1971 and  maybe you ‘re reading about the ex governor of texas ...
   the one who took a slug in 63... aimed at mattress jack
 all americas  go go  president  ...... 
  yes you remember
   he took a slug that day too
   one hell of a slug 
 flew  right thru the  intended 

and  in and out   
  of the governor   
in less  time then it takes a toad to belch howdy 

yes yes yes  mr john q connolly 

 maybe we make him 
the  first hero of our story 
 
 he was part of    
that day in dallas
   that  sun drenched day in dallas
 
 right there in the middle 
of all that
              that gleaming black steel  
  all that hebephrenic   waving 
all that damn  baring
 of  brilliant public   teeth
  right smack dab in the midst 
of it all 
 just like he’d figured 

 then    suddenly out of the thin texas blue
   out of a depository 
of pedagocical quakery 

came a history lesson

 an  unbidden history lesson

  barked three times  
    
   and blood bone  and brains 
  sprang 
  from  the nations   executive  head
    that aaahh 
till that moment
      nothing but   glamour drenched head 
    
   aaahh yess
 that day in dallas
in  the winking texas sun
 
in an  open  shining detroit limmo

    one vigor and grace  tormented 
       soul 
 was offered up to the gods of
 social  progress

      offered up  in sacrafice  
                            in  a Lincoln of death
  
  a sublime moment don’t you agree mr pak

at any rate 
     the texas governor was hit    in Dallas too 
. right along with JFK
  
 
      and  so now we’ve grabbed up the governor
  lets drag him  forward  8 years  .... to ah 1971
     
you’re reading in the washington post that 
    this ex texas democrat this former  footnote
     this one liner on the world stage
  this big hat texan 
just around  long enough to take  one magic slug  
 just there for his entry and  exit wounds
 oh and his wife’s marvelous instincts
   throwing her vital curvacious body over his
       giving him the  shield of devotion
               denigned the president in the seat behind him 
 
connoly left   her  i believe  not long  after 
      for a strawberry blonde from atlanta
   well 
back here in washington 71  .... you see the photo in the paper
  hes the hard case 
     in the brooks brothers suit
  if your decent your saying
 “dang is that him again”
 and it is ...  pea eyed and dry faced 
 looking ever so much like he’s coming to arrest 
    some one ....       tin star nasty 
  that look that thin curl of the lip....... 
especially the  eyes  
the eyes always
 a  simple two step from 
    hanging a  helpless victim
 
well ah  here he is 
like jaws   
 .... hes  .....back 
and christ almighty  hes Dick Nixons lovebird   ..... hes  running uncles friggin  treasury...
walking tall  ten gallon tall    up there in  the district  of columbia 
  running sweet deals out the back of  the money show for who ...   for who else
   the wall street to cactus creek  energy gang ...  and assorted  others ofcourse
     .. hes not just about drillers and pipers and such .  
       there are others he likes to take orders for
 any one really 
with a fat  enough roll 
  or an unbrakeable government hardon
  whatever so long as they got  a grateful turn of mind
 come campaign season

    now among them 
                    favorites 
    perhaps first among them .... 
no certainly
 first among them            
are  the big Manhattan  bankers .. 
everyone listens to
    them boys  ...
 who doesn’t need 
real slap down long green

... yep take it........
 you got a  deal 

    we all need some of that 
        tenderable stuff
             now and again
  
   and ah they got it
 they got the green
 the big green
      they dont just got it
 they can print  it  right .....
  make it appear from nothing.
  
  they push a button and  fomc 
          its in their accounts 

      but seems theres a problem though  ...and  ah seems 
  a  very good size ah .... problem....  the post war  global payment system has ah
developed a wicked tit twist ....a  bull calf cramp in its get along .... a fence pole up its
beehind ... worse maybe
   maybe much worse ...we cant wait and see they say  ...we ah need action now 
    as always theres serious coin down on the table ....right
      got to  face  whos out there  on the dance floor 
         or some twit ‘ll back shoot ya
       well ah these bankers are patriots after all ... more then anything red white and blue 
patriots..  red white and blue dollar patriots to be exact
       and naturally if the world ah    markets are
 ready to do something larger then the usual  rippling .... well ,,,
    naturally these boys   look to the dollar’s welfare first
   
now still then   in everyones mind 
 the dollar’s still  almighty  ofcourse
at least in every ignorant outsiders mind 
 the dollars still  
   the worlds modern  atlas
 still  the broad shoulders holding up 
 world prosperity
    
 
or is it 
lets hope the fuck so
 or......

   remember mr pak the commercial twenty years ago or more 
 with that large black scat singing lady
      is it  real or is it memorex ?
   the bank boys wanted 
         the watching world to know
  the answer is  its  real baby  the dollar is real
       all too real

     here mr pak we must drop back again ... we are receeding further from our story
  ah ..... what a pleasure to act as if  there is no need for  timing   
       “ no time for brevity here comrades”
       old kim loved that phrase ....
 no sir there’s never been a  time  limit to the truth 
     just time without end
     where  roll is never called 

   “so  glorious ......  so truely stately ..... pace the tale’s telling
   to the  fashion of angels ”
           that ah mr pak is allegedly  rod serling’s  last words

   let me drop us  back further past  dallas 63 
way back  to 1944
   its  war in europe
       a guy the likes of Hitler
    can still  put on a clean  pair of pants every day
       despite  tons of bombs and massing  russian rapists
        on the eastern borders
        the germans fight on  ....but in the brisk     
  clear autumn rustle back state side
 at the feet of  mt washington
    the annual falling  leaf  festival 
is ah  painting the earth 
with little   red and   yellow miracles 
 
a gusty  fluttering diffidence 

   welcome to   bretton woods new hampshire
     mr pak 
 come inside the  storied old resort hotel  
     where  things are waxing very big picture   indeed...ah post war big  picture....
       you know the gig its our man  keynes 
      and that seriously over rated guy  ....
          the alleged
      kremlin  submarine
   the absurdly self serious immigrants boy
the one   hiding behind an old  yankee 
sounding  name  
 yes  harry dexter white
 
yes he and keynes are  flinging  together a world money system 
  up there  in the white mountains 
     just the two of them as far as posterity cares
    and the  linchpin they craft  ..... a dollar forever tied to gold..
   35 dollars tied to one ounce of gold till kingdom come
  just  one   ounce  just 35 dollars
    and for all time 
  or at least   as keynes
   told a  promising young  reporter in argyle socks 
 “ until something better comes along  ”

    well up  ahead in 71
 something worse came along  instead
    



 it took its time  getting there ofcourse

 for more then twenty years 
 the dollar ruled while still 
     tied ....tied ....tied
  
just like the white-keynes 
 plan called for 
    at 35 to an ounce 
regular as a metranome 
tick tock 
    
    like life exchanges  back and forth with death 
      or something

    no thats ridiculous 
    whats the match up in that 
      35   dollars is  life and  one ounce of gold death
      thats William Jennings Bryan stuff
         scratch the analogy
            cross of gold my foot

           I instruct you mr pak 
             to expunge that unfortunate figure 
            from memory

     no to be brief 
         the dollar and gold
 35 to one  
  thats it  
      
 it was a tie without precedent or parallel 
     a tie made in wall street heaven 

       and for 10 years it    
  worked like a dream

  beyond the orbit of pluto it worked 

       this system  ..  restoring whole nations
    and freeing others

Europe it raised from its own  rubble 
        
 Japan from someone elses 
 radioactive spanking    

    propelled by its zing 
 retooled democracies old and new 
      straight armed 
our  man Stalin’s stooges 
 time and again 

 the system sustained a mighty 
 pool of pluralism      
 a moat of freedom  across the waist of europe 
and  around the skirt of asia  

        then after  taking a refreshing   ike type 
        snooze
  while the old mole tunneled mostly unseen 

         its time for Camelot 

      and its still going  fine 
   well almost fine .....
fine enough for the asshole innocent taxpayers 
 anyway 

  but but but radio listeners
 be on guard 
 in the control towers of the globe 
  the phrase “ dollar capital controls” is out and about 
 like the skunk of avalon     

   but our captain brave young captain still says
    sail on sail on 
 
and it remains  the wisdom of wall street 
   that  any house rigged odds
 no matter how low 
were better    then no rig at all  

    trouble is about this same  time jfk
not satisfied with outer space alone 

  starts looking over seas
 for another one of his wild  frontiers
 to tame and ride 
 
 and wouldn’t you know

right about then is  also 
   just when
 a  lot less then fully grateful
and now some what 
post colonial  world  
starts finding itself 
wanting less from
uncle fester’s  arsenal of profits 
and more from itself 
and for itself

 and so wow be tied 

theres  uncle  poor uncle 

   wanting ever and ever more more more  more
 from this very same freshly minted 
deimperialized globe
 
   the grim and  inevitable brake down 
     is  now on view
 at least to the tower topping  annointed 
     
   its so  basic its positively  structural
  its genetic in fact
there  it is and
there it  was
 right from jump street 
     waiting for a cue ....

   see at the dawn of the american century 
1946 
   uncle   got  this double dose
    of the   greed need 

       a   hogs appetite
     a  don’t settle for no robins breakfast
     
 so his cap set on big progress
  uncle wall street
    plans to build over
or   pump out  
or  buy up
 just about everything 
worth the building over 
pumping out 
 or buying up
there is    in  this godless world
    the whole man jack wide  godless world 
                                and  
        where as now that same said world
          is  back on its toes and throwing a few
jabs of its own  
  well cowhands  we got ourselves a pair of
      signifigantly conflicted bidness   plans

   it now would seem 
  the whole world only wants from uncle  what uncle
        does better then anyone else

   well uncle god bless him
             by 62  uncle  doesn’t make
         all that much  better stuff  anymore
    outside of  weapons .....  action movies and ah computers  ....
          
    so whos happy   
     selling the national treasures to uncle blue 
 for war wampum 
 a snatch look
    at  rachel’s titoons
       and the inevitable flood of 
US  treasury solid state IOU’S  

there are 
   just so many  jet fighters and parascopes ya need 
        on a sunday  picnic
          right ... lifes more then sabres and cyphers 
 and as to the IOU’s
      well try them on a bagette sometime 

   so bingo     
      the world wants more...and from elsewhere 

   so big boy blue gets the line 

   “start   giving  us    the difference in gold ”

    not all of it mind you

     “heres your dollars MR SAM 
  we got them selling you the american dream
 the color  tvs  the decent perfume
 the  cheap dress shirts
the  xmas toys 
now you    
 give us back   say 10% in  gold 
and  bro the deals between us are cool  
    they’ll l  ... ah  keep on  flowing 
 “ and uncle   we’ll happily take the rest of the difference 
      as we have for a few years now 
    in treasury  bonds...... do the right thing with your thing 
      skipper and
 we promise
  the world stays up for sale
   just slip us  some yeller metal
   and presto   the dollar sale  tags 
go back on our vitals
      just    a modest  20% got to be in gold 
 no more
 thats the limit 
 absolutly not an ounce more 
      
   oh heck  did i say 20% sorry i meant ah 30%
   i know i know    
if it was just a case of me
 well treasuries
   hell i love them 
i love treasuries myself
got that interest thing on them 
    but i got to  think of the widows and orphans 
            back home jeepers 
     you know .....  i got to think of them too
     its  the little people Sam ... they got night  dreams
    bad ones about the old days
   they see  shovels full of government tender
   worthless tender ......  shovel fullsSam ...and they’re  not enough
to buy a ham  sandwitch even
 not one ham sandwitch
  and     these were the legal tenders Sam  
every one of them 
 the   issues of mighty governments Sam 
governments  that said they’d last a thousand years
     gone in one or two  olympic cycles
       governments without sunsets
                governments with only  only rising tides
     they’ve seen hard times
these little parentless childless people
 theyve seen the best go mad 
    and the rest pay triple 
   so we got to have the difference in gold
daddy gold ”

   now   what does this  spell... if  your 100% USDA  .....  
well it spells    drain  preciuos drain 
 thats what it spells
    thats right  major general  gold  drain
    fort knox going dry type gold  drain
  
 got to do something here children right
 the rig is about up 

   by the way some say that fedhead Burns 
planned to eased up the credit to reelect Nixon
    and the consequent import splurge couldnt be 
   accomadated so they busted up the world
monetary  system to reelect the man from 
san clemente 
    and we all got watergate and beyond 

 in 71    Burns the fedhead puffed kittens
   out his pipe alright
 but a   Nixon re elect 
  forget about it 
 strictly a  bypass
  burns was a puffing 
cause      the wall st bullies
   are twitchy and   they’re divided
over the drain skein 

      Nixon himself  cant get into such 
       high gear finance
after all hes just a respectable cloth coat pol

    goosing the money supply could help reelect him in 72 

 Ike’s    tight ass money  policy may have done him in  60

 but to believe   the re election 
of that five o’clock shaddow 
  brought  down the dollar gold system
  what moonshine we make sometimes
 
 guess what small potatoes 
like Nixon and Connolly take orders 
on stuff like this they dont give them 
  
  but thank the sabine river... for producing big hat no cattle
  braggarts cause      here comes one named  Connolly
 what do they say down his way
        one riot one ranger
   Connolly can do
 and does  do 
 take orders that is 
unless he wants another slug in him
  take the bows and keep yapping
cowpoke 


 so the deed was done 

   our story commences right here 
when big john cut the keynes-white knot
    yes our story and most others can start best right here 
  with this Simple Simon of the tumble weeds
this  sage brush  Alexander 
        
  cutting   lady dollar outta that dang
      precious yeller  metal hog tie
   she got roped into by   whats their  names
    you know the  brit fag with the ballerina beard
   and that  there smudge pot  commie of ours
  
 yahoo shes free finally free
 to spread em and spread em wide 
  west    texas gusher wide
        
  yes sir   mr president  
      i cut those bindin’s and    
 uncles outta the gold rush bizness for keeps


    and  from what I can tell
     nixon just  said “what a man”

    so  from approximately that day forth
      the dollar was  free to swim 
   right along with the rest of the heffers
    
 but but but 
      here comes  a wonderous sudden  upshot
    enter stage left 
  sheik opec  and  rocky racoon       

---------------------------------------------

 EVER SEE THE MOVIE THE FORMULA MR PAK 
  brando the immortal brando plays an oil tycoon

  at one point he says”  what about opec you ask
what about  opec we are opec “ 

  well thats poetic license but the heart is true 
opec  was a creature of big energy they herded the 
 snakes into one organization
 so they could control them better
  like many creatures it lost its sense of gratitude 
      almost biblical are you a christian mr pak 
    i am thanks to a scotish missionary who liked chess 
    i was oh 9 or so living in canton my father was a jap
    diplomats    toady  the scot taught me chess and calvinism 
    yup he taught me    predestination preterition and the judgement day 
   right along with the roy lopez openning 
  
the keng family 


now not long after I was brought ah ..in..
  to ah run things  I get introduced to 
the most extraordinary family of  ah .....
 geniuses its  ah .... ever been my honor and 
pleasure to commune with 

the keng family 
the amazing kengs 
  
I’d heard of them ofcourse who hadn’t
 among the inner ah   thousand  
 they were legendary 

  they were nothing less then the Bernoulli’s 
the Cassinis of 
 the    DPRK  

 given the secret nature of all our work 
theirmathematical 
 brake throughs were never revealed to anyone
 outside the secured zone
 
 but ah ... looked at objectively 
 their work was like ah ....
the work
 of  those renowned ah... 
renaissance calculators
who kept their  formulas a secret  
likethe formula  to the cubic 
only these were not family secrets
 they were state secrets national secrets 

there were 5 of them active at the time 
 two generations worth  
   a pair of twin brothers and 
their three oldest children
 two girls and a boy 

yes girls ah....we’ll get to them 
ah ..in a moment 

 first let me explain old Kim’s 
late in life  love
affair with mathematics 

it started when he turned 60 
not that he had any gift for it 
but he would work very hard 
to understand it 
 and his knowledge 
after a few years was not bad 


 he had his quirky  views ofcourse
like he had about everything 
 my favorite 
was his near perfect  hatred
of non producible  real numbers
 
the simple  idea you could crack
open a square natural  number 
and get two endless  reals 
 made him think of ghosts and demons
but he liked them
they were trapable 
  so to speak  inside a natural whole 
 
and 
pi and e and the other producible  transcendentals he loved 
 he  used to say 
he  would pay handsomely if 
some one found another really good one 
like the one that lies between the log and the harmonic series 

but the random reals 
unproducible inseparable 
I think they actually scared him 


“   the continuum all at  once and then all again ”
he often said to us 
“ we must be brave before the continuum 
face it down .......” then he’d say 
 “ fuck no  who needs it  anyway ” and bray like a donkey 

 
   his real deep love was
for  complex integers
 they appealed to his sense of 
what he called 
“certainty within surprise”

when in his last 10 years 
his mind turned to market economics
he always hoped we’d  come up with a model
 for economic markets
 that required complex numbers

“ still don’t need them eh ”
he’d say 
  
nonetheless  the math others  brought to the issues 
excited him greatly 
 ofcourse given his prejudices 
  he despised analytic results
 “ they’re all based on continuum tricks ”
he’d say “ they make all cows black or white 
  or whatever the hell else puts you to sleep ”
 

 “ market economics is elementary
 my dear watson ” he used to say to us  
“so  lets stick to integers ”

if some pompous bourgeois  giant 
tried to  combine analytics 
  with utility concepts
 the results always provoked 
 a kind of scoffing  fury in him 
 
 Samuelson’s Foundations
 his  47 classic was to old  KIM  
 “ the work of a foxy   hydro engineer
 no more no less
   water and exchange values 
don’t mix ”
 
 “ utility is  like ether what  nonsense ”


“ preferences hardly behave like a glass of 
  orange juice ”


 he was fond of von Neuman

and  frank Ramsey even though Ramsey
 used some analytic short hand 
 “  no problem I forgive him 
    he chased 
unavailable women too “  
 
 

 integer programming came naturally to him 
“ I like step functions  and things with sharp facets
  flat faces and   edges that are straight an briefly abrupt 
I’m Chinky that way 
 its no  wonder is it 
that  I hate differential geometry  ” 
 
 but stuff like 
 multi node networks immediately 
 seemed “ inevitable ” to him 
 
  when the research people
 brought their ideas and solutions 
   before him and they fit his warps well
then  ofcourse 
 his mind was wide open 

 so when the first of the keng 
market simulation 
results were brought to him 
by the planning board 
and he saw they were 
matrix systems and involved 
a great deal of parallelism 
and each move was
 “ as discrete 
as a blow to the throat ”

he went wild with fascination 

 thanks to the kengs 
after that we  could do no wrong 

  what they had done was work out a feasible 
 simulation for security markets
whether bond or stock 
or tulips or land 
for thart matter didn’t change much 

   the generality and simplicity were startling
  to any one who had stared at these things
like I had  for years and not even remotely 
gathered they could actually 
be so accurately
simulated with a math model 
especially ones so similar to  the ones
 used to solve the four color
problem 

 more then anything else 
their quick closure theorem 
 held the key to the rest 
remember these aren’t some silly evolutionary algorithims 

  they found out the variations in possible market responses
after initially  expanding  rapidly in complexity as you’d expect 
 as you added traders and trade items 
to every ones surprise counter intutively 
 complexity growth dropped  off 
dramatically  like the deceleration as you approach 
the upper arm  of the log function
 
 for example after the 
 the  thousandth  player level is  reached
 in a 100  item game 

 the added accuracy gained by adding players  was negligible
 even if the simulated market had ten million traders
or 10 trillion even 

   so we got 1000  Apple C ‘s
 on the jap  after markets 
 and we were off to the races

  the real market could have millions of potential players 
and not generate significant differences from 
our simple little  thousand unit model
  
 provided you  had time series long enough
   of the real markets  aggregate behavior 
to feed in 
  even very crude underlying learning  algorithms 
 could be programmed into a few  PC’s 
 and  
quickly start to evolve towards  
 a remarkable degree of precision 

it took us two years
 to get a network of autotraders
that handled new data like the  real  markets
handled the same data 
 like the real  traders reacted 
     to their  own developments 
 and to  any serious
 fundamental underling developments 
     like trade news or budget news or 
land values etc. 

we could tip it on end and run 
nation isolations to study invariance’s 
and risk ranges
  then the kengs came up with a bubble detection algorithm

   we soon found bubble watches 
paid off  the bigger the bubble 
 the safer the counter play 
    all we needed was a way to pop 
them 
Posted by pinky at July 11, 2003 10:28 AM

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