[The following is a revised and slightly expanded version of a talk I gave to the Polytechnic Retired Professors on November 8, 2010.]
“The Great Recession and Beyond: A Pessimistic Perspective”
1. CAUSES of what Paul Krugman and Robin Wells call “the great North Atlantic real estate bubble” in The New York Review of Books (9/30/10). They argue that the 1997-8Asian financial crisis induced East Asian and Middle East countries to accumulate large hoards of foreign assets as insurance against another debacle. And so they bought US bonds. Add in China’s doing the same with its enormous export receipts and what resulted were low long term interest rates. These led to low mortgage rates and a real estate boom. And then “animal spirits” (in Keynes’ words) took over. Financial shenanigans were the icing on the cake–they made the bubble much bigger, the complications greater and the recovery much harder.
2. STIMULOUS–now a bad word, like liberal and government was $787 billion. It was too low. Christina Romer, chairwoman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers (but unfortunately without much clout), argued for $1.2 trillion, but key figures on the Obama team vetoed this effort. There are two possible reasons: (a) conceivably, Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner felt it wouldn’t fly politically. I suspect, however, given the bully pulpit that a new president has, $990 billion was possible, or thereabouts, and a 30 % increase in the stimulus would have helped.
b) Apparently, Summers and Geithner thought unemployment would peak at 8 % (although 9 % is occasionally mentioned) and then apparently felt the recovery would be stronger. In other words, a larger stimulus was not needed.
Geithner, and especially Summers, are extremely smart men, but neither saw, apparently, the seriousness of the housing bubble. Both have an unrealistic faith in market solutions but, apparently, they didn’t realize this recession was different. Instead of Summers and Geithner, we would have been better off had Obama chosen any two of the following for his chief advisers: Joseph Stiglitz, Christina Romer, Alan Blinder (former VP of the Federal Reserve, from Princeton), or former Berkeley Professor, Laura Tyson (who was also Chairwoman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers).
3. HAS the stimulus worked? Tyson says that without it, the unemployment rate would be about 11.5 %. She, Stiglitz and Krugman, and many others, argue for a large 2nd stimulus, but that’s politically dead or so it appears. A spurious argument against a 2nd stimulus is that the problem is structural–jobs here, people there--or jobs needing skills A, B & C, when what exist are skills X, Y & Z. But this argument is unconvincing and Paul Krugman, on a recent blog posting, offered a convincing statistical analysis that refutes it.
Krugman has written that he hopes that Peter Diamond, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on structural problems, and whose appointment to the Federal Reserve is being blocked by Republicans, can get by their obstructionism. Then he will be in a position to explain why the current situation is not a structural problem, but one in which there is a lack of demand, although structural elements always exist, but at present only to a small degree.
Fresh water economists, from Carnegie Tech or Chicago (as opposed to salt water economists from Berkeley, MIT, Harvard or Princeton), argue more Government leads to less Investment, an argument of merit, perhaps, when we are at full employment, but not very convincing when both unemployment and excess capacity is high. Conservative Nobelist Robert Lucas believes people cut their spending, when the deficit increases, because they believe they need to save for future increases in taxes. I highly doubt this can be significant and I have a bridge for him to buy.
4. UNEMPLOYMENT. The publicized rate of unemployment (U3), as I write, is 9.6 %. But this is a gross understatement as it leaves off so many–those who have given up looking for a job, because they feel no jobs are available, and those who work part time but who want to work full time, both included in U6. Although there are debates about the various measures of unemployment, U6 seems appropriate. Published by the government, it is about 17 %, more than 75 % higher than the publicized figure.
Actually, the rate of unemployment was, for a while, higher in 1982, than it was a year or so ago, at the peak of the Great Recession, but virtually everyone believes that this past recession was more severe than that one. The unemployment of 1982 was brought about by the tight money policy of Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker. He sought to reduce the inflation caused by OPEC, ultimately a more tractable problem than a bubble with excessive leveraging, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and the rest of the financial kit and caboodle.
The Fed’s job was made harder when Ronald Reagan pushed through a tax cut that began in 1981, arguing it would lower our deficits. Bush senior was right: voodoo economics, justified by the laughable Laffer Curve. Volcker was forced to adopt an even tighter money policy out of fear that inflation, already in, or just out of, double digits, would increase even more because of the tax cut. (He pushed the prime rate up–briefly–to over 21 %.) I have a friend who says he is a Republican because he is a fiscal conservative. But he has it wrong. On fiscal irresponsibility, Reagan takes the cake. He quadrupled our national debt from about $1 trillion to $4 trillion during his two terms, a record increase, if we exclude major wars. And a case can be made that George W. Bush comes in second. His tax cut reversed the huge fiscal surplus of the ending years of the Clinton Administration and created its opposite, a huge increase in the National Debt, although there were other factors at work–the recession and Iraq.
5. TWO VIEWS: (A) Fiscal Hawks. These are persons who believe the deficits will weaken the dollar and cause inflation. They want to cut government spending–now–to avoid the threat of future inflation, even though inflation is only about 1 % and has been declining. There are two nasty precedents: 1937-38, the recession within the Depression. Unemployment had dropped since its trough, in 1932-33, from 25 % to 13 %. But the fiscal hawks reduced the deficit from about 5.5 % in 1936 to virtually 0 % in 1938 and this (along with some monetary tightening) sent unemployment soaring to 19 %. Had the fiscal hawks not had their way it is conceivable–even likely–that we would have been out of the depression before WW II (and not had this stigma hanging over us, that capitalism depends on war to get us out of depressions).
The second nasty precedent is Japan, 1997. Fiscal hawks, by raising taxes in that year–designed of course to reduce the deficit–only succeeded in pushing the Japanese economy back into its decline. The lost decade continued and another lost decade followed.
But why are the hawks fearful? Treasury interest rates are at, or near, record lows–5 year notes are 1 % and 30 year bonds are 4 %. There are no signs of interest rate increases. Moreover, inflation rarely or never rises when unemployment is very high. Critics of fiscal hawks, like Paul Krugman, think that in the future, if needed (and almost surely at some point will be needed), the Fed can beat down inflation. There is an asymmetry: the Fed can stop inflation with tight money, but it can’t jump start the economy with easy money. As Keynes said, in a “liquidity trap,” when interest rates do not lead to greater investment, making money easier is “like pushing on a string.” It simply doesn’t work.
Deficit hawks and others point to the fact that our national debt is rising compared to our Gross Domestic Product, and at this point is about 70 % of GDP, if you exclude debt owed to the Social Security Administration. This could be, in truth, a matter of long term concern. But it depends. After WW II, for a few years, our national debt was more than 100 % of our GDP. By the mid-1970's, however, it was down to only about 30% of our GDP. There are three reasons the percentage dropped. First, there was the post-war inflation, approaching 40%. (Arithmetical explanation: double the GDP through inflation and the national debt as a percentage of GDP is halved.) Also, GDP grew fast enough, in the 25 years after the war, to lower the debt/GDP ratio and interest payments were low enough as well.
The difference now is that it is unlikely that our growth rate (of GDP) will be as great as it was during the period from 1945 to 1970. Also, there is a reasonable fear that interest rates will rise considerably above the low levels that exist now. But keep in mind that as of the day I am writing this, core inflation is about 3/4 of 1 %, and has been heading downward since 2006. Recovery must be our priority, if utter disaster is to be avoided. Implicitly, what this means is that sometime in the future--maybe years down the line--we will probably have to have modest increases in taxes to keep the debt/income ratio from rising. However, nothing I have seen indicates this will be a big problem, unless we live in a world where Republicans rule and they continue to believe that under no circumstances can taxes be raised. If so, this might lead to cutbacks in medicare, medicaid and social security (and maybe the Department of Education) that will be serious or, if unable to do this, and unwilling to raise taxes, the national debt as a percentage of GDP will eventually rise to unsustainable levels. But this is long term and as Keynes once said, in exasperation, with those opposing what was needed immediately, “In the long run we are all dead.”
Until recently, Paul Krugman hoped that raising the acceptability of the inflation rate from 2 % to 3 % would help. But on his blog posting of November 1, he writes: “What I’d do if I were really in charge of the Fed, however, is the same thing I advocated for Japan way back when: announce a fairly high inflation target over an extended period, and commit to meeting that target. What am I talking about? Something like a commitment to achieve 5 percent annual inflation over the next 5 years.” He hopes investors will invest more because they would not fear that the Fed will choke off the recovery because of a small rise in inflation.
Bernanke is in the process of instituting QE2–a 2nd attempt at quantitative easing. This means the Fed will buy more long term bonds, although from what I read not really long term bonds–15 or 30 year bonds--but shorter period bonds and notes of 5 and 10 years. The hope is to lower long term interest rates even more, thereby stimulating investment. To the extent the Fed buys 5 year notes, it’s hard to believe we’ll have more investment if this rate declines from 1 % to 4/5 of 1 %. Similarly, for longer length bonds. I think Paul Krugman agrees since his latest argument, knowing all about QE2, is to raise the inflation target to astronomical heights–just quoted–implying that he doesn’t believe very strongly in QE2. I doubt he believes very strongly in an astronomical target for inflation. But he’s stuck–what he wants is another stimulus and these are weak substitutes for what seems to be politically unreachable.
(B) The anti-fiscal hawks–the deflationists (which include Krugman). Deflation means declining prices–we’re not there yet, but, at 1%, it seems to be around the corner. (Disinflation is a declining rate of inflation, from say 4 % to 2 %.) Deflation means prices actually go down, below zero. So why is deflation bad? First, people might postpone purchases, to enable them to buy goods in the future at lower prices, but I suspect in America this is limited. It will also be harder for debtors, just as inflation makes it easier for debtors. Mostly, I think, deflation reminds Krugman, and others, of Japanese stagnation–the lost decade--in the 90's and even the last decade, and is mostly an expression of their fear of stagnation.
6. STAGNATION. In 1938, the president of the American Economic Association, Alvin Hansen delivered his presidential address and warned of “secular stagnation.” (In this usage, secular means long run.) Hansen argued that the end of colonialism would slow down foreign exploitation, profits and national income. Indeed, with the recent rise of China and to a lesser degree many other former colonies (or near-colonies), including India, the world is changing, seemingly along Hansen’s lines.
200 years ago, 60 % of the world’s GDP was developed in Asia. By 1950, that figure had dropped to 18% (interesting figures thanks to Stiglitz’ “Free Fall”). Clearly, as China rises, that 18% is being increased, and a lot (especially if one adds in India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Singapore). In short, we are probably seeing the relative decline of Western Europe, the US and other first world countries and the relative rise of what hitherto had been considered the 3rd World. (Relative or absolute decline is a big difference, with enormous significance, but an alternative only the future will reveal.) Recently, China’s GDP surpassed Japan’s and maybe it will surpass ours by 2050 (if not sooner), though it will take at least a century or two, one assumes, before it surpasses us in living standards. Obviously, this is conjectural, but the signs surely point in this direction.
Hansen worried about the sufficiency of new investment. That is, as the economy grows over time, one needs ever greater generators of growth. Railroads did it for us in the 19th century and automobiles to a great extent did it for us in the 1920's and (unbeknownst to Hansen) would do it for us in the 50's and 60's. But a larger economy needs an ever larger new industry to stimulate sufficiently the economy. I think Hansen had a point. In short, a big new industry like computers (for example), and the accompanying software, didn’t bring prosperity to America, partly because the economy is much bigger now than it was 50 years ago and partly it was not as big an industry as automobiles. Also in large part these products are sold here (and of course elsewhere) but produced, in large part, elsewhere.
The United States has been having recessions since before the Civil War and while many different and often contradictory explanations exist as to why this happens under capitalism–there is no consensus–it seems that one factor always lurking around is that the ability to consume is almost always a problem. By 1970, it seemed the problem was reappearing. The 70's were complicated by OPEC and high oil prices and the tight money policies by the Fed to counter this inflation and the recessions these created. But I pick this period for two reasons–(1) real wages–wages adjusted for inflation--haven’t risen since about 1972. And to the extent median income is rising, it is mostly the effect of a greater number of hours worked. (Oh, to have the lengthy vacations our European friends have!) The 2nd reason, in a moment, after the aside.
[Aside: recessions are different. They used to be, in general, two or three years of “prosperity” followed by one year of recession. But since the 1960's–but not counting the 1970's–upswings have lasted close to a decade, including a record upswing in the 1990's. Leave off the 1960's. This upturn lasted a long time because the economy was stimulated by the Vietnam War. To some extent, a similar argument can be made of the 1990's, in that the weakness from 1990 to about 1995 ended because of the dot-com bubble. Why, though, are we having long upturns? The optimistic answer is that the economy is performing better. But I think this answer is, well, too optimistic. The pessimistic answer is that the upturns were not strong enough to generate inflation, so that the reason upturns in the past turned into recessions was the tight money policies of the Fed. Of recent, the Fed’s policies have not been as tight since inflation was not appearing (at least as strongly as in the past) and the reason for this is that the economy was, decade by decade, getting weaker, ultimately (in my view) because the ability to consume problem had reasserted itself.]
What was needed, as the ’70's began, was a new solution, to the ability to consume problem. And, inadvertently, it was found. What it was, curiously, is that the haves loaned their money to the have-nots and thus the ability to consume was increased. Prior to 1970, Carte Blanche, Diner’s Club and other credit cards were for the elite and, except for air fare, required that its users pay in full each month. These were convenience cards. But then, in about 1970, Visa and MasterCard appeared and consumer indebtedness took off. Credit cards helped solve the problem of the inability to consume, on the part of the average American, and in doing so gave new life to old-fashioned capitalism, at least here in the United States. This past decade, of course, the loaning practice spread to borrowing on the value of the house one owned. Of course, this borrowing has all come crashing down.
As international trade and investment soared these last 2 or 3 decades, the problem got more complicated. US corporations increasingly built their factories in 3rd world countries. The result is that manufacturing as a percentage of total GDP has dropped to just over 10 %, last time I looked, from over 20 % a decade or so ago and about 40% just after WW II. This increased the problem of the ability to consume. Wages in Wal-Mart, where persons now work, are much lower than wages in manufacturing–where one used to work.
But we’re also talking about the soaring incomes of executives–the ratio of what the top CEO of a large corporation makes to the average worker’s income is more than 13 times what it was 45 years ago. In addition, there are the astronomical incomes of the hedge fund operators and financial firms. As Bob Herbert reports–column of November 2–these increases are no accident. He cites a new book, Winner-Take-All Politics, by Yale professor Jacob Hacker and Berkeley professor Paul Pierson, both political scientists, who argue that the policy changes that made it this way “were the result of increasingly sophisticated, well-financed and well-organized efforts by the corporate and financial sectors to tilt government policies in their favor, and thus in favor of the very wealthy.” (I am reading this book and highly recommend it.)
The result is that income inequality is undoubtedly at a record high. As Robert Reich sums it up, “In the late 1970's, the richest 1% of American families took in about 9% of the nation’s total income: by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.” Or, as Bob Herbert writes, the “richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing just 13,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007.” That is a fourfold increase since 1974. The top 1/100 of 1% garnered 1% of income in the 70's and 6% of income in 2008.
In summary, what is new? (1) Income inequality, the huge trade deficit and the enormous growth of the financial sector and each undermines the ability to consume, and with it, prosperity.
Conclusion: Looking at things from the GDP perspective: It is highly unlikely that exports will do much for us in the foreseeable future, with Europe and Japan in trouble, and the Chinese unwilling to adjust their currency to allow for increased imports of goods produced here. Investment is low because there is excess capacity, consumers aren’t buying and producers find they can get more out of their frightened workers than they used to be able to get and therefore don’t need to invest in new plants. But I would agree that one never knows in advance what might come along, but nevertheless, pessimism seems justified.
Moreover, a principal component of investment, in the GDP accounts, is housing construction and I suspect we are talking about something that, as the expression goes, is as dead as a door nail. Consumption is low because people are unemployed or working fewer hours, because many are trying to replenish their nest eggs which were hit hard, because people, understandably, are saving for a rainy day and, finally, because of more stringent credit card and home borrowing standards. In addition, consumers just 5 years ago “only” owed 80 % of their incomes, on average, while in 2009 they owed 110 % or their incomes. They are, more or less, being forced to save. The only area left, as economists define the GDP, is government spending and we are not likely to have the politics that increases this sector. And if Republicans take power, cutting government spending while lowering taxes for the wealthy, the mildest feeling one should have is alarm.
Or as Krugman puts it–column of October 29: “Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap. But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts. So if the elections go as expected next week [and of course they did], here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Is his “be afraid” more optimistic than my alarm? I suspect so. But let’s not quibble.
Conclusion Part 2: To the income mal-distribution argument as a cause of stagnation, I would add the cheap wages in China, and elsewhere, and finally, perhaps, the problem of Bubble Recoveries. Burst bubbles provoke unusual caution in consumer buying and in investment spending that seems unusually hard to reverse. Secular stagnation does not mean there will be no ups and downs. But stagnation does mean that living standards for the average family are unlikely to increase very much and more likely to erode. It also means that unemployment is likely to remain high. High unemployment and stagnant or lower living standards have political repercussions that are extremely dangerous, including erosion of things we take for granted, such as our civil liberties and our democratic processes. If we’re lucky we’ll have the British experience of the 20th century–downhill but liveable–but if we’re very unlucky we might have the experience of the country that in 1939 was ranked 10th in GDP per person–Argentina. And Argentines for decades then went through Hell. Virtually no one who is knowledgeable is optimistic–including or especially the Fed–read its latest report–NY Times, p A3, 11/4/10.
November 17, 2010
Suggested Books: Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall; Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics; Web Sites (all preceded by http://): krugman.blogs.nytimes.com (top choice); baseline scenario.com; calculatedriskblog.com; nakedcapitalism.com (often excellent); delong.typepad.com (often excellent); robertreich.org; Movie: Free Fall; Also: (highly recommended): www.dailykos.com and www.openleft.com
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Correction
In the posting just after this one, on TIAA-CREF, it was suggested that the Real Estate Fund had to sell buildings, because of the Great Recession. It did not. Other parts of TIAA-CREF, as I understand it, stepped in and enabled the Real Estate Fund to hold on to its buildings. Its price declined so because its buildings were overvalued, as I understand it. Hopefully, and it would appear so, that period is over. In addition, it is less leveraged than before. That is, it owns outright most of its buildings and more than previously. Lastly, my source for this–and I spoke to this person on the phone and did not take notes–also confirms that the directors of the fund are first rate.
TIAA-CREF
(Thoughts for those who have their investments in TIAA-CREF. This fund is mainly for college teachers and also for persons who work for non-profit organizations. As far as I know, others cannot be part of the TIAA-CREF “family.”)
I am not a financial adviser. I have no professional expertise. Please understand this and do not hold me responsible for suggestions that lead to losses. I do state that I have done well over-the-years, but I do things that people, like my cousin, an accountant and lawyer, think is absolutely indefensible, like putting almost all my money in a single basket. More on this, shortly.
At the moment, I am most unsure about the stock funds. That is, I think that, barring a double dip, which is less talked about, but nonetheless possible, stocks are more likely to go up over the next 6 months or a year, but not likely enormously so. (And certainly, as I write, there is, increasingly, evidence of fear about QE2, which is driving stocks downward, somewhat dramatically.) And even if there is no double dip, the recovery may simply fizzle and any upside will be limited. My bet, though, is that it (the Dow) will approach 12,000, during the next 6 months or a year, but not reach it, or just reach it, before there is a significant decline. If you’re brave, and time it right, maybe you can pull off 8 % for a year.
The bond and linked bond funds are going nowhere and although QE2 could push up bond prices, for a while, and for that reason one might stay in the bond fund if you are already there, be prepared to get out. If and when interest rates rise, the bond fund will go down, at least until the higher rates on newly required bonds offset the decline in prices of bonds still being held. I think the linked fund is probably so-so, or at least not bad, if you stay in it for 5 years or so. But even then its goodness will reflect the fact that there is inflation and one’s after-inflation return will not be especially high. The time to get out of the linked fund is after it has risen in expectation of inflation. By the time inflation actually hits, or hits its peak, it’s probably time to get out. If real estate is location, location, location, investment is timing, timing, timing. I have no idea when future inflation will peak. Core inflation is about 3/4 of 1%, down from its last peak of just under 3 %, in 2006, and if Paul Krugman is to be believed, we are in for a relatively long period of deflation, barring an unexpected stimulus or unexpected pick-up of investment. Deflation will hurt the linked fund although fears of inflation will help it.
But basically, I’d keep away from the bond funds and the stock funds.
But the TIAA Real Estate Fund is another kettle of fish. Before it swooped downward, it hit a high of about 310. Then it fell to about 180. It is now, as I write, about 212. Of recent, it has been going up at about 15 % a year. Why has it been going up while nothing I read about commercial real estate indicates that things are going well. A good question, which I wish I had a better answer for.
About 80 % or more of its holdings are in commercial real estate. Or specifically, they are in specific buildings. It is not a REIT–a real estate investment trust. REIT’s are traded on markets. The TIAA real estate fund is not. In this sense, speculation doesn’t directly affect the value of the TIAA fund. It therefore is a unique fund. [Indirectly, speculation may have an effect. The evaluators of the fund–and they make daily evaluations–may be affected by the value of comparable buildings, to upgrade or downgrade a building’s worth, and speculation may therefore affect the values they assign to the buildings they own.] Keep in mind, there is geographical diversity involved as well.
Leave to one side that a sophisticated financial adviser I know thinks it is a good place to put your money in and leave to the same side the fact that the brother-in-law of a friend of mine knows those who run the fund and thinks highly of them.
Information about the fund is a little secretive. They tell you about all the 150 or so buildings they own. Elsewhere, they tell you, day by day, from its inception what happened every day of its existence (or they used to do this). But they don’t exactly tell you how they evaluate all their buildings and they do so every day. I can understand a lost rental or a new tenant or a new rental price but nonetheless it is hard to understand how they figure it all out each and every day.
Recently, they put out a statement that as of February (or was it March?) of next year they are limiting the amount of money you can put into this fund. I think they are doing this because a lot of people did what I did. They saw the fund heading South–for me, the year to date gain in early 2008 went from about +1.2 % to +0.5 % and out I went–and people took their money out (in my case I immediately put it in the money market fund, which paid next to nothing then and even less now!). What I think this may have caused–and thus the reason for the new rules–was a forced sale of buildings. And this contributed to the enormous decline the fund had–about 40 %, if I divided correctly. However, I think what remained were buildings of worth, which were undervalued. That is, I am assuming they sold the buildings with the poorest prospects and got low prices.
Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. But the decline was enormous and the recovery from this decline, so far, has been minimal. We are a long way from the level that once existed (and keep in mind that commercial real estate did not have the bubble that ordinary housing had). Since I bought in, in August, the fund has gone up about 9 days out of 10 and it has been increasing at about a 15 % a year clip. This ain’t hay.
But the true magic for this fund–the one that more or less refutes the argument about all your eggs in one basket–is that the fund is, with occasional exceptions, incredibly non-volatile. A very big day is an increase or decrease of 1/4 of 1%, and this is rare. Once in a blue moon there might be a movement of 1 /2 of one percent. And a few years ago, I went over its entire history since the late 1990's and my memory is that it never came close to having a movement of 1% in a day. (In the down period, of 2008-2010, I did notice an occasional decline of greater magnitude–actually, one day it declined 2 %. So, there can be volatility during a major decline.)
Fiddle around and you can check it out for yourselves (or you used to be able to do this–I’m not sure now). What this lack of volatility means, duly noting the exception, is that you can get out without a big loss. Or to put it positively, you can make good gains, as I did between 2001 and 2008, and then get out without losing more than 1 or 2 %. (Or a super worst case is 3 or 4 %, which isn’t bad, if you’ve had a 10 % gain, not to speak of 15 % gain.) Of course, you have to be able to face up to the fact that the worm some day will turn. And most important, when you do get out, while it is always good to sell on an up-tick, don’t look for an up-tick that gets you back to a recent high point. Accept that you will lose a little.
Without using real numbers, I had about 95 % of my holdings in stock in the bubble of the nineties and 2000, having bought in at 500. When it reached 1000 and then dropped to 940, I decided the bubble was over–and I should get out–and when an up-tick took it to 960, out I went. If I had waited for 1000, I would have lost most of my gains from 500 up. To me, that’s one of the most important lessons in investing. Don’t try to recover the peak price, when you feel the trend is down.
Of course, the real problem is knowing when to get out. For the real estate fund, I would think that if it fell as much as 2 %, OUT. My personal hope is that it will rise to the neighborhood of 250, at which time I’ll keep my eyes open even wider than they already are.
Should you switch to the real estate fund? It’s up to you, of course, but I can’t believe it is less safe than the stock and bond funds, though (of course) I could be wrong. And the Traditional (clearly safest) does not exactly pay the highest, although what you get may depend on when you put the money in. If you form an IRA and put the money in Traditional, you get 3 %, although you are not locked in, as you more or less are in the non-IRA Traditional, having put your money in years ago–in the sense you can only take out 10 % a year. (And of course, the money market fund is almost a sad joke, safe, but paying zilch.)
I am not a financial adviser. I have no professional expertise. Please understand this and do not hold me responsible for suggestions that lead to losses. I do state that I have done well over-the-years, but I do things that people, like my cousin, an accountant and lawyer, think is absolutely indefensible, like putting almost all my money in a single basket. More on this, shortly.
At the moment, I am most unsure about the stock funds. That is, I think that, barring a double dip, which is less talked about, but nonetheless possible, stocks are more likely to go up over the next 6 months or a year, but not likely enormously so. (And certainly, as I write, there is, increasingly, evidence of fear about QE2, which is driving stocks downward, somewhat dramatically.) And even if there is no double dip, the recovery may simply fizzle and any upside will be limited. My bet, though, is that it (the Dow) will approach 12,000, during the next 6 months or a year, but not reach it, or just reach it, before there is a significant decline. If you’re brave, and time it right, maybe you can pull off 8 % for a year.
The bond and linked bond funds are going nowhere and although QE2 could push up bond prices, for a while, and for that reason one might stay in the bond fund if you are already there, be prepared to get out. If and when interest rates rise, the bond fund will go down, at least until the higher rates on newly required bonds offset the decline in prices of bonds still being held. I think the linked fund is probably so-so, or at least not bad, if you stay in it for 5 years or so. But even then its goodness will reflect the fact that there is inflation and one’s after-inflation return will not be especially high. The time to get out of the linked fund is after it has risen in expectation of inflation. By the time inflation actually hits, or hits its peak, it’s probably time to get out. If real estate is location, location, location, investment is timing, timing, timing. I have no idea when future inflation will peak. Core inflation is about 3/4 of 1%, down from its last peak of just under 3 %, in 2006, and if Paul Krugman is to be believed, we are in for a relatively long period of deflation, barring an unexpected stimulus or unexpected pick-up of investment. Deflation will hurt the linked fund although fears of inflation will help it.
But basically, I’d keep away from the bond funds and the stock funds.
But the TIAA Real Estate Fund is another kettle of fish. Before it swooped downward, it hit a high of about 310. Then it fell to about 180. It is now, as I write, about 212. Of recent, it has been going up at about 15 % a year. Why has it been going up while nothing I read about commercial real estate indicates that things are going well. A good question, which I wish I had a better answer for.
About 80 % or more of its holdings are in commercial real estate. Or specifically, they are in specific buildings. It is not a REIT–a real estate investment trust. REIT’s are traded on markets. The TIAA real estate fund is not. In this sense, speculation doesn’t directly affect the value of the TIAA fund. It therefore is a unique fund. [Indirectly, speculation may have an effect. The evaluators of the fund–and they make daily evaluations–may be affected by the value of comparable buildings, to upgrade or downgrade a building’s worth, and speculation may therefore affect the values they assign to the buildings they own.] Keep in mind, there is geographical diversity involved as well.
Leave to one side that a sophisticated financial adviser I know thinks it is a good place to put your money in and leave to the same side the fact that the brother-in-law of a friend of mine knows those who run the fund and thinks highly of them.
Information about the fund is a little secretive. They tell you about all the 150 or so buildings they own. Elsewhere, they tell you, day by day, from its inception what happened every day of its existence (or they used to do this). But they don’t exactly tell you how they evaluate all their buildings and they do so every day. I can understand a lost rental or a new tenant or a new rental price but nonetheless it is hard to understand how they figure it all out each and every day.
Recently, they put out a statement that as of February (or was it March?) of next year they are limiting the amount of money you can put into this fund. I think they are doing this because a lot of people did what I did. They saw the fund heading South–for me, the year to date gain in early 2008 went from about +1.2 % to +0.5 % and out I went–and people took their money out (in my case I immediately put it in the money market fund, which paid next to nothing then and even less now!). What I think this may have caused–and thus the reason for the new rules–was a forced sale of buildings. And this contributed to the enormous decline the fund had–about 40 %, if I divided correctly. However, I think what remained were buildings of worth, which were undervalued. That is, I am assuming they sold the buildings with the poorest prospects and got low prices.
Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. But the decline was enormous and the recovery from this decline, so far, has been minimal. We are a long way from the level that once existed (and keep in mind that commercial real estate did not have the bubble that ordinary housing had). Since I bought in, in August, the fund has gone up about 9 days out of 10 and it has been increasing at about a 15 % a year clip. This ain’t hay.
But the true magic for this fund–the one that more or less refutes the argument about all your eggs in one basket–is that the fund is, with occasional exceptions, incredibly non-volatile. A very big day is an increase or decrease of 1/4 of 1%, and this is rare. Once in a blue moon there might be a movement of 1 /2 of one percent. And a few years ago, I went over its entire history since the late 1990's and my memory is that it never came close to having a movement of 1% in a day. (In the down period, of 2008-2010, I did notice an occasional decline of greater magnitude–actually, one day it declined 2 %. So, there can be volatility during a major decline.)
Fiddle around and you can check it out for yourselves (or you used to be able to do this–I’m not sure now). What this lack of volatility means, duly noting the exception, is that you can get out without a big loss. Or to put it positively, you can make good gains, as I did between 2001 and 2008, and then get out without losing more than 1 or 2 %. (Or a super worst case is 3 or 4 %, which isn’t bad, if you’ve had a 10 % gain, not to speak of 15 % gain.) Of course, you have to be able to face up to the fact that the worm some day will turn. And most important, when you do get out, while it is always good to sell on an up-tick, don’t look for an up-tick that gets you back to a recent high point. Accept that you will lose a little.
Without using real numbers, I had about 95 % of my holdings in stock in the bubble of the nineties and 2000, having bought in at 500. When it reached 1000 and then dropped to 940, I decided the bubble was over–and I should get out–and when an up-tick took it to 960, out I went. If I had waited for 1000, I would have lost most of my gains from 500 up. To me, that’s one of the most important lessons in investing. Don’t try to recover the peak price, when you feel the trend is down.
Of course, the real problem is knowing when to get out. For the real estate fund, I would think that if it fell as much as 2 %, OUT. My personal hope is that it will rise to the neighborhood of 250, at which time I’ll keep my eyes open even wider than they already are.
Should you switch to the real estate fund? It’s up to you, of course, but I can’t believe it is less safe than the stock and bond funds, though (of course) I could be wrong. And the Traditional (clearly safest) does not exactly pay the highest, although what you get may depend on when you put the money in. If you form an IRA and put the money in Traditional, you get 3 %, although you are not locked in, as you more or less are in the non-IRA Traditional, having put your money in years ago–in the sense you can only take out 10 % a year. (And of course, the money market fund is almost a sad joke, safe, but paying zilch.)
Hungary (2010)
Hi all,
Back home from Hungary, safe and sound. (Umm, not so sure about sound.)
Left on the 26th, from JFK, non-stop via Delta to Budapest–9 hours. Then, 4 nights in Budapest (pronounced Budapesht); a train to Pecs (perhaps pronounced Pecht or Paycht) for two nights; a train to Sopron (pronounced Showpron) for two nights, and then a train back to Budapest, for a night, returning on the 5th.
Hungary is a great place to visit as a tourist, an A+. Safety A+ (don’t need money belts). Fantastic things to look at, both on foot and (in Budapest) by subway (easily handled). In Budapest, we stayed at a hotel, adjoining a street of restaurants–maybe 30–with only occasional cars on the narrow street. We usually ate outside, whether here or elsewhere. The weather was excellent–upper 70's during the day, evenings in the mid-60's–although it rained twice, in Pecs and Sopron.
We stayed in 4 and 5 star hotels in Pecs and Sopron, with swimming pools and more. (These were just outside the walled cities, 10 minute walks away. We walked to and from the train stations, on the far sides of the walled cities, except the one time it was raining, in Pecs.)
In general, prices were inexpensive. Excellent meals were half what we would pay in New York. The train from Budapest to Pecs, 1st class, just under three hours, was $22. Meals were generally excellent, although we had a few that missed. It was, however, sometimes hard to tell whether or not we were getting sauces with cheeses or whether the chicken was grilled. The menus, in general, were in Hungarian, German and English. Most of the tourists seem to be from Germany, as well as a few from Holland, the US and England. We heard no French or Spanish.
Vast fields of sunflowers, but vast (many as much as 20 acres worth, perhaps), seen from the train, along with fields filled with vast numbers of bales of hay, as well as fields of corn.
Many highlights: painters we had never heard of–Csontvary, of whom Picasso said that Chagall could learn from–and Odon Marffy (who perhaps deserves to be up there among the greats). There was the super-special porcelain museum (and use of the porcelain in the structures we saw) and the Storno House–porcelain, furniture, art, sculptures–in Pecs and Soporo, respectively
But in the end, Budapest takes the cake. We were in Pest, which is flat, and where most in Budapest live, and across the Danube is hilly Buda. Buildings in general were fascinating and delightful, such as the Opera House or Parliament or the special museum of “terror” dedicated to those killed by Fascism and Communism–which we did not enter. But on the walls outside were the pictures of about 100 who were killed after the unsuccessful uprising of 1956 (maybe 3 or 4 of which were women).
But the most interesting, in my view (and maybe Marianne’s) was the Synagogue in Budapest, the 2nd biggest synagogue in the world. Inside, it is enormous and ornate, with gold and so much more. Outside, on the synagogue grounds, were buried (against Jewish law) more than 500 who were killed by the Fascists. [Hungarian history is incredibly complex, from way back, and Hungary is a small fraction of what it once was. But those Jews eventually killed were mostly done in, I believe, by Germans, under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, who was there in person, supervising the trips to Auschwitz and the other camps, even if Horthy, a Hungarian Fascist, was in control from the late 30's, and actually protected Jews some, if I got this right. At the end, if I recall, Hungarian troops were killing Jews and partly this was related to the imminent take-over by the Russians, for complex reasons (not understood by me). In all, close to one half million Hungarian Jews were ultimately killed, about 70 % of the Jewish population. Only Poland and the Ukraine exceeded Hungary in total numbers killed, while Greece, Bohemia-Moravia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland exceeded Hungary in percentage of Jews killed.
Outside the Synagogue, on the grounds, there was also a memorial (and metallic) tree of life, with leaves on which were written the names of 1000's of Jews who had died, from Budapest and Hungary. There was also, outside, a memorial to Raoul Wallenberg. Interestingly, listed below the name of Wallenberg, were other consulate members who had saved Jews, including one from Franco Spain, and also there were people identified as Catholic priests. Wallenberg himself may have saved 15,000. At this point, Budapest has about 2 million people, about 100,000 of which are Jews. (Hungary has about 10 million in all and I think few Jews now live in the countryside, though many did at the beginning of WWII.
Without reservation, I recommend Hungary as a place to visit and tour. (And there is so much more, including areas we did not visit, as well as monuments, statues, and buildings we did see.) And by the way, Marianne thought the coffee was very good. Also, Hungary is an important producer of wine and one glass Marianne had (red) was one of the best she ever tasted. Also, the local Hungarian draft beers were excellent. And the people were always helpful, although many were probably tourists. Few Hungarians speak English, although most of the waiters and waitresses and hotel clerks knew enough to meet our needs.
David (and Marianne)
Back home from Hungary, safe and sound. (Umm, not so sure about sound.)
Left on the 26th, from JFK, non-stop via Delta to Budapest–9 hours. Then, 4 nights in Budapest (pronounced Budapesht); a train to Pecs (perhaps pronounced Pecht or Paycht) for two nights; a train to Sopron (pronounced Showpron) for two nights, and then a train back to Budapest, for a night, returning on the 5th.
Hungary is a great place to visit as a tourist, an A+. Safety A+ (don’t need money belts). Fantastic things to look at, both on foot and (in Budapest) by subway (easily handled). In Budapest, we stayed at a hotel, adjoining a street of restaurants–maybe 30–with only occasional cars on the narrow street. We usually ate outside, whether here or elsewhere. The weather was excellent–upper 70's during the day, evenings in the mid-60's–although it rained twice, in Pecs and Sopron.
We stayed in 4 and 5 star hotels in Pecs and Sopron, with swimming pools and more. (These were just outside the walled cities, 10 minute walks away. We walked to and from the train stations, on the far sides of the walled cities, except the one time it was raining, in Pecs.)
In general, prices were inexpensive. Excellent meals were half what we would pay in New York. The train from Budapest to Pecs, 1st class, just under three hours, was $22. Meals were generally excellent, although we had a few that missed. It was, however, sometimes hard to tell whether or not we were getting sauces with cheeses or whether the chicken was grilled. The menus, in general, were in Hungarian, German and English. Most of the tourists seem to be from Germany, as well as a few from Holland, the US and England. We heard no French or Spanish.
Vast fields of sunflowers, but vast (many as much as 20 acres worth, perhaps), seen from the train, along with fields filled with vast numbers of bales of hay, as well as fields of corn.
Many highlights: painters we had never heard of–Csontvary, of whom Picasso said that Chagall could learn from–and Odon Marffy (who perhaps deserves to be up there among the greats). There was the super-special porcelain museum (and use of the porcelain in the structures we saw) and the Storno House–porcelain, furniture, art, sculptures–in Pecs and Soporo, respectively
But in the end, Budapest takes the cake. We were in Pest, which is flat, and where most in Budapest live, and across the Danube is hilly Buda. Buildings in general were fascinating and delightful, such as the Opera House or Parliament or the special museum of “terror” dedicated to those killed by Fascism and Communism–which we did not enter. But on the walls outside were the pictures of about 100 who were killed after the unsuccessful uprising of 1956 (maybe 3 or 4 of which were women).
But the most interesting, in my view (and maybe Marianne’s) was the Synagogue in Budapest, the 2nd biggest synagogue in the world. Inside, it is enormous and ornate, with gold and so much more. Outside, on the synagogue grounds, were buried (against Jewish law) more than 500 who were killed by the Fascists. [Hungarian history is incredibly complex, from way back, and Hungary is a small fraction of what it once was. But those Jews eventually killed were mostly done in, I believe, by Germans, under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, who was there in person, supervising the trips to Auschwitz and the other camps, even if Horthy, a Hungarian Fascist, was in control from the late 30's, and actually protected Jews some, if I got this right. At the end, if I recall, Hungarian troops were killing Jews and partly this was related to the imminent take-over by the Russians, for complex reasons (not understood by me). In all, close to one half million Hungarian Jews were ultimately killed, about 70 % of the Jewish population. Only Poland and the Ukraine exceeded Hungary in total numbers killed, while Greece, Bohemia-Moravia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland exceeded Hungary in percentage of Jews killed.
Outside the Synagogue, on the grounds, there was also a memorial (and metallic) tree of life, with leaves on which were written the names of 1000's of Jews who had died, from Budapest and Hungary. There was also, outside, a memorial to Raoul Wallenberg. Interestingly, listed below the name of Wallenberg, were other consulate members who had saved Jews, including one from Franco Spain, and also there were people identified as Catholic priests. Wallenberg himself may have saved 15,000. At this point, Budapest has about 2 million people, about 100,000 of which are Jews. (Hungary has about 10 million in all and I think few Jews now live in the countryside, though many did at the beginning of WWII.
Without reservation, I recommend Hungary as a place to visit and tour. (And there is so much more, including areas we did not visit, as well as monuments, statues, and buildings we did see.) And by the way, Marianne thought the coffee was very good. Also, Hungary is an important producer of wine and one glass Marianne had (red) was one of the best she ever tasted. Also, the local Hungarian draft beers were excellent. And the people were always helpful, although many were probably tourists. Few Hungarians speak English, although most of the waiters and waitresses and hotel clerks knew enough to meet our needs.
David (and Marianne)
Turkey and Greece (2001 or 2002)
Hello everyone. This is a description of our trip to Turkey and Greece, the latter half in good part a search for Marianne’s roots. It is part travelogue, part letter from abroad, written ex post, an occasional political or personal comment and a bit of old-fashioned Mermelino.
Before we left, on April 19, two events occurred, one trivial, one enormously important. The trivial event is that I somehow hurt my back which made it hard for me to walk for more than an hour, without a great deal of pain, and though reassured by a chiropractor, I was concerned.
Ten days before we are to leave, my sister, Norma, calls to say she is having brain surgery in a week, to remove a tumor, which had just been discovered. I spend Monday and Tuesday (the 16th and 17th ) in Baltimore, leaving after it is clear she is going to be all right, both in the short run sense and in the long run sense–the tumor was not malignant. (The ordeal of waiting, especially when you’re told the operation is going to be 4 hours and it takes 7 hours, is a story for another day.)
We ended up purchasing in advance round trip tickets from JFK to Istanbul (stopping in Amsterdam both ways, returning on May 14), round trip tickets from Istanbul to Antalya (a coastal Turkish city on the Mediterranean and round trip tickets from Istanbul to Athens, costing just over $1000 per person. [One-ways cost nearly as much as round trips, and occasionally more, a pricing policy I simply can’t understand.]
In general, we both loved Turkey, felt it was safe and fascinating and enjoyed both our big city experience (Istanbul) and our small city experience (Antalya). The food was sensational–delicious and low (or non) fat. If I was sentenced to choose between eating either US food, whatever that means, or Turkish food, for the rest of my life, it would be hard to resist choosing Turkish food. Of course, prices were considerably less than in the US. We felt free to eat fruits and vegetables, which we didn’t dare risk in India, and Turkish tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables were like it used to be in the US decades ago, when our food had taste.
We stayed in Istanbul within walking distance of the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sofia) and Topkapi palace, three big Istanbul sights. [Postcard recipients, please forgive the mistake in my joke about the Topkapi movie being better than the actual palace, where I alluded to Sophia Loren as starring in the movie–it was Melina Mercouri.] Our tourist hotel area was filled with young Aussies, of all people. Once in a restaurant, I said cheers to Pat Rafter and 8 Aussies in their 20's, sitting in a nearby table, asked us old foggies to join them, treating us to drinks and yukking it up with us. And why were the Aussies there? Of course, it was to commemorate the battle of Gallipoli, a Churchillian mistake during World War I, when vast numbers of Aussies were killed (although one of them said it was historically the coming together of the Australian nation). Gallipoli was, I believe, a few hundred miles away and our neighborhood emptied after the Aussies went on their pilgrimage. Well maybe not emptied, but the raucousness declined.
A highlight of our Istanbul phase was our venture, using public transportation, including their subway–nicer than ours–to the Chora church, just outside the old city walls. In it were breathtaking mosaics, even for one whose breath is not likely or easy to take away at seeing mosaics–meaning me. We also boated up the Bosporus, ending at an old interesting fort. And we walked. One of my back exercises, and the one that brought the most relief, was one that had me on the ground looking like a devout Muslim praying to Allah. Whenever I did this, I was fearful I would be sentenced to life imprisonment for mocking their religion. I took great care to do this in out of the way naves and apses and their outdoor equivalents. The weather, by the way, in both Greece and Turkey, at this time of year was delightful–70's during the day, maybe lower 80's in Antalya, 50's or 60's at night (a little lower on Skopelos–more on this). It rained lightly maybe twice.
The only other thing I’ll mention is that it was hard to walk by a restaurant, jewelry or rug store without the proprietor hustling us, in a friendly way, to be sure. One is perplexed at how the jewelry and rug stores can all survive, if they do, since there are more of them than you can ever imagine. In general, I thought of Istanbul as 1/3 New York City, with tourists from all over, 1/3 Paris with few big buildings and roofs similar to what you see in Paris and 1/3 Istanbul, with its mosques and Euro-Asian Islamic caste.
Antalya has an old city where we stayed, with streets (often unnamed) snaking around, maze-like, like a Casbah. Lost once, we asked help of a merchant and he had to call on his cell phone to find out our hotel was one block away. We took one guided tour of Perge, Side and Aspendos, the latter containing an amphitheater still used–Carmen was being presented in about a week. We also rented a car for a day and went to Termessos, where you climb for about an hour to an extinct mountain city able to resist conquest from everyone, being in such a rugged and inaccessible area, though one wonders how they ever brought up all the heavy building equipment. It too had a wonderful theater. I climbed down to the bottom where the stage must have been while Marianne sat on what might have been row Z–way up from where I was. I spoke lines from Twelfth Night (I was Malvolio in a high school presentation) and I spoke them in a normal conversational mode–or a bit higher–and Marianne heard perfectly. Driving in this part of Turkey was easy–the roads were wide enough and with less potholes, traffic or other impediments than here and the drivers were sane.
In general, people were exceedingly helpful. But old ways die slowly. One Turk said the Greeks were OK but lazy. (The Greek who drove us from the airport to the hotel, a delightful and charming young man, more or less believed that much of Turkey and much of Yugoslavia was really Greek territory.) The rug salesmen were often engaging, with a sense of humor. One spoke almost perfect English and during a long conversation I learn he was a Kurd. Later, out of the blue, a hotel proprietor who didn’t look Turkish, spoke to us as we passed by and said very quickly, upon learning we were Americans, that we shouldn’t be deceived. Turks were still Turks, by which I took it to mean they were warlike and not yet up to civilized standards. I mentioned that the Kurd we had just met didn’t say anything about what was happening out east to the Kurds. The man we were talking to said that was because he was afraid to. I had a feeling this man may have been Jewish but didn’t ask, regretfully.
Athens, as many know, is a bit noisy and we didn’t like it as much as Turkey. The food in Greece is good, but smothered in olive oil. We were walking distance from the Acropolis and the Parthenon and it’s hard not to be fascinated by what we saw. We also happened upon the Jewish Museum of Greece and spent an interesting hour or two there.
We arrived on May Day and though it may mean next to nothing here, in Greece it is still big stuff. Our taxi had to take a roundabout route from the new airport–new, may I mention, in preparation for Athens’ hosting of the 2004 Olympic games–since streets were closed off. We leave Athens, incidentally, a few days later on the day the Pope arrives (we leave early enough to avoid the jams caused by streets again being closed). The day before His Holiness arrives we witnessed a demonstration by militant Orthodox who have never forgiven the Catholics for what happened in the 11th century. The Herald Tribune in Greece has a special Greek supplement and was filled with news of the Pope’s visit–one piece I saved because it was so well written.
On the plane to Greece, Marianne is teary. All her life she wanted to go to Greece where her grandfather (her mother’s father), Nick Koleas [or in Greece, Kollias], was born, on the island of Skopelos. Skopelos is way up in the north (east), in the Sporades. I have since found out that it is about 30% larger than Manhattan and 2/3 the size of Staten Island. It is a beautiful island and most Greeks, I think, know of it while few Americans know of it. It is nowhere near Crete or Rhodes or any of the famous and more commercialized islands in the south such as Santorini in the Cyclades. In Marianne’s last conversation with her grandmother, then in her 90's and dying, who though not Greek by birth, had married Nick, she said to Marianne: I guess we didn’t make it to Greece (a trip long talked of). This was why we had come to Greece–to see Skopelos and get in touch with Marianne’s living roots.
So after 4 days of Athens, off we go to Skopelos. We “know” the following: the names of some distant relatives (people several cousins removed–that tenuous) who supposedly still lived on the island, learned of, from an aged distant cousin, living in Florida; that Nina, the daughter of Nick’s sister (and hence the first cousin of Ora, Marianne’s mother, now in her 80's) lived in Volos, a modern city that Frommer’s says you should not spend time in; that Nina had last communicated with Ora (and other relatives) in the early 60's–was she still alive?; and that the Skopelos relatives lived in a village on the island of Skopelos, called Glossa. We find out there are boats to and from Skopelos from Ayios Konstandinos and from Volos.
We get to St Constantine, which is closer to Athens, by bus, only to learn that the schedule we had been given was incorrect and that the next boat was 5 hours away to one of the two ferry stops on Skopelos (one is the town of Skopelos and the other is called Loutraki-Glossa, Loutraki being the port, with hotels and restaurants, but still smaller than Glossa, I believe, which is on a hill and a 20 minute hike away from the port, by a steep path or an hour hike by the winding road (and 5 minutes by car). We have a post card from Nina, mailed in the 50's, with a picture of Glossa–maybe 50 houses on a hill and some old photographs of Nick and a few others.
We enjoy our 5 hours waiting in this lovely town and then board what we thought was a regular ferry boat and learn it was a hydrofoil. The people who run it think they are literally flying us there, with hydrofoil attendants and a movie on safety similar to what you get on an airplane. After stopping at another island, where 50 passengers board heading for Skopelos, we arrive at the town of Skopelos, without a room at 9pm. Marianne, fearful that the 50 had taken all the rooms, believed we would end up sleeping on the beach, with evening temperatures in the upper 40's. But no problem. A man renting hotel rooms meets the boat and we sign up for the night. Then we go out to eat, at 10pm at one of the 10 outdoor, partially protected, restaurants that face the harbor, each having maybe 5 customers each. It’s a beautiful setting, but Marianne is disappointed. Expecting to find a primitive island, she thinks it looks like Fire Island and the way it was laid out, where the cars were behind us out of sight, indeed it did.
In the light of day, we find that the village of Skopelos is charming and primitive enough, its Fire Island restaurants notwithstanding. We are off by bus at about 10:30 to the other end, which takes about an hour. The bus makes its stop at Glossa and we have to decide whether to get off or wait until it gets down the hill to Loutraki, where there are presumably more hotels. The bus driver advises Loutraki, as does an elderly Greek woman on the bus, but there to the other side of where the bus is parked is a hotel–in clear English:Hotel–so I say let’s do it, which is what Marianne wanted to do in any case. And as the bus pulls away, we then notice the sign obscured by the bus, indicating in English the hotel was closed.
The town, such as we can see it–its outskirts maybe 30 yards away--is mostly above us (and its streets would not be big enough to accommodate a vehicle the size of a bus). But nearby, just across the street, next to a church (of which there may be, literally, as many as 50 on this island-- all Greek Orthodox, of course) is a dinky taverna, where a young woman is painting chairs and a handful of people are sitting around drinking. It is obvious that preparations are being made for the coming summer season. So we walk over and order a coffee and a clarifying question, in excellent English, by the young woman, indicates she is someone we can talk to about what to do next. She was born in Australia, lived there until recently, but is married to a Greek. Her mother has a boarding house 10 minutes away and both of her sisters also live in Glossa. Marianne names her names (of her grandfather’s family).. The Australian consults with a few of the people hanging around and her husband. Pictures are looked at. At some point it appears a connection made. And then at a later point, she points to the name of the Taverna, over the door. It is named–in Greek letters, which more or less from my Amherst fraternity experience I can recognize–Kollias (without the sigma, for some reason). Well. Well. Well. The Australian, Elani (Helen in Greek, but pronounced to rhyme with Melanie) is married to John. John’s father is Costa. Costa is the son of Nick’s brother. Our taverna, the one we almost literally stumble on, is owned by Marianne’s flesh and blood relatives.
Costa and Marianne’s mother, Ora, are first cousins. Soon Costa’s sister, Helen, comes over. And she and Marianne hug and though she knows next to no English (and we, no Greek), Helen is wonderfully simpatico. Before long, we are having lunch at her house. I am forced to eat scrambled eggs for the first time in 15 years! That afternoon, we also meet an uncle. We end up staying at the Aussie’s mom’s boarding house, which is very nice but more appropriate for somewhat warmer weather. It is unheated. I kept putting the burners of the stove on and Marianne, fearing a fire, kept turning them off. Meanwhile, I should mention, I had contracted a minor cold, which plagued me a bit throughout the last week of the trip, but except for two walks I didn’t take, didn’t slow me down. We walk out of our quarters the next day–it is Sunday–and meet a couple, apparently walking back from another church than the one I mentioned, who ask Americana? We say yes. It is Costa and his wife.
We were later told that the uncle, who is about 70, would have invited us to stay with him, but being unmarried, his place was in no shape for guests. We invited the Australian and her husband, Marianne’s 2nd cousin, or whatever the relationship is between the children of cousins, to have dinner with us, but in the end, the timing was wrong. They had to leave the island for two days to print menus and were too tired to go out at 9pm when they returned. I was grateful.
The next day we left but we had hiked all around where we were staying and had revisited the town of Skopelos. I can’t emphasize enough how beautiful the island was. Every time you turned, you saw another view of mountains and the Aegean Sea. And if you looked down, exotic plants and butterflies. If you walked in the town, it was just as Marianne had hoped it would be, apart from TV antennae and dishes, which didn’t bother her, of course. Also, before we left, helped by the Australian, we made contact with Nina. Nina had to be wooed a bit, since years ago someone from America was coming from America to visit, but didn’t show up. Volos, where she lived, is a little off the beaten track, but not if you are already up north, in Skopelos. Marianne spoke to the granddaughter whose English was good enough to set a time for our visit.
We take the boat from Glossa (or Glossa’s port, so to speak) to Volos, this time by regular ferry, disembark, find a hotel and then taxi ourselves to Nina’s. We had a last name, so we rang at the name we had. A young woman, maybe 21, answers. She has a towel wrapped around her body and another around her head. She was getting ready and we had pushed the wrong bell. The grandmother lives on one floor and her son’s family on another. The toweled one–can I say the following?–is a sexpot. She is the older sister of the granddaughter Marianne has spoke to. She is obviously extremely attractive, but later we learn she also has an infectious laugh, a refreshing sense of humor and along with her younger sister, who was maybe 15, a sense of responsibility that made the two girls want very much to help her grandmother and mother understand what was going on, since they spoke no English, while the two girls knew some. We soon meet the other daughter and their mother. And then–tata–Nina. Near 80, she is as spunky as they come. Her husband had died about a year ago and she was asking us if we had anyone in America she could hook up with. There is another relative (and where she fits, I’m not sure), but before long we are having a lovely lunch with the family. Then Nina is showering gifts on us, including a tapestry she herself has made. She brings out pictures she has saved, of Marianne and her brothers, when Marianne was maybe 13. We see pictures of her son and Marianne’s first impression (and mine too) is that he very much looks like one of her two brothers, the older one who lives in Memphis. And soon Nina’s son arrives. He is an air traffic controller for the military and knows some English, on a level with the granddaughters.
After a few hours of talk, we are invited to dinner. They drive us to our hotel and then pick us up again a few hours later at 9pm and take us to a wonderful neighborhood restaurant, where obviously they go often and which I learn, since I ask, you needed to make a reservation for. It was packed. And Dad keeps ordering the ouzo’s. Marianne tells mom that her ring is beautiful. Mom takes it off her finger and gives it Marianne, who in the end accepts it because to do otherwise would seem to be insulting. The cell phone of the sexpot rings–apparently clients for her hair cutting business. Not boyfriends I ask? No. Do you have boyfriends. Oh, yes, 5 of them. I go out with one at 2pm, another at 3pm, etc. She likes to play basketball. I throw one boyfriend in the basket, then another, still another. Who knows what her love life is really like? She does, after all, live at home, with a father who appears to be very smart and engaging, but also on the conservative side. I asked her why she doesn’t have a nose ring? She uses international sign language–her finger across the neck, indicating her father would kill her if she had a nose ring. The younger one was taking some English tests soon. Apparently, she practices by watching American movies. Had she heard of You’ve Got Mail? I say it’s about our neighborhood, the Upper west side, which indeed it is, to some extent. She not only knew the movie but knew who starred in it–Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. We finish at midnight, get driven to the hotel and say our goodbyes. We had found her roots and what a delightful experience. Postscript: they’ve invited us back in summer time when we could stay at their summer house on Glossa and I know Marianne would love to do this. And maybe, soon, we will.
We brought small gifts, not knowing who we would find or even if we would find anyone–New York City T-shirts and coffee cups. I’d like to send the younger daughter a video of You’ve Got Mail, but Louis tells me we have to transform it for European VCR use. And for the older daughter, I thought of sending her a subscription to some chic hairdressing magazine.
We left Volos and got convinced by a cab driver to take a cab to Delphi and in the end, though it cost a little, it was probably a wise choice since we were exhausted and we saved many, many hours, especially since the cabbie often went over 150 kilometers an hour (over 100mph!) . Delphi isn’t very big. You can walk from one end to the other in about 10-15 minutes. It has a wonderful Museum and ruins I didn’t see, since this is one of the walks I didn’t take. I think, however, that almost everything you would want to see of importance was at the museum, next to the ruins. The view from our hotel room, or from the restaurants we went to, was breathtaking. In these places, we were at the edge of the town, which then dropped into a deep valley and there, maybe half a mile away, mountains rose. It was spectacular. One more night in Athens. Then up at 5am for a 8am flight to Istanbul, a five hour wait in Istanbul, a two hour wait in Amsterdam and then arrival in JFK–a 23 hour day, by the time we got home. Somewhere en route I picked up conjunctivitis, which I hope has been cured. Marianne picked up a bad case of jet lag, which took almost a week to get rid of. Our pictures came out, and along with postcards I had bought, are all assembled in an album.
After we get home, I call my sister, learn all is well and also learn that both my postcards from Turkey had arrived. This was of concern since at the first Turkish post office I went to, they told me a certain amount of stamps were needed and off goes this batch. When I go to another post office with batch two, they say I need a larger amount of stamps. And in post office three, for batch 3, still a larger amount. Go figure.
[I hope I can figure out how to send this. It’s being typed in Corel WordPerfect 8. I want to send it as an attachment. I’d like to avoid having it arrive all choppy, which I think is what happens when I move it to its email location.]
Love to one and all, David
Before we left, on April 19, two events occurred, one trivial, one enormously important. The trivial event is that I somehow hurt my back which made it hard for me to walk for more than an hour, without a great deal of pain, and though reassured by a chiropractor, I was concerned.
Ten days before we are to leave, my sister, Norma, calls to say she is having brain surgery in a week, to remove a tumor, which had just been discovered. I spend Monday and Tuesday (the 16th and 17th ) in Baltimore, leaving after it is clear she is going to be all right, both in the short run sense and in the long run sense–the tumor was not malignant. (The ordeal of waiting, especially when you’re told the operation is going to be 4 hours and it takes 7 hours, is a story for another day.)
We ended up purchasing in advance round trip tickets from JFK to Istanbul (stopping in Amsterdam both ways, returning on May 14), round trip tickets from Istanbul to Antalya (a coastal Turkish city on the Mediterranean and round trip tickets from Istanbul to Athens, costing just over $1000 per person. [One-ways cost nearly as much as round trips, and occasionally more, a pricing policy I simply can’t understand.]
In general, we both loved Turkey, felt it was safe and fascinating and enjoyed both our big city experience (Istanbul) and our small city experience (Antalya). The food was sensational–delicious and low (or non) fat. If I was sentenced to choose between eating either US food, whatever that means, or Turkish food, for the rest of my life, it would be hard to resist choosing Turkish food. Of course, prices were considerably less than in the US. We felt free to eat fruits and vegetables, which we didn’t dare risk in India, and Turkish tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables were like it used to be in the US decades ago, when our food had taste.
We stayed in Istanbul within walking distance of the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sofia) and Topkapi palace, three big Istanbul sights. [Postcard recipients, please forgive the mistake in my joke about the Topkapi movie being better than the actual palace, where I alluded to Sophia Loren as starring in the movie–it was Melina Mercouri.] Our tourist hotel area was filled with young Aussies, of all people. Once in a restaurant, I said cheers to Pat Rafter and 8 Aussies in their 20's, sitting in a nearby table, asked us old foggies to join them, treating us to drinks and yukking it up with us. And why were the Aussies there? Of course, it was to commemorate the battle of Gallipoli, a Churchillian mistake during World War I, when vast numbers of Aussies were killed (although one of them said it was historically the coming together of the Australian nation). Gallipoli was, I believe, a few hundred miles away and our neighborhood emptied after the Aussies went on their pilgrimage. Well maybe not emptied, but the raucousness declined.
A highlight of our Istanbul phase was our venture, using public transportation, including their subway–nicer than ours–to the Chora church, just outside the old city walls. In it were breathtaking mosaics, even for one whose breath is not likely or easy to take away at seeing mosaics–meaning me. We also boated up the Bosporus, ending at an old interesting fort. And we walked. One of my back exercises, and the one that brought the most relief, was one that had me on the ground looking like a devout Muslim praying to Allah. Whenever I did this, I was fearful I would be sentenced to life imprisonment for mocking their religion. I took great care to do this in out of the way naves and apses and their outdoor equivalents. The weather, by the way, in both Greece and Turkey, at this time of year was delightful–70's during the day, maybe lower 80's in Antalya, 50's or 60's at night (a little lower on Skopelos–more on this). It rained lightly maybe twice.
The only other thing I’ll mention is that it was hard to walk by a restaurant, jewelry or rug store without the proprietor hustling us, in a friendly way, to be sure. One is perplexed at how the jewelry and rug stores can all survive, if they do, since there are more of them than you can ever imagine. In general, I thought of Istanbul as 1/3 New York City, with tourists from all over, 1/3 Paris with few big buildings and roofs similar to what you see in Paris and 1/3 Istanbul, with its mosques and Euro-Asian Islamic caste.
Antalya has an old city where we stayed, with streets (often unnamed) snaking around, maze-like, like a Casbah. Lost once, we asked help of a merchant and he had to call on his cell phone to find out our hotel was one block away. We took one guided tour of Perge, Side and Aspendos, the latter containing an amphitheater still used–Carmen was being presented in about a week. We also rented a car for a day and went to Termessos, where you climb for about an hour to an extinct mountain city able to resist conquest from everyone, being in such a rugged and inaccessible area, though one wonders how they ever brought up all the heavy building equipment. It too had a wonderful theater. I climbed down to the bottom where the stage must have been while Marianne sat on what might have been row Z–way up from where I was. I spoke lines from Twelfth Night (I was Malvolio in a high school presentation) and I spoke them in a normal conversational mode–or a bit higher–and Marianne heard perfectly. Driving in this part of Turkey was easy–the roads were wide enough and with less potholes, traffic or other impediments than here and the drivers were sane.
In general, people were exceedingly helpful. But old ways die slowly. One Turk said the Greeks were OK but lazy. (The Greek who drove us from the airport to the hotel, a delightful and charming young man, more or less believed that much of Turkey and much of Yugoslavia was really Greek territory.) The rug salesmen were often engaging, with a sense of humor. One spoke almost perfect English and during a long conversation I learn he was a Kurd. Later, out of the blue, a hotel proprietor who didn’t look Turkish, spoke to us as we passed by and said very quickly, upon learning we were Americans, that we shouldn’t be deceived. Turks were still Turks, by which I took it to mean they were warlike and not yet up to civilized standards. I mentioned that the Kurd we had just met didn’t say anything about what was happening out east to the Kurds. The man we were talking to said that was because he was afraid to. I had a feeling this man may have been Jewish but didn’t ask, regretfully.
Athens, as many know, is a bit noisy and we didn’t like it as much as Turkey. The food in Greece is good, but smothered in olive oil. We were walking distance from the Acropolis and the Parthenon and it’s hard not to be fascinated by what we saw. We also happened upon the Jewish Museum of Greece and spent an interesting hour or two there.
We arrived on May Day and though it may mean next to nothing here, in Greece it is still big stuff. Our taxi had to take a roundabout route from the new airport–new, may I mention, in preparation for Athens’ hosting of the 2004 Olympic games–since streets were closed off. We leave Athens, incidentally, a few days later on the day the Pope arrives (we leave early enough to avoid the jams caused by streets again being closed). The day before His Holiness arrives we witnessed a demonstration by militant Orthodox who have never forgiven the Catholics for what happened in the 11th century. The Herald Tribune in Greece has a special Greek supplement and was filled with news of the Pope’s visit–one piece I saved because it was so well written.
On the plane to Greece, Marianne is teary. All her life she wanted to go to Greece where her grandfather (her mother’s father), Nick Koleas [or in Greece, Kollias], was born, on the island of Skopelos. Skopelos is way up in the north (east), in the Sporades. I have since found out that it is about 30% larger than Manhattan and 2/3 the size of Staten Island. It is a beautiful island and most Greeks, I think, know of it while few Americans know of it. It is nowhere near Crete or Rhodes or any of the famous and more commercialized islands in the south such as Santorini in the Cyclades. In Marianne’s last conversation with her grandmother, then in her 90's and dying, who though not Greek by birth, had married Nick, she said to Marianne: I guess we didn’t make it to Greece (a trip long talked of). This was why we had come to Greece–to see Skopelos and get in touch with Marianne’s living roots.
So after 4 days of Athens, off we go to Skopelos. We “know” the following: the names of some distant relatives (people several cousins removed–that tenuous) who supposedly still lived on the island, learned of, from an aged distant cousin, living in Florida; that Nina, the daughter of Nick’s sister (and hence the first cousin of Ora, Marianne’s mother, now in her 80's) lived in Volos, a modern city that Frommer’s says you should not spend time in; that Nina had last communicated with Ora (and other relatives) in the early 60's–was she still alive?; and that the Skopelos relatives lived in a village on the island of Skopelos, called Glossa. We find out there are boats to and from Skopelos from Ayios Konstandinos and from Volos.
We get to St Constantine, which is closer to Athens, by bus, only to learn that the schedule we had been given was incorrect and that the next boat was 5 hours away to one of the two ferry stops on Skopelos (one is the town of Skopelos and the other is called Loutraki-Glossa, Loutraki being the port, with hotels and restaurants, but still smaller than Glossa, I believe, which is on a hill and a 20 minute hike away from the port, by a steep path or an hour hike by the winding road (and 5 minutes by car). We have a post card from Nina, mailed in the 50's, with a picture of Glossa–maybe 50 houses on a hill and some old photographs of Nick and a few others.
We enjoy our 5 hours waiting in this lovely town and then board what we thought was a regular ferry boat and learn it was a hydrofoil. The people who run it think they are literally flying us there, with hydrofoil attendants and a movie on safety similar to what you get on an airplane. After stopping at another island, where 50 passengers board heading for Skopelos, we arrive at the town of Skopelos, without a room at 9pm. Marianne, fearful that the 50 had taken all the rooms, believed we would end up sleeping on the beach, with evening temperatures in the upper 40's. But no problem. A man renting hotel rooms meets the boat and we sign up for the night. Then we go out to eat, at 10pm at one of the 10 outdoor, partially protected, restaurants that face the harbor, each having maybe 5 customers each. It’s a beautiful setting, but Marianne is disappointed. Expecting to find a primitive island, she thinks it looks like Fire Island and the way it was laid out, where the cars were behind us out of sight, indeed it did.
In the light of day, we find that the village of Skopelos is charming and primitive enough, its Fire Island restaurants notwithstanding. We are off by bus at about 10:30 to the other end, which takes about an hour. The bus makes its stop at Glossa and we have to decide whether to get off or wait until it gets down the hill to Loutraki, where there are presumably more hotels. The bus driver advises Loutraki, as does an elderly Greek woman on the bus, but there to the other side of where the bus is parked is a hotel–in clear English:Hotel–so I say let’s do it, which is what Marianne wanted to do in any case. And as the bus pulls away, we then notice the sign obscured by the bus, indicating in English the hotel was closed.
The town, such as we can see it–its outskirts maybe 30 yards away--is mostly above us (and its streets would not be big enough to accommodate a vehicle the size of a bus). But nearby, just across the street, next to a church (of which there may be, literally, as many as 50 on this island-- all Greek Orthodox, of course) is a dinky taverna, where a young woman is painting chairs and a handful of people are sitting around drinking. It is obvious that preparations are being made for the coming summer season. So we walk over and order a coffee and a clarifying question, in excellent English, by the young woman, indicates she is someone we can talk to about what to do next. She was born in Australia, lived there until recently, but is married to a Greek. Her mother has a boarding house 10 minutes away and both of her sisters also live in Glossa. Marianne names her names (of her grandfather’s family).. The Australian consults with a few of the people hanging around and her husband. Pictures are looked at. At some point it appears a connection made. And then at a later point, she points to the name of the Taverna, over the door. It is named–in Greek letters, which more or less from my Amherst fraternity experience I can recognize–Kollias (without the sigma, for some reason). Well. Well. Well. The Australian, Elani (Helen in Greek, but pronounced to rhyme with Melanie) is married to John. John’s father is Costa. Costa is the son of Nick’s brother. Our taverna, the one we almost literally stumble on, is owned by Marianne’s flesh and blood relatives.
Costa and Marianne’s mother, Ora, are first cousins. Soon Costa’s sister, Helen, comes over. And she and Marianne hug and though she knows next to no English (and we, no Greek), Helen is wonderfully simpatico. Before long, we are having lunch at her house. I am forced to eat scrambled eggs for the first time in 15 years! That afternoon, we also meet an uncle. We end up staying at the Aussie’s mom’s boarding house, which is very nice but more appropriate for somewhat warmer weather. It is unheated. I kept putting the burners of the stove on and Marianne, fearing a fire, kept turning them off. Meanwhile, I should mention, I had contracted a minor cold, which plagued me a bit throughout the last week of the trip, but except for two walks I didn’t take, didn’t slow me down. We walk out of our quarters the next day–it is Sunday–and meet a couple, apparently walking back from another church than the one I mentioned, who ask Americana? We say yes. It is Costa and his wife.
We were later told that the uncle, who is about 70, would have invited us to stay with him, but being unmarried, his place was in no shape for guests. We invited the Australian and her husband, Marianne’s 2nd cousin, or whatever the relationship is between the children of cousins, to have dinner with us, but in the end, the timing was wrong. They had to leave the island for two days to print menus and were too tired to go out at 9pm when they returned. I was grateful.
The next day we left but we had hiked all around where we were staying and had revisited the town of Skopelos. I can’t emphasize enough how beautiful the island was. Every time you turned, you saw another view of mountains and the Aegean Sea. And if you looked down, exotic plants and butterflies. If you walked in the town, it was just as Marianne had hoped it would be, apart from TV antennae and dishes, which didn’t bother her, of course. Also, before we left, helped by the Australian, we made contact with Nina. Nina had to be wooed a bit, since years ago someone from America was coming from America to visit, but didn’t show up. Volos, where she lived, is a little off the beaten track, but not if you are already up north, in Skopelos. Marianne spoke to the granddaughter whose English was good enough to set a time for our visit.
We take the boat from Glossa (or Glossa’s port, so to speak) to Volos, this time by regular ferry, disembark, find a hotel and then taxi ourselves to Nina’s. We had a last name, so we rang at the name we had. A young woman, maybe 21, answers. She has a towel wrapped around her body and another around her head. She was getting ready and we had pushed the wrong bell. The grandmother lives on one floor and her son’s family on another. The toweled one–can I say the following?–is a sexpot. She is the older sister of the granddaughter Marianne has spoke to. She is obviously extremely attractive, but later we learn she also has an infectious laugh, a refreshing sense of humor and along with her younger sister, who was maybe 15, a sense of responsibility that made the two girls want very much to help her grandmother and mother understand what was going on, since they spoke no English, while the two girls knew some. We soon meet the other daughter and their mother. And then–tata–Nina. Near 80, she is as spunky as they come. Her husband had died about a year ago and she was asking us if we had anyone in America she could hook up with. There is another relative (and where she fits, I’m not sure), but before long we are having a lovely lunch with the family. Then Nina is showering gifts on us, including a tapestry she herself has made. She brings out pictures she has saved, of Marianne and her brothers, when Marianne was maybe 13. We see pictures of her son and Marianne’s first impression (and mine too) is that he very much looks like one of her two brothers, the older one who lives in Memphis. And soon Nina’s son arrives. He is an air traffic controller for the military and knows some English, on a level with the granddaughters.
After a few hours of talk, we are invited to dinner. They drive us to our hotel and then pick us up again a few hours later at 9pm and take us to a wonderful neighborhood restaurant, where obviously they go often and which I learn, since I ask, you needed to make a reservation for. It was packed. And Dad keeps ordering the ouzo’s. Marianne tells mom that her ring is beautiful. Mom takes it off her finger and gives it Marianne, who in the end accepts it because to do otherwise would seem to be insulting. The cell phone of the sexpot rings–apparently clients for her hair cutting business. Not boyfriends I ask? No. Do you have boyfriends. Oh, yes, 5 of them. I go out with one at 2pm, another at 3pm, etc. She likes to play basketball. I throw one boyfriend in the basket, then another, still another. Who knows what her love life is really like? She does, after all, live at home, with a father who appears to be very smart and engaging, but also on the conservative side. I asked her why she doesn’t have a nose ring? She uses international sign language–her finger across the neck, indicating her father would kill her if she had a nose ring. The younger one was taking some English tests soon. Apparently, she practices by watching American movies. Had she heard of You’ve Got Mail? I say it’s about our neighborhood, the Upper west side, which indeed it is, to some extent. She not only knew the movie but knew who starred in it–Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. We finish at midnight, get driven to the hotel and say our goodbyes. We had found her roots and what a delightful experience. Postscript: they’ve invited us back in summer time when we could stay at their summer house on Glossa and I know Marianne would love to do this. And maybe, soon, we will.
We brought small gifts, not knowing who we would find or even if we would find anyone–New York City T-shirts and coffee cups. I’d like to send the younger daughter a video of You’ve Got Mail, but Louis tells me we have to transform it for European VCR use. And for the older daughter, I thought of sending her a subscription to some chic hairdressing magazine.
We left Volos and got convinced by a cab driver to take a cab to Delphi and in the end, though it cost a little, it was probably a wise choice since we were exhausted and we saved many, many hours, especially since the cabbie often went over 150 kilometers an hour (over 100mph!) . Delphi isn’t very big. You can walk from one end to the other in about 10-15 minutes. It has a wonderful Museum and ruins I didn’t see, since this is one of the walks I didn’t take. I think, however, that almost everything you would want to see of importance was at the museum, next to the ruins. The view from our hotel room, or from the restaurants we went to, was breathtaking. In these places, we were at the edge of the town, which then dropped into a deep valley and there, maybe half a mile away, mountains rose. It was spectacular. One more night in Athens. Then up at 5am for a 8am flight to Istanbul, a five hour wait in Istanbul, a two hour wait in Amsterdam and then arrival in JFK–a 23 hour day, by the time we got home. Somewhere en route I picked up conjunctivitis, which I hope has been cured. Marianne picked up a bad case of jet lag, which took almost a week to get rid of. Our pictures came out, and along with postcards I had bought, are all assembled in an album.
After we get home, I call my sister, learn all is well and also learn that both my postcards from Turkey had arrived. This was of concern since at the first Turkish post office I went to, they told me a certain amount of stamps were needed and off goes this batch. When I go to another post office with batch two, they say I need a larger amount of stamps. And in post office three, for batch 3, still a larger amount. Go figure.
[I hope I can figure out how to send this. It’s being typed in Corel WordPerfect 8. I want to send it as an attachment. I’d like to avoid having it arrive all choppy, which I think is what happens when I move it to its email location.]
Love to one and all, David
My Lai: A Day of Remembrance
[This was written in 2003, after visiting My Lai, in the fall of 2002. The LA Times, which has often printed me in the past, said it was considering the piece, but then backed down. Apparently, the war fever over Iraq took precedence.]
Today is the 35th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.
This past November, at the My Lai memorial site, I stood around a glass-topped table containing a replica of the area and listened as a local Vietnamese woman recounted in excruciatingly painful detail the cold-blooded murders––often preceded by rapes and mutilations--by US troops that took place there. I was one of several faculty members accompanying a group of students from Brooklyn’s Polytechnic University, touring East Asian countries on an educational trip. The woman wept: guilt-stricken US veterans had paid their respects, but ours was the first busload that included young Americans who cared enough to visit the memorial.
Actually, there were two massacres, one at a hamlet called My Lai 4 and the other at a nearby hamlet, My Khe 4. An official Vietnamese government list, by name, gender and age, indicates that 504 civilians were killed––mostly women, older men and children. Of the last, 50 were three years old or younger. Various studies, including the official army report prepared under the leadership of General William R. Peers, all point to the plausibility of these figures. There were no extenuating circumstances: there was no evidence in contemporary eyewitness accounts, or later army inquiries, of the presence of any Vietcong soldiers.
Although brief––barely four hours––My Lai is one of the greatest atrocities in American military history. Much is known of what happened at My Lai, but there are still at least two questions to be seriously wrestled with. Why is it that prior to coming to Vietnam none of our students had ever heard of My Lai? Moreover, my daughter, who was born 40 years ago on the very date of the My Lai massacre,
March 16, had also never heard of My Lai. Nor had her friends and it is my impression that few Americans under 40 know of it.
The other question is for those who are older and have never forgotten My Lai and Lt. William Calley, the only American soldier convicted of a crime at My Lai (though pardoned soon thereafter by President Nixon): Why is it that none of those I know, who had been anti-war activists, had ever heard of the heroic actions of the three man helicopter crew, headed by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, who saved directly at least ten lives, including a child of about five years of age, buried in dead and dismembered bodies? Amazingly, he did so by having one of his crew point his M-60 at the American soldiers who were involved in the killings. On returning to his base, Thompson’s angry report helped stop the operation from moving on to other villages, saving many hundreds from being similarly massacred.
Our ignorance of the heroic intervention of Thompson and his crew is even more puzzling in light of the fact that they were eventually given the Soldier’s Medal, the highest army award for bravery in non-combatant situations (one posthumously, since he was later killed in action). Not wanting to rake over old coals, the army delayed the actual presentation of the medal to Thompson and sought to do this in a quiet office ceremony, but he refused and insisted his crew be equally honored and that this be done publicly in front of the Vietnam Wall that has come to mean so much to Vietnam veterans. The medals were finally awarded at this site, in early March, 1998, in a ceremony broadcast live on CNN and widely reported in the press. Moreover, days later Thompson and the surviving crew member, Larry Colburn, returned to My Lai, to be honored by the villagers, including some whose lives they saved. They were accompanied by CBS’s Mike Wallace, and the visit was later featured on 60 Minutes.
One can easily understand why hawks who supported the war, as well as those who want to avoid publicizing an atrocity which discredited the honor of the army, might not allow Thompson’s brave act to enter their consciousness. But what is to explain the ignorance of the doves? Perhaps the answer lies in their alternative vision––that the Vietnam War was evil. Such a vision allows no place for soldiers who, like Thompson, acted honorably. Nor does it acknowledge those heroic few on the ground at My Lai, who refused to participate in the savagery committed by Calley and his platoon. And it does not recognize the moral commitment and persistence of the Vietnam veteran, Ronald Ridenhour, a helicopter door gunner, who was so shocked and disturbed when he learned of the massacre, that he later wrote a long letter to many in Congress, a letter which not only led to the indictment of Calley but is what ultimately led My Lai to be publicly exposed.
But the larger issue is why My Lai in general has seemingly been forgotten or ignored by Americans. In our unwillingness to face up to an atrocity we have committed there, we seem to be closer to the Japanese who refuse to admit their war crimes than to the Germans who dwell on their war guilt and the holocaust. Ignoring My Lai, and other dark moments in our history, we are smug in our self-righteousness and are determined to shape the world in our image. We seem unaware that much of the world sees us as flawed––perhaps deeply flawed––not merely unwilling to face up to our moral failures but utterly oblivious of the fact that such failings exist.
For this reason, it would be fitting if, in our zeal to Americanize the world, we step back and acknowledge our moral shortcomings by issuing a formal statement of apology to the hamlets of My Lai 4 and My Khe 4. In the spirit of honesty, as exemplified by courageous career soldiers like General Peers and other military officers appointed to examine what happened at My Lai––and were horrified––and at a moment when war clouds gather, we must resolve never again to whitewash barbaric acts engaged in by our military.Such resolve can be symbolized by making March 16––the date of the My Lai massacre––a nationally recognized day of remembrance.
In the "patriotic" fervor of that era, after his conviction, but before his pardon, there were rallies for Rusty Calley, as he was known. One Southern governor urged that motorists drive with their headlights on to "honor the flag as ‘Rusty’ had done." Nothing would be more fitting than to have, as leader of a campaign to designate March 16 as a day of remembrance, the author of that statement, our most recent Nobel Peace prize recipient, Jimmy Carter.
Today is the 35th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.
This past November, at the My Lai memorial site, I stood around a glass-topped table containing a replica of the area and listened as a local Vietnamese woman recounted in excruciatingly painful detail the cold-blooded murders––often preceded by rapes and mutilations--by US troops that took place there. I was one of several faculty members accompanying a group of students from Brooklyn’s Polytechnic University, touring East Asian countries on an educational trip. The woman wept: guilt-stricken US veterans had paid their respects, but ours was the first busload that included young Americans who cared enough to visit the memorial.
Actually, there were two massacres, one at a hamlet called My Lai 4 and the other at a nearby hamlet, My Khe 4. An official Vietnamese government list, by name, gender and age, indicates that 504 civilians were killed––mostly women, older men and children. Of the last, 50 were three years old or younger. Various studies, including the official army report prepared under the leadership of General William R. Peers, all point to the plausibility of these figures. There were no extenuating circumstances: there was no evidence in contemporary eyewitness accounts, or later army inquiries, of the presence of any Vietcong soldiers.
Although brief––barely four hours––My Lai is one of the greatest atrocities in American military history. Much is known of what happened at My Lai, but there are still at least two questions to be seriously wrestled with. Why is it that prior to coming to Vietnam none of our students had ever heard of My Lai? Moreover, my daughter, who was born 40 years ago on the very date of the My Lai massacre,
March 16, had also never heard of My Lai. Nor had her friends and it is my impression that few Americans under 40 know of it.
The other question is for those who are older and have never forgotten My Lai and Lt. William Calley, the only American soldier convicted of a crime at My Lai (though pardoned soon thereafter by President Nixon): Why is it that none of those I know, who had been anti-war activists, had ever heard of the heroic actions of the three man helicopter crew, headed by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, who saved directly at least ten lives, including a child of about five years of age, buried in dead and dismembered bodies? Amazingly, he did so by having one of his crew point his M-60 at the American soldiers who were involved in the killings. On returning to his base, Thompson’s angry report helped stop the operation from moving on to other villages, saving many hundreds from being similarly massacred.
Our ignorance of the heroic intervention of Thompson and his crew is even more puzzling in light of the fact that they were eventually given the Soldier’s Medal, the highest army award for bravery in non-combatant situations (one posthumously, since he was later killed in action). Not wanting to rake over old coals, the army delayed the actual presentation of the medal to Thompson and sought to do this in a quiet office ceremony, but he refused and insisted his crew be equally honored and that this be done publicly in front of the Vietnam Wall that has come to mean so much to Vietnam veterans. The medals were finally awarded at this site, in early March, 1998, in a ceremony broadcast live on CNN and widely reported in the press. Moreover, days later Thompson and the surviving crew member, Larry Colburn, returned to My Lai, to be honored by the villagers, including some whose lives they saved. They were accompanied by CBS’s Mike Wallace, and the visit was later featured on 60 Minutes.
One can easily understand why hawks who supported the war, as well as those who want to avoid publicizing an atrocity which discredited the honor of the army, might not allow Thompson’s brave act to enter their consciousness. But what is to explain the ignorance of the doves? Perhaps the answer lies in their alternative vision––that the Vietnam War was evil. Such a vision allows no place for soldiers who, like Thompson, acted honorably. Nor does it acknowledge those heroic few on the ground at My Lai, who refused to participate in the savagery committed by Calley and his platoon. And it does not recognize the moral commitment and persistence of the Vietnam veteran, Ronald Ridenhour, a helicopter door gunner, who was so shocked and disturbed when he learned of the massacre, that he later wrote a long letter to many in Congress, a letter which not only led to the indictment of Calley but is what ultimately led My Lai to be publicly exposed.
But the larger issue is why My Lai in general has seemingly been forgotten or ignored by Americans. In our unwillingness to face up to an atrocity we have committed there, we seem to be closer to the Japanese who refuse to admit their war crimes than to the Germans who dwell on their war guilt and the holocaust. Ignoring My Lai, and other dark moments in our history, we are smug in our self-righteousness and are determined to shape the world in our image. We seem unaware that much of the world sees us as flawed––perhaps deeply flawed––not merely unwilling to face up to our moral failures but utterly oblivious of the fact that such failings exist.
For this reason, it would be fitting if, in our zeal to Americanize the world, we step back and acknowledge our moral shortcomings by issuing a formal statement of apology to the hamlets of My Lai 4 and My Khe 4. In the spirit of honesty, as exemplified by courageous career soldiers like General Peers and other military officers appointed to examine what happened at My Lai––and were horrified––and at a moment when war clouds gather, we must resolve never again to whitewash barbaric acts engaged in by our military.Such resolve can be symbolized by making March 16––the date of the My Lai massacre––a nationally recognized day of remembrance.
In the "patriotic" fervor of that era, after his conviction, but before his pardon, there were rallies for Rusty Calley, as he was known. One Southern governor urged that motorists drive with their headlights on to "honor the flag as ‘Rusty’ had done." Nothing would be more fitting than to have, as leader of a campaign to designate March 16 as a day of remembrance, the author of that statement, our most recent Nobel Peace prize recipient, Jimmy Carter.
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