Dana Blankenhorn

Loneliness

“They’re sharing a drink they call loneliness. But it’s better than drinking alone.”

-- Billy Joel, Piano Man

My late father-in-law lived long enough, and wound up prosperous enough, to write and publish his own autobiography. He asked me to ghostwrite it. I said he’d do a much better job.

He did.

He called it Never Alone.

My father in law felt blessed to have grown up in a large family, finding a great wife soon after leaving home, to spend a working life in service to the public, then aging gently amidst grown children, grandchildren, and even some great-grands. He was a member in good standing of the “Greatest Generation.”

While that generation’s reticence in talking about themselves, and their trust in governments that didn’t deserve trust (as in Vietnam), caused a rift between their generation and mine, our own values of independence and individuality haven’t worked out as well for us, and our children, as theirs did for them.

Aladdin’s Bank

Jeff Bezos doesn’t really have over $100 billion, not in the way you may have $1,000 in a bank. Amazon.com isn’t worth $900 billion, in the way your house is worth $250,000.

Both valuations are based on a lie, the idea that Bezos could sell out his stock, or that ready buyers would take out all shareholders at the current valuation. The value of a stock-based fortune, or a company’s market cap, is based on the price paid at the last trade.

So it is that we return to Aladdin’s Cave, which I wrote about in 2013.

Had Aladdin come out of that mythical cave, with all its gold and jewels, and tried to sell them, the value of gold and jewels in that town would have plummeted. He would have brought only a fraction of the value.

On the other hand, what if Aladdin were a Hamiltonian?