A Fair Comparison

For decades now, my family and I have been big fans of the Iowa State Fair.  This includes not just attending it (we usually attend more than one day), but also competing in it (usually in food / baking categories).  The sites, sounds, food, etc. continue to entertain us annually each August.

Meanwhile, we've always wanted to personally compare it to other well-known American state fairs.  The list of other fairs that would qualify is short, maybe only Minnesota and Texas come to mind.  I've always been a bit skeptical about Iowans' claims to having the greatest state fair, without having attended any others.

After many years of talking about it, I recently spent a day at the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul.  So here, I now give you the definitive guide comparing the Iowa State Fair (ISF) with the Minnesota State Fair (MSF).

Size

MSF is larger, both in terms of grounds area and attendance -- daily and overall attendance is roughly double the size of ISF.  A big plus for MSF was the flatness of their grounds, whereas about half of the ISF is on the side of a hill.  Parking can be an issue at both places, although both have park and ride options along with side street parking (both more expensive at MSF).  Advantage MSF.

Midway

Very similar.  Both fairs have midway rides, including separate areas for children.  Both have thrill ride areas.  Both have giant slides.  Both have sky glides.  Both have Ye Olde Mills!  MSF had what looked like a permanent, very large Ferris wheel structure, as well as a tower up which one could ride in a rotating, external compartment and see the fairgrounds.  Advantage MSF.

Grandstand

Again, very similar.  They also attract basically the same national concert tours.  Advantage no one.

Livestock exhibits

MSF has the usual cattle / swine / horse facilities, but the livestock area at ISF is larger, maybe by half.  This is part of an overall trend of the ISF being much, much more focused on farming and agriculture.  A related example would be that MSF had no area devoted to farm equipment displays, while ISF has a huge area for that.  Also, there were no pork or beef producer food tents at MSF, but there was a turkey federation tent.  Advantage ISF.

Agricultural / food exhibits

ISF is much more robust in terms of competing / displaying vegetables and horticulture.  One notable exception is honey / honey production, where MSF devoted more space.  ISF also appeared to have more had a greater number and variety of food competitions / displays.  Advantage ISF.

Cultural exhibits

There wasn't much difference in how much, but there were differences in how.  For instance, MSF showed more painted art, but little photography, which is the inverse of ISF.  Also, MSF had cultural displays in more buildings, where ISF basically sticks to a single building, maybe two.  Advantage no one.

Food and beverage

Basically, you can get any deep fat fried thing you might want at either fair.  Both also have buildings devoted to selling chocolate chip cookies in a bucket.  While ISF has pork chops on a stick, MSF has walleye on a stick.  (Curiously, there seemed to be no one selling pork tenderloins at MSF, which are a veritable staple at ISF.)  ISF does have a much, much larger craft beer tent, which is probably due to Iowa's encouraging craft beer laws.  Another oddity:  MSF has a lot of vendors still only accepting cash as a form of payment.  Advantage ISF.

Free stages / entertainment

Both have numerous free stages / amphitheaters for thrill shows and music.  While the ISF tends to have more shows and limit the live music until the evening, MSF had live music starting by noon.  Conversely, MSF holds its statewide talent competition in the evening, while ISF presents theirs during the day.  Advantage no one.

Environment

A big trade-off here.  The ISF is cleaner, partially due to golf carts and other small 4-wheeled vehicles moving supplies and collecting trash all day, making for traffic which visitors have to constantly dodge.  At MSF, you rarely see any motorized vehicles, but you also tend to see more trash receptacles and a bit more uncollected trash on the grounds.  (I later learned that MSF has both external and underground avenues with which to transport supplies and trash -- do not know if this is true.)  Advantage no one.

Rest rooms

Need a separate paragraph for this.  MSF had at least four separate, huge, clean, restroom only buildings on the grounds, to go with other one-off facilities.  Since they have many more people on the grounds on any given day, maybe this is more of a necessity, but it was still nice.  Advantage MSF.

Conclusion

MSF is more diverse, both in the people attending and the things to do.  ISF is more focused on farming and competitions.  Both the ISF and MSF are wonderful state celebrations that I would recommend attending multiple times.  No one could reasonably say one was 'better' than the other, so don't believe anyone who does.

Fame, Fortune, And Sportswashing

As a golfer, I’ve been following the newly formed LIV golf tour / organization with great interest.  It’s funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is a fancy way of saying it’s funded by the Saudi Arabian government.

LIV (which supposedly comes from the Roman numeral for 54, the score a golfer would likely have if they birdied every hole in a round of golf) bills itself as a rival to the PGA tour / organization.  It’s been recruiting golfers to play in its limited events, in some cases paying them huge up-front money – even offering 9-figure amounts to the biggest names.

The term some are using to describe LIV is ‘sportswashing’, meaning this a way for the Saudis to cover-up their awful record on human rights.  It’s the same thing China has done recently by hosting the Olympics.  Market the country through sports, in a way that obscures how that country oppresses people.

I get the money is enticing for these golfers, even life-changing for some of them.  The PGA has always operated in a way that makes the players independent contractors, there’s nothing keeping them there.

I also get and agree that organizational competition is a good thing, and LIV has already made the PGA make changes for the better to its structure.  

Regardless of whether you call it sportswashing, I would not support LIV.  But more importantly, why do some of these players?  Why would the already famous, wealthy pro golfers choose to associate themselves with a regime like this?

They might make a greater fortune, but they'll lose their fame.  Everyone considers the LIV the minor leagues right now, with no top-20 golfers signed, and not many from even the top-100 are expected to sign.  LIV players will miss out on some major championships, and the biennial Ryder Cup.  Also, the LIV tour has no major television coverage, so no one is going to see or care about these players anymore.

That’s particularly true for the legendary ones, like my now former favorite golfer Phil Mickelson.  He says publicly he’s just trying to ‘grow the game’ by endorsing LIV (and taking a 9-figure sum) but all he’s doing is tarnishing his image.  At age 50+, he isn’t going to be much of a threat to win again anyway, even on the watered-down LIV tour.

It all sucks for golf fans, too, who want to see the best play against the best.  In terms of competition, this whole thing reminds me of Indy-car racing in the mid-90s, which split into two groups and completely watered down that sport for years.  It made even the Indianapolis 500 unwatchable.

In summary, I’d say that competition is a good thing, but not all competitors are good, and this is one of those cases.  If you want to align yourself with a new competitor, maybe make sure they don’t represent some of the worst people in the world.

Show Me Your Homework

The COVID-19 pandemic drove many white-collar industries to allow employees to work from their homes.  Two years later, most of those employees continue to work from out of the office on at least a part-time basis.

This ‘work from anywhere’ economy has made employers and employees consider whether productivity is as high now as it was back when most commuted to and worked from an office.  More often than not, the answer is different depending on your point of view.

Almost without exception, I hear employees say they are as productive.  They say that’s because they work more hours due to no commuting, or they aren’t distracted by water cooler conversations, or they are simply able to work outside of the normal 8am-5pm workday.

But the employer answer, and I think the correct one, is that there’s no way workers are as productive working from anywhere as they are working from the office.  Just the lack of peer supervision and accountability is enough for one to realize there isn’t as much getting done, nor getting done as quickly.

I’ve worked in large offices, small offices, and from home.  While I like to think I’m wired in a way that it made no difference, I generally got more done in less time by working in an office environment.  Sure I worked more hours, but that’s because I wasn’t as efficient in what I needed to get done.  And while the office has its distractions, everywhere else has as many, or more.

Employees want employers to think they’re as productive, because they want to keep their newfound flexibility to basically work when they want.  They’ve convinced themselves they somehow work harder and smarter outside of the office, by saying they do.  They're basically lying to themselves.

It's great that we've evolved into a hybrid work environment society; I'm all for it.  It's better for families, and better for overall life balance in general.  Just don't tell me as much is getting accomplished.

A Tale Of Two Ceremonies

On a fairly regular basis these days, we hear about some new attempt at breaking a Guinness World Record.  It's typically something very odd and not at all useful, like the world's largest popcorn ball or the world's largest group hug.

With that in mind, I would now like to submit setting a new useless record earlier this month:  The first ever invited, attending guest at a gay wedding, a catholic priest ordination, and an interracial wedding, all within the span of seven days in the state of Iowa.  I have no proof, but I defy anyone to tell me it's been done before.

But this blog entry isn't going to be about setting records.  It's going to be about the gay wedding and the religious ordination, and the wild juxtaposition of those two events.

I don't want to spend the time or words to describe everything I saw and/or experienced at these occasions.  Instead, I'm going to break it down like this.....

Within a week's time, I attended two ceremonies.  I'd describe one of those ceremonies as joyful, colorful, and spontaneous.  The other I'd describe as subdued, dark, and ritualistic.

One of the ceremonies promoted working together as equals to create a better life.  The other ceremony literally called for the obedience of one party to another.

One of the ceremonies was a manifestation of newer civil rights in America.  The other ceremony went out of its way to applaud the recent elimination of long-standing civil rights.

One of the ceremonies seemed like it was the start of a relationship with unlimited growth potential.  The other ceremony seemed like it was the start of a relationship destined to shrink in size and value.

And ultimately, one of the ceremonies was completely non-judgmental, while the other ceremony judged the first to be depraved and worthy of being banned.

Notice that I haven't identified which event I believed them to be.  Which do you think was which?

Don't get me wrong, I care for the people involved in all of these ceremonies, including the aforementioned interracial marriage.  The (young) participants chose to make an open public expression of their love for someone or something else, and I was among hundreds or family members and friends there to unconditionally support them.

That said, I've never experienced a greater feeling of dissonance than I did during those seven days.

Dear Graduating Class of 2022

After two years of restrictions, it seems we re-emerged to a more normal time of high school and college graduation ceremonies.  So without further adieu, time for my annual address:

To the graduating class of 2022,

So, did it seem normal?  Your senior year, I mean.

The last two graduating classes had their senior years ruined, or at least interrupted, by a pandemic.  Yours was more like the pre-pandemic days, with the possible exception of having to wear a piece of cloth over your face from time-to-time. (But curiously, not when you were jammed together at extra-curricular school activities.)

If it did seem normal, I hope you enjoyed it, because if you're doing it right, that should be the end of your 'normal' for a very long time.  You'll either be going to a different school or starting a job.  Either way, the salad days of letting your family take care of you are over.

I had to say should be over, because these days, a great many of you will still be living with your family.  I'm well aware of the reasons why -- too many expenses, not enough income, blah blah blah.  These are things you could have mitigated with a little planning and grit.  And perhaps one more thing.....a better job by your family.

Yep, if you aren't ready to graduate, I want to say that's all on you, but I can't do that anymore.  There are too many complicit parents / families who are more than willing to let you stay at home for as long as you want, with virtually no accountability from you.  It's beyond weird that this happens, but it's almost become routine, and the pandemic made it even worse.

So you're probably asking, why should I make life hard on myself when I can live at home with free room and board and car and laundry service and probably much more?

I have one good answer -- because you're missing out on the prime fun years of your life!  That bulletproof age that exists around your early twenties, when you're young and can be both responsible and irresponsible at the same time.  You aren't going to get the most out of that by living at home.

Go to college.  Get a job.  Find roommates, or for that matter, just a mate.  But for the love of god, don't let your family allow you to stay in the same house where you grew up.

Don't let that be your normal.

The Real Killers

The United States of America just suffered another mass shooting of elementary school children, this time in Texas.   I wrote about the last one(!) in 2012, and I basically predicted this one a week later.

If it isn’t already obvious, nothing has changed in the last 10 years.  I take that back, something has changed – it’s even easier now to buy guns, especially assault-style weapons. 

The gutless politicians governing our gun-crazy culture love their power too much to do anything about mass shootings.  These Republicans – and let's call a spade a spade, that’s who they are – accept millions of dollars from the gun lobby to retain their legislative ‘jobs’ in return for making it easy in this country to buy plentiful guns and ammunition.

These pathetic grifters love money and power more than the safety of the citizenry.  As cover, they try to blame mass shootings on everything else but guns.  Then after some time goes by, they try to water down our gun laws even more, as directed by their gun-lobby (Read: NRA) overlords.

It's hard to think how much less safer our gun laws can be when an 18 year-old in Texas can buy assault weapons without a comprehensive background check or waiting period.  How hard is it to correlate that with the fact the United States is the only nation in the world where mass shootings regularly happen?

In a way, the gun lobby has had it right all along.  Guns don't kill people, people kill people -- especially if they're a politician with an R behind their name.

Berky Meeting Nuggets 2022

After a three-year, Covid-19-related hiatus from in-person shareholder meetings, we die-hard Berkshire Hathaway meeting attendees met in Omaha for Woodstock For Capitalists.

There were few changes from the last gathering in 2019.  Most importantly, the great Warren Buffett (age 91) and Charlie Munger (age 98) were again sitting on a stage answering questions for about five hours.  Vice-Chairs Greg Abel (future CEO) and Ajit Jain were also on stage to answer questions in the morning session.

Buffett seemed particularly in a mood to talk, as there were far fewer questions than in past years -- he even joked about it after the lunch break, noting they'd only answered seven questions in the morning session, apparently because someone (him) talked a lot.

My summary of the environment and some of what was said:

• A smaller crowd than in the past, probably due to the pandemic and people getting used to watching the live stream of the meeting.  Also, there was more room to roam in the convention area, things were more spread out.

• These guys hate the way so many approach stock market investing.  They treat it like a 'gambling parlor' now that securities prices frequently are unattached to fundamentals. Munger in particular brought up Robinhood (investment platform) and how people are now paying dearly for leveraging their money and on their misplaced faith in it.

• As much as these guys hate the stock market casino action, they REALLY hate cryptocurrency, which they believe is bad for stable currency economies and will be worthless one day.  Buffett made the same comment about it that he used for gold investors years ago, which is why invest in a non-producing asset that's only value is what another is willing to pay for it.

• On cryptocurrency, here's Munger's exact quote: "Well, in my life I try and avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad in comparison with somebody else. And bitcoin does all three. In the first place, it’s stupid because it’s very likely to go to zero.  In the second place, it’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve system and the national currency system, which we desperately need to maintain its integrity and government control and company on.  And third, it makes us look foolish compared to the communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China, and with all of our presumed advantages of civilization -- we are a lot dumber than the communist leader in China."

• Upon answering a question about investing during inflation like we have now, Buffett said the best investment anyone can make is to invest in themselves.  Make yourself an expert at what you like to do -- if you're one of the best, people will pay you regardless, and you will do well.

• Also on inflation.....Buffett mentioned there was about $800 billion of Federal Reserve cash in circulation 10 or 15 years ago, and now there’s something like $2.2 trillion of currency in circulation.  That’s about $7,000 per person, every man, woman, and child in the U.S., a lot of which has come from the stimulus programs due to the pandemic.  He said it's no wonder we have inflation now -- but we probably had to do what we did.

Of  course, there was so much more.  Below is a link to this meeting and others.

https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/