My brothers in LA - he was working downtown and basically couldn’t get home due to the fire. Crazy.
“Life, uh, finds a way.” Classic. and for better or worse people move on (sometimes too fast) from tragedies (of all sorts). I think that’s part of the reason change is hard. Like - how many people could we get interested in future pandemic preparedness right now?
Yeah, I was talking to someone who lives in Asheville, and people moved on last the hurricane weeks before he had running water. Though if something is going to hold out attention (again, for better or for worse), it seems like it could be LA.
I hadn't thought of this, but some things have held our attention for a long time - 9/11 comes to mind. So the collective we doesn't actually forget everything...
Oh, hey - is there a chance you might be running a reader meetup of any sort, if you are still in the Bay for a bit?
And that was a poignant meditation on the surrealness of, well, now. Surrealness being understatement, but it's force it into that box or go mad from the full volume of...well, now.
Ahh, that never even occurred to me as a thing people might want to do? This trip was pretty full, but I guess I could think about doing something like that sometime? Though admittedly, I don't go to (m)any meetups, so if you've got ideas about what that would be, I'm all ears.
The meetups I've gone to from bloggers & such usually are as simple as 'Pick a coffee shop / some other third space, pick a time, announce on blog and ask people to RSVP'
Its a thing you start in the biggest cities - and at worst you are losing an hour or so to just chilling and reading in a cafe.
But the ones I have gone to have had some of the most fun conversations, plus a potential way to meet new collaborators.
Weird and poorly attended to start almost certainly! It's a question of whether you want to build a community around the writing or not - if not, totally fair. If yes, it's a way to find some of the bigger fans of the work I suppose.
100% its one of those 'This could be hella awkward' but I've met fairly cool people by forcing myself into those awkward places.
No worries if its not your thing, couldn't resist at least suggesting it :)
What a trip down memory lane, remembering Chavez’s surreal crusade to “get our gold back home”. One of his many surreal and ridiculous crusades; a regime sowing chaos as they bled the country dry. I hadn’t thought about that gold in years…. And those ridiculous jackets, good lord.
Yeah, it doesn't seem great? But I don't know, I couldn't quite fully get to Doomsday. Like, broadly, the world really is a lot better than it's ever been. But at the same time, it feels more chaotic, detached, fraying, and all the bad guys seem to be winning. So the vibes are catastrophic, but the fundamentals are pretty good?
10,000 years ago the Sahara Desert — as wide as the distance from DC to San Francisco, as tall as from Galveston to Calgary — was a lush green savanna with abundant rainfall and a rich ecosystem. Now it’s just sand. People adapt.
As a Venezuelan ex-pat, the gold story was quite interesting but you left us hanging :) What happened? How much did he take back? I can't find a straight answer to this as you can imagine.
Apparently they did manage to bring it back, though not all of it:
"The country's late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, citing the need for Venezuela to have physical control of central bank assets, in 2011 repatriated around 160 tonnes of gold from banks in the United States and Europe to the central bank in Caracas.
But some of Venezuela's gold remained in the Bank of England. Starting in 2014, Venezuela used this gold for "swap" operations in which global banks lent Venezuela several billion dollars with the gold as collateral.
Venezuelan central bank statistics show the central bank's gold holdings by June this year had dropped to 160 tonnes from 364 tonnes in 2014, as some of the swap agreements expired without Venezuela returning the funds - leaving the gold in the hands of the banks."
I love your stories. And art. And humor. Here is a true story for you:
Do you know why the state of Delaware has no sales tax? Underneath the streets of Wilmington you will find vaults of gold bars. Now, no one wanting to trade gold bars actually goes to a bank, takes them out and carries them away. They exchange notes for the value of the gold bars, and even if they are in Venezuela, that transaction occurs in Delaware.
Which has no sales tax.
So the gold bars change hands, but they don’t budge an inch. They lie there in Wilmington, DE, the whole time.
Not sure what happened between Chavez and London, but I don’t think the problem was the ocean.
Matt Levine had a very funny story about this a while back, about how a lot of commodity trading is just trading futures back and forth. So nobody actually wants the physical commodity, but to buy the futures, they have to be backed by some physical commodity, so there are warehouses of it that you could, in theory, take delivery of, but nobody does. But then one day someone discovered that the bags of nickel had been replaced with bags of rocks.
I know some Swiss guys who were young employees of a Swiss bank in the 1980s. They were in Caracas back then, trying to buy up the million or so old US gold coins that Venezuela had accumulated as payments for oil that the US bought around the period from 1890 to 1930. Chávez sent them to Havana for safekeeping after a coup attempt.
“The more we bend our world to our will, the more loaded its bow.”
Just…brilliant. Wow.
My brothers in LA - he was working downtown and basically couldn’t get home due to the fire. Crazy.
“Life, uh, finds a way.” Classic. and for better or worse people move on (sometimes too fast) from tragedies (of all sorts). I think that’s part of the reason change is hard. Like - how many people could we get interested in future pandemic preparedness right now?
Yeah, I was talking to someone who lives in Asheville, and people moved on last the hurricane weeks before he had running water. Though if something is going to hold out attention (again, for better or for worse), it seems like it could be LA.
I hadn't thought of this, but some things have held our attention for a long time - 9/11 comes to mind. So the collective we doesn't actually forget everything...
Shout-out to...Rudy Giuliani?
hahaha... not exactly what I was thinking of - but yes I suppose so!
on a more serious note - The Only Plane in the Sky is an AWESOME book that came out almost 20 yrs after 9/11
Somewhat related, a friend recently went to this and said it was very good. Something seems weird about it being a musical, but I guess it works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_from_Away
Oh, hey - is there a chance you might be running a reader meetup of any sort, if you are still in the Bay for a bit?
And that was a poignant meditation on the surrealness of, well, now. Surrealness being understatement, but it's force it into that box or go mad from the full volume of...well, now.
Ahh, that never even occurred to me as a thing people might want to do? This trip was pretty full, but I guess I could think about doing something like that sometime? Though admittedly, I don't go to (m)any meetups, so if you've got ideas about what that would be, I'm all ears.
The meetups I've gone to from bloggers & such usually are as simple as 'Pick a coffee shop / some other third space, pick a time, announce on blog and ask people to RSVP'
Its a thing you start in the biggest cities - and at worst you are losing an hour or so to just chilling and reading in a cafe.
But the ones I have gone to have had some of the most fun conversations, plus a potential way to meet new collaborators.
ahh, word, hmmmmm. I've never thought to do anything like that, but I could see it being kinda fun. And weird and very poorly attended, but maybe fun?
Weird and poorly attended to start almost certainly! It's a question of whether you want to build a community around the writing or not - if not, totally fair. If yes, it's a way to find some of the bigger fans of the work I suppose.
100% its one of those 'This could be hella awkward' but I've met fairly cool people by forcing myself into those awkward places.
No worries if its not your thing, couldn't resist at least suggesting it :)
i did buy the domain benn.events back when I was on a slate to do more company webinars, gotta put it to use i guess
That is an incredible text, thanks. Any news of Chavez’s gold since 2011?
It is, apparently, like all things, caught up in the courts: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/venezuela-loses-uk-appeal-long-running-gold-reserves-battle-2023-06-30/
What a trip down memory lane, remembering Chavez’s surreal crusade to “get our gold back home”. One of his many surreal and ridiculous crusades; a regime sowing chaos as they bled the country dry. I hadn’t thought about that gold in years…. And those ridiculous jackets, good lord.
Very interesting read, thank you for sharing!
Looks like Doomsday scenario to me, but things will somehow always evolve...
humans are optimist by default, we can adapt to anything, right?
Thanks for shedding some light in a world where the blinds of every house are down
Yeah, it doesn't seem great? But I don't know, I couldn't quite fully get to Doomsday. Like, broadly, the world really is a lot better than it's ever been. But at the same time, it feels more chaotic, detached, fraying, and all the bad guys seem to be winning. So the vibes are catastrophic, but the fundamentals are pretty good?
10,000 years ago the Sahara Desert — as wide as the distance from DC to San Francisco, as tall as from Galveston to Calgary — was a lush green savanna with abundant rainfall and a rich ecosystem. Now it’s just sand. People adapt.
Are you really really sure ? Love the way they are burying all the wind farm blades secretly because they only last 5 years as they will find
Wow! This is one of the best things I’ve read as of late. Brilliant work Benn and thank you!
What an awesome one! Keep it up <3
As a Venezuelan ex-pat, the gold story was quite interesting but you left us hanging :) What happened? How much did he take back? I can't find a straight answer to this as you can imagine.
Apparently they did manage to bring it back, though not all of it:
"The country's late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, citing the need for Venezuela to have physical control of central bank assets, in 2011 repatriated around 160 tonnes of gold from banks in the United States and Europe to the central bank in Caracas.
But some of Venezuela's gold remained in the Bank of England. Starting in 2014, Venezuela used this gold for "swap" operations in which global banks lent Venezuela several billion dollars with the gold as collateral.
Venezuelan central bank statistics show the central bank's gold holdings by June this year had dropped to 160 tonnes from 364 tonnes in 2014, as some of the swap agreements expired without Venezuela returning the funds - leaving the gold in the hands of the banks."
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-venezuela-seeks-to-repatriate-550-million-of-gold-from-britain-sou-idUSKCN1NA1P8/
I love your stories. And art. And humor. Here is a true story for you:
Do you know why the state of Delaware has no sales tax? Underneath the streets of Wilmington you will find vaults of gold bars. Now, no one wanting to trade gold bars actually goes to a bank, takes them out and carries them away. They exchange notes for the value of the gold bars, and even if they are in Venezuela, that transaction occurs in Delaware.
Which has no sales tax.
So the gold bars change hands, but they don’t budge an inch. They lie there in Wilmington, DE, the whole time.
Not sure what happened between Chavez and London, but I don’t think the problem was the ocean.
Matt Levine had a very funny story about this a while back, about how a lot of commodity trading is just trading futures back and forth. So nobody actually wants the physical commodity, but to buy the futures, they have to be backed by some physical commodity, so there are warehouses of it that you could, in theory, take delivery of, but nobody does. But then one day someone discovered that the bags of nickel had been replaced with bags of rocks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-21/jpmorgan-had-some-fake-nickel
Excellent Piece Ben
Thank you 😊👍
So beautifully written- thank you.
London was not the only stash of Venezuela's gold, for the record.
Fair, though it was most of it. In any case, when I was looking stuff up for this again, I finally found what I think was the original story I read about this way back when it was happening. Still gets me: https://web.archive.org/web/20120320141745/http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/23/how-to-get-12-billion-of-gold-to-venezuela/
I know some Swiss guys who were young employees of a Swiss bank in the 1980s. They were in Caracas back then, trying to buy up the million or so old US gold coins that Venezuela had accumulated as payments for oil that the US bought around the period from 1890 to 1930. Chávez sent them to Havana for safekeeping after a coup attempt.
Excellent article - substantial, observant, with whimsical flourishes - well done!
Life will find its way!
What a thought to hold on to! How clear your words describe the chaos of the NOW!
You struck more than one nerve of mine.
Thank you !
Well done Benn