Derivatives Derived

Here is my submission to John August's latest challenge, in which participants must write a scene in which someone explains (financial) derivatives. The version here fixes a subtle malapropism which, if John is on the ball, should cause him to go "that doesn't quite make sense, he meant xxx" for one of the lines. However, I'm not going to point out which word it is -- I'll let you find it. It actually makes some sense in the erroneous version -- it just makes sensible sense in the corrected version.

If some of the dialog seems familiar, but you don't get the reference -- it's an homage to an awesome scene from Sidney Lumet's Network (script by Paddy Chayefsky). I also make mention the other meaning of derivative, which is often used when doing analysis to decide what derivative positions to take. And, by being an homage, the scene itself is derivative. Perhaps John will award extra points for scoring a triple entendre.

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JENKINS, a stuffed suit executive munching a Cuban cigar, leans forward. He bellows out a cloud of smoke from his yellow grin. It engulfs the thin, bookish MAX. Jenkins gesticulates with his cigar like an orchestra conductor, pushing Max farther back into his chair with each sweeping gesture.

JENKINS
Your pointless pontifications on pricing parameters and rates of change and rates of change of rates of change are boring me, Max. Buy low, sell high. It's simple, Max. Even a genius like you can see that, no?

MAX
But, Mr. Jenkins, we can't just --

JENKINS
Come now, Max. It's like the man once said. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the by-laws of business. That is the natural order of things today! Am I getting through --

Max's chair crashes to the ground as he jumps up. He grabs Jenkins' arm in mid-swing. Plucks the cigar from his hand.

MAX
You foolish old fossil!

As Max rants he shoves the cigar an inch closer to Jenkins' nose with each outburst.

MAX
Don't you understand? There is no IBM or ITT or AT&T, no DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide or Exxon. There are only equities and commodoties, rates and trends, arbitrage and triage, speculation and hedging, OTCs and ETCs. The future is forwards, the forwards, our future! You think your cozy little world of petro-dollars and electro-dollars and multi-dollars is what George Soros talks about in his board meetings? You stand here and howl about dollars and cents. There are no dollars and cents. Dollars and cents are but a dot on a chart, a moment in time, the input to the next output, the second when the future becomes the present, before it becomes the future again! And with leverage, we always live in the future. You're reading a dysfunctional function. Look deeper. Can't you see it, Jenkins? The future? -- Is knowing the future! The almighty dollar is dead. There are only arbitrage positions and speculation markets, equity swaps and back-to-backs, forward rate agreements and interest rate caps, swaptions and options and futures and turbo warrants. Long-term positions? Profitability? And, for Heaven's sake -- dividends? Yesterday's news, Jenkins. There are no more straight bets, no more original positions. No, Jenkins. Everything is derivative now.

The cigar is almost touching Jenkins' nose. He nervously pushes it aside.

JENKINS
(uncertain)
What does it mean, Max?

MAX
Your future has no options, Jenkins. I'm shorting you.

Max stuffs the cigar into Jenkins' suit pocket. Struts out the door.

Immigrant Song

May First was the opening night for the East of the West exhibition at SomArts, which my wife Anu co-curated with Taraneh Hemami. It was a great show, and a good opening. Friends such as Ala Ebketar and Hadi Tabatabai were featured, and I made several new friends as well, including Ali Dadgar. It was a reaffirmation of something Anu and I discuss often: the ethos of immigrant and first generation Americans, and how it differs from settled populations both here and abroad.

The after parties on two different nights of the EotW run -- one large and one small -- were quite comfortable, seemingly familiar despite having met some of the people there for the first time at said parties. Eating and drinking with our new and established Iranian friends was very much like eating and drinking with our LA cadre of German and Austrian friends, for example.

As people who have taken an extreme measure to make their lives better (immigrants), or are expected to be the builders of a new legacy (the first generation), there seems to be a greater inclination towards experimentation and tolerance amongst this population. Engineering, science, and the arts draw a lot of immigrant and first generation practitioners, and I believe the predisposition towards change that comes with not being rooted is one of the key reasons. I've also found that across the many cultural backgrounds of my immigrant and first generation friends -- be they Poles, Indians, Iranians, Germans, Japanese, Brazilians, Eastern European Jews, etc. (even Canadians) -- there are certain strains of humor, non-traditional politics, and lively discussions of the edges of scientific, artistic and philosophical inquiry that resonate seemingly universally across all zeroth and first generation hyphenated-Americans.

Of course there are immigrants who cling to traditional thinking whole hog as a safety net, and also second and farther generation people who embrace change, experimentation, and non-traditional intellectual inquiry. However, there seems to be lower percentages of both these groups amongst my friends who are interested in various disciplines in the arts, engineering and science. Among those in the N>1 generation population who more easily embrace uncertainty are those who travel a lot, maintain ties to the "old world," and/or have moved between two distant U.S. states after early childhood. Certain areas of inquiry really lend themselves to people who have developed a comfort level with change, and an understanding that permanence is elusive.

The East of the West show reflected that. All the artists involved displayed a willingness to contemplate, critique, rethink, and recontextualize cultural and political norms both of their native / ancestral Middle Eastern societies and those of The West as well. Cultural trends ranging from ascetic meditation to militarism to punk and hip hop were all present in the collection of works, which ran the gamut from figurative, overt social critique to contemplative abstraction.

People who come to the the United States to make better lives for themselves, and their children, contribute a great deal to our society. As one of those, I have always chafed against the so-called nativist strain in American politics (though my Kiowa friend Mark certainly puts the lie to those claims whenever someone dares to raise them around him).

In addition to being an excellent art show co-curated by my wife, East of the West was, for me, also an opportunity to make new friends and reaffirm my belief that immigrants and first generation Americans have a lot to offer no matter which country they and their families may have originated in (even ones that are, at this time, very unpopular with the American public).