Richard V. Rupp

January 17, 2024

Happy New Year!

 

I'm Richard V. Rupp writing to you from Burbank, California.

 

Welcome to the first 2024 edition of RUPP'S NOTES & FBI AGENT HARTMANN SERIES posts, which is issued on the third Wednesday of every month. This newsletter is about what this writer and published author is thinking and working on.  I look forward to continuing to communicate with you and hope you enjoy my thoughts.

 

Something about the changing of years puts me in a reflective mood, particularly about this past year. Saying goodbye to the past while simultaneously welcoming the future always makes me think about things I've lost and things I've gained and if, over the course of 365 days, it all evens out.

 

I suspect that you like me are glad that 2023 is over, and that 2024 will be a better year for the world.

 

HOLIDAY FEAST

 

There are two things my two sons, grandson, and I love to do – play board games and cook. On the Saturday before Christmas, we enjoyed a feast of tenderloin fillets prepared sous vide with baked potatoes, steamed asparagus, and good red wine.

 

For those of you who don't know what sous vide is – it is a cooking process used by high-end restaurants, where the food is slowly cooked at a low temperature in vacuum-sealed bags placed in a pot of water. The temperature of the water is maintained by a special sous vide device attached to the pot. The term is French for "under vacuum." Sous vide uses heated water to cook food so that it stays juicy and flavorful gently. The water temperature is below simmering, anywhere from 125 to 195 degrees F. The temperature you select for your sous vide machine will be the same temperature as your food when it's cooked. Sous vide gives steak a uniform texture by cooking the inside and outside at the exact same rate. A sous vide steak is medium rare all the way through instead of being pink in the center and grey around the edges.

 

I can attest to the fact that a sous vide prepared steak is unbelievable.

 

Staying on the topic of food, last week, while I was enjoying Irish Tacos at Story Tavern – Corn Tortillas with corned beef, topped with Thousand Island dressing and fresh coleslaw - my Grandson Ryan texted me that he was having Pate Chinois. I texted back, "What's that?" The response was – "It's a French Canadien version of Shepard's pie. Loosely translates to 'Chinese pie', but legend has it, it traces back to the Chinese railway workers in the early 1900s who built the railways across Quebec. Added tomato paste and dry sherry to the meat to give it a little more taste."

 

Yes, the Rupp men like to experiment with food. We text back and forth like this all the time.

 

I WISH TO WELCOME TOM TO BURBANK

 

Maybe I'll see him at the Smoke House Restaurant across the street from Warner Bros. main gate. Tom Cruise, that is. His production company is setting up shop on the Burbank Warner Bros. lot to jointly develop original and franchise theatrical films with Warner Bros. Discovery.  

 

I first started going to the Smoke House Restaurant when my dad worked at Warner Bros. We frequented three restaurants when he was working in the industry.  The Smoke House, Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood, and the Tick Tock Tea Room also in Hollywood. All were popular with the studio crowd. According to the Smoke House website, "It was built at the end of WWII and is one of the few L.A. restaurants of that era to survive too today. It has the décor and aura of a different age and has grown steadily with the growth of the movie industry and through word of mouth in the Burbank community.  . . . Built beside the world-famous Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California, The Smoke House is a favorite hangout for actors, producers, and anyone else in the industry. In the 60's it was common to come in for lunch and find the place filled with costumed cowboy and Indian extras having lunch."

 

Those were the days.

 

I still frequent the Smoke House and Musso & Frank Grill when I'm not at Story Tavern, my regular Burbank watering hole.

 

Tom, Welcome to Burbank.

 

PARTY TIME AGAIN

 

Speaking of Tom Cruise. He and his fellow actors are shouting, "We're back!"

 

There have been three major award shows since the beginning of the year – Golden Globes, the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, and the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards.

 

From watching the red-carpet entrances and table banter, you could tell the actors and all those who support what they do were having a great time. It first showed at the Golden Globes held at the elegant Beverly Hilton Hotel. Forget about the awards (which were being presented well after the productions were released because of the industry strikes); let's get back together, party, and strut all our stuff.   

 

After the Hollywood strikes that basically closed the movie industry for months, it was great to see the stars enjoying themselves at the Golden Globes. They seemed to use the event as a let's get back together party and strut all our stuff. That feeling was enhanced by the host, a so-called comedian named Jo Koy, who was a disaster. Basically, no one paid any attention to him. Because of him, I gave up watching live and waited for the after-party coverage.

 

I noted the next morning that the LOS ANGELES TIMES suggested that "next year, they might consider cutting the awards and just showing the mingling."

 

The other shows were better hosted, but the same sort of atmosphere existed where it was more party time than award time. Like the rest of the world, the motion picture industry did not have a good 2023 and showed it was glad to welcome 2024.

 

There was one person I took a particular interest in - Carol Burnett. She preceded me at Hollywood High School by five years (1951 and 1956 graduations) and was revered on campus. I have always loved her shows and her attitude and comedy. Here's part of her gig at the Emmys - "I was lucky enough to be the first female host of a comedy show... That was a long time ago, and I just want to say that a lot has changed in the last 46 years for the better," Burnett said, adding the punchline: "Progress has been made. And it truly warms my heart to see how well men are doing in comedy now." 

 

WHAT A MATCHUP

 

I've been a Rams fan forever. Well, I must admit there was a little break (1995 to 2015) when a widow, following the unusual death of her husband, moved them to St. Louis. Back in my old business days, I had season tickets for them. At that time, they played at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

 

They defied my expectations this season, as they were in building mode following a terrible 2022. But, as the season went on, they came to life and seemed to be peaking at just the right time with a 10 – 7 record.

 

Then came the Wild Card game with the Detroit Lions, who had not been in a playoff for more than three decades. The game was particularly interesting as the Rams and the Lions traded quarterbacks in 2021. QB Matthew Stafford joined the Rams, and QB Jared Goff headed for Detroit. Now they were in a Wildcard Playoff showdown.

 

Jared Goff got his revenge against the Rams. And it ended the Rams' season. It was a great game to watch with a final score difference of just one point (24 to 23).

 

Maybe next year. GO RAMS!!!

 

A QUESTION I ASKED BING

 

I get promos in the mail almost daily for credit cards that provide a "cash back" feature. My logic keeps telling me that the "cash back" feature is like the phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul."

 

So, I asked BING (now using AI) "Are cash back credit cards like "robbing Peter to pay Paul?"

 

Here's what I got back – "The idea is that you are essentially taking money from one source (the credit card company) to pay off another (your credit card debt), which is similar to the idiom of robbing Peter to pay Paul. However, it's important to note that credit card cash-back rewards can be a useful tool for saving money as long as you use them responsibly and pay off your balance in full each month. If you carry a balance on your credit card, the interest charges will quickly eat into any cash back rewards you earn, making it difficult to get ahead financially. Cash-back credit cards are designed to reward users with cash back on their purchases. The interest rates on these cards are generally comparable to those of other credit cards, and not necessarily higher."

 

Then I got suspicious about the BING answer when an ad appeared recommending credit card companies. I suspect their AI algorithms are somewhat slanted by who buys ads on their site.

 

MY OLD GIG IS CHANGING

 

I still follow what is happening with my old gig – the insurance industry. Based on what I have read and heard over the last couple of years, I can tell it was drastically changing. For many auto and homeowner exposures, plus some commercial exposures, the insurance business model no longer works.

 

My suspicions are confirmed by this article from PROPERTYCASULTY360 – "Although insurance has always evolved with society, the P&C insurance sector is now engaged in a notable business transition due largely to economic forces beyond insurers' control.  . . . That, at least, is the conclusion that J.D. Power's Senior Director of Insurance Business Intelligence Stephen Crewdson, CPCU, reached in the recent report titled 'The Five Forces Influencing P&C Insurance Shopping.' "The pace of change in the P&C industry has been increasing for years," Crewdson writes in the report's introduction. He adds that insurance is no longer an industry of business traditionalists and is now responding to socio-political and economic forces with accelerated scale and speed."

 

One TV business commentator I heard suggested that insurance has played a major role in inflation. I went down the entire U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS – Consumer Price Index for increased costs in 2023, and the highest percentage by far was "Motor Vehicle Insurance" at 22.4%. I suspect that a large part of this can be attributed to the increased cost of vehicles, the higher cost to repair electric vehicles, and, based on what I'm watching on TV, an increase in accidents.

 

My read on this is that an expanding population that is living closer together, combined with the impact of climate change, makes the definition of an insurable risk no longer achievable in many instances. Based on my definition of "insurable risk" in RUPP'S INSURANCE & RISK MANAGEMENT GLOSSARY, two of the seven criteria of an insurable risk (5) The risk must not be subject to a catastrophic loss where a large number of exposure units can be damaged or destroyed in a single event, and (6) The coverage must be provided at a reasonable cost" can no longer be met in our changed world.

 

The risk management concepts I gravitated toward in my insurance industry research career are more important than ever.

 

CAR INFLATION

 

Relating to the above, in 2022, we set a record for the cost of a new car, as the average cost went up to $48,681, a record-setting high.

 

Looking back to the 1920s, when cars were still a relative luxury item, a brand-new Model T Ford cost just $290 (Yes, hard to believe) or $5,000 in today's dollars. Today that'll barely get you a 10-year-old Ford Focus.

 

MOTOR TREND indicates that "to afford any new car payment, you need to make at least $100,000 a year. This is based on the financial rule that your auto payment should be 10% of your income after making a 20% down payment. This means less than 16% of the population could afford a new car without financial distress. The wealth gap is rapidly increasing in the world as well as within the United States. Wealth gaps have been a contributing factor to civil unrest and conflicts in the past. Researchers at the University of Tubingen have found that the greater the disparity in wealth, the greater the risk of civil war.

 

Not only are cars more expensive to buy, but according to an ABC NEWS report, motor vehicle repair prices have jumped a staggering 23% over the last year, an inflation rate nearly four times higher than overall price increases. This means little to the wealthy but a lot to those making less than $100,000 a year.

 

Then, as we move more toward electric vehicles, the cost of repairs goes up. According to CAR.COM, "Research found that repair claims were higher for the EV versions, but only by about 2% more than their gasoline counterparts. "Some of that could certainly be differences in the composition of the vehicle. But it could also be due to the fact that the [electric versions] are heavier," says Moore. Additionally, property damage claims were about 4% higher for the EVs. "When they crash into other vehicles, the damage to the other vehicles is also slightly higher." The higher weight of EVs and their batteries means there's more energy to be absorbed, and possibly more damage, in a crash."

 

BEHAVIORAL SINK AND ANTHROPOCENE

 

Two of the articles I stumbled upon since my last post apply to what I was saying above about the impact of the world on insurance. They led me to the phrases "Behavioral Sink," and "Anthropocene."

 

Many of us will remember from high school the "too many rats in a cage" experiment. It was used as an example of Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse).

 

I believe that the world, including the United States, is experiencing a "behavioral sink," a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior due to overpopulation, after viewing what happens when too many rats are confined in a cage. A BBC article indicates that "behavioral sink" results in "the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence."

 

Around the world, including the United States, laws, norms, conventions, moral and ethical standards, values, and guidelines are being ignored, violated, discarded, and even shattered. Here in the United States, we are seeing a rapidly increasing population through immigration (legal and illegal),  

 

Then, there was the article that introduced me to "Anthropocene."  It is defined by the OXFORD DICTIONARY as "relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment: 'we've become a major force of nature in this new Anthropocene epoch.'"

 

For several years, scientists have debated whether human effects on our planet constitute a "new geologic age." Has our human impact on the planet changed the atmosphere, land, soil, and other life forms? Simple observations indicate that greenhouse gases have risen dramatically since the industrial revolution began more than 250 years ago. Black carbon is an airborne byproduct of fossil fuel combustion that blankets the landscape. Plastic has been found in sediment layers, as have radioactive isotopes from nuclear testing during the 1940s. Yes, humans have had a major adverse impact on our planet and may be taking us into a geological era – Anthropocene.

 

This is from an article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN – "Some people (especially wealthy humans) seem to think that we and other life-forms will just be able to 'adapt' to these dramatic changes, writes Naomi Oreskes, science historian at Harvard University. "The Anthropocene reminds us that the challenge we face is geological in scale. It affects the whole Earth. It reminds us that as this new epoch unfolds, there won't be anywhere to hide."

 

Much of the above is what I'm writing about in my upcoming novel, SKYWARD. As you can see, my research keeps taking me off track in getting it completed.

 

I loved a Warren Buffet quote: "Any company that has an economist has one employee too many." Sorry, my economist buddies. You were always a great help to me in getting my management reports out.

 

If you are new to my posts and find this one interesting, you can read my prior posts, learn about my novels, and learn more about me on my website at www.richardvrupp.com. You can also sign up in the Rupp's Notes section to get my posts directly.

 

Stay tuned.

 

Until next month.

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright@2024 by Richard V. Rupp