Well, here we are. The year 2020 never fails to deliver drama. A couple weeks ago I mentioned a few of my positions on PredictIt:
“I’m holding 20 shares of RUTH BADER GINSBERG as the next one to leave the Supreme Court.”
It’s a done deal. Unless you live under a rock, you already know. RGB is dead and the predictable post-mortality shitstorm is just spooling up. (As an aside, I’d started hoping she’d stay above ground at least until the voting was done. We didn’t need another reason for people to act irrationally.)
First: The Math:
I had to dig deep to figure out how I’d done on this one. I just couldn’t remember. Turns out I bought in November 2018. I ponied up $0.73 a share. I doubled down in February of 2019 at $0.75 a share.
The trade went to $1 (“the event happened”) on September 18th. I waited out 22 months and so did RGB. Then she died and I cleared a healthy 31%. (Yes, that’s 31% after fees… no cheating!)
Remember, this is a tiny bet. The idea is to learn with percentages, not gamble away the car payment.
Second: The Lesson:
So, I cleared 31%, How do I feel? Glad it’s over, and dirty.
The whole thing feels wrong. I mean if RGB wanted to play games with mortality, that’s her business but I wish I’d stayed away from anything even remotely associated with her.
It just massively grosses me out how this is an unnecessary death pool. I wrote about it a few weeks ago.
“Also, I want to repeat… there’s no reason whatsoever SCOTUS justices have to work until they die; it’s cruel but self inflicted. The Faustian gamble they make for power scares the hell out of a guy like me.”
It’s nightmarish what power does to people. It flat out terrifies the shit out of me! Smart, clever, highly educated, intellectuals, lose their sense of humility and fall hard. They drink of power and chain themselves to their work persona or political BFFs like crackheads seeking the next hit. They enslave themselves and work until they die. Ye Gods!
Ginsburg had a job to do but it could have been just a job. It could have been one facet of an interesting and varied life. Whether you like her rulings or not, she (or a staffer) did that job and that’s the honorable part. Get paid, do a job, go home at night, endeavor to be a complete person. What more could anyone want?
Well, in Ginsburg’s case she wanted all the power of her job at SCOTUS and more. She just had to control what happened after she left. She was also massively sexist. She had no problem with Obama’s likely decision tree but it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. She just had to arrange things so the first female president got to fill “her” chair. She could quit any time but she waited out Obama looking for more. Always needing more. She assumed Hillary would win. WRONG. Didn’t happen.
When I’m wrong I say “whoops, that didn’t work out” and quickly endeavor to adapt to the new situation. I try to avoid doubling down. Why cage myself? Ginsberg, who’s smart as a whip, couldn’t disengage.
For the last several years her whole life and point of existence was to wait out Trump. Orange Man Bad and nothing, not even mortality would stand in her way. She made an impressive feat of simply living practically out of spite. At what cost? What does that do to you?
Imagine the ego that goes with that way of thinking. It’s not enough to do your job for 25 years. You hunger to control those who follow. It’s delightful to blaze a trail. “This is the way I’ve gone, I welcome you to follow me.” It’s another to chain your boss down and try to force the path you prefer. “Over my dead body will that asshat Trump get another SCOTUS pick.”
Challenge accepted.
Time solves things that can’t be solved in other ways. Sometimes it solves people. She died, still working, at 87, a husk, leaving Trump to benefit.
Whether it’s true or not, the press reports her last words were about her succession. How sad is that? On the gates to eternity your last dying breath is a personnel memo?
That kind of shit just freaks me the hell out!
Also look at the mess she left. Partisans on her side shriek like harpies. Partisans on the other side sing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead”. That’s her legacy? Leaving a divided nation to argue about another goddamn thing in the last 50 days before an election. Like America needed another source of bullshit.
When you set out to seize power, when you can’t let go of the one ring, you become evil. I’m sure she meant well, but she’s leaving an ugly mess.
I’m taking my winnings and buying a good bottle of liquor, because I’ve earned it. I’m promising myself I’ll learn. The idea here is to remember. I’ll grow old too. When the time comes to go, I shall tidy up the place, walk out the door, and leave succession to the process meant for just that purpose. Not my monkey, not my circus. I’m out.
The minute you start trying to call the shots after you’re gone… you’ve trapped yourself.
Goodbye RGB, a better jurist would’ve been a boring legal theorist who left behind a stable situation. You could have enjoyed the intellectual challenge and maintained the wonderful Republic which trusted you with the reins. Instead you overdosed on politics, drove your institution into a wall, went out like a fart in the church pews, and gave your worst enemy an easy position from which to score. Lame!
*Note: My next PredictIt update goes live in 12 hours.
