Mr Rulle has worked in the financial services industry for 30 years. He currently manages his own proprietary trading firm, MSR Investments LLC, which specializes in quantitative modeling of markets. He also writes commentary about Political Economy on his weblog, Law of the Bad Premise.
Prior to forming his own firm, Mr. Rulle held several senior positions in the Investment Management business and the Investment Banking business. He has been an Executive Committee Member at Lehman Brothers, CEO of CIBC Oppenheimer, President of Hamilton Partners, and President of Graham Capital Management.
Mr. Rulle graduated from Hobart College and studied Political Philosophy in Graduate School at William and Mary and Columbia University’s PHD program for 5 years. He also earned his MBA at Columbia and has taught finance as an adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School.
He has published several papers which have appeared in a variety of texts including “The New Generation of Risk Management” edited by Lars Jaeger, “Evaluating and Implementing Hedge Fund Strategies” edited by Ronald Lake, “Trend Following” edited by Michael Covel, and “Hedge Fund Risk Transparency” edited by Leslie Rahl. Mr Rulle has also been the subject of many articles in the financial industry and has appeared on several business shows.
Michael S. Rulle Jr.
NBC’s ObamaVision: ‘Law and Order’ — ‘This Is Why We Need Health-Care Reform’
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.NBC’s “Law and Order” is in its 20th season. The economy is weak, so they have devolved to converting White House talking points into weekly shows. Last week, “Doped” was a farcical equivalent of “Damien Thorn meets Karen Silkwood.” Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors are worse than drug cartels. The killers in the previous week’s episode on such cartels were more sympathetic than the health professionals.
In the opening scene, a woman with 4 children is driving the wrong way down the West Side Highway (like the Diane Schuler Taconic Parkway horror this summer). Speaking on her cell phone erratically (no “hands free!”), the kids get concerned. She decides it is time to use nasal spray for her allergies, which had been spiked without her knowledge. Flash forward and viewers see two mangled vehicles resulting in seven deaths. (more…)
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‘Mad Men’ Finale: Bringing It All Back Home
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Warning: Spoiler alert!
The “Mad Men” finale was a satisfying, although a bit too tidy, end to its 3rd season. When I was 8, my teenage sister introduced me to a card game called “52 Pick-Up.” When I handed her the deck, she tossed cards across the room. As I whined, she said, “What else did you think a card game called ‘52 Pick-Up’ was about?” When writers Weiner and Levy created chaos with all my familiar characters in the opening episode, I should have thought “52 Pick-Up.”
After all, they just had a merger for heaven’s sake. What else to expect? Relationships between and among characters changed as work and economic status changed, and they were reshuffled into new and less pleasing ones. But we became gradually more accustomed to the new “order,” although the dominant “feeling” was a cheerless dreariness. There were some memorable moments. When a drunk Lois amputated the erstwhile new Brit super star Guy MacKendrick’s foot with a John Deere tractor in the office, I laughed out loud for minutes. Taken one show at a time, they were good, but the cumulative gloom and doom became stifling. (more…)
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‘CSI: Miami’ Attacks ObamaCare Apostate
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.
A friend of mine asked me if I had seen” CSI: Miami” last week. I had not, but he suggested I take a look. He thought I might find something interesting. Warning: Spoiler Alert.
Not all television shows have blatant straw men capitalists cast as Beelzebub incarnate. In fact, many stay away from this topic. Although I have not done a count, there are still too many of these shows. One of the more bizarre depictions of a CEO as a “murder for profit” Satanic imp was presented in the “CSI: Miami” episode “Bad Seed” last Monday. If capitalists were really this evil, mankind would not have made it out of the stone ages, as all their customers would have been killed soon after each new advancement in technology. Of course, in these shows it is only the capitalists who are evil. Not government employees, local farmers, truck drivers, police officers, medical professionals, illegal migrant workers, distributors or really any other human being. Just owners of businesses are evil, because they care about profits. These characters are people who willfully engage in conspiratorial confiscatory practices and also play “God” by determining how many people it is okay to kill in order to sell a product and make a profit. (more…)
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Trivia Time: Can You Tell the Difference Between Lennon and McCartney?
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Time out from all things politics. Instead, let’s turn our attention to “all things Beatles trivia” for this short essay/game.
I went on Amazon yesterday to purchase The Beatles Stereo Box Set and was informed it was still on back order. Borders noted that the set will be available on a limited basis in October on a “first-come, first-served” basis. The Mono version, which sells for $30 more than the Stereo version, is also on back order. So the Beatles obviously remain popular.
One topic I have always found interesting is the distinction between Lennon’s songs and McCartney’s songs. Of the 200 plus songs the Beatles wrote, perhaps about 30 had some form of collaboration between the two, with maybe 20 being jointly written completely. Yet, I have always found this distinction very misleading. Their influence on each other was so deep that their individual songs really were effectively collaborations. Besides the obvious difference in sound between, say, Wings and McCartney written Beatles songs, I have constructed a “Beatles” trivia quiz below to demonstrate this point. I assert that we think we can tell the difference because most of us know the songs well. But in reality, they were highly influenced by the other and are more similar than we sometimes realize. (more…)
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Rep. Thaddeus McCotter: Real-Life Walt Kowalski
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Polish American Walt Kowalski, played to anti-hero perfection by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, stands against corruption and lawlessness and wins. But not before sacrificing his life. Kowalski is a Korean War veteran and retired auto worker living outside of Detroit. He is old and tired, and just wants to be left alone after the death of his wife. But fate and duty had other ideas. He carries a long held guilt over killing a surrendering soldier in the Korean War. His death redeems, not just his soul, but the soul of his town.
Events lead Kowalski to resist a local takeover by a Hmong youth gang. The Hmong are an ethnic Southeast Asian people, primarily from Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. In real life Michigan, they are among the fastest growing immigrants. Many Hmong people emigrated from South Vietnam after Democrats shamelessly withdrew monetary support from South Vietnam in 1974. The Paris Peace Agreements thus became toothless and North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam. “Boat people” fled Vietnam and the insane, murderous Pol Pot created the Cambodian Killing Fields. (more…)
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The Leonard-Tarantino Axis of Pulp Fiction
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.“Inglourious Basterds” opened this weekend. It has the potential to be satisfying for Quentin Tarantino fans. I will definitely see it. It is an “alternative history” of WWII, but despite its setting, Tarantino characterizes the movie as a “spaghetti western.” My guess is a hint of the “pulp fiction” writer Elmore Leonard will, like a super fine mist, be present in the film.
On my Facebook profile page, I dutifully filled out my personal interests. Under favorite movies I listed “anything Quentin Tarantino”; under novels I listed “anything Elmore Leonard.” What I left out under “movies” was “anything Elmore Leonard which seem like Quentin Tarantino” and vice versa. To me, they are almost indistinguishable. I have read virtually all of Leonard’s books. I just purchased today his latest, “Road Dogs.” I have seen nearly all of Tarantino’s movies. I have read or seen many of their works multiple times. I still get surprised by a Leonard movie from time to time. I recently saw “3:10 from Yuma” on TV. There was something rivetingly familiar about it. It turns out it was adapted from a 15 page short story by Leonard that I had never read. (more…)
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‘Mad Men’ Season 3 Premiere Disappoints
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.I became a “Sopranos” fan about three or four years after the show first aired. I thought it was great. I went back to rent the first four seasons to catch up and thought they were great too. I would write reviews of each show for fun and follow certain blogs. One theme of the blogs was how the show “changed” and it was no longer as good. I did not understand what they were talking about. I figured they were over thinking the show.
Welcome to my first reaction to Season 3 of “Mad Men.” I was surprised they skipped seven or eight months in time. The opening flashback scene of Don Draper’s childhood was linked to Betty’s pregnancy, but seemed perfunctory. They have a big firing scene about the head of accounts who had never been on the show before. He must have been hired after “Duck Phillips” was fired. But this made no sense, because it means the Brits would have already approved it and been involved. Pete Campbell’s wife undergoes a personality transplant and is suddenly a power person. The usually sharp eyed Betty misses the meaning of the Stewardess’s pin her daughter finds, as Draper pretends it is a gift. (more…)
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Return of ‘Mad Men’
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Sunday, August 16th, begins the third season of the exceptional AMC original series, “Mad Men.” The show is about a private Madison Avenue (hence the “Mad” in “Mad Men”) advertising firm, set in the early 60s. This show somehow touches all my subterranean hot buttons. “Mad Men’s” second season ended in the year 1962, at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the firm is about to be acquired by a London based agency. The second season’s finale was a perfectly coordinated display of the several character centered subplots, each reaching a critical turning point simultaneously. My tendency to see politics in everything is thwarted by this show, even as it is easily parodied politically, given current “mores and folkways.” But I’ll give it a shot.
The show has an uncanny ability to convince the audience it is watching people as they were then, with no intrusion of modern sensibilities and judgments. The show’s appearance is a gauzy impressionism, which helps create a nostalgic effect. There seems to be less dialogue than most shows. Characters are developed as much through facial reactions to events as with dialogue and plot lines. When watching the show, it feels like 1962, as I nostalgically remember it, even though I never heard of Madison Avenue until years later. Plot lines are about getting and losing clients, and they can be amusing. But plots are primarily designed to create interest in each character. (more…)
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What the Democrats Can Learn from the Beatles
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Forty years ago this week the cover photo for the “Abbey Road” album was taken, representing the final walk of the Beatles as a rock group.
Fourteen days later, on August 22nd, they posed together for a final promotional photo shoot, which was their last appearance together at any Beatles event. Although one more album was released (”Let it Be”), “Abbey Road” was the last album recorded by the band, which was already virtually dissolved as a unit. Yet the album was a great artistic and commercial success. The “Let it Be” album was intended to be released first, but the group did not think it ready. They moved on to record “Abbey Road” and released it on September 26th and October 1st, 1969, respectively, in the UK and the US. The cover photo, fittingly designed by Paul (as he was the only member who had a passion to keep the group together; even as he finally sued to end the partnership), depicts the band’s final crossing of “Abbey Road,” toward their studio home of the prior eight years. Ironically, even bizarrely, convicted murderer and “wall of sound” creator, Phil Specter, did the final mixing in 1970 of several songs on “Let it Be,” almost as an audition. He was not aware there would be no more Beatles, although he did some work for Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. (more…)
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The Tragi-Comedy of Sonia Sotomayor
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.
“I’m looking through you, where did you go? I thought I knew you, what did I know? You don’t look different, but you have changed. I’m looking through you, you’re not the same.” — Lennon/McCartney: “Rubber Soul,” 1965
When Sonia Sotomayor was nominated in May, I wrote a satirical essay for Big Hollywood called The ‘Magic Latina’. The title was a send up of the “Magic Negro,” or “Magical Negro,” a fictional stereotype common in film and literature. The “Magic Negro” has been criticized by white and black commentators alike. Blacks, most famously Spike Lee, but many others, view the role as ultimately degrading. As Rita Kempley, writing for DVRepublic, said about the “Magic Negro,” “What’s the deal with all the holy roles?” The core of the critique is that the characters are given special powers and/or underlying mysticism. It is not that the characters per se are so bad. The perception is that this kind of character, the selfless and powerful, insightful, and sometimes magical being, is always black, has no “interior life”, and is always serving white people. To name a few at random, they include such famous stars as Hattie McDaniel (”Gone with the Wind”), Sidney Poitier (”The Defiant Ones”), Morgan Freeman (”Shawshank Redemption,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Bruce Almighty”), and Laurence Fishburne (”The Matrix”). (more…)
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Californication and a Girl’s Guitar
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.I have been trying to figure out how to work the Red Hot Chile Peppers’ (RHCP) 1999 hit, Californication, into a blog. I had known and liked the song for some time. Who doesn’t? But other than simply liking the song and having a general sense of what it was about, I had never listened closely. Of course, the title itself has almost the entire meaning of the song within it. I had recently read economist Russell Robert’s Hayekian novel, “The Price of Everything.” It is a simple yet spiritual characterization of the mystery of what Hayek called the “spontaneous order” in human organization.
Then, when on my Stairmaster one day listening to the song, I heard a phrase that could have been written by the Capitalist philosopher, Joseph Schumpeter. I replayed the song and then also picked up the same spiritual sense I got from the Robert’s novel. Now, when the endorphins get going in exercise, many strange thoughts come to mind. But I needed to take a closer look at the song. (more…)
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Hollywood’s Silent Spring
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course. The city fathers, they’re trying to endorse, the reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse. But the town has no need to be nervous. The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits, to Jezebel the nun, she violently knits. A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits, at the head of the Chamber of Commerce.
Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes. Daddy’s in the alley, he’s lookin’ for food; I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues. “Tombstone Blues” – Bob Dylan
Perhaps the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson had many Hollywood stars contemplating their own future obituaries. But the industry, which has been strongly committed to promoting the dangers of man-made global warming, was strangely silent on the Waxman-Markey bill which squeaked though the House last week. The United States economy, i.e., actual real human beings who live in America, continues to suffer from the enormous Obama-lead government’s allocation of resources by massive deficit spending and taxes. The axis of deception changes with each specific fiscal proposal. (more…)
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Philosophical Divide: Sarah Palin vs. Pop Culture’s Moral Relativists
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.The Main Point
The world view, or philosophical perspective, of Sarah Palin versus say, David Letterman’s or Katie Couric’s, is profound at its core. Not only are the philosophical differences profound, but the political implications of those differences are as equally profound.
Palin is the philosophical descendant of those who created this country’s constitution; Couric and Letterman, on the other hand, like much of the Bi-Coastal Media/Entertainment Left, are more consistent with the self annihilating philosophy of moral relativism. While Palin is intelligent and constant in her views, I make no similar claims specifically about Letterman and Couric, relative to their views. They strike me as shallow and weak. Palin implicitly understands the limitations of Reason. Moral relativists do not. Our founding fathers also understood man’s limitations and established a constitution whose core principle was Liberty, supported strongly by laws to protect this Liberty. The Left, on the other hand, believe that “truth” can be imposed on individuals and society as a whole. Many have commented on the futility of the latter. Frederich Hayek’sThe Road To Serfdom is the clearest explanation of how that view ultimately and logically has lead to totalitarianism; the ultimate expression of political nihilism and its philosophical antecedent, moral relativism. (more…)
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The ‘Magic Latina’
by Michael S. Rulle Jr.Once again, life imitates art as farce. And irony prevails.
The Sonia Sotomayor candidacy for Supreme Court Justice is beginning to heat up. There is much to admire about her personal story and success. But she should not be confirmed as a Justice. Most commentaries discuss the optimal way for Republicans to lose the debate. Of course she will be confirmed, all agree. Democrats happily dare Republicans to attack her Hispanic–or is it Latina?–heritage. (As an aside, my wife, who is a Cuban born emigre, has been confounded many times as to which “box to check” on various forms we all confront from time to time.)
Republicans shiver in their boots as they debate the question of whether to attack Sonia Sotomayor for her “wise Latina women are wiser than white males” quote, or for her “the Appeals Court makes public policy” quote. All Republicans are warned vociferously–and they agree just as vociferously–to not make “personal attacks.” The fact that no one has made, or suggested Republicans make, personal attacks is seemingly ignored. (more…)
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