Thomas W. Jones on From Willard Straight to Wallstreet and What Happened at Citigroup

In this interview, Thomas W. Jones talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his book, From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir.



“Give yourself a personal gift of 100% effort to achieve your highest potential.” ~Thomas W. Jones

Citigroup had entered a contract related to mutual funds, and the Securities and Exchange Commission had claimed that the contract concerned wasn’t fully properly disclosed to the mutual fund board. The Citigroup legal department had vetted the contract in all details, and while Citigroup settled the complaint, they didn’t include the otherwise usual provision that the senior management group concerned was also included in the terms of settlement. The SEC took this to mean that Citigroup had investigated the matter and concluded that the senior managers were at fault, hence the lack of inclusion of the senior managers in the terms of settlement - something which Tom remarked was “cynical” of then-CEO Charles Prince. This resulted in the full force of the federal government, through the SEC bringing charges against him, being brought on Thomas, and Thomas, rather than settle, spent eight years clearing his name. This process cost “millions” of dollars, and Thomas pointed out that the cost of his defense will not be recovered. He noted that, while the case against him was ongoing, he wouldn’t be able to hold a senior job in a regulated industry if one was in a fight against the regulating body, and that he chose to fight the charges because he was right and because he didn’t want those whom he worked with to think that there was anything shady about him. As he wasn’t employable, he thus needed to find a way to generate the funds needed for his legal defense as well as to support his family.

Thomas has noted that the way corporate America has changed since the 1970s, when he began working. As an example of this, Thomas notes that the CEO of General Electric, in the 1970s, retired with a package worth $10 million (around $50 million in today’s money); today, that CEO will retire with a retirement package worth $1 billion, and this cascades down the line, with the second in line getting a half billion dollar retirement package, the third in line getting a quarter billion dollar retirement package, and so on. He notes that this means that most of a company’s wealth is tied up with the top executives, and recalls that, in the 1970s, people viewed joining a major company to be a lifetime career move, with generous retirement and medical benefits. Thomas remarks that, in the 1970s, during a time which he called a period of “benevolent capitalism,” companies structured their guaranteed retirement packages so that retirees got around 65% of their working salary. All this changed, he notes, in the 1980s, when corporate raiders would buy and then control companies and then increase the companies’ cash flow by stripping out the costs (which included medical and retirement benefits and jobs) and then reselling those companies at a higher value, thanks to the apparent increased profitability of the company due to its increased cash flow. This led to later CEOs getting a mentality of wanting to cut costs wherever possible, and this shows itself in today’s environment, where retirement benefits are no longer fully funded by a company and medical benefits are greatly reduced. According to Thomas, this has resulted in a fear of people are able to keep up, and is a source for millennial thinking that capitalism isn’t the way to go, and perhaps socialism is. (In some comments made after the interview, Thomas remarked that the era of benevolent capitalism began after the Great Depression, when those in power realized that the common people had lost faith in the capitalist system and were likely to turn to socialism and communism.) He also notes that this has led to the transactional nature of work at present, which then breeds insecurity and which creates to tone of politics and the angry discourse that is prevalent today.

Where racism is concerned, Thomas notes that, at the present, the amount of progress that has been made isn’t front and center, whereas the issues that still need to be addressed are. He notes that there is still discrimination and believes that racist crimes, while these still do occur, are far less frequent now compared to fifty or a hundred years ago, as well as notes that the police back then weren’t punished for their actions. “It’s not perfect,” he notes, “but it’s moved in the right direction,” pointing out that people from non-white groups are now members of the middle class, thanks to this progress. Thomas also adds that the quality of education also plays a role in opportunities for everybody, but that, under the present system, as education is funded by local property taxes, those communities which collect a lesser amount of property tax will have fewer resources available for education that those which can collect more from their property taxes. This would explain why wealthier people, who cluster into higher-income communities, can afford good public education systems for their children, while those from lower-income communities cannot; and this means that children from the latter communities aren’t as prepared as those who come from the former communities.

Thomas has an investment fund which invests in startup businesses, and he enjoys being involved in this because of the energy and creativity of the people who are starting up new businesses. “This entrepreneurial energy is the secret sauce that makes America more successful than any other country around the world,” he notes. His fund identifies if a would-be business has a product that can solve a particular problem, as well as any added value when this product is applied and the size of the market. The revenue that can be generated is also considered, and the startup company is thus set up in a way where it can make the most impact.

Thomas emphasizes that the United States has come so far, as a country, from where it used to be, and while it should recognize that there is still some issues that need to be resolved, all should be proud of what has come out. On a personal level, he notes that the discipline of doing one’s best, of giving 100% every day, enables self-actualization, where one achieves one’s full potential. “You’re the only person who can do that,” he remarks.


Purchase from Amazon: 
From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir by Thomas W. Jones

Thomas Jones’ first interview on AuthorStory can be found here:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xwa3xSBYczM

AuthorStory Blog Link: https://authorstoryinterviews.blogspot.com/2019/10/thomas-w-jones-on-his-journey-from.html

AuthorStory Video Blog Link: https://authorstory-videos.blogspot.com/2019/10/thomas-w-jones-tells-his-story-of.html

Bruce Olav Solheim on Ghosts and Other Unseen Spirits and Now Aliens | Timeless Deja Vu: A Paranormal Personal History

In this interview, Bruce Olav Solheim talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his book, Timeless Deja Vu: A Paranormal Personal History.



“Reducing your fear and increasing your understanding is a good way to go.” ~Bruce Olav Solheim

Bruce has recently begun teaching a course on the paranormal at Citrus College, where he gives a framework for people to understand these activities.  People have been very interested in his course, as Bruce notes that people are desperate for a safe place where they can tell their stories of paranormal experiences. He invites guest speakers to speak in his course and uses some of the frameworks these speakers use, and also defines such terms as mediumship, telekinesis and telepathy. Bruce also speaks on the history of the paranormal, as well as leads the class on events such as seances. He remarks that such a framework grounds people, so that paranormal events and activities don’t come off as freakish or weird.

Bruce remarks that his first book, Timeless: A Paranormal Personal History, was intended to “test the waters,” and that he goes into more detail with Timeless Deja Vu and even moreso with his third, upcoming book, which will be “edgier.” He also is presently planning to come out with a comic book, Snark, which will be illustrated by the illustrator for his books, and its premise is about an alien who travels to the Earth as a scout who is sent out to prepare for an invasion of Earth, and who will then travel around the world and in various times as part of his mission, along the way falling in love with humanity. The project is “very exciting” for Bruce, and he plans to do the ComicCon circuit to promote it.

Bruce’s thesis is that the quantum, paranormal and alien worlds are all one and the same thing. Timeless Deja Vu covers 31 more paranormal events which Bruce experienced, including an event which helps give the book its name. Bruce explains deja vu as being a time where past, present and future all come together, and believes that deja vu provides humans with a glimpse of the quantum world. He remarks that “the present is a moving target,” pointing out that there is no frozen moment where time is concerned, and that this is also the nature of the quantum world. He also notes that, in a subatomic perspective, everything is moving and connected, even though things may feel solid and stationary at the human scale. He also notes that subatomic particles are both particle-like and wavelike, and that we humans create a reality that is familiar to us and which we are taught and trained to believe.

Bruce believes that aliens operate in the spiritual and quantum realms, which enables them to travel the large distances they do. He differentiates aliens from spirits, in that aliens are not native to the Earth, while spirits used to be native to the Earth. He references Michael Masters and his book, Identified Flying Objects, where he opines that some “aliens” are humans from the distant future who are coming back in time to check on present-day human beings. Bruce also believes that there are true extraterrestrial aliens who do come to Earth, and notes that people he has spoken with who speak of alien encounters are down-to-earth people. He also remarks that the US government is coming out with small bits of information about UFO encounters, such as the “Tic Tac” encounter experienced by the US Navy off Baja, California in 2004, and believes that greater disclosure is imminent. Where reasons are concerned, Bruce believes that there are different reasons, pointing out our own, different human motives for traveling and searching, such as tourists, those who are out to conduct scientific research as well as those who would seek to exploit humans for their own gain. He notes that alien technology is so advanced that they could easily take humanity over, if they wanted to.

Bruce confirms that it is possible for parallel worlds to interact with our own, and gives the example in his book where he and his son somehow avoided a potentially fatal accident at an intersection, thanks to his experiencing something along the lines of the kind of “bullet time” popularized by The Matrix film trilogy. He gives this as an example of what he describes as a “fork in the road of time,” and adds that, in a different fork, he and his son could have been seriously injured or killed.

Bruce believes that the sheer number of paranormal experiences that he has had is partially hereditary, as his own mother was psychic. He points out that intuition is paranormal in nature, and that sensing when someone stares at one is the same. Bruce remarks that he is likely to be one of those people who is a “lightning rod” for such activities, in the same way others would be able to throw a ball at 90 miles per hour. That said, he notes that the challenge is about turning off such abilities during such activities as going to parties or even going to sleep, and opines that some people who go mad might do so because they are so perceptive that they cannot do so.

Bruce notes that he believes that there are guardian angels, or spirits who are with all of us human beings in our lives, and that, while these won’t necessarily bail us out if we deliberately go into danger, they could provide their charges with guidance and the occasional push to get things done, as well as intervene subtly. He notes that angels were never human beings, as opposed to ghosts, which are either former human beings who cannot move along the astral pathways, such as being lost on these, or which are essentially things like “tape loops” which just happen over and over again. Bruce remarks that intelligent spirits speak without the personas that we humans all assume, as they are more honest and have nothing to hide. He also remarks that, on ghost hunting shows, the ghost hunters stir up the spirits in the place and leave these still stirred up after they leave, which might not be good for the person who owns the place where the spirits are.

Bruce notes that, just because one doesn’t understand something means that it should be feared, because if one does react with fear, one can start analyzing about what the experience is all about. He remarks that there are charlatans who would take one’s money and run, so people should seek out legitimate people who can help them understand what is going on, if they experienced a paranormal activity.

Bruce Olav Solheim’s first interview on AuthorStory

Timeless: A Paranormal Personal History (Book 1) AuthorStory Interviews blog post

Bruce Olav Solheim on the AuthorStory Videos blog

Purchase from Amazon: Timeless Deja Vu: A Paranormal Personal History by Bruce Olav Solheim

Dr. David A. Salomon on The Seven Deadly Sins and Their Influence in Society from the Middle Ages to the Modern World

In this interview, Dr. David A. Salomon talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his book, The Seven Deadly Sins: How Sin Influenced the West from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era.



“Our buying into anything that is technological and fast has gotten in the way of our ability to engage in reflection and contemplation, which are important parts of human existence.” ~Dr. David A. Salomon

As a Jewish child, sin was more of a generic concept than anything else, as it was part and parcel of his religious education. It was only when he was in college that he encountered the “seven deadly sins,” and he delved into it as part of his work on doing research on Christianity and religion, particularly in the Middle Ages and the English renaissance. He is presently involved in a research project comparing the concept of “the self” as proposed by St. Augustine in comparison with that same concept as proposed by Carl Jung, noting that, starting from around the 20th century, people have shifted from looking at sin as a religious concept to looking at it from a more secular concept.

The Seven Deadly Sins sprang from a year of research and another year of writing it out. Dr. Salomon originally didn’t intend to write the book, but the seed of the book began when the editor of a previous book he had written gave him a list of subjects for possible books that they were looking for. One of the subjects was a history of sin, and while Dr. Salomon originally said “no,” he changed his mind after re-reading a scene of St. Augustine’s Confessions.

The “Seven Deadly Sins” was actually codified, as a concept, by Pope Gregory the Great in the 4th century and was based on previous lists of sins which go back centuries before. The seven deadly sins are (in no particular order):

1. Pride - thinking that one is bigger than one actually is
2. Lust - excess desire
3. Anger - excessive feelings of anger
4. Avarice - greed
5. Envy - (like wanting a possession of someone else)
6. Gluttony - excess eating
7. Sloth - laziness

Dr. Salomon points out that the seven deadly sins are actually excessive behaviors, such as gluttony being excessive eating and drinking, as people do need to eat and drink to survive. He remarks that the definitions of the sins haven’t changed, but the context by which people regard these. Dr. Salomon points out the sin of gluttony in the context of excessive input of anything into one’s body, which would include being overloaded with data and being glued to electronics for a great amount of time.

The impact of the list being put together, according to Dr. Salomon, was that the Roman Catholic Church was able to use the sins as a way to control people’s behavior. It was only during the Reformation and after the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press which made the Bible available to a larger audience, rather than merely to members of the Church, that people began to make decisions for themselves, based on what they had read. This has moved the conversation of responsibility for behavior to the individual, which became the norm in the 20th century.

Dr. Salomon remarks that, under the present context, the sins can be viewed from a spiritual, rather than a religious, sense, so that an individual can take sin into consideration without necessarily belonging to a religion. This movement is more prevalent in the Western world than anywhere else, and stands in stark contrast to the way sin was viewed as a “black and white” issue in the Middle Ages. This opens up the context of individual interpretation, which Dr. Salomon remarks could be potentially dangerous in society, and has created an atmosphere where assessing what is right and what is wrong is more difficult.

Dr. Salomon notes that there is presently a split in attitudes where the Western and Eastern cultures are concerned. Western people look externally for assessment and approval, as can be seen by the concept in Christianity, Judaism and Islam as looking to God as an external force. Eastern people have more of a sense that God resides within an individual, which leads to reflection about one’s own behavior rather than looking to an external standard. He notes that Eastern traditions do have their own lists of sins which are different from the seven deadly sins, and that these are looked at differently compared to how sin is regarded in Western traditions.

Dr. Salomon notes that a lot of Westerners might believe in the concept of sin, but they can’t really define what sin is, as it has become more personal and less communal. Sin, Dr. Salomon noted, was originally about committing an act which was a violation of the covenant made between God and man, and that that developed into a violation of a covenant made amongst people where acceptable behavior is concerned. He notes that actually writing out a full history of sin would take more books, and that nowadays, behavior is being re-categorized, with the example given being the #MeToo movement.

For Dr. Salomon, the impact that technology is having on sinful behavior was one of the most interesting aspects he encountered while writing the book, and he includes references to how technology negatively influences people’s lives. According to him, technology is presently getting the way of our humanity and of how we relate to each other, which he believes Gregory would include as a sin if the kind of technology presently available was present during his day.

Purchase from Amazon: 
The Seven Deadly Sins: How Sin Influenced the West from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era by Dr. David A. Salomon

Howard M. Wasserman on His Infield Fly Rule Is in Effect Book for Baseball Fans and Lawyers

In this interview, Howard M. Wasserman talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his book, Infield Fly Rule Is in Effect: The History and Strategy of Baseball's Most (In)Famous Rule.



“The study of law is the study of rules.” ~Howard M. Wasserman

Howard has always been a big baseball fan and has had a fascination with the rules of baseball and with the infield fly rule in particular. Howard’s interest in the infield fly rule was sparked during the National League Wild Card Game in 2012, when the calling of the rule proved to be controversial. For Howard, this was one example of how sports could be used as an analogy for legal rules and principles, and he notes that judges and lawyers use sports analogies in the course of their work. Baseball, Howard notes, is a game where there is a rule present for just about everything that happens, as well as the game being slow enough for people to see what happens and why the rule should or shouldn’t be applied. He also notes that a British lawyer would likely use a soccer analogy rather than a baseball analogy, as that sport is more popular in Great Britain.

Howard explains that the infield fly rule was created originally, in the 1890s, with sportsmanship in mind and was created for a particular situation, where there are runners already present on at least first and second bases, a fly ball his hit and the infielder who could catch it doesn’t need to exert any particular effort to catch it, such as running a long distance in order to get the ball. The infield fly rule states that, whether or not the fly ball is so caught by the infielder, it is treated as already having been caught by that infielder, which would mean that the batter would be called out. The purpose of the rule is to prevent the defensive team from getting what would essentially be easy outs of multiple runners on bases, as if the ball isn’t caught, deliberately or otherwise, the defending team’s infielder could easily pick the ball up and throw it to his teammates, who can then take out two or three of the offensive team’s runners, since the runners will be forced to advance to the next base if the batter does advance to first base.

The genesis of the book came about during the aforementioned 2012 game, after which Howard then researched into the infield fly rule to see why its existence can be justified, which included an exploration of the exact situation when the rule should be applied. He remarks that there is some misunderstanding about when the infield fly rule should be invoked, noting that, in some cases, this was invoked when an outfielder caught the ball or, as in the case of the 2012 wild card game, the infielder was already in the outfield when the ball was in flight. He remarks that the call in the 2012 game sprang from the interpretation of the rule, where the situation fit the text of the rule but didn’t fit the situation that existed at the time, based on the original purpose of the rule - something which, is also present in the practice of law. That said, Howard notes that deception has always been part and parcel of what baseball is about, but the infield fly rule is thus intended to neutralize the defending team’s ability to create a play which has only benefits to them, and which has only costs for the offensive team.

The infield fly rule is well-known because it is a named rule, and Howard remarks that the nearest parallel rule in another sport is the offside rule in soccer. He also remarks that one of the fascinations of baseball for lawyers and judges is that law can be explored through the rules that rule baseball, as the study of law is essentially the study of rules, and that the rules society runs by are, just as in sports, intended to enable things to run smoothly.

Purchase from Amazon: Infield Fly Rule Is in Effect: The History and Strategy of Baseball's Most (In)Famous Rule by Howard M. Wasserman