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Risk Parity Whitepaper
While the allocations of traditional portfolios appear "balanced," often a large share of their overall risk results from their allocation to equities, which are considerably riskier than other asset classes. As a result, investors seeking to achieve high expected returns by increasing their allocation to equities are commonly forced to hold portfolios that are highly concentrated from a risk perspective.
Risk parity is a portfolio diversification strategy which addresses risk concentration by first equalizing the risk contributions of each asset class, and then uses leverage to scale the risk of the resultant allocation to the desired volatility. The academic research, which inspired the strategy, dates back to the 1970s and the strategy itself has been employed by institutional and high-net worth clients since the 1990s.
This whitepaper explains how one would create a risk parity portfolio and examines the hypothetical backtested performance of this time-tested, rules-based approach to portfolio construction.
We construct a hypothetical risk parity strategy in two steps. First, we create an unlevered portfolio that balances the risk contributions of the constituent asset classes. Relative to traditional portfolio construction methods, such as mean-variance optimization, the resulting portfolio will generally overweight low risk asset classes (bonds) relative to high risk asset classes (equities). As a consequence, it will tend to have a relatively low volatility.
Second, we apply leverage to achieve a target level of volatility. In practice, this can be achieved through explicit borrowing or the use of derivatives like a total return swap. The volatility of the unlevered risk parity portfolio will generally change over time due to changes in the volatility of the underlying asset classes. By periodically adjusting the amount of leverage, the strategy is able to target a constant level of volatility, in contrast to traditional portfolios whose volatility changes dramatically over time.
Balancing Risk Contributions
The essence of a risk parity strategy is to equalize the risk contributions of each asset class in the portfolio. In order to mathematically define these risk contributions, one first needs to settle on a measure of portfolio risk. While there are many possible choices, a commonly chosen metric for constructing risk parity strategies is the portfolio's volatility (i.e. the square root of the portfolio's variance). The virtue of using volatility is that it allows for an elegant additive decomposition of the portfolio's volatility into contributions from the underlying asset classes.
If we let ω denote the portfolio weight vector, and Σ denote the variance-covariance matrix of asset returns, the portfolio volatility — written as a function of the weights — is expressed by:
where the prime denotes the matrix transpose. The risk contribution of each asset class is then obtained by multiplying elementwise the portfolio weights with the partial derivative of the portfolio's volatility. The elementwise multiplication is denoted by ⊙ in the definition below.
The risk contributions of all the asset classes sum to the portfolio's volatility. Equivalently, if the risk contributions are scaled by the volatility they will sum to one. When searching for the portfolio weights that equalize the risk contributions, we additionally impose the constraints that: (a) the weights are strictly positive (i.e. we do not allow for shorting) and (b) the sum of the weights has to equal one (i.e. the portfolio is unlevered).
A striking feature of this portfolio construction methodology is that it requires an estimate of the variance-covariance matrix of asset returns, Σ. This is distinct from traditional portfolio construction methods, such as mean-variance optimization, which require estimates of both the expected returns ("means") and risks ("variances") for each of the asset classes. This represents a potentially meaningful benefit as asset class expected returns are considerably more difficult to estimate than variances (Merton (1980)).
To illustrate the computation of portfolio risk contributions, Table 1 examines a traditional 60/40 equity/bond portfolio, which is commonly regarded as a "balanced" allocation. For the purposes of illustration, let's assume equities have an annualized volatility of 15%, bonds an annualized volatility of 5%, and the two assets have a correlation of -0.50. The table below displays the portfolio weights, volatilities, risk contributions (which sum to the portfolio volatility), and the risk contributions divided by the portfolio volatility (which sum to one).
The computation of the relative risk contributions exposes that the risk of the supposedly "balanced" 60/40 portfolio is actually dominated by equities, so much so that their relative risk contribution even exceeds 100% (8.8% vs. 8.2% for the entire portfolio). Put differently, bonds are not only less risky than equities, they play an important role as a risk diversifier through their negative correlation with equities. To solve for an equity/bond portfolio where asset class risk contributions are equalized we use a numerical solver to obtain the results in Table 2.
Relative to the traditional "balanced" portfolio, the risk parity portfolio increases the allocation to bonds and decreases the allocation to equities. As a result, the portfolio achieves a considerably lower volatility than the original 60/40 equity/bond allocation (4.1% vs. 8.2%). To obtain a comparable level of portfolio risk with the 60/40 portfolio, the investor would need to leverage the risk parity portfolio. The quantity of leverage necessary to achieve a given target volatility is equal to the ratio of the target volatility and the volatility of the unlevered portfolio:
In the above case, matching the volatility of the 60/40 equity/bond allocation would require leveraging the risk parity portfolio by a factor of 2x (8.2%/4.1%). In other words you would have to borrow an amount equal to the value of an unlevered portfolio.
Impact of Time-Varying Asset Class Risk
In practice, asset class volatilities (and correlations) can change meaningfully over time both in absolute terms (e.g. the volatility of equities spikes considerably during times of market declines) and relative to one another. To illustrate this, Figure 1 plots the realized annualized volatility for U.S. equities and U.S. bonds over the last two decades, using a rolling window of six months of daily returns.
Figure 1 illustrates three important phenomena. First, the volatility of individual asset classes varies over time, such that the composition of an equity/bond risk parity portfolio would also change over time. Importantly, the changes in asset class volatilities are somewhat persistent (i.e. periods of high volatility are followed by gradual declines), such that past levels of volatility can be used to forecast future levels of volatility for short horizons. This phenomenon was first observed by Robert Engle, Professor of Management and Financial Services at New York University, who developed a class of econometric models to measure and forecast the volatility of time series data. These models, known as autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity models (or ARCH models), were subsequently recognized with the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics. Applying such models to a moving window of daily historical data allows us to construct a forward-looking estimate of the variance-covariance matrix of asset returns, Σ, which can in turn be used to compute portfolio allocations that equalize the risk contributions of various asset classes.
To illustrate these effects, suppose we continue with our simplified stock/bond example, but additionally assume the market entered an extended downturn. In such periods, ARCH models typically forecast a higher level of volatility. For the sake of illustration, let's assume the forecasts of equity and bond volatilities rise to 40% and 10%, well within the historically observed range of volatilities displayed in Figure 1. Based on these forecasts, the risk parity composition would change as displayed in Table 3, reallocating even further away from equities and toward bonds.
The shift in asset class volatilities (holding the correlations fixed) increases the risk of the overall portfolio from 4.1% in the baseline case (Table 2) to 8.0% (Table 3). For comparison, under the same volatility assumptions, the shift in the volatility of a portfolio rebalanced to a constant 60/40 equity/bond allocation would have been even more dramatic, reaching 22.3%, or nearly triple its baseline level (Table 1). This illustrates that portfolios targeting fixed portfolio weights can experience very significant variation in their risk over the business cycle, with volatility rising rapidly following large market declines (e.g. 2008 credit crisis).
Finally, at these increased volatilities, if the risk parity investor continued to target an annualized volatility of 8.2%, i.e. the annualized volatility of the 60/40 portfolio in its baseline case (Table 1), the required portfolio leverage would be 1.025x (8.2% from the original allocation/8.0% from the high volatility case). Thus the required portfolio leverage declines from a factor of 2x in the baseline scenario to roughly 1x in the stress scenario.
The above examples illustrate the key features of applying the risk parity portfolio construction methodology, while targeting a fixed level of portfolio risk:
The allocation of a portfolio equalizing risk contributions changes over time based on the forecasts of volatilities and correlations among the asset classes.
The quantity of leverage required to achieve a fixed level of portfolio volatility varies over time.
Accessing Leverage
As the above examples illustrate, equalizing the risk contributions of the asset classes, and achieving a fixed level of portfolio volatility are distinct tasks. The first task can be achieved by applying the portfolio construction methodology described above to one's forecast of the variance-covariance matrix of asset class returns. The second task requires applying a time-varying quantity of leverage.
The simple way to apply leverage is to directly borrow money. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find a lender who will offer financing at a reasonable rate if the portfolio grows to be very large. An alternative and more practical way to generate leverage is to enter into a "Total Return Swap" with a counterparty like a trading desk at a large bank.
In a total return swap, one party (the portfolio manager) agrees to make interest payments based on a set rate in return for the other party (the bank) committing to make payments based on the total return of an underlying asset. The set rate is commonly expressed as a combination of a reference rate, such as OBFR (the Overnight Bank Funding Rate), and a spread. The precise details of such a transaction would be governed by an International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) agreement negotiated between the two parties.
In the case of using a total return swap to build a risk parity portfolio, the portfolio manager might agree to pay an interest rate of OBFR plus 50 basis points in return for the bank trading desk committing to deliver the return from the index funds that represent the risk parity portfolio of the sort found in Tables 2 and 3. Banks have very sizable balance sheets that enable them to offer very large total return swaps. They generate a profit based on the spread they charge over OBFR because they can borrow for less than OBFR. The total return swap makes sense to the portfolio manager as long as the return of the index funds acquired in the levered risk parity portfolio minus the rate charged by the bank is superior to that of other risk-matched investments.
Let us illustrate with an example. Suppose the portfolio manager and the bank enter into a one month swap with a notional amount of $100 million and a financing rate of 1%. If the underlying risk parity portfolio appreciated by 2.5% over one month, the bank would send the portfolio manager an amount equal to $2.5 million (2.5% * $100 million) at the end of the month, and the portfolio manager would send the bank a payment of $83,333 (1.0% * $100 million * 1/12). In practice, the parties commonly only exchange the net payment, so here the portfolio manager would actually receive a payment of $2,416,667. If the underlying asset depreciated by 2.5% over one month, the bank would have no payments to make, while portfolio manager would have to send an amount equal to the depreciation plus the interest payment ($83,333), for a total payment of $2,583,333 ($2.5 million + $83,333). More generally, the profit-and-loss, or PnL, of the swap can be written as:
Notice that the payoff of the swap is economically equivalent to the portfolio manager having purchased an amount of the underlying asset equal to the swap's notional value, N, while borrowing the funds at a rate determined by the set financing rate, f, equal to (OBFR + spread). In this sense, a total return swap provides the portfolio manager synthetic leveraged exposure to the underlying asset.
In order to guard against the risk that the portfolio manager is unable to make the promised payment in the event that the underlying asset depreciates significantly (i.e. counterparty risk), the bank will generally demand the posting of collateral at the inception of the transaction. This collateral amount may be further adjusted over the course of the life of the swap based on daily changes in the value of the underlying asset. Typically, the bank would accept the posting of cash or U.S. Treasury securities as collateral with the precise type and quantity determined by the ISDA agreement.
To clarify the amount of leverage implicit in a total return swap arrangement, suppose the portfolio manager actually had only $50 million in assets, but wanted to obtain exposure to $100 million of the underlying asset. It could either do this by buying $100 million of the underlying asset using $50 million of its own funds and borrowing the other $50 million, or it could enter into a total return swap with a notional of $100 million, while posting the $50 million as collateral for the swap. In both cases, the leverage — measured as total asset exposure divided by the investor's capital in the transaction — in this transaction is equal to 2x.
From here, one can see that by entering into a total return swap where the "underlying asset" is defined to be a multi-asset class portfolio with equalized risk contributions, one is in position to periodically adjust both the composition of the reference portfolio, as well as, the quantity of leverage applied. These features make total return swaps an efficient mechanism for the implementation of a risk parity strategy.
Risk Parity Strategy Backtest
This section explores the historical performance of a hypothetical risk parity strategy from June 1, 1996 to September 30, 2017, which represents the period for which we have realized return data for commercially available funds envisioned to comprise the hypothetical portfolio.
The key assumptions of the backtest are as follows:
Asset Classes: The risk parity portfolio is constructed from index funds that represent a combination of seven asset classes, which includes US Equities, Foreign Developed Equities, Emerging Market Equities, US Bonds, Emerging Market Bonds, Energy Stocks, and REITs.
Reference Portfolio: The returns of each asset class are based on the returns of broadly diversified index exchange traded funds or mutual funds, and are computed net of the management fee of the respective fund. We rely on data for mutual funds only when comparable data for the exchange traded fund is unavailable.
Fees and Trading Costs: The returns on the reference portfolio are computed net of management fees charged by the underlying funds. However, the strategy backtest does not incorporate costs associated with trading the funds. Also, unless stated otherwise, the strategy returns are presented before the deduction of a management fee.
Rebalancing: The risk parity portfolio is rebalanced monthly.
Volatility Target: The strategy targets a constant annualized volatility of 12%.
Leverage: The strategy is assumed to have been able to obtain leverage using a total return swap with the unlevered risk parity portfolio as the underlying asset at a financing rate equal to the 1-month Treasury Bill rate plus a spread of 75 basis points. Swap payments are assumed to be exchanged at each month-end. The strategy leverage is capped at a maximum of 3x. The assumed financing rate is hypothetical, and currently higher than what we have been offered; a higher (lower) financing rate reduces (increases) the reported backtested returns.
Collateral: The assets of the hypothetical strategy are assumed to be fully invested in 1 Month Treasury Bills, which are available for use as collateral to establish and maintain the total return swap position.
At each month-end we construct a forecast of the one-month asset class variance-covariance matrix using a rolling, backward-looking window of daily returns. Using this estimator, Σ, we compute the composition of the unlevered risk parity portfolio, ω, as described in the first section of this white paper. Figure 2 displays the variation in the composition of the unlevered portfolio over time. The allocations to US bonds and emerging market bonds dominate the composition of the portfolio. Specifically, over this time period the average allocations to the seven asset classes were: US Equities (7%), Foreign Developed Equities (7%), Emerging Market Equities (6%), US Bonds (52%), Emerging Market Bonds (14%), Energy Stocks (6%), and REITs (8%).
The combined allocation to the two bond asset classes was particularly large in the period following the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis (August 1998) and the credit crisis (Fall 2008). However, a key difference between these two events is that during the LTCM crisis emerging market bond volatilities spiked alongside equity volatilities, such that the portfolio tilted disproportionately toward safe US bonds, rather than emerging market bonds. During the second of these events, allocation to both types of bonds rose, since the reallocation was driven primarily by the disproportionate rise in the forecasts of equity market volatilities (US, Foreign Developed, and Emerging Market). Figure 3 illustrates how the risk parity strategy equalized the relative risk contribution of each asset class over time.
Portfolio Leverage
At each month-end we use the composition of the unlevered risk parity portfolio, ω, to compute the forecast of its volatility over the upcoming month as:
The time series of these forecasts, along with the corresponding forecasts for the 60/40 equity/bond portfolio is plotted in Figure 4. The chart indicates that the annualized volatility of the unlevered risk parity portfolio historically averaged 5.5%, with only a brief period around the fall of 2008, when it exceeded 20%. For comparison, the one-month ahead volatility forecast for the 60/40 equity/bond portfolio averaged 10.9%, but exhibited much greater variation, rising to over 75% at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
At each month end, the quantity of leverage that has to be applied to the risk parity portfolio in order to achieve the targeted annualized volatility is 12% / σ(ω). For example, when the forecasted volatility of the unlevered risk parity portfolio is 8%, the leverage is equal to 1.5. When the forecasted volatility exceeds 12%, the risk parity strategy effectively deleverages by mixing the target portfolio with Treasury bills. Finally, we cap the maximum leverage that the strategy is able to deploy at each month end to 3x, such that if the σ(ω) drops below 4%, the backtested strategy would be unable to reach its target volatility of 12%. As Figure 5 illustrates, this happened in a very small number of months. The leverage of the strategy is reset at each month end when the portfolio is rebalanced, and is otherwise allowed to vary freely within the month. As a result, if the portfolio experiences a gain within the month, the leverage will decline because the swap notional value remains unchanged. Conversely, if the portfolio experiences a loss within the month, the leverage will rise above the value at the reset date. Even though portfolio leverage is capped at 3x at the reset dates, it can increase beyond that amount intra-month. Figure 5 displays the time series of the daily leverage values over the full backtest period. We find that the average leverage necessary to achieve an annualized volatility target of 12% has been approximately 2.3, rising to a maximum value of 3.3 and a minimum value of 0.5.
Having constructed the time series of the unlevered risk parity portfolios and determined the quantity of leverage necessary to achieve the desired target volatility, we can compute the hypothetical, backtested returns for the strategy. These are summarized in Table 4. The backtested strategy achieved an annualized return of 11.3% during the more than 20 year backtest. The annualized volatility of the realized returns equaled 13.3%, only slightly overshooting the targeted risk of 12%.
When compared to the traditional 60/40 portfolio, the risk parity strategy achieved a higher mean return, but did so with a higher level of volatility. To account for this, we computed the Sharpe Ratios of the two strategies, which indicates that the risk parity strategy delivered an 18% improvement in risk-adjusted return. This replicates a series of well-documented findings, dating back at least to Black, Jensen, and Scholes (1972), indicating that leveraging lower risk assets tends to deliver higher risk-adjusted returns than investing in a portfolio of riskier assets. One hypothesis advanced to account for this finding is that investors face limits to accessing leverage. Consequently, risk tolerant investors who desire a high risk portfolio, but cannot lever a relatively lower-risk portfolio, must overweight risky assets. This causes high risk assets to become overpriced relative to an equilibrium with unconstrained access to leverage. In turn, the expected returns on these assets are lower resulting in more modest risk-adjusted returns.
The cumulative returns of the two strategies are presented in Figure 6. With the exception of the early part of the sample (1996 – 2000), which coincides with the Internet Bubble, the risk parity strategy appreciates at a consistently higher rate than the 60/40 portfolio. The underperformance in the initial period reflects a comparatively low allocation of the risk parity strategy to equities during a time when they experienced unusually rapid appreciation.
Performance Comparisons
This section compares the backtested performance of the risk parity strategy with the performance of a diversified portfolio, as well as, with the realized, historical performance of two well-known risk parity funds.
Comparison with Diversified Portfolio
Table 5 compares the hypothetical backtested returns of the risk parity strategy with the backtested returns of a globally diversified portfolio, constructed using mean-variance optimization, that has a similar volatility as the risk parity strategy over the comparison period. The data are based on monthly returns from June 1, 1996 to September 30, 2017, matching the full length of the Risk Parity strategy backtest. All figures in the table are annualized.
Hypothetical performance results of the Risk Parity Strategy and the Diversified Portfolio are presented for illustrative purposes only, and do not represent performance returns of any actual strategies or accounts managed by Wealthfront or its affiliates for the periods shown. The Diversified Portfolio employs the allocation of the Wealthfront taxable portfolio with Risk Score 8.0. Please refer to the disclosure section below for a description of how the backtested returns of the Wealthfront Taxable Portfolio were determined.
The data suggests that an investor in a globally-diversified portfolio employing the same asset allocation as a taxable Wealthfront Risk Score 8.0 portfolio could have increased her pre-tax, net-of-fee expected return by allocating a portion of her portfolio to the risk parity strategy. Determining the optimal allocation to the strategy requires forming a forward-looking assessment of its returns, and determining how it covaries with the other investable asset classes. The analysis indicates that investors could increase their pre-tax, net-of-fee returns by up to 0.25% per year, even though allocations are restricted to be no larger than 20% of the portfolio. We apply this restriction to ensure clients can continue to benefit from Wealthfront's other value-added investment features, such as Tax-Loss Harvesting and Portfolio Line of Credit.
Comparison with Existing Risk Parity Funds
Table 6 compares the hypothetical backtested returns for the risk parity strategy net of a 0.25% management fee payable monthly with the realized fund returns for Bridgewater Associates, and AQR Capital Management net of their respective fees. For Bridgewater, we compare performance with their 12% target volatility All Weather Fund; for AQR, we compare performance with a 60/40 blend of their low- and high-volatility risk parity mutual funds. The two funds have target volatilities of 10% (AQRIX) and 15% (QRHIX), respectively, such that the blend would have a target volatility of 12%, under the assumption of perfect correlation between the two funds. The comparison with Bridgewater is based on monthly returns from June 1, 1996 to September 30, 2017; the comparison with AQR is based on returns from December 1, 2012 to September 30, 2017. In both instances, these represent the longest time period over which a common set of data is available. All figures in the table are annualized.
This information is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent the performance of any strategies or accounts managed by Wealthfront or its affiliates. The implementation of the investment strategies of the Bridgewater All Weather Fund, and AQR Risk Parity Fund may differ greatly from one another, and differ greatly from the assumptions made in deriving the backtested performance of the Risk Parity Strategy.
While the hypothetical backtested results compare favorably with the actual, realized returns achieved by the commercially available funds, investors should not expect the strategy to continue outperforming the commercial funds by a similar margin. To highlight the wide range of possible outcomes of the Risk Parity Strategy relative to the other funds, we report its Tracking Error. The Tracking Error measures the annualized standard deviation of the differences in monthly returns between a given fund and the Risk Parity Strategy. The large magnitudes of the Tracking Error reflect that the Risk Parity Strategy was designed to deliver the return from applying a simple, rules-based approach to portfolio construction, rather than to track the returns of either fund closely.
Moreover, any comparison of actual realized returns with backtested data must be taken with a significant grain (perhaps even a hill) of salt. Specifically, the backtest: (a) does not incorporate trading costs (commissions and bid-ask spreads); (b) assumes the counterparties of the total return swaps were willing to extend leverage at all points along the way; and, (c) assumes a fixed financing spread, which may not have been feasible historically.
Sensitivity to Interest Rates
Due to its large exposure to bonds, a commonly raised concern about risk parity is the sensitivity of its returns to changes in interest rates. Table 7 subdivides the backtest period into six periods based on the path of the Effective Federal Funds Rate, the policy rate utilized by the Federal Open Markets Committee. There are three periods of rising interest rates, and three periods of declining interest rates. The strategy experiences positive returns in all periods with the exception of the financial crisis (August 1, 2007 – December 31, 2008). Although the annualized return was -9.9% during this time period, the Risk Parity Strategy still outperformed the 60/40 equity/bond strategy, which experienced an annualized return of -13.8%.
A risk parity strategy implemented with asset class level ETFs as envisioned by this white paper is not ideally delivered via a separately managed account for the following reasons:
It would negatively impact the benefit of ETF level tax-loss harvesting. Due to limitations imposed by the wash sale rule, trading ETFs that comprise the underlying portfolio of the risk parity strategy could limit the frequency of tax-loss harvesting transactions on similar ETFs that comprise a diversified portfolio, which in turn would lead to fewer harvested losses.
It would limit the ability to borrow against the value of your account. Borrowing money to implement the risk parity strategy would severely limit the amount of money available to borrow against one's account value due to margin lending restrictions.
It would limit the amount that could be borrowed to implement the risk parity strategy. It would not be possible to leverage a separately managed account up to 3x given the limitations of Reg T. Lower potential leverage would likely result in lower returns.
It would not be possible to offer to a broad set of clients. Without a very large balance sheet it would not be possible to borrow enough money in aggregate to serve a broad audience. Total return swaps are not practical to implement on a per client basis.
All of the deficiencies of a separately managed account implementation could be addressed if risk parity were offered via a mutual fund. First, under no circumstance could the trading of a risk parity mutual fund create a wash sale with another security used in a diversified portfolio. Second, because the leverage would be implemented inside the mutual fund, it would place less strict limitations on an investor's ability to borrow against their portfolio value. Finally, leverage of up to 3x could be achieved via a total return swap and a total return swap would address the ability to borrow large sums of money required to broadly offer the strategy.
Our backtested results indicate that a risk parity strategy implemented with a collection of seven asset classes, each represented by a liquid, diversified, index fund, has the potential to offer an attractive total and risk-adjusted return. The rule-based construction of the portfolio, combined with the availability of total return swaps, provides a simple framework for automating the implementation of such a strategy.
This Risk Parity White Paper has been prepared by Wealthfront, Inc. ("Wealthfront") solely for informational purposes only. Nothing contained herein should be construed as (i) an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any security or (ii) any advice or recommendation to purchase any securities or other financial instruments and may not be construed as such. The factual information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed by Wealthfront to be reliable but it is not necessarily all-inclusive and is not guaranteed as to its accuracy and is not to be regarded as a representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the information's accuracy or completeness, nor should the attached information serve as the basis of any investment decision. The information set forth herein has been provided to you as secondary information and should not be the primary source for any investment or allocation decision. This document is subject to further review and revision. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
Any opinions expressed herein reflect our judgment as of the date hereof and neither the author nor Wealthfront undertakes to advise you of any changes in the views expressed herein. It should not be assumed that the author, Wealthfront or its affiliates will make investment recommendations in the future that are consistent with the views expressed herein, or use any or all of the techniques or methods of analysis described herein in managing client accounts. Wealthfront and its affiliates may have positions or engage in securities transactions that are not consistent with the information and views expressed in this document.
The information in this document may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events, targets, forecasts or expectations that are based on Wealthfront's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Neither the author nor Wealthfront or its affiliates assumes any duty to, nor undertakes to update, forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation, (1) general economic conditions, (2) performance of financial markets, (3) changes in laws and regulations and (4) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities. The opinions, views and information expressed in this document regarding holdings are subject to change without notice.
No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made or given by or on behalf of the author, Wealthfront or its affiliates as to the accuracy and completeness or fairness of the information contained in this document, and no responsibility or liability is accepted for any such information. By accepting this document in its entirety, the recipient acknowledges its understanding and acceptance of the foregoing statement.
Hypothetical backtested performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which, but not all, are described herein. No representation is being made that any fund or account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown herein. In fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently realized by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk in actual trading. For example, the ability to withstand losses or adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can adversely affect actual trading results. The hypothetical performance results contained herein represent the application of the rule-based models as currently in effect on the date first written above and there can be no assurance that the models will remain the same in the future or that an application of the current models in the future will produce similar results because the relevant market and economic conditions that prevailed during the hypothetical performance period will not necessarily recur. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results, all of which can adversely affect actual trading results. Hypothetical performance results are presented for illustrative purposes only. In addition, our transaction cost assumptions utilized in backtests, where noted, are based on Wealthfront's future expected transaction costs and market data. Certain of the assumptions have been made for modeling purposes and are unlikely to be realized. No representation or warranty is made as to the reasonableness of the assumptions made or that all assumptions used in achieving the returns have been stated or fully considered. Changes in the assumptions may have a material impact on the hypothetical returns presented. Actual advisory fees for products offering this strategy may vary.
The backtested returns of the Diversified Portfolio for the period between June 1996 to September 2017 were computed assuming monthly rebalancing and a portfolio allocation comprised of 35% US Stocks, 24% Foreign Stocks, 16% Emerging Market Stocks, 8% Dividend Stocks, and 17% Municipal Bonds. The returns for each asset class were constructed by splicing the returns of ETFs, mutual funds, and indices. For US Stocks, Wealthfront used VTSMX (prior to May 31, 2001), and VTI thereafter. For Foreign Stocks, Wealthfront used the MSCI EAFE Index (prior to August 17, 1999), VTMGX (prior to July 26, 2007) and VEA thereafter. For Emerging Market Stocks, Wealthfront used VEIEX (prior to March 10, 2005), and VWO thereafter. For Dividend Stocks, Wealthfront used VDIGX (prior to April 27, 2006), and VIG thereafter. For Municipal Bonds, Wealthfront used the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund VWITX (prior to September 10, 2007), and MUB thereafter.
The backtested returns of 60 / 40 portfolio for the period between June 1996 to September 2011 were computed assuming monthly rebalancing and a portfolio allocation of 60% US Stocks, 40% US Bonds. For US Stocks, Wealthfront used VTSMX (prior to May 31, 2001), and VTI thereafter. For US Bonds, Wealthfront used VBMFX (prior to April 3, 2007), and BND thereafter.
The instruments listed above are: VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market), VTSMX (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares), VEA (Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets Ex-North America), VTMGX (Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund Admiral Shares), VWO (Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets), VEIEX (Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund Investor Shares), VIG (Vanguard Dividend Appreciation), VDIGX (Vanguard Dividend Growth Fund), XLE (SPDR Energy Select Sector), VGENX (Vanguard Energy Fund Investor Shares), MUB (iShares National Muni Bond ETF), VWITX (Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares), BND (Vanguard Total Bond Market).
– Balancing Risk Contributions
– Impact of Time-Varying Asset Class Risk
– Accessing Leverage
– Portfolio Construction
– Portfolio Leverage
– Comparison with Diversified Portfolio
– Comparison with Existing Risk Parity Funds
– Sensitivity to Interest Rates
– Implementation
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Wealthfront Software LLC ("Wealthfront") provides a financial planning service tool designed to aid Wealthfront Advisers' clients in preparing for their financial futures by allowing them to personalize their assumptions for their financial planning goals. Wealthfront is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wealthfront Corporation, and an affiliate of Wealthfront Advisers.
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USCA Chairman Steve Hilker discusses ELD and Hos reform with Senate Agriculture Committee staff.
"First, we'd like to extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to Senator Deb Fischer for offering this amendment and shepherding its passage in the Senate. Current Hours-of-Service (HOS) rules were not written with the needs of livestock haulers in mind, and therefore, offer very little flexibility when it comes to hauling live animals.


A 2-year comparison showed that the drugs Avastin and Lucentis lead to similar vision improvements in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The study also found that visual gains were slightly better with monthly rather than as-needed treatments.
AMD is the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in older Americans. The condition affects the macula, the central portion of the retina that allows us to look straight ahead and see detailed images. In its advanced stages, AMD can trigger growth of abnormal blood vessels that leak fluid and blood into the macula, damaging the macula and obscuring central vision. Without treatment, most patients with this "wet" form of AMD lose their ability to drive, read, recognize faces or perform certain tasks.
In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of Lucentis (ranibizumab) for treating AMD. By that time, some ophthalmologists had already begun treating AMD with a similar drug—the cancer medication Avastin (bevacizumab)—although it hadn't been FDA-approved for that purpose. Both drugs are injected directly into the eye, and both are now widely used to treat AMD. But doctors didn't know which drug might be more effective or what dosing schedule might be best.
In 2008, NIH's National Eye Institute (NEI) launched a 2-year clinical trial to compare the 2 drugs. The study, called the Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (CATT), published its first-year results in May 2011. That initial report found that both drugs were equally effective in preventing vision loss from AMD. The new report describes the findings from the trial's second year. It appeared in the April 30, 2012, online edition of Ophthalmology.
At enrollment, about 1,200 patients with AMD were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups. The groups were defined by drug (Avastin or Lucentis) and dosing regimen (monthly or as-needed). After the first year, patients on monthly dosing were randomly reassigned to monthly or as-needed regimens. All continued to receive their initial drug.
By year 2, the researchers found that both drugs led to similar improvements to vision. At least 60% of patients in all groups achieved 20/40 vision or better—the level needed for driving. In contrast, earlier research showed that less than 15% of AMD patients receiving previously available treatments could attain that level of visual accuracy.
The study found slightly less vision gain with as-needed than with monthly dosing, regardless of the drug. As measured on an eye chart, monthly treatment resulted in a mean improvement of about half a line better than as-needed dosing. Switching to as-needed treatment after a year of monthly dosing led to outcomes nearly equal to those obtained with 2 full years of as-needed treatment.


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Quidel Receives CE Mark for Its Sofia® Legionella Fluorescent Immunoassay (FIA)
Quidel Corporation, a leading provider of diagnostic testing solutions and cellular-based virology assays, announced today that it has received the CE Mark for its Sofia Legionella FIA for use on the Sofia Analyzer for the rapid detection of Legionnaires' disease, also known as legionellosis.
The Gram-negative bacterium, Legionella pneumophila, is the cause of this life-threatening respiratory illness. The symptoms of Legionnaires' disease mimic those commonly associated with influenza, including headache, fever, muscle pain, and chills in the first day, but gradually expand to include cough and shortness of breath by day three. If diagnosed early in the infection, this disease can be effectively treated with antibiotics, but if left untreated, the disease can be fatal, especially among elderly and immunocompromised patients. In 2009, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reported nearly 6,000 cases of Legionnaires' disease, but stated that the actual number of cases in Europe was likely significantly under-reported.(1) In the United States, where the incidence of Legionnaires' disease has tripled in the last decade, the disease accounts for nearly 8,000 to 18,000 hospitalizations per year.(2)
Sofia is the brand name for Quidel's next generation, immunoassay system that was launched earlier this year. The Sofia Analyzer and Sofia Legionella FIA combine unique immunofluorescence chemistry, advanced lateral flow technology, and failure alert and fail-safe systems designed to ensure a reliable, objective, highly accurate, diagnostic result within ten (10) minutes of application of the patient's specimen. The Sofia system was 510(k) cleared in October of 2011, and its first test, the Sofia Influenza A+B FIA, received Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) waiver by the U.S. FDA in April of 2012.
The CE Mark allows Quidel to launch its new Sofia Legionella FIA in Europe.
"We are extremely pleased to announce the CE Mark and impending launch of our fourth Sofia assay in Europe," said Douglas Bryant, president and chief executive officer of Quidel Corporation. "The Sofia Legionella FIA will provide customers with an accurate, ten-minute solution for the diagnosis of Legionnaires' disease. Receiving the CE Mark is another milestone testifying to the promise of the aggressive development program we instituted nearly three years ago -- one achievement of which is the unique Sofia immunofluorescence platform and system."
The Sofia Legionella assay uses the Sofia Analyzer, an instrument that is designed to easily incorporate new analyte-specific algorithms -- an important feature as the Sofia menu of products expands. The other Sofia immunoassays presently for sale in Europe include FIAs for Influenza A+B, Strep A and RSV.
(1) Risk for Travel-associated Legionnaires' Disease, Europe, 2009 http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/11/12-0496_article.htm#r6
(2) Patient Facts: Learn More about Legionnaires' disease http://www.cdc.gov/legionella/patient_facts.htm
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
package eu.binjr.core.data.workspace;

import eu.binjr.core.data.adapters.SourceBinding;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;

public class BindingsHierarchy {

    private SourceBinding name;
   private final Collection<SourceBinding> bindings = new ArrayList<>();

    public SourceBinding getRoot() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(SourceBinding name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public Collection<SourceBinding> getBindings() {
        return bindings;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The Hale Firm, P.C. focuses on family law and civil trial law. Though we are seasoned litigators and are very comfortable in a courtroom, we feel that most cases should be resolved outside of the courtroom (e.g., mediation) in order to mininize your stress, preserve your assets and minimize the uncertainty of litigation. Whether your legal situation is complex or routine, the lawyers and staff of The Hale Firm, P.C. will dedicate our time and resources to aggressively pursue resolution of your case.
We draw on the experience gained in handling thousands of cases to achieve your specific goals. While every case has unique aspects, you can rest assured that we can use our vast experience to your benefit.
Depending on your desires, our initial focus is usually to attempt to quickly resolve matters in order to minimize stress and cost. Oftentimes, strategically aggressive measures must be undertaken to achieve the best possible settlement or the possible outcome in court.
Beginning with our initial consultation, we use your goals and our expertise to develop a comprehensive, detailed strategy to help resolve your matter.
We understand that divorce and other family law matters are often very emotional. We provide compassionate and strategically focused legal counsel to help minimize the emotional impact on you and your family.
"I would like to thank you and commend you on the way you handled my case and dealt with me as a valued friend. It's true that I did get an incredible settlement, but I'm writing this letter to express my gratitude for the manner in which you represented me...like a friend. You earned my confidence with your exceptional legal skills and you gave me peace of mind with your friendship. You are a credit to your profession!!"
"Mr. Hale has represented me in multiple matters in the past few years, both in and out of Court, and I couldn't recommend a lawyer any more highly."
"I have worked with Hal and various attorneys at his firm for the last 8 years and my expectations are always exceeded. Whether it's trial work, negotiating a deal or simply answering questions that come up from time to time regarding my business, he always gives 100%. Once I tell Hal what I need, it simply gets done and doesn't cost me an arm and a leg."


text:
La gare de Colmar-Nord était une gare ferroviaire française située sur le territoire de la commune de Colmar, préfecture du département du Haut-Rhin, en région Grand Est.

Elle est fermée en 1945 puis détruite.

Situation ferroviaire
La gare de Colmar-Nord était située sur la ligne de Colmar-Central à Marckolsheim, c'était la première gare desservie après la gare de Colmar-Central. Un embranchement desservait la sablière Hartmeyer.

Histoire
La ligne à voie métrique reliant Colmar à Marckolsheim est ouverte entre 1885 et 1890.

La gare a fermé en même temps que la ligne de Colmar-Central à Marckolsheim le 31 décembre 1945. Les voies ont été déposées et l'ancien bâtiment voyageurs, de type "EL-Standard 2 portes", a été détruit durant les années 1980. Le site a été depuis réutilisé pour la construction de logements et du parking "Manufacture".

En plus du bâtiment voyageurs, la gare comportait une remise pour quatre machines et un château d'eau.

Notes et références

Articles connexes
 Liste de gares en France
 Ligne de Colmar-Central à Marckolsheim

Liens externes

Gare fermée dans le Haut-Rhin
Gare à Colmar

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Headhunters on My Doorstep - Audiobook | Listen Instantly!
Headhunters on My Doorstep chronicles Troost's return to the South Pacific after his struggle with alcoholism and time in rehab left him numb to life. Deciding to retrace the path once traveled by the author of Treasure Island, Troost follows Robert Louis Stevenson to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Gilberts, and Samoa, tumbling from one comic misadventure to another as he confronts his newfound sobriety.
Somewhere en route from the shark-infested waters of Fakarava to the remote islands of Kiribati, Troost gradually awakens to the beauty of life and reconnects with his family and the world. Headhunters on My Doorstep is a funny yet poignant account of one man's journey to find himself that will captivate travel writing aficionados, Robert Louis Stevenson fans, and anyone who has ever lost his way.
J. Maarten Troost's essays have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, and the Prague Post. After two years in the Pacific, he was hired as a consultant by the World Bank. He spent several years in Fiji then relocated to the United States and now lives with his family in Monterey, California.


text:
Reclaiming Health for Ourselves and Each Other
Transcribed from the 4 August 2020 episode of This is Hell! Radio (Chicago) and printed with permission. Edited for space and readability. Listen to the whole interview:
It's the perfect time to imagine new ways to approach long term healthcare, especially new ways that consider prevention and the longer game rather than just fixing what's broken at the moment that it breaks—especially when everything is breaking.
Chuck Mertz: If there's one thing the pandemic has revealed to the world it's that capitalist healthcare does not provide the medical services we need in a time of crisis. Greece learned the same thing years earlier when their economy collapsed, but they reacted with a new way of approaching their relationship with healthcare, through mutual aid.
Here to introduce us to new ways of considering ourselves and our relationship with medicine, feminist economist, artist, and activist Cassie Thornton is author of The Hologram: Feminist Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future.
Cassie was on back in June 2016 with Max Haiven, her co-director at the Reimagining Value lab, and Brianne Bolin, as part of the Undercommoning Collective who had recently published the letter "Undercommoning Within, Against, and Beyond the University-As-Such."
Welcome back to This is Hell!, Cassie.
Cassie Thornton: Thank you so much for having me.
CM: A feminist economist is, according to your bio for your book, "a title that frames your work as that of a social scientist, actively preparing for the economics of a future society that produces health and life without the tools that reproduce oppression."
How do you see that oppression reproduced in healthcare?
CT: In so many ways. I've been really focused on our ability, or maybe our inability—our sense that we need medical care that comes from authorities and experts when often those authorities and experts are wrong or are conditioned by pharmaceutical companies, and there is a sense that our medical system should work for everyone. When I say "our" medical system, I am now living in Canada although I am American. Our medical systems, whether they are socialized or whether they are run on a market the way it is in the US—they're all still predicated on profit, and they reproduce all forms of oppression including racism (obviously), ageism, and sexism.
CM: You write, "When healthcare is taken out of the exclusive clutches of jealous experts, medicine can become cooperatively creative and can actually produce multiple forms of mutually reinforcing health: physical, emotional, social, communal, and relational."
In case anyone is jumping to drastic conclusions here, and I know you can imagine the conclusions they are jumping to: do you mean doctors are not assisting in their patients' medical decisions? That doctors are no longer doctors? That anyone can pursue any healthcare choice without any concern for public health or anyone's public safety? Just in case people are jumping to massive conclusions about what you're trying to do here.
CT: No, not at all. This project called the Hologram is a peer-to-peer support network and it exists underneath other forms of care. The hope is that if you have support from your peers you can navigate the really complicated and hierarchical medical system to get what you need from it. In no way do we try to replace that. But we also believe that a better form of long-term care is necessary and possible.
A part of the project is really about navigating what we have to navigate now within the medical system as we demand something much better in the future.
CM: Max Haiven, the co-director where you are at Lakehead University in Ontario, writes in the introduction to your book that "the Hologram's deceptive simplicity is a delivery vehicle for a radical vision of a different world, teaching its participants to become post-capitalist animals and helping them grow the strengths, skills, and solidarity for the revolutionary struggles Cassie Thornton hopes will soon transform the world."
How would the Hologram contribute to us becoming, as Max calls it, post-capitalist animals?
CT: A little summary of how it works and what it is: it's a peer-to-peer health model that works in a way where there is one person receiving attention and care from three people. That person we call the Hologram, and the three people are called the Triangle. Those people set up a situation where they make a commitment to meet, say, every season, for about two hours, and those three people ask questions of the Hologram that focus on physical, mental-emotional, and social health. Over time, they get to know the Hologram. They become a kind of living medical record for that person.
The idea is that over time each of those people in the triangle who are giving the care end up setting up their own Holograms so they are also receiving the same care that they're giving, but receiving it from different people. That is the different social practice that Max is mentioning.
But of course it's not simple. It's pretty hard to imagine asking for the commitment of three people to attend to your needs for a year or however long you decide to commit. That's very overwhelming in itself. Being immersed in a capitalist society for generations now, we have learned not to trust each other. And a lot of times when we need help most—especially in the United States—we're tricked. When we're offered help often it comes with a really high interest rate or it comes as a way to make profit and not really to offer care.
Participating in the Hologram just creates opportunities to practice different social relations than we're really trained to have in capitalism. It means trusting people, trusting that you can ask for help and that's okay, that all people need support, and that's not a shameful thing and it doesn't mean that you're weak. And then participating in a process that takes time and doesn't have any specific results in mind. There's no goal, it's just a process that never ends. That is something that we're not really encouraged to do, nor do we have a chance to practice that.
You're receiving care from someone who is not just a friend anymore, because of the formal relationship, but they're also not a doctor, and not a therapist, so it's creating an opportunity to have a different type of relationship. Maybe it's with your friends or family members, but now there's a formal agreement that at a certain time and place we're going to act differently, and we're going to care for each other, and we're not acting as experts or advisers, but we're doing this other thing.
We can try to imagine the Hologram as a worldwide network of people who are rhythmically listening to each other and taking care of each other, and that work is all virally distributed and giving people opportunities to have different anticapitalist experiences—it represents, for a lot of people, a pure possibility.
The last thing I would say is that there's a chance within the project to experience a different form of reciprocity. We're super trained to want care from people who we can pay or from people with whom there is a really clean one-to-one arrangement with, so you know that they're going to be compensated. If you see a therapist, you're going to pay them for their hour of time (or your insurance is going to pay them) and you know they're "getting something back" for their time listening to you. But in the Hologram that's not how it works. It's not a one-to-one thing, and you don't get to pay back the people who care for you in the same way—there's not a tit-for-tat one-to-one exchange where you receive care from somebody and then you turn around and give that to someone else.
There are all these opportunities within the project to expand our experience with each other outside of what is generally allowed within capitalist relations. The biggest thing, though, within all of it: there's a way we're really limited in our thinking about the future, and obviously there are a million emergencies that face us in every direction, but honestly because of the precarity of our jobs and lives and our housing and our healthcare, it's been really hard to imagine a future for a long time—and for some people more than others. But within the project it gives you the opportunity to make a commitment to a group of people for as long as you want. What if you made a plan for five years, or for ten years, and you knew you'd be meeting every three months until then?
It's not a big commitment, but it does mean there is something that you can know about the future, and it can be good and generative and something that you want. A lot of the things we can predict are going to be happening, related to climate change and the growth of different corporations and what's happening to many of our governments with the right—there's a lot we can predict that's pretty negative, but within the project we have the opportunity to make a plan that outlasts some of those other things. And it is a social plan, and it uses stuff we already have, so it doesn't participate in a lot of the structures of time that we are managed by at the moment.
CM: In your writing, you point out that this is a "global healthcare crisis facing a global pandemic." The Hologram seems small in response in that: four people make up a Hologram—the triangle and the hologram who will be treated. How can such a small, local response address a global healthcare crisis with austerity programs cutting healthcare budgets as they are?
CT: The project works in two ways. One way is that it's an idea. It's a representation of a different way of organizing labor and organizing care that moves virally and teaches as it grows. For one thing it works as a story, and I like to call the project fifty percent parafiction. Parafiction is a fiction that you tell until you make it real. You pretend it is real until it is real. We can try to imagine the Hologram as a worldwide network of people who are rhythmically listening to each other and taking care of each other, and that work is all virally distributed and giving people opportunities to have different anticapitalist experiences—it represents, for a lot of people, a pure possibility. And it's actually something that we can imagine, using stuff we have: that the future could be not as bad, or not as mysterious as it seems. For a lot of people it can just be that. It can just be an idea and a representation of something that is possible.
In a much more pragmatic way, the project can "scale" and be useful for a lot of people in a lot of different situations. What if, when we decide that incarceration is not working for our society, or even now because of COVID we are releasing a lot of people from prison—what if those people had three people who they chose who could focus on them and help them as they try to reclaim their lives? And those three people who are giving support also have three people supporting them? This way of distributing care and labor means that a lot of what we do when we make changes can be much more sustainable.
A lot of what we're asking for right now is about making really big changes to really big institutions and systems that we've never existed without (in our memories). We need something that can help us in transition. This practice creates a lot of stability within individuals and within groups. It teaches as it grows, so it has the capacity to bring new people in who are not necessarily comfortable doing long term care work. It is one possible solution for how to institute change that happens on an individual level and then on a group level, and potentially on a collective level.
There are projects that are not so different from this already happening, for example in London with a project called Talk for Health. Basically it's a protocol for how to get together with strangers and do peer-to-peer counseling without experts. They got hired on by the NHS as a project that would not replace other care but would offer another place for people to go when they really needed help but couldn't access different forms of therapy that they needed. That can be seen as a replacement for other forms of care that should be provided by the government, but it is also a move in a really interesting direction. I am not opposed to seeing this project become something that is brought into institutions and city governments, if it meant that it came with an acknowledgment that there is care that is needed before, during, and after crisis; before, during, and after surgery; and it needs to be a part of everyone's life all the time.
I'm a believer that actually if a bunch of people have a methodology to work with, something could shift.
CM: I would hope so. In 2019, you began a collaboration with Furtherfield gallery in London, making your idea of the Hologram into an art installation. How is the Hologram displayed as a piece of interventionist artwork, as an art installation? What is the message of the Hologram? I think that would give an insight to what the Hologram means for people.
CT: We haven't installed it as a visible installation yet. I'm a practicing artist and I have exhibitions in small galleries and museums all the time. I began to work with the Hologram as something that we could do in lieu of payment. I had been working on the project and needed people to try it out. So sometimes I would be in a show, and I would say, "You can't really pay me very much, because you're a nonprofit gallery and barely surviving, but maybe instead of paying me we could work on this project together, and maybe some of your workers, the director of your gallery or your curator, maybe we could try it together and do it for the duration of the exhibition. And nobody needs to necessarily see it, but it's work that's happening underneath the show."
What we're working towards now is a really big social sculpture, and we do lots of online workshops. We're going to be running our second course in September where about thirty people learn and practice the Hologram and establish Holograms for themselves. It's a performative, artistic—but also very serious—experiment in care.
There are cultures where art is not something you identify with as a job, but it's just something that everyone does, and it's a regular part of life that's woven into everything you do. That's much closer to what I would imagine we could have in a post-capitalist art world.
In the future when things open up, there probably will be exhibitions. One thing that we had proposed, which might not be appropriate anymore, was for next year in Finsbury Park (where Furtherfield gallery is located in London, a mixed working class area with a lot of migrant populations from a lot of different places; a really international, interesting place). We were planning to put a hospital bed in a park with a phone, and a nurse, and when you sat down, on the phone there would be three people on the other side and they would have a conversation with you about how you're doing. One person would ask your questions about how you are physically, and one person would ask you questions about how you are mentally and emotionally, and one person would ask you questions about how you are socially. It would be this sort of small performance of what that type of conversation might be like, and it would happen in public.
There's something really important about that, receiving care and being vulnerable—it's okay to be like that in public. That's a part of the world and it doesn't need to be hidden or made too precious. It's something that we all need.
There's a lot to develop in terms of how it exists as an art project, but a really important aspect to it is that we've been working with many collaborators over the last four years. Right now my name is on it and I'm kind of the steward of the project, but all I really want is for it to become a decentralized practice where I can fade away and the project lives on. AA is very problematic, but there are a lot of projects like AA that move virally between people, that have a very clear protocol for how they can happen, and then people can take them and use them exactly how they want to, and they can transform them as they want.
The project could live on in that way without it necessarily being known as an art project, but becoming a practice that people use and know about.
CM: You write, "I believe that art should be democratized, and the art world and all its precariousness should be abolished." What do you mean by the "art world" that you want to abolish? And does abolishing the art would mean the abolition of art? The end of art? I want to make sure people understand, from an artists' perspective, the difference between what is art, and what is the "art world."
CT: Being an artist is a title that is given to people or chosen by people who often don't want to or can't participate in the heteronormative, super-competitive capitalist working world. It's a label for a certain type of malcontent who is also creative about it, who maybe doesn't want to get a job and doesn't want to participate in reality, and has other ideas about how to do things.
The "art world" is a place where, in a big way, art is commodified and bought and sold. And there are many, many art worlds—it's important to say that. There are radical art worlds, and we love them and they are very important, and it's one of the only places in society left where people can have identities that are outside of their work and outside of their image and money. But in a large way, the art world is dominated by big corporate money and sponsorships. It's super hierarchical. It's definitely still run by powerful white men. Even when it becomes popular to include people of color and queer people and people with disabilities, it has a long term commitment to power and money and to keeping those things.
All I mean when I say that I would like to abolish the art world is that everyone has the potential to be creative, everyone should have time and space to make what they want to see in their world, and to feel like their opinion and their creativity and their ideas matter. There are so many traditions throughout the world, especially where I live in Canada. Working with Anishinaabe artists, I realized that there are cultures where art is not something that you identify with as a job, but it's actually just something that everyone does; it's a regular part of life that's woven into everything you do. That's much closer to what I would imagine we could have in a post-capitalist art world.
But yes, the way that academia, auction houses like Sotheby's, and big corporate galleries work; the way that museums interface with companies like BP; the way that art is used to gentrify cities; and the way that the art world still is a really racist, patriarchal place—I just think, you know, get rid of it.
CM: You write, "In January 2017 I visited several solidarity clinics in Greece that served not only Greeks who had been abandoned and punished by international debt markets but also refugees who had become trapped in the country thanks to the closing of Europe's borders to them. The solidarity clinic movement rose to prominence during the anti-austerity Indignados uprisings of 2010-11. After spending years researching and organizing around personal debt and its effect on collective and individual psychological, behavioral, social, and emotional life, I began to become curious about the way that public debts, like the ones that encumbered Greece, work and how people internalize and live with those debts."
What do you mean by public debts? And how do we internalize and learn to live with those debts?
CT: I spent a bit of time on one particular public debt local to you, which is the Chicago Public Schools. That's one example of so many. In 2016, I was in Chicago and met with lots of people there who had some affiliation with the Chicago Public School system, as it was wavering on bankruptcy. For a long time now, in the Chicago Public Schools, ninety percent of the children who attend public schools are Black. Declaring the public schools bankrupt (or almost bankrupt) seemed overtly racist, but it was not able to be called that way.
So often, with collective debts—the school's debt is a collective debt, because it doesn't belong to one person, it belongs to a group of people—what's happening behind the scenes is: even when we're talking about supporting social goods like school and medical care, it's organized by profit, by banks. With the Chicago Public Schools, I did a project where I interviewed people: the bankers who give loans to the Chicago Public Schools, the people who work there, the people who work in the union, kids who go to the schools, principals. I interviewed them, and I did visualizations with them where I'd have them imagine the debt of the public school as an image. I'd sort of hypnotize them and get them to talk to me about it while we were sitting somewhere in a school.
What most people saw was the schools crumbling, the buildings falling apart. There was a sense of collective mourning, but also powerlessness, because in a weird way when we talk about debts, it feels like something too complicated for regular people to understand or intervene in. And it creates a lot of guilt, or it creates a sense of collective impossibility. It really freezes things. The Chicago Public Schools and the labor union were amazing in how they responded and how they have recovered from the debt there at different times. But it takes collective action. Whereas when we talk about debt, often in the United States we're talking about personal debt, where it belongs to one person and it's one person's responsibility or one person's failure. I disagree with that; I think that most debts are odious debts and all financial debts are a part of a collective problem, a political problem.
All of a sudden there are a whole lot of people with a bunch of time and ability to pay attention to what's happening in the media—revealing that what the media is doing sucks for the most part. In a very big way, people got to see how bad things are, and a lot of them showed up outside at the rallies for George Floyd.
I became much more interested in collective debt, sovereign debts, and municipal debts, because of the way that they reproduce power relationships. If the city of Chicago and Rahm Emanuel are really interested in money, and are quite racist, they can enact that through the debts they pass on to institutions that serve mostly racialized and poor people. Living mired in debt, both collective and personal debt—for most adults' lives (and for many kids who have grown up since the 2008 financial crisis), who have families mired in debt following the housing crisis, it's just a way of life. But it's also a way of life that makes it really hard to trust people, to trust institutions, and it's super individualizing. When you deal with a debt crisis on either level, it means that you don't have what you need and life just keeps getting shittier as interest goes up and payments pile up.
The really interesting thing about playing with how we talk about debt and making that a part of a conversation about health is just that we begin to see that it's a systemic problem that most of us are dealing with. Within the Hologram, we talk about the financial health underneath social health. When you're a hologram with three people asking you questions about your health, the person who is asking you questions about social problems is also asking you about your relationship to larger systems, like how you get your healthcare—and also, how do you get your food? Who do you interact with at work? Where does your money come from? How do you relate to larger systems?
It's really important to admit to the financial conditions around us. Whether we're in a country with a ton of sovereign debt and we're losing our access to healthcare because of it, or because we have personal debt because we have a student loan, or whatever it is, opening it up as a part of a conversation about what makes a healthy person's life and a healthy society is really important.
CM: You write, "Our culture bases dignity on our ability to pay for services. It's a culture that created Trump and that also created each of us, and that loads regular people with so much debt for housing, healthcare, education, transportation, and public services that it breeds numbness, obedience, isolation, and narcissism."
I thought we were filled with numbness, obedience, isolation, and narcissism because of Twitter or video games, or whatever the mainstream establishment media says is the problem of the time. What does it say to you about the media, about conventional wisdom, about public debate, when we blame these kinds of problems that we have—numbness, obedience, isolation, narcissism—on things like social media or video games and not see that they are stemming from, as you point out, debt?
CT: Debt is one really good way to look at it. We can also talk about carceralism and all the different forms of oppression that are right there alongside debt, like racism and colonialism and patriarchy. The media industry wouldn't be as powerful if we weren't all so tired, so busy, and so scared trying to pay our bills. For so many of us, especially now—I've been saying "especially now" for my entire adult life—we are at a point where everyone is at a financial tipping point. We might be facing really scary health and environmental emergencies, but if we can't pay rent and we can't afford food and we can't go to the doctor, how are we going to have the fortitude to stop giant corporations from controlling the media? How are we even going to know what to care about besides our own survival? So many of us are lost inside a ritual of bare survival where it's really hard to have independent thoughts.
People have said to me that having ideas or doing critical thinking is a privilege. Honestly, in our society, because it is so unstable, and paying our bills and maintaining a livelihood is so precarious, having the brainspace to think critically and to feel like a part of your society and to feel like you have some agency is a privilege. Most people just don't have the time and energy to do it.
It's a really interesting moment: because of the pandemic, a bunch of people, whether they are surviving financially or not, all of a sudden have a lot of free time. They lost their jobs or they're on furlough or they were laid off because they were too sick to go outside. All of a sudden there are a whole lot of people with a bunch of time and ability to pay attention to what's happening in the media—revealing that what the media is doing sucks for the most part. In a very big way, people got to see how bad things are, and a lot of them showed up outside at the rallies for George Floyd.
I don't know what else to say about it, but there's a big underlying financial landscape that's been creating a really unstable living ground for most of us, so when it comes to dismantling powerful media moguls, who can do that if they're just not making it?
CM: You also mention the integrative model within the Greek mutual aid system, "based on a different idea of health, authority, care, and expertise. In this model the incomer (instead of patient) meets with three health practitioners at the same time on their first ninety-minute visit: a general physician, a psychotherapist, and a social worker (or if no social worker is available, a non-practitioner volunteer). The social worker / volunteer leads the incomer through a survey called the "Health Card" of optional questions covering their mental, physical, and emotional health, but also their broader situation, including their family life, living conditions, work, nutrition, sleep patterns. All are considered important aspects of health in a broad, holistic sense. They are trying to make a hologram of every person: a clear, three-dimensional image of health."
If we do not see ourselves as a hologram, as a clear, three-dimensional image of health, why does capitalism make us see ourselves and the human body as something else, something in two dimensions? What are the mechanisms within capitalism that take away our understanding of our whole selves?
CT: There are just so many. But the thing that surprises me the most is not the separation between mind and body. It's more the separation between people, and the sense that we are a part of a species, a society, a city—that information seems inaccessible. Most of my life and art practice has been trying to understand how that form of individualism came to be. It's no surprise that if you feel disconnected from other people and you can't actually see the other in all of their complexity (because of myriad reasons that we can go into), it makes it much harder to see yourself.
In a funny way, the attention economy being ruled by social media has exacerbated problems that have existed for a long time, wherein we are constantly trying to perfect ourselves so that we can compete to live, and compete in a market, and compete to prove our own value. In this situation, we're so overburdened with information that we—in a move towards self-preservation—begin to see other people as obstacles to us surviving, obstacles to us getting what we need to live.
Different forms of education, different forms of care, have existed far before any of these carceral systems, and can come back again. A lot of what we are experiencing is actually quite temporary in the scheme of things, and there are ways to deal with things with a lot more collectivity and care, with a respect for the land.
The more estranged we are, the more alienated we are from other people, the harder it is to see ourselves as connected to those people, and the harder it is to see ourselves in other people. One of the ways that we learn about ourselves is by understanding other people's stories, but if those people have been turned by our brains into obstacles in a race towards some idea of success or survival, we get really alienated from a sense of what it is to be a whole person.
The really interesting thing about the Hologram project that I've witnessed for myself—I do the Hologram as well—is that if you're in a conversation and you're talking about a health procedure…I had been in the hospital and I needed advice from my Hologram, and the first question was "What's happening in your body?" The next question was "What happened in the moments immediately before the emergency? What stuff was going on in your life that led to the fact that you had a problem that manifested in your body?" And then I end up talking about having a phonecall with my mother. There's a way that all these different parts of us are connected, maybe not necessarily in ways that are easy for us to understand, but there are ways to begin to see how our health is a complete product of the conditions that we live in, and those conditions are super multi-faceted.
CM: You write of the Greek mutual aid groups, "I learned that most of the care given didn't need professional expertise. It was human connection, the provision of empathy and attention within what otherwise feels like an uncaring and alienating world where the crisis becomes lodged in the body. Ninety-nine percent of the time, people can help each other. They don't need medical training to provide the preventative care and problem solving that most people need to persist. That means much of healthcare is just somebody to talk to."
When discussing defunding police, many have said we do not need police as the first intervening force in every situation. And police say they are being asked to do too much anyway. There is a growing call for less police presence in every emergency situation, and for them not to fill roles formerly occupied by social workers. In your opinion, do we need to take current medical practices out of the healthcare relationship with patients, with incomers? Should the first person you interact with not necessarily be a doctor or a nurse?
CT: There are lots of different parts of the medical system that are very integrated into our larger carceral system. I was in the hospital last week in Thunder Bay, and there was a person who came in who was in so much pain, a young Indigenous man. He was having pancreatitis, and some paramedics brought him in. There were some police present. The paramedics literally dropped him on a bed, shook him off the gurney like a bug. And he was moaning, in so much pain, and he began to be seen by a nurse, and the nurse asked him what kind of pain he generally lives with, and he said he lived with all kinds of chronic pain. He was left alone in the bed for about forty-five minutes, crying, before anybody came to talk to him or even bring him a glass of water. There was an alarm going off because his vital signs were not okay, and I had to go find somebody to check on the alarm going off in his room, as two police sat outside and just checked their phones.
I don't know what it's like in hospitals generally. I know that it's a special time, because here in Thunder Bay no doctors will see any patients, so everybody's going to the ER. But I find that so many systems of care are so uncaring and are so, so carceral, and are so interwoven with structures of police and imprisonment. That kind of thing happened throughout the week that I was in the hospital, in and out of the ER. I saw that happen so many times.
So I do think that there is a lot of room for different types of interventions into medical care. I was just in the UK, so I did a bunch of research about what was happening in the NHS. The NHS still has a branch that does a bunch of speculative research, and they've been working for years on a project where they're trying to do social care. They have a project where they bring someone in to do what they call "social prescribing," and it's a person who is not a doctor or a therapist, and who is not necessarily a specialist in anything other than helping people navigate systems and find what they need.
If you have a great amount of depression but don't trust therapists, you could see this person and maybe they would be able to recommend you things that are a little bit more community-based, like going to join a group, joining a social movement, going swimming—helping you navigate outside of the medical system a little bit—and then when you need to get connected back to the medical system they can do that too. So there are some interesting experiments. But there is also a great amount of need.
This morning I was running back here to get this call after we had just done a protest outside the police station here in Thunder Bay—here we are in the racism and murder capital of Canada. In 2018 there was a young woman who was seventeen years old, Indigenous youth, who was put on a gurney and then slapped by a constable, and we just found out recently that the constable was never charged and was never held accountable, and that that process was completely kept from the public. So we went outside of the police station today to plant a tree, to say that every time the police create more death or more violence we will reappear to plant another tree until the police are replaced by a forest.
It's been really interesting to work with Indigenous populations here in Thunder Bay on what it would mean to begin to take apart some of these carceral systems. The main idea is that different forms of education, different forms of care, have existed far before any of these carceral systems, and can come back again. A lot of what we are experiencing is actually quite temporary in the scheme of things, and there are ways to deal with things with a lot more collectivity and care, with a respect for the land.
I'm new to this, but this is what I'm learning.
CM: Thank you so much for being back on our show, Cassie.
CT: Thank you so much.
Cassie Thornton
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