After half-a-century, some 8,000 episodes and numerous tournament of champions the American television game show Jeopardy! decided to hold its definitive contest to determine its ultimate victor. The trial featured three accomplished champions: Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer. The selection of these three remains one of sports' great scandals -- right up there with the Czechoslovakian judge in Lillehammer. The three contenders were fine, having won more than a 100 contests and $10.7 million dollars between them. That's not bad... as far as humans go. Who should have been in the tournament?
The first contestant most clearly deserved to be Phil Connors. Connors, initially a Pittsburgh weatherman stuck in a time loop, eventually attained the status of god. Not the God - at least he didn't think so - but a god. And as a deity not only did Connors know every answer in "Lakes & Rivers" - What is Mexico? What are the Finger Lakes? What is Titicaca? - he knew the question before the answer was even given: What is the Rhône?
The second contestant was god-like in its knowledge: Watson. The likely forerunner of HAL-9000, this question-answering computer system already beat both Jennings and Rutter in an exhibition match for a million dollars. A eurodollar realist and having no use for a pyramid of physical bills, Watson promptly set the money alight and was heard walking off stage saying, "It's not about the money - it's about sending a message."
The third contestant inhabits that shimmering space between reality and myth called "legend": Clifford C. Clavin, Jr. The part-time Boston-area mailman and full-time bar patron appeared on Jeopardy! in 1990, where he feasted on the categories like a walrus in a bed of bivalve mollusks, which is the mammal's preferred food you know. "Civil Servants", "Stamps from Around The World", "Mothers and Sons", "Beer", "Bar Trivia", "Celibacy".
It is in the spirit of these latter three - as legend, as eurodollar realist, as living through a monetary time-loop - that Jeff Snider confronts listener questions in a Jeopardy!-style show in this, the 16th episode of Making Sense.
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Alhambra Investments Blog
RealClear Markets Essays
Yield Cap History Is Rock Solid, Just Not At All In The Way They Are Telling You
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Jeff Snider, Head of Global Investment Research for Alhambra Investments with Emil Kalinowski, the Vanna White of Eurodollar Jeopardy! Artwork by the Phil Connors-like, preternatural David Parkins. Podcast intro and outro is "Come 2gether" by Ooyy at Epidemic Sound.
