02 | December | 2025 | Bob Schwartz

December 2, 2025

Five Ways to Wear a Tie This Holiday Season

I am not an expert on clothing styles, though it interests me—mostly as a spectator. My personal style has long been…well, I’ll leave it to others to describe it. I’d say it is in the middle, not too conservative, not too edgy.

I do know a lot about ties, choosing them and tying them. My father passed this love of ties to me. He took me tie shopping with him, which is how I learned what to look for. As far as tying, I can make all of the major knots, including bow ties (yes, I own some, and yes, there was a period when I kind of wore a few, unironically).

This style article in the Wall Street Journal today made me smile, and laugh a little.

There are two ways of looking at the suggested tie styles below. One is to see it as a creative and personal approach to wearing an admittedly boring piece of cloth around your neck. The other is to see it as an absurd attempt to create a weird style option where none is needed. You be the judge.

If you’ve ever tried to tie a tie, on yourself or someone else, and failed, a few of these knots look exactly like what you’d get. Except planned. But as I said, I’m no style expert.

Style Guide: Five Ways to Wear a Tie This Holiday Season
The knot of this Saint Laurent tie can be just as much an accessory as the item itself

Leveling up your holiday outfit can be as simple as tying your tie a different way. A good old-fashioned Windsor knot won’t ever be a bad choice, but there are so many more creative options to test out.

Wall Street Journal
Dec. 2, 2025

December 2, 2025

Today is GivingTuesday, so…

About GivingTuesday

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of radical generosity. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.

Join the movement and give, whether it’s some of your time, a donation, or the power of your voice in your local community.

It’s a simple idea: whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor or stranger out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to contribute toward building the better world we all want to live in.

Show Your Generosity

It’s more important than it ever has been to show up for our communities.

Support your local social good organizations, mutual aid networks, and community organizers
Do an act of kindness or help a neighbor
Identify your gifts, pick a cause that gets you fired up, and give back – not just for GivingTuesday but every day.

If you have favorite charities, give today, through the holiday season and whenever.

As previous posts have noted, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is an excellent choice. Best of all, right now there is a 5X match for your donation:

Nearly all civilians in Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Children are dying of starvation and disease. With aid access severely limited, the IRC and its partners are responding where we can to provide nutrition, clean water, sanitation and hygiene services, along with child protection in some of the hardest-hit areas.

Today, your additional gift will be 5X-matched, helping the IRC make a lasting impact for people in crisis in Gaza and across the world—at a scale that truly makes a meaningful impact.

Thank you for your gift.

December 2, 2025

Money, Power & Wall Street: The Don’t-Miss Can’t-Watch Documentary

When I look back at my past posts, which began in 2012, some are too time-bound and topical to be of much interest to anybody today. Others remain relevant.

The context of this older post, from May 12, 2012: The U.S. economy bottomed out in 2008. When PBS (which is still hanging on, despite ongoing attempts to kill it) produced this Frontline documentary, it was trying to explain what happened and warn us, all those years ago, that it wasn’t getting fixed, and might only get worse.

In describing the documentary that was “don’t miss, can’t watch” I wrote:

“In a world where financial forces become too big to understand or control, it is still our job as citizens and public servants to understand and control them. Because when it finally hits, ideologies and political badges are not really going to matter.”

How’s that going?

It is hard to recommend the four-part PBS Frontline documentary Money, Power & Wall Street and hard not to. Difficult as it is to watch the financial crisis unfolding, the film is superior even by Frontline’s high standard of excellence. As a history and prospectus, it is an insightful, even-handed and essential work of reporting. As a source of optimism, it is a complete failure, because the conclusion is that nothing has substantially changed, and that maybe nothing will.

It is as good as any disaster movie in pulling us in and moving us inexorably along. We see the scenes in detail, meet the cast of characters—lead and supporting actors—and have a growing sense of foreboding: this can’t end well.

It is different than most disaster movies in two ways. Most have some heroes, and with a few exceptions, there are no heroes here. And most disaster movies end with some movement toward rebuilding and reform, and with a sense of lessons learned: we will keep better watch for asteroids, we will build a system of asteroid warning and protection, we will come out this with a fundamentally better society. There is none of that here.

Yet Money Power & Wall Street has to be seen by every American. Those with political agendas will no doubt point to particular decisions or non-decisions, or particular actions or inactions, to prove a partisan point. But when they do, they will have missed the bigger point. In a world where financial forces become too big to understand or control, it is still our job as citizens and public servants to understand and control them. Because when it finally hits, ideologies and political badges are not really going to matter.