Maestro

The Maestro used to be the Hulk. After decades of hounding, scorn, and betrayal, the Hulk started to lose his patience with humanity. They began to disgust him. Then, somebody set off a nuclear holocaust. This killed off most of the Earth's heroes, but the radiation only made the Hulk stronger. This is when he started calling himself the Maestro. He then created a city called Dystopia that was shielded from the radiation. He ruled completely in this city, and had access to as much food, materials, and women as he wanted. In his mind, he was only getting that which he was denied earlier in life.

A (very) small resistance movement was started to fight the Maestro. It's leader was Rick Jones, sidekick extraordinare. They found Dr. Doom's time machine and used it to go back and get the Hulk of our time. They brought him to the future to fight the Maestro. The Maestro broke Hulk's neck when they first met to paralyze him until his healing factor overcame the injury. This temporary paralysis gave the Maestro enough time to tell the Hulk what the future had in store for him. He offered the Hulk co-leadership of Dystopia. The Hulk refused, and a fight ensued. The Hulk transported the Maestro to the heart of the gamma-bomb explosion that created him, which atomized him. (Sorry about the messy pronouns. When you're dealing with the 2 of the same person, it's tough.) Needless to say, the Hulk won, and returned to his time.

What Savage Beast, by Peter David tells the tale of a meeting between the Hulk and a Maestro from a slightly different future. This Maestro kidnaps the Hulk's child and all around pisses him off. He fell into a temporal nexus and disappeared.

So, the Maestro is dead. But the Hulk might still turn into the Maestro. Things like the death of his wife and the appearance of the Wild Man (referenced to by the Maestro as one of the Hulk's tormentors) all seem to lead to a future ruled by the Maestro. Hopefully, the Maestro will stay dead.

Maestro is a work by veteran reporter Bob Woodward about Alan Greenspan. The book does not read much like a biography, and is more a book about the Fed's policies than about Greenspan as a person, but it does include some interesting insights into the character of the man who has come to epitomize America's economy.

The book, at 230 pages, manages to encapsulate most of the economics changes since Greenspan was appointed during the Reagan Administration, including a stock market crash, the 1991 recession, and the Asian market collapse of 1997. In this, it also includes the personal and professional relationships that Greenspan had with three different presidents and their administrations. The books narrative ends midway through 2000, and thus doesn't include the recent national and economic troubles the United States has seen.

What fascinated me about the book the most is how Greenspan chose to deal with a wide variety of situations, such as recessions, inflation, the Long Term Capital Management fiasco, stock bubbles, and many others, using only four tools: raising or decreasing interest rates 1\4 or a 1\2 of a point. Using only those tools and his ability to change the stock market using a phrase such as irrational exuberance, Greenspan has managed to keep the economy more or less under control for well over a decade now.

Woodward's reporting, as usual, is excellent, and he makes the seemingly dull world of meetings and conference calls move like a war novel.

Maestro is also the name of a more-or-less global ATM network between various banks.

It lets you use an Australian ATM card in a Chinese ATM at a completely different bank and although there will probably be fees, charges and downright rude exchange-rates, you will still be able to withdraw money. There are other networks or agreements that perform similar functions, Europe has the ubiquitous Switch.

Ma*es"tro (?), n. [It., fr. L. magister. See Master.]

A master in any art, especially in music; a composer.

© Webster 1913.