Woohoo…some of us have been talking about it since 1840.

I haven’t read the piece yet, not wanting to be influenced by another writer before I see what I have to say. Signature chuckle…well, how do I know what that is? I haven’t written it, yet.

That only sounds like an odd thing to say; it isn’t. That is how our minds work, you know: we dump information in the hopper, our brains process the data, and then we have to get the results out either through writing or speaking. “Thinking” is the act of imposing order on facts, of deducing connections, of correlating interlocking facets, of discerning order and patterns. Thinking is similar to using a washing machine: first you put in water, detergent, and dirty clothes. Close the lid and turn the machine on. Go away for a while. Sure enough, in general when you return the device has cleaned your clothing, but it isn’t anywhere near ready to wear. You have to get it out of the cavity and process items further by drying and then folding and putting away. Only then do you have fresh, clean jeans to wear.

What I think about secession basically is that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but a dangerous pursuit to advocate publicly. Janet Napolitano and the alphabet soup guys do not take kindly to the notion of freedom in any way, and for the precise reason that Abraham Lincoln did not. When asked why he didn’t just let the South go, Lincoln exploded in a rage, “Let the South go? LET THE SOUTH GO? How, then, should I fill my coffers?”

Documented historical fact. Look it up for yourselves. Winners write history and the North/Leftists have had nearly 160 years to spin their propaganda, but the fact is that the South was the wealthy portion of the country back then. Cotton was, indeed, king, the Feds had gotten themselves into monetary trouble, and bankruptcy was imminent! The back room Congressional brawls were over whether to declare the USA closed at the Mississippi and raise taxes, or to hit tariffs even harder to benefit their factories and shipping businesses, improving their bottom lines and increasing tax revenues. Greed and tariffs won. Hit the South for the enrichment of the North. Hit those who produced cane, corn, and cotton for the benefit of those who consumed and controlled shipping and rail transport and to increase federal control.

We are still disagreeing over the same issues, although the team names have changed. The War for Southern Independence (aka “The War of Northern Aggression” on our side and “The War of the Rebellion” on the other) was about financial matters and the proper role of government. The Southern states had been sold a bill of goods that they were going to get something similar to the original Articles of Confederation before the Constitution and still expected that. Th’ Yankees, for simple terminology, have mocked “States’ Rights” deliberately and consistently as a giant joke since who flung th’ chunk, but it isn’t and they know it quite well. It is a grave issue of utmost importance to those of us who wish to be responsible for our own behavior and neither beholden to any government anywhere nor raped for the benefit of those who outvote us.

The war was and is about freedom and money, what else? Slavery was a distraction, an attempt to pretty up the naked aggression of the North, long after the war was started by firing on Ft. Sumter, and Lincoln never freed a single slave. His famous proclamation applied only to slaves in territory he did not control; it certainly did not free slaves in the North. Yes, the Northerners had slaves, too, and Yankee ship captains were the ones who plied the slave trade. Not one Southern ship was ever a blackbirder.

Lincoln was looking for spin and a highly-emotional issue to cloak his behavior. He was a despicable man, the original Illinois super politician.

The South was in a manpower bind, with every free man already working, and was phasing out slavery as rapidly as possible, should this issue still disturb you. Slave labor is the most expensive, least effective solution to a problem, but until machinery was invented to pick cotton and process cane, the South had no other choice save not remaining in business.  Slaves have to be fed, housed, clothed, purchased, and provided with medical care, and then someone has to stand around constantly to get any sort of work at all out of them. Slavery is wildly uneconomical, and sharecropping isn’t much better in terms of Return On Investment. Southerners came from different portions of the British Empire; the North was settled by small shopkeepers and religious zealots, while the richer land and more hospitable climate of the South drew those who live on and in harmony with the land, particularly those from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

If you’re still dubious, here are some facts: 70% of all Southerners never owned a single slave. Slaves were very expensive; a prime field hand cost $2,000, making him at least a Maseratti. A trained ladies’ maid or butler was even more. Sure, you could abuse a slave because you owned him, but how many people would? Do you key your car and take a baseball bat to the windshield just because you can (so long as you do not file an insurance claim?) Normal people don’t. Free blacks who owned slaves were more likely to do so, historically. Yankee overseers weren’t always nice, either, abusing the workers occasionally in an attempt to exceed production quotos.  Even so, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was sheer, sentimental, sensationalist hogwash.

27% of those in the South never owned more than two slaves. Slaves were a luxury in a land where it was all but impossible to hire a maid or a farm hand.

Only 3% ever owned three or more slaves, and no, neither Gone with the Wind nor Mandingo were at all true to life. Yes, there were a very few stereotypical antebellum mansions, just as there are a very few of those who own ski lodges in Vail and summer places on Martha’s Vineyard, and buy ambassadorships and $540 Lanvin tennis shoes.

The BIG question is…why did the Southerners resist so fiercely? Would you go fight and die for Nancy Pelosi’s power when there is nothing in it for you? Would you fight to maintain Al Gore’s lifestyle? Would you go into battle to ensure that Michelle Obama can have ten thousand dollar purses? What stupid questions. Of course not.

The South fought for what it believed, which was that we were free and independent states entitled, in writing, to withdraw from the “union” whenever we wished, and to govern ourselves as we see fit. That we saw no reason to be impoverished for the benefit of shipbuilders, bankers, and politicians. That all we wanted was to be left in peace instead of being robbed and attacked. That Yankees are crazy and our totally different lifestyle is vastly superior…and we haven’t changed our minds.

Once again, the issue was and is redistribution of wealth and unbridled governmental control. I wrote recently about the enormous tariff Obama slapped on tire imports. 5,000 tire workers lost their jobs when several manufacturers of low-end tires could not compete with China, which holds about 15% of the market. Well, Statists can’t have that! 5,000 voters and union favor are clearly more important than affordable tires for most of us. The tariff was raised from 4.7% to nearly 40%, and the cheapest tire (not counting one of those ridiculous donuts) in WalMart went immediately from $49 to $125. Did this reopen the tire plants or create 5,000 jobs to replace those that could not compete in a faintly free market? No, of course not. It did not, and will not, create a single job. It did become another enormous tax on the American driving public. “Oddly” enough, only enormous tires for 18-wheelers are exempt, leading one to suppose that Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., still has a bit of influence.

A tariff IS a tax, a way of transferring wealth.  It targets the many for the wealth of a few. It is monopolistic in nature. By hobbling Chinese imports, American manufacturers are not obliged to practice competitive business policies. Their market is protected at the expense of the customer. Mind, I haven’t really any problem with monopolies, which are self-correcting in a free market. Goodyear (or whoever) couldn’t compete at the low end, and China snagged 15% of the market. If US manufacturers want the low-end market back, they need to produce better tires at the same prices or cheaper similar tires than China can.

My preliminary thoughts on secession, then, are that we should understand what we want and how we can get it. Do many really care whether or not Hawaii, for example, becomes a free nation again? Sure, some few Romantics do, but for all practical purposes Hawaii has belonged to Japanese Democrats most of my life. The Hawaiians of the blood royal have a very good point: the US wrested the throne from Queen Liliuokalani. Beats me why they want it back, but it sounds fair to me.

What we had better care about is whether or not the massive Federal government continues to grow unchecked and ever more rapacious and dictatorial. It makes me very nervous when new laws make it impossible for us to leave the country without proper documentation! Shades of the Berlin Wall. Canada and Mexico make no such demands; Washington D.C. does. Do you deal well with something called a “trusted traveler” document? I don’t. How about “no fly” lists that forbid you to get on an aircraft going anyplace? Not healthy, people. Not all Gulags are in northern Russia. A gulag is a state of mind and overwhelming force, not a matter of location.

RFID-chipping animals, machinery, clothing, and humans is to increase government surveillance, identification, and control. One problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, as it was in Viet Nam, is that the “insurgents” blend into the rest of the population. Be very wary of the national “driver’s license” which functions as an identifying document and must be carried on your person. Eye askance the “traffic cameras” which are springing up, for they are meant to track vehicles, read those drivers’ licenses, and allow your every move to be monitored.

Big Brother watches us more every day, controls more of our lives, and is backing us into corners where we can neither flee nor supply our own needs through our own efforts. The Food “Safety” Bill will make it illegal to use any save genetically-modified seeds from Monsanto (dangerous and do not propagate from what you grow), allow the government to know where every head of cattle and chicken is, and make it possible to locate every bite of food so that it can be confiscated at federal whim. It turns possessing raw milk out of your goat and the chicken you killed for dinner into crimes.

Taxing us at rates over fifty percent is unacceptable, but controlling the food supply is intolerable. Gun confiscation became far closer by a proposed “simple” tax of $50/year on each gun, something that need not even be voted on by Congress, since it is presented as “an IRS issue.” In order to take our guns, first they have to know where they are. As the founding father said, “Fear the government that fears your guns.”

Fear the government that has changed from the most basic of “thou shalt nots” to incessant meddling with every aspect of our lives, and holds that we are cows to be stripped for personal gain and to buy votes. King John is back on the throne, and in this version he does not have a brother named Richard, off fighting in the Holy Land. Robin Hood is a crony of the Sheriff of Nottingham. A successful secessionist movement that established a smaller truly independent nation with time to undo the harm of the past would be a start…but would Washington let the people go? I don’t think so.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

November 17, 2009

What Can We Learn from 1860? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

1. At the current rate of taxation, even if nothing deteriorates, how much money does your wife need to live on after you are gone? The classic rule is “80% of your highest income plus a paid for house.” Right. If you make $100,000/year, you need to accumulate through savings or insurance $1.6M in capital at 5% interest. Problems: inheritance taxes are due to cut back in, and Uncle definitely wants a chunk of $1.6. Worse, the interest will be taxed as income and she isn’t going to find 5% interest. Let us suppose that she has $1000/mo in Social Security—a little over the average, but you’ve got a good job. A loving government will take roughly 10% of that away from her immediately too pay for Medicare and has already announced a 20% increase in fees over the next three years…with no increase in COLA, or the “Cost Of Living Allowance.” According to the Feds there is no inflation, hence her costs will not rise. We would love to know where those who make such pronouncements buy groceries, gasoline, socks, and tires. Supposing naively that she pays no income tax, if she puts the $250,000 in insurance you may have arranged for her in a CD at 1.5%, at the end of the first year she will have $3,750 in interest plus the theoretical $11,100 in Social Insecurity, for a total income of $14,850. Social Security probably won’t cover the house note you almost certainly have, and houses aren’t selling well. Her alternatives are to find a job or live on what she has for three years and hope she can find husband. That is certainly neither a safe nor a dignified plan, although it may make more sense than buying lottery tickets. The worst part is, that’s the best I can foresee for her.

2. The Greater Depression arrives, as it almost certainly will. It doesn’t matter whether you’re married or single, how safe is your job? 26,000,000 of the things have disappeared already in this century, and unless you are among the 40% of the populace which works for some governmental entity or a CEO you night want to do a little worrying. Japan is on the twenthieth year of their last depression, with a brand new government devoted to the project of becoming an economic block with India, and a few sprats such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, hunks of Indonesia, and so forth. Yup, our little island nation friend is going to grow up, leave the nest, and devote itself to destroying the dollar. What they plan to do with the two trillion or so they hold I have no idea, but if they knock the dollar out as the reserve currency they have some notions. The ironic part is that those dollars have little value at present and are under pressure from all sides, from Bernanke and Geithner’s government-sanctioned counterfeiting and money-laundering (swooshing the new cash around through Treasuries and the market, for example), to cheerful plots in the Middle East and BRIC. It’s coming, get ready for it.

3. The stock market takes a 40% thud at the year’s end, the bond market crashes, the ARM supply has 80% set to re-arm, commercial real estate looks like a yeast vat it bubbles so freely, and a lot more banks are set to fail. Some may even be “set up” to fail. These government-made disasters are pretty much set in stone and will coincide with your other choices.

4. Government revenues are down 17%, the jobless rate is at 17% by rational accounting methods, and a great many states have balanced budget requirements. They will have only two recourses: raise taxes again, or cut jobs and “services.” ARE we having fun yet? 25% of those working are paying all of the income taxes and virtually all property taxes—and schools and bureaucracies demand more money every year. Protests against government spending and taxes are becoming more visible.

5. OPEC members have been running on the American Plan in large part, tossing around bread and services to keep their citizens from expressing noisy opinions of fleets of silver Mercedes Benze automobiles, some of them diamond studded. At one point in the last year it took Saudia Arabia, as I recall, $70/barrel just to cover the “social services” portion of their budget. Basically, every dime the Sauds get for a barrel these days is already committed to welfare, which means it is rather expensive to give away their declining oil supply. Throw the peak oil mess and the miraculous never-depleting “reserves” OPEC nations claim into this bucket. Meanwhile, back on the home front, the Greens are fully in control; drilling rights that had been negotiated were blocked recently, coal is threatened under cap and tax, don’t even mention nuclear power, and hydroelectric dams stand idle because the water has been flushed uselessly to help dear little fishies. Oh, and the crops failed in California when the water was diverted from irrigation.

6. The citizenry of these “united” states turns ugly for a variety of reasons, ranging from food or energy scarcity, taxation, the avalanche of new socialistic legislation, union members who have priced themselves out of jobs, racial or religious riots, and/or a hearty disinclination to put up with this any more. For an eyeful, ask Google how many states and a group of islands have strong secessionist movements. Funny Hawaii ne! Seems like they want Queen Liliuokalani’s throne back, and who can blame them? The real situation is that Hawaii has belonged to Japanese Democrats since I was graduated from the University of Hawaii, all those decades ago.

7. Some combination of the above appears, and the government proves that a government no longer strong enough to give the masses what they want is still strong enough to implement everything from the War Powers Act to the “PATRIOT” act, and turns completely totalitarian on us. Obama declares a national emergency, dismisses Congress (don’t come back boy and girl millionaires; your cushy jobs have been abolished), and pursuant to Executive Order 11921, armed, uniformed thugs show up on your doorstep and loot your house of all foodstuffs, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, valuables, and anything else any member of the team fancies. De facto gun registration is becoming de jure as it is being sneaked quietly through Congress disguised as “a simple IRS measure.” It requires a tax of $50 a year on every gun you own—or admit owning—your fingerprints, and submitting to government psychological examinations on demand, as well as other unsavory regulations. Penalties for being in possession of “untaxed” guns will be quite severe. This section has two possible outcomes: the rednecked, gun owning, Bible-thumping, smoking, drinking, butter-and-red-meat-eating, bluejean-wearing, Limbaugh-listening, homophobic, racist domestic terrorists (description courtesy of Janet Napolitano and assorted government agencies) are in open revolt, and either win, or they don’t. My money is on the armies in Kevlar and Corcorans armed with up-to-the-minute genuine assault weapons, riding around in AP carriers and tanks, including the all-volunteer forces, the 100,000 or so Blackwater has, assorted UN “peacekeeping” forces, and the Canadians who are pledged to come to the aid of the president if asked. Oh…I forgot the two battalions of the Praetorian Guard assigned to the president’s personal use, the secret service, the FBI, Homeland “security,” and the BATF.

8. The depression and embargos on oil are so devastating that not even the government can muster the money to pay armies, and we drift quietly into The Greater Depression, with perhaps forty or more percent unemployment, irregular power services, little to buy in the stores, devalued dollars, cessation of Social Security and then drastic cuts in welfare, food, water, and fuel shortages, and a seething populace.

9. At some point, cauldrons roil over, the always-happy-to-riot sectors of “society” prevalent at Watts, Katrina, and Ike, and ghettos jump in happily, and the food supply is exhausted in the cities after three days, maximum. Millions die from heat, cold, thirst, tainted water, rampant disease, and assorted natural and man-made disasters.

10. In the fullness of time something on the order of 40,000,000 are dead from the aforementioned conditions, having argued with violent, hairy strangers, or been shot for fleeing like locusts from Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, and Houston (for starters) to spread out over the land attacking farm houses and taking over small towns. The farms will lose their future crops in most instances, and little towns will be barren of food, as well. When the population has been reduced sufficiently, the remainder will eke out an unpleasant existence grubbing in the soil attempting to learn to grow plants with not many seeds available, learning to raise animals and slaughter them (that being illegal by that time), discovering that medical care is almost nonexistent and is paid for in chickens and barter is the established method of commerce since the value of the dollar is on the order of that in Zimbabwe, and the LE (Law Enforcement) officials will likely not have enough manpower to say wearily more than “You shot it, you bury it.”

There y’are, the ten things which exercise my mind the most. You decide which one you’re going to worry about, and I’ll come back later and address the problems one by one. In the meantime, divest yourselves of dollars. Turn them into anything durable which you will need later.

Drearily yours,
Linda Brady Traynham

November 16, 2009

The Top Ten Things to Worry About Surviving in a Bad Economic Climate was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Justice Little, Editor of Taipan Daily, also out of the AF stable, says that 26 M jobs have been lost.

The Federal Government says that the unemployment rate is 9.8%.  Traditional methods of accounting make the answer right at twice that much, recognizing that people are still jobless even though they have exhausted (expanded) unemployment compensation or been on the rolls more than six months.

Another source claims one million jobs were lost last month, as opposed to the government reports which will fluctuate for a while and finally show up on the back pages as 475,000 again, at a good guess.

Rocket scientists used slipsticks and Cray computers which have been replaced by fancier models, while split second “trades” are executed algorithmically on the floor of the stock exchange to garner half a cent a share, but let’s get back to good old tried and true methods which don’t even require an abacus.

If there are 130 M jobs, net, in the USA (rounding slightly to keep the arithmetic simple), and 25,000,000 have been lost (again, rounding to keep matters simple) then we can either say that the job market has shrunk on the close order of twenty per cent. (a ploy the government should have thought of but didn’t, and if we go with 26 M that is precisely 20% of 130M), or we can say that the jobless rate is approximately twenty per cent., which is exactly the same result I got when I told you in the second paragraph what the true rate probably is.  Inconvenient truths do not really disappear just because someone mumbles mystical new accounting parameters.

It is possible that the wizards were trying to tell us that there are currently 131M jobs in the USA, down from a previous high of 157M.  In that case, the job loss is 26/157 which is an awkward number to reduce by division while typing, so let’s multiply, instead.  The figure is one-sixth, almost exactly.  (6 x 26 = 120 + 36 = 156.  That is definitely close enough for government work.)

By that view, 15% + 1.66% (a quick way to deduce 1/6, since multiplication is far simpler than its upside down view, division.  Perhaps no one ever told you that, or that addition is only backwards subtraction.)  = 15.66 % total destruction of the portion of the economy known as employment.  That is even worse news than that 20% of those who need jobs can’t get them.  It means that a sixth of our economy has disappeared to foreign lands or been destroyed by the fall of the stock market, banking instutions, and real estate.

Even a large factory starting up isn’t going to produce more than a few thousand jobs (and it is not guaranteed to succeed, particularly with such horrors as cap and tax, more regulation, and the guarantee of many other new taxes ahead of us), and who has the capital for such an undertaking, other than foreigners with a surfeit of falling dollars?  Do we really want an economy dependent upon the good will of those chortling over the demise of the dollar as the reserve currency?  I guess assorted governments in Washington this century shouldn’t have borrowed so much money from them.  They did, though, and in some ways the best thing that could happen is for the whole sleazy fraud of fiat currency and the Fed to crash around their deserving ears.

It is possible to jigger figures in any number of entertaining ways, but that won’t change the facts.  All it does is disguise them and lead to more palatable annual corporate reports and soothing statements from Bernanke, Geithner, and Obama.  If our measure of “recovery” is getting back to the slippery ground we were on five years ago–not a pleasant place to stand, as events have revealed–then it follows that 25,000,000 jobs must be created, one or a few at a time.  These cannot be temporary jobs, such as census workers or seasonal workers; that is the equivalent of putting a bandaid on a ruptured appendix and saying that time will heal it.  Time is going to cause us to bleed out and die of septicemia if we don’t do some surgery, here.

Mind, all creating twenty-five million real jobs in manufacturing, construction, agriculture, and education would do is restore the status quo ante.  As daunting a task as that would be, it would not solve the problem; it would merely stanch the bleeding.  Until we work our way through the devastation of all the bubbles there is no way to clear the decks for rebuilding.

I don’t think it can be done.  I’m feeling nautical, so let’s say that we have been hulled between wind and water.  Our masts are down in a tangle of rigging, the sheets are snapped and tangled, and our lower decks are awash in blood and loose cannons rolling over the wounded.  All the surgeon has in his chest is salt and rough canvas.  In this case, Geithner and Bernanke are terrified of using the bone saw.

Oh, occasionally the Captain and senior officers will throw a bank overboard, but pretty much the fix is in for those who are connected.  We are witnessing the greatest transfer of wealth in the last two hundred and 233 years, and it is all going to special interest groups.  Other than what they dole out on luxury goods and buying more power that money is not going back into the economy to create new businesses or expand old ones which is the only way that genuine, long-lasting, productive jobs come into being.

Can there be a recovery without jobs?  Of all the idiotic suppositions that only Keynesians would promulgate!  Of course not, any more than those who are not employed can pay bills, eat, and provide tax recovery.

Jobs are not an intangible, save in one increasingly dangerous sense.  Jobs must produce something.  By its very definition, a job is labor which produces something the employer wants more than he wants or needs his money.  It always seems to surprise Statists, but the purpose of business is to create profits, not to create products, and certainly not to create jobs; indeed, technology is reducing the need for human workers, to the understandable delight of entrepreneurs.  Creating profits involves risk, forethought, knowledge (or hired experience), and it isn’t something just anyone can do.  In particular, it is not something which can be done under shackling regulations, increased taxes and cost, insecurity over fuel availability, and capricious governments dedicated to non-science and paying off themselves and open-handed constituents.

The biggest problem I see is not fiat money (which is collapsing from its own lack of substance), or the purported “global” economy, which is composed of numerous countries none of whom are doing well.  (Prosperity in China?  Oh, my, tell me another one.)  The big problem, which is being exacerbated, is that something like 40% of all “jobs” are in government.  Yup.  Four out of every ten “workers” are paid lavishly (in general, twice what counterparts in business make for similar tasks) are engaged primarily in the business of making our lives more difficult, our businesses less profitable, and our ability to plan for the future almost impossible.  This country has grown bureaucracy and chased manufacturing jobs off shore.  It has increased regulation and deleterious “services” at the expense of freedom and capital to create real business which include real jobs and genuine products which can be sold instead of buying shoddy merchandise from China.  We’ve seen the cycle…from Taiwan to Japan to Sri Lanka, and now to China.  We have sent our money overseas for many decades rather than fight to reduce regulation, reduce taxes, and reduce costs.  A fork lift operator simply isn’t worth $86,000 a year, even if he works for the ci devant “Big Three.”  Not many of them do any more, and it serves them right.  Greed at all levels of the unions  made American products too expensive to buy.  Manufacturers–whom, I will remind you again, are not in business to employ “workers,” but to make profits–picked up their blueprints and went elsewhere.  We cannot blame them.  We would do the same if we were able.

No, friends, there will be no “jobless” recovery.  There will be no recovery at all until we are so much farther down that October of 2009 looks like “the good old days.”  The “green shoots” are the slime growing up the North wall of government, the bacteria of corruption, and of parasites such as governmental Spanish Moss and Pharma and Agribiz mistletoe.

What is to be done?  You’ve got your choice.  Destroy Carthage, or opt out.  Pull back into your own perimeter.  Produce nothing that can be taxed or regulated.

That’s what we have come to.  State revenues are down 17%, which looks like a pretty close correlation of 1:1 for enterprise destruction and joblessness both.  Every job destroyed is another blow at the Nanny State which cannot survive without continuous economic growth, because such as they never curtail their own spending and urge to shackle and harry those who produce the funds upon which Statists thrive.  Perhaps you are not in a position to do so, but if you are…just quit.  This isn’t new advice; Ayn Rand gave it to you sixty years ago.  Do not lend credence to your oppressors and do not support them…and do not look for any genuine green shoots representing real growth any time soon.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

October 19, 2009

The Jobless Recovery, So Called was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The US International Trade Commission ruled that increased imports of Chinese tires hurts American producers, meaning labor unions.  I have a sudden vision of the Chinese hurling tires at us when one can only suppose the things were ordered deliberately by those seeking lower prices. The highly punitive tariffs on all car and light truck tires entering the United States from China are seen correctly by all as a means to pander to Obama’s vital union support and garner votes for his health care aspirations, and who cares if China gets in a snit?  They are also a direct tax on US car owners, because you may be quite certain that China will not bear the costs in the long run.

“The federal trade panel recommended a 55 percent tariff in the first year, 45 percent in the second year and 35 percent in the third year. Obama settled on slightly lower penalties — an extra 35 percent in the first year, 30 percent in the second, and 25 percent in the third,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. What a fascinating view of Obama arithmetic.

“Slightly” lower turns out to be on the order of a third, and the fact that the increase is, oh, call it roughly seven-fold the first year, six-fold the second year, and a mere four-fold the third year won’t have any economic impact will it? Money means nothing to those people; it’s all about making “statements.” We’ll hardly notice when the family phaeton needs new tires.

He of the impeccable logic and ethical skills had only the highest motives. “The president decided to remedy the clear disruption to the U.S. tire industry based on the facts and the law in this case,” Robert Gibbs stated. Hey, this isn’t about money, its about fulfilling the law, a rather novel notion in this day and age.

Our concern here in the far-flung Texas Whiskey Bunker isn’t the continued ineptness of the greatest politician of the age, but how it affects our decisions. Being mean-spirited, callous, and selfish, I plan to hit Sam’s tomorrow and stock up on tires, myself. Then I will consider whether or not to short the ailing tire industry, which has seen imports nearly quadruple in the last five years. One of the great lessons of WWII and depressions is that one cannot have too many tires, too much fuel, or enough butter stashed away. What do you think we were fighting over Burma for? Rubber. They had tin and other strategic materials as well, and we were cooperating with England, which wanted its colony back, of course. As a matter of trifling interest the Burma Road was one of the national lifelines for China. How quickly they forget, the ingrates!

The steelworkers union says more than 5,000 tire workers have lost jobs since 2004 as Chinese increased US market share significantly. “The U.S. trade representative’s office said four tire plants closed in 2006 and 2007 and three more are closing this year and that during that time just one new plant opened.” Uh, could this have something to do with the Kyoto Treaty and other “green” issues? If we thought we couldn’t compete from 2004 until today, just wait until we get the glory of Cap and Trade thrust upon our staggering economy.

Roy Littlefield, the Executive Vice president of the Tire Industry Association said that increasing the tariffs “would not save American jobs but only cause tire manufacturers to move production to another country with less strict environmental and safety controls, less active unions and lower costs than the United States.” The TIA opposes the tariff increase, even though they would like to sell more tires. It is an interesting argument, since the purpose of tariffs is to make foreign goods more expensive. It certainly seems to me that sales of Chinese-manufactured tires will fall because the cost of the tariff will have to be figured into the final price the customer pays, and American Tire Manufacturers would still have their share of the market plus the fall out from higher-priced Chinese imports. I think the point here is that this argument is the last thing US manufacturers have as a weapon. “Raise our taxes, raise the tariffs, and we’ll go elsewhere.”

One of these days we’ll get around to the true cause of the War Between the States, which you may infer — correctly — started over that very issue. We’re still fighting over taxes and tariffs, with the industrialized “north” wanting both high, and the Reds wanting them low.

“U.S. imports of Chinese tires more than tripled from 2004 to 2008 while China’s market share in the U.S. went from 4.7 percent of tires purchased in 2004 to 16.7 percent in 2008, the office said,” an AP report from the White House correspondent stated.

Okay, if we want to split percentages, 18.8% would be quadrupling, while 14.1% would be triple. It is all in perception, I suppose…Here’s one (a perception, that is) from Vic Delorio, another Executive Vice President, this time from the largest manufacturer of tires in China, GITI Tire (U.S.)  He opines that we really shouldn’t do this thing because it would mean Mr. Obama had broken a campaign promise! “…the Obama administration is now at odds with its own public statements about refraining from increasing tariffs above current levels.”

What does Mr. Delorio know?! He actually called it an “unprecedented action,” not true whether we view that as protectionist tariffs, catering to unions, or Mr. Obama breaking campaign promises. Most of the G-20 is against tariffs, quite possibly because they sell us more than they buy from us, but that’s okay, because the tariff won’t go into effect until the day after the meeting of the 20 in the US! Maybe they’ll all forget about it, live and let live.

Beijing says the “duties would be a violation of global free-trade principles” and has complained about U.S. protectionism, but that is understandable because their ox is endangered.

You have to love Democrats for their quick grasp of realities and their total lack of a sense of what should not be said. “Rep.. Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Rules Committee, said that although the 35 percent levy was less than the 55 percent recommended in July by the ITC, it was still a significant statement of administration support for organized labor,” AP reports. (Emphasis mine.)

What matters to most of us is that viciously punishing tariffs on all car and light truck tires entering the United States from China in order to placate union supporters and garner votes for the disastrous health “care” “reform” Obama wants so desperately doesn’t strike us as worth what it will cost even if we approved of his goals, which we do not.  Even though it is unlikely that there is a voter in the USA who doesn’t know that the Union vote is in Obama’s pocket, is it wise to rub our noses in the fact that our interests will be sacrificed any time it is for the benefit of the steelworkers, autoworkers, teamsters, and so forth? It adds a whole new meaning to “preserving the Union,” doesn’t it? “Car and light truck” covers what ordinary people buy. A reasonable conjecture is that BIG tires were exempted at the bequest of Jimmy Hoffa, Junior. Or do Peterbilt and Mack have that much drag in D.C.?

We’re supposed to pay a third more for Chinese tires which are, it seems reasonable to suppose, of adequate quality and less expensive, because 5,000 US tireworkers lost their jobs and several factories went out of business? Perhaps we might consider, instead, what we all know: union workers are overpaid and under-performing, business is being strangled by taxes and regulations, and it is the way of the world that if you cannot compete you lose.

They can call it “leveling the playing field” all they want, or “fulfilling the law,” but this is just another example of politics as usual. The pigs didn’t leave the trough while there was even a morsel left, and they’re still there, gobbling and flinging giant chunks of flesh to their friends on credit. They’ve run up quite a tab at the taxpayers’ diner and the world doesn’t think their IOUs are good any more.

Unemployment is at a 26-year high and consumer spending is diminishing rapidly, which means tax revenues are falling just as fast, but those tireworkers have to be protected. (Okay, “tirelessly.”) How many of them are there, do you suppose, and why should we pay much more for tires for their benefit?

In general, when the competition is nobbled prices rise. Perhaps the Chinese should seek remedy under US antitrust laws. I only buy Michelins and Perellis, but even sweet little old domestic terrorists know that competition is what keeps people from being rapacious. So rapacious. A reasonable conjecture is that we will see all tire prices increase, but hey, we can’t be selfish. Let’s spread the wealth around for tireworkers; it’s their turn. For the rest of us? “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow,” but it will always be today for those of us who do not have the right relatives or spouses or belong to the lucrative voter blocks.

As always, there is no point in railing about things we cannot change. The One is going to go tell the Twenty that it isn’t protectionism when we do it and probably that he won, perhaps with a few insults concerning the land of the Obama and the home of the duped.

There are only two things to be done: go buy replacement tires and see if you feel like making a bet on how tire stocks are going to do. There should be a lot of tire sales in the next ten days or so.

See you at Sam’s in the Tire Department.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 24, 2009

Aftermath: This article was written last Sunday. Monday we sent the Segundo down to buy tires, and the prices had already leapt dramatically. Tires for a small stock trailer were over $125.00 each. Do we think of it as a little “insider trading” of information amongst unions and big money? Walmart and friends in China, at least? Once again the customer learns that by the time the news is broken the market has already discounted it. Or raised the prices, in this case. — LBT

Tires from China and the Tyranny of Tariffs was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The slow, agonizing death of that dream began in 1913 with the establishment of the Fed. It was damaged further by the behavior of the Fed and the big money men through events which led to the Great Depression, and suffered mortal blows under Roosevelt and Truman. The avalanche of irrational spending and social legislation since that time has lead to impractical expectations that could never have been true in any country at any time…after America in the early nineteen hundreds.

“Achievement” based on our own talents and effort has has been replaced by the entitlement mentality and the politics of envy. Passing lightly, for the moment, over the fiscal impossibility of Mr. Obama’s latest scheme to duplicate a chicken in every pot — “A college education for every young American!” — this is yet another feel-good, gimme, pie-in-the-sky statist ploy. In a nation with the drop out rates and widespread illiteracy among youngsters, how does anyone propose to qualify every last kid in America for matriculation? Where are the extra classrooms, textbooks, and teachers to come from?

The whole idea is ludicrous because no matter what the Constitution says (not that statists care), all men are not created equal intellectually. All men are not created equal in terms of what they want to do with their lives or what they would find fulfilling careers. Some of us do not want a MacMansion if it means living in the city. Some would stay cramped in a railroad flat in NYC for decades just to be in the Big Apple. Some like being mechanics and plumbers and electricians, careers which provide them with considerable personal satisfaction and very much above average incomes. Some don’t want to do anything except lie around watching TV or to talk trash, smoke dope, mug strangers, and “draw” welfare.

I did an analysis in 1990 and discovered that over 90% of all youth going before the courts in Seattle were functionally or totally illiterate. How does Mr. Obama propose to turn such into college graduates? A shockingly disproportionate number of “gifted” kids drop out of school, bored senseless with the watered down curriculum and “social” programs. Some, in time, will earn a GED and go to college; many will be wasted.

Each generation in the last century saw a lessening of expectations academically. Use a search engine to find the final exam for the 8th grade — as high as undergraduate education went late in the 19th Century — for Kansas, I think in 1895, although it may have been 1875. I have two college degrees and have done graduate work in five fields. I could pass that exam, but I certainly could not cover myself with glory.

The HS education of the Thirties was the equivalent of a BA in the Sixties. Very few of those who have been graduated since the Eighties will ever begin to know what the average college graduate knew in the Viet Nam era. The real truth is that most of the erudition the highly-educated have came from work they had done on their own because they wanted to know. They view education as a life-long pursuit.

These days we have a show asking “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” We have millions who never even heard of diagramming a sentence.

Two years ago a high school junior in a “good” school in Houston took Biology. At her age, we were dissecting angle worms the first day and worked our ways up through rats, eels, and cats. HER class went to nearby Galveston and got a small shark. The course of instruction consisted of keeping the shark alive until the last week of school when the teacher dissected it. This is not the sort of biological “knowledge” that leads to future research geniuses. Neither does “Bowling,” another of her classes, or “Yearbook.” She had yet to have mastered the multiplication tables and was still on “pre-Algebra.” I had my first real Algebra course in the 7th grade and three more in high school plus geometry, Latin, Spanish, and Business Law, which stands me in good stead to this day. A college education these days is little more than a necessary stamp of the ticket and does not begin to guarantee even an entry level job, as witness how few recently-graduated lawyers were able to get jobs in that field ten years ago and ever since. We’ve got more lawyers than we need and nowhere near enough engineers, veterinarians, and butchers.

We cannot make genuine college graduates, with what most of us think that term should mean, out of every bit of the raw material at hand. Kids who read poorly, if at all, have no idea how percentages work, and think they are “entitled” to free food, housing, insurance, and medical care are not college material, any more than all of them can become stars in the NBA, successful actresses, or morticians.

Naturally, we cannot set the matter of cost aside. The federal government has beggared this nation for generations and is on a rampage in this century that cannot fail to usher in The Greater Depression. Japan has been suffering from Depression for 19 years, now, and it didn’t spend nearly as much as Washington did. There are so many “social” programs now, and so many more being demanded, that it is not feasible to fund college even for those who qualify even under the current very lax standards.

College is a sheer waste of time for those who have neither the inclination nor the ability to succeed there. Year after year the costs have gone up, and the degree it took four years to earn in my day now takes six. Rather like car loans. Less product for more money.

We can all but guarantee that with true joblessness running nearly 20% (by the standards used during the Great Depression), firms cutting back hours and cutting salaries, and the difficulties universities are having getting operating funds because charitable giving is down, that prices will continue to rise, enrollment will drop (making cost per student even higher), and we will see increasing defaults on student loans. My son has about $75,000′ worth, himself, for which he was graduated summa cum laude and has an MBA. That is also over a year’s salary for him. To add to the strain, through governmental witchery some of those student loans got thrown over into a program with 15% interest rates, breaking the agreement Andrew had made! Nobody consulted him; they just broke the contract and said, “This is how it is now.”

I have written before that the future of higher education is on-line schooling, just as the best option for fortunate children is home-schooling. Three years ago it cost almost exactly what going to the University of Texas for ‘Drew’s MBA would have…but his books were included, classes were never closed to enrollment, and he didn’t spend a great many dangerous, expensive hours on freeways, hunting parking places, or hanging around campus between classes. His work involved all written projects and reports, developing the writing skills he had learned at home. (By the time your mama the editor has marked up all of your papers for three years…)

There isn’t even an illusion of pie in the sky any more. The big rock candy mountain is down to a pile of grubby shards. ALL of the children in America may not and can not go to college for free or even otherwise, and $4000/a year or even a semester is a token. A college education these days costs as much to the families — or a state — as does incarcerating a felon, although it yields a better proportion of taxpayers eventually.

Next time we will discuss other factors which lead to the dismal level of “scholarship” in America and what that portends for the future. Governmental policies have driven away manufacturing jobs, and brains have been drained. There will be less and less interest in “service” industries. My focus is always on what we, as individuals, can do to solve problems for ourselves. We can see that our children do not end up unable to distinguish between they’re, their, and there, or confused over whether to write “companies” or “company’s.” Education, charity, and financial responsibility all need to begin at home, as they did long ago.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 16, 2009

The Education Bubble, Part I was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Some bubbles have a significant amount of yield to them, depending upon how fully they were inflated and how sharp the object poking them is.

Some bubbles have thick, yielding coverings and are never inflated to rigidity beyond the point at which little kids sit on them and bounce along happily.

No bubbles can be reinflated after bursting, not even the ones which are blown through a little straw from smelly goo and harden almost instantly, a favorite toy of my youth.  Those wonderful bubbles could be pinched close to survive quite a while after the first rent appeared, and stuck to each other in the most delightful fashion.

Some bubbles can be reblown almost instantly and infinitely, particularly from gum formulated for that purpose.

You now know all there is to know about bubbles except what the title of this article means.

Bill Bonner made another excellent point recently:  why hasn’t the bond bubble burst messily all over the scenery?  I’ll play Cindy Lou Who:  is it because, Mr. Bonner, the wind blowing out of Washington gives the appearance of increasing activity and many people haven’t caught on that the wind is circular (as are those in hurricanes and tornadoes) blowing the money around and around through the Fed and the Treasury and the Banks?  Sound and fury, signifying nothing?  Far more apt than the Bard, the sound and fury which some of us have seen rising for many moons indicate that when this whale finally blows there’s going to be a spout to end all spouts and Moby Dick (if we even have a Moby Dick in this scenario; it sure isn’t Ben Bernanke.)  is going to go back to port and sit in the local sailors’ bar telling sea stories.

Our own beloved Gary Gibson pointed out recently that sometimes we’re a little off in our timing, but that it is better (and far more comfortable in the long run) to see problems and react early.   Y’all know my inner Cassandra:  sometimes she’s early in her warnings but sooner or later she is almost always right, and it is a whole let better to begin our preparations as soon as we can rather than to wait for further cracks to appear in the walls.  Sometimes, true, our fears are OBE, “overtaken by events.”  My detractors (who are blessedly few that I know about) point out gleefully that I was wrong about the Democratic National Convention slightly over a year ago.  I reply sweetly that Hillary Rodham Clinton may not have stolen the Convention from Barrack Hussein Obama–I’m still astounded that she didn’t–but that if she had done so there would have been riots in the streets.  It cost none of us anything to keep our heads down quietly in the country that week just in case.  Slight ridicule is a very small price to pay for having taken out an insurance policy that lapsed unused.  Most insurance never pays off, but when sixty years’ growth crashes across the roof (as happened to us two weeks ago) in the course of a storm that didn’t last five minutes paying the premiums makes excellent sense.

The Bond Market is going to go “Kablooie!” with ricocheting remnants that will have us whimpering for the good old days of upside down mortgages.  Which won’t have gone away either.  Which will probably have been augmented by the commercial real estate bubble which is covered by an integument stretched so thin that we can see through the shiny spots.  Go drive by any strip mall at random. Look at the Big Front stores.  They have “for lease” signs in the windows.

How could this not be so?  The bonds are of even less value than the currency which, by definition, is worth less every time a new cargo ship full of fiat money blows out the doors of the Treasury.  “Safety” is locking your current value into government paper at an interest rate that is lower than anything since the day before someone thought the concept up?!  Said value to be replaced at a later time in valuta that cannot fail to be worth less at a time when inflation has risen steeply?!  Anyone who thinks so should just go blow the money now in Vegas.

Which takes us over to “Why is there no inflation?”  At present in selected areas there is deflation, which in this case means you can buy a horse and buggy for a quarter of what they cost three years ago because almost no one has money to put in horses and buggies and even fewer see any need for them.  The carriage trade is still a small elite, as it has always been, as it will always be.

Inflation is defined casually as “more dollars chasing fewer goods.”  There are still plenty of goods, another situation that must, of necessity, by definition, change in the foreseeable future.  The more dollars aren’t chasing them because those who have more dollars are at government levels or in unions or in Hollywood, but they aren’t down here at the grocery store level.  They aren’t walking into car dealerships, where one out of four Cash for Clunkers suckers is feeling buyer’s remorse.  The dealers haven’t been repaid the $4500/car they fronted for the government and every car that goes back to the bank or dealer has lost the 20% or whatever it is now that it lost the moment it was driven off the dealer’s lot.  That’s one reason we passed a dealership yesterday offering to finance a major car brand for nothing for five years.

We have several situations which are going to collapse or explode and the only questions are “When?” and “Which comes first, the ARM mess or the Bond debacle or the Commercial Real Estate plummet or the next round of the Dow dive-bombing or devaluation of the currency either through butterflies being loosed in the Far East or deliberate governmental action?”  I don’t know.  It doen’t matter.  What matters is to be sure you don’t have funds tied up in any of those but have stored all of your value elsewhere.

I’m watching silver nervously.  Watching.  As ancient wisdom and Gary noted Friday, if you don’t know who the mug in the game is, you’ve already been tagged to be “It.”  Those of us with low, cunning, suspicious minds remain convinced that there are mice in the clockwork and those account for the strange things the clock has been doing.  We don’t perk right up, preen ourselves, and carol, “SEE!  We told you so!  We told you to buy silver.”  At least I am hunkered down in our little Whiskey Bunker. I don’t jump on invisible magic carpets because a genie invites me for a ride.  I don’t pounce on unseen coattails that may be whisked away before I have even located them, leaving me to fall on my face.  If some fellow tries to pick me up in a drugstore I don’t suppose I’m Lana Turner, an example so old it may be meaningless to anyone under seventy.

Yeah, long term silver is going up, and up, and up because it is real “money.”  Between now and at least the end of the year silver is almost certainly someone else’s game and he/she/it isn’t telling me the rules.  I understand Quidditch perfectly.  I can tell Offsides from Encroachment.  (No, gentlemen, the little lady isn’t trying to show off and revealing her ignorance.  She’s telling you that she has been in the game long enough to know that Offsides is Offsides no matter what you call it.)  I don’t know who or what is pulling the strings in metal but I’m content with the cheese I stole off the trap for now.  When–if, admittedly–silver gets below $13 again I’ll start buying again.  In the meantime, I’m going to store value in Galvalume.  Snap-ring barrels.  Whatever I see that is a traditional trade good, item that is always useful, or luxury at a great price.

I just bought two septic tanks!  Wow, is that a sexy investment, or what?  Well…if you want to circle the “guest quarters” (aka motor homes and travel trailers), and it will cost $20,000 plus tax to “have the man come do it,” and your gravedigger’s back hoe will dig out holes to bury the concrete vaults in a couple of hours…so far as I’m concerned we just turned eight hundred dollars into a twenty-five-fold profit AND the septic tanks will not be subject to costly annual inspections by the government.  And that’s without figuring the 8.25% tax in my head while typing although it should be obvious that it will be on the close order of another two-point-five increase.  If this is not intuitively obvious you’re probably buying into a PE of 130.  And you don’t read W&G.  Or you weren’t taught arithmetic in the Forties.

I got a diffident note from an old friend who sent me–pleased chuckle!–today’s Daily Reckoning.  Said friend doesn’t know investments from vestments from verticulitus.  This may well be the modern version of the urge to stuff gold coins into the straw, when people who have never had any interest at all are trying to find out what is going on.  And where better than right here?!

I’ve run out of space to tackle the unemployment and the jobless, venture capital-less, expansionless, profitless in most sectors, meaningless “recovery,” so I’ll close with where I intended to start which is saying that the giant sucking sound isn’t jobs going to Mexico, it is the millions who are living on the bubble.  That doesn’t mean those who profited from the real estate market collapsing or playing ring-around-the-banks.

I’ll put this first in the form of an old joke:  if you and I are walking through the woods and a bear rears up out of the berries and starts chasing us, I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you do.  Or climb a tree before you think of it.  Whisk myself to safety, and the Bear take the hindmost.

“Living on the bubble” is a racing term.  Let us suppose that 40 people will qualify to enter the Indianapolis 500 or whatever.  There are still trials going on, and you’re in 40th place.  Never mind the 39 ahead of you; you had your chance and you didn’t best them.  What you must worry about are the ten left who could still knock you out of competition.

That’s living on the bubble.  That is what almost all of us who don’t own thousands of hectares in Argentina are facing.

Don’t look forward other than to avoid snares, pitfalls, swamps, and alligators.  Keep your eye on the bears and those thundering up on your six.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 10, 2009

Living on the Bubble was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

In order for there to be a restaurant at all some entrepreneur has to put his money and vision on the line and open it. He has a thing called “overhead,” which is irreducible on-going expenses whether he has any customers at all or not. The rent, utilities, taxes, staff, laundry, raw ingredients, and so forth are constants. He is harried by assorted inspectors, frequently with conflicting demands.

In order for a meal to be put on the table once Joe Entrepreneur reaches that point the cooks have to prepare it and somebody has to serve it.

The diner has to have both the inclination to eat there and the wherewithal to pay for the meal and tip the waiter.

When government becomes the restaurant the system flies apart in many ways. Governments do not worry about overheads; indeed, it is an essential function of government to grow. The gang in DC has no concept of being able to “afford” the expenses they occasion. Money isn’t real to them. Other people’s money rarely is. They print some more any time they want to knowing that it reduces the value of the dollars we hold. They hire staff which always turns out to be permanent with reckless abandon.

Back in the real world government makes everything more expensive and more difficult. In our example, the minimum wage concept makes labor more expensive for the business owner. He has his choice of taking less profit, reducing staff, not expanding, or cutting quality. All of those will damage his enterprise. For over two decades I have been listening to small business owners say that they had the business to expand, but that between ludicrous restrictions, regulations, and taxes it simply was not worth their while to do so.

Cap and Trade will make energy far more expensive, and do so by design. Does the restaurateur reduce the fourteen ounce Angus strip to ten ounces? Raise prices? Charge for parking? Use frozen french fries instead of hand cut ones from fresh potatoes? It does not matter which unpleasant choice he makes he will be obliged to offer less to customers who are under the same constraints with their work and family expenses. Every time one of them decides that dinner out is an expense he cannot justify the restaurant suffers.

The waiters are damaged by the harm done by government to the owner and the customers, and so is the cook, so is the busboy, and so is the bartender.

The diner, at least, still has the choice of whether or not to patronize the restaurant, although he has to eat somewhere, whether at home or out. This is where we get into taxation policies.

Statists and, indeed, politicians in general, rarely know anything about where money comes from. They seem to think that “made,” “earned,” “produced,” and “printed” all mean the same thing. They really cannot tell the difference between a US savings bond and gold. They think borrowed money is real and does not actually have to be paid back.

They appear to believe that incomes are immutable, that if you make $200,000 this year that you will continue to make at least that much every year until you retire no matter what else changes. They speak blithely of your electrical bill doubling, not seeing that as causing you to spend less elsewhere because you have a ludicrous fondness for heat and light in your home. They even think you should run automobiles on the stuff. Some of them probably even believe that you can charge the ten thousand dollar battery on a Volt with twenty-five cents’ worth of electricity, as advertised.

They think that burger-flippers will always flip burgers, and their lot will improve only if Congress mandates higher wages for them.

Governments understand only fear, force, and how to use the public treasury to buy votes. Congress fails to grasp the very simple fact that everything is interconnected. In one sense it does not matter who, other than those with Pelosi-like incomes, has his or her light bill doubled, the money that will be allocated for electricity can no longer be spent in another area. If Hal’s discretionary income is $500/month and he has to give $167 of that to Brazos Power and Light, one out of every three dollars that he had previously to spend in restaurants, or to have carpets cleaned, or to buy a new fishing rod is gone forever, vanished into the insatiable maw of government. If Susie, the single mom teacher loses a third of her discretionary income, she will have to do without a washing machine, painting her house, or as many school clothes for her child. There is no way, short of a second job, to replace the money which has been stolen by government action, or that stolen by inflation which was caused by printing of fiat money.

I suppose I sound as though I am speaking to a sixth grade civics class, although most kids have allowances or parents who utter the foulest three words in the English language, “We can’t afford…” One wonders if the constantly increasing out of control “budgets” at local, state, and national levels are caused in part by a system that requires great wealth to be elected to public office, and great dependence on funds gathered by those who demand political favors in return. I live near Bryan, a town of 55,000 people. Can someone explain to me why Bryan needs to spend nine million dollars a year? All of it extorted from local property owners?

You may wonder why I am covering anything this basic here on Whiskey & Gunpowder! Surely you Shooters, of all others, understand the basic principles of business, budgets, and von Mises. One would have thought so–right up to the point where the Editor was deluged with letters asserting that pie in the sky “health care” is a “right” and expressing their sentiments in language unbefitting ladies, gentlemen, and civilized debate. If you understand why we cannot have “single payer” health insurance, fine, pass this on to some child who needs to know.

The basic fact is that there is only so much “money” in the world, when we see “money” as a medium of exchange, which it is. I need a better way to induce the cobbler to make me a pair of shoes than offering him twenty dozen eggs he can’t eat before they spoil, although we might agree that I would deliver a dozen a week until the debt was paid. He, in turn, needs cow hide to make shoes, and I have cows, but I don’t want to skin one just to get shoes…at any rate, it worked better when we all exchanged little slugs of silver or gold for each others’ labor and production. The balance gets destroyed when the government creates “fiat” money and expects us to accept their fairy not-gold at the same value as shimmering silver ingots. We won’t do it. We also know that every time more money is cranked out of thin air every dollar we have is worth less because there is no way to differentiate between the dollar we had when there were only ten in the world and that same dollar when suddenly there are a hundred.

The Statists’ theory is that there is no limit to how much money they can “create,” just as there is no limit to how much milk the cow can give. There really are limits to how much moo-juice Bossy will produce, including her heritage, her age, how good her feed is, and whether or not she has had a calf recently. Even cows want a break after being milked for 300 days. It takes nine months to produce another calf and “freshen,” or begin producing more rich, creamy milk.

My darling Charles and I sent Asia, our Segundo, off to pick up a cow and her week old bull calf today. Mathilda, as we have named her, is three-quarters Jersey and a quarter Black Angus, both animals are black, and they will fit in beautifully with the Black Dexters. Mathilda will handle our milk and cream needs for the next three hundred days, more time than it takes for the goats to reproduce (210 days.) The funny part is that the owner didn’t want to milk her so he has been underfeeding her deliberately so that she won’t produce more milk than the calf can drink! How about that, Shooters, when a “simple farmer” in “flyover country” knows that to get less out of the cow you provide less sustenance than she needs. (We gave her a whole bale of first class hay and a big container of clear water for tonight.) Why can’t all those Ivy League economists and lawyers see that when they take too much of our money we produce far less taxes?

There really are practical limits to how many taxes can be extracted from most of us. Particularly in a land where nearly half of the people pay no taxes at all and a lot of them get “earned income credits” for doing one day’s work a year. There is a large class of people that is paid to do one simple chore: vote for the Statists. I suppose it is nice work if one can stomach it. I don’t know, since no government has ever bought my food, shelter, utilities, and medical care. Given my choice I would prefer to be a slum landlord, but the government beat me to it.

There are two points here that the DC gang had better grasp quickly. The first is that no matter how you jigger the figures, jobless people aren’t making money and they aren’t paying taxes on the money they didn’t earn. Just because they aren’t counted officially doesn’t mean that they aren’t out there, as increased robberies, claims for unemployment, and appeals to churches show. Those who are losing more of their income to higher taxes and utility bills are not purchasing as much, which means that the stores they once patronized are no longer making as much money, so they don’t pay as many taxes.

The Statist solution is automatic: “Oh, we’ll just tax the rich!” “Rich” is a relative term but our dear leader defines it at a quarter of a million dollars a year. Their problem is that if they confiscate all of the earnings of every person in America who makes $250,000 a year or more it won’t be more than a drop in the bucket they have to fill to cover their expenditures. It can’t be done. According to the most recent analysis available, 2006, the “richest” ten per cent. paid fifty-five per cent. of all taxes. Statists think that is “fair,” but what they had better start thinking is that pulling that much money out of those who produce jobs, start new businesses, invest in others, or even play the stock market slows everything down. Charity? When you filter money through the government over ninety per cent. of it is spent as salaries and overhead or disappears from graft or theft. Good private charities more than reverse that ratio.

How many families do you suppose there are with incomes of two hundred thousand dollars a year or more? I’ll tell you, since Newsweek kindly told me: 3.4%. That is 34 out of 1000 families, or 340 out of 10,000 families, or 3400 out of 100,000 families, or 34,000 out of a million families. Those are the ones who pay more than half of the taxes. I’m not among them, but I understand the frustration and annoyance such a state of affairs must cause.

The really fun statistic is this one: those 3.4% do 14% of the consumer spending and they are the ones who create and sustain businesses, which is where jobs come from. When the top five per cent. bears the greatest burden of onerous taxes, sooner or later not only does commerce decline but at least some of them ask why they are bothering. That is one of the difficulties with the proposed health “care” legislation, the bizarre proposition that doctors will submit to a 15% pay cut at the government’s whim. No, they won’t. Those who are old enough will retire. Young people who were planning on enrolling in medical school will think of something else to do.

The best solution I can see is to do the John Galt thing. Quit. If you cannot afford to quit your job literally, stop your consumer spending to the greatest extent that you can.

Put the money into commodities for your family’s use or into chunks of silver. Some of you may shake your heads in bewilderment and ask, “Isn’t that consumer spending?” Well…yes, and no. If you spend a hundred dollars taking your family out for pizza and a movie, that money (minus taxes) goes back into the economy to be taxed again and again in every hand that holds it, and you have nothing to show for it beyond a few memories. If you buy a case of MREs (ugh), your money has gone to an individual who will do whatever with it, but you have taken it out of circulation. You are storing value in the form of food that you can eat during the coming Greater Depression. If you wear the clothing you have now and do not visit Macy’s or Dillards, the shock of what you do not spend ripples through the economy. A nice blouse costs a couple of hundred dollars and you may wear it two years. That money goes to pay those who manufactured, shipped, and sold the blouse. If you turn that money into a dozen ounces of silver you have pulled that value out of circulation. You are richer for having “savings” that cannot be lost through devaluation. You have turned the value of your fiat dollars at present into a metal which will preserve it. You have also hit the tax-and-spenders where they live…

A great many stores and firms are going out of business and this trend will gain momentum. You’re smart. You can figure out for yourself which businesses will not make it through a deepening depression and what you should stock now. Only the big, the smart, and the connected will survive, and the myriad choices you have now will be a distant dream perhaps five years from now. Perhaps in less.

Big government turns you into lunch. Most of us cannot afford to be the owner. Our choice is whether to be the waiter, who may lose his job and will surely see his customers and his tips diminish, or to be the diner. It isn’t too late to do the Joseph thing and stock up for the future, and emulating John Galt and Midas Mulligan will shorten the time until the whole rotten system collapses. Too many carpenter ants have been nibbling at the foundations of our financial structure.

John Galt said to withdraw our minds. The current system doesn’t want those and doesn’t want us to use them. Take away what they do want, an endless stream of tax revenues.

Cordially,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 4, 2009

Free Lunches, Money from Nothing and Limits to Government Theft was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

In the biggest display of maudlin excess since — well, since “Jacko” died, but probably going back to the death of Elvis — the hive started shrieking that the health disaster bill should be renamed “Kennedy Care” and passed immediately in honor of a liar, a cad, a murderer, and a drunk who benefited handsomely for half a century because his brother had been president.

In the latest thoroughly typical demonstration of squashy sentiment and opportunism the Democrats and their trough-grubbing sycophants jumped right at the chance not to let an emotional “crisis” go to waste before Ted Kennedy’s body was cold on a gurney.

Gary Bauer notes: “From CBS to ABC, from CNN to MSNBC the message was the same: Conservatives and dissenting “Blue Dog” Democrats need to get out of the way and allow Big Government liberals, inspired by Kennedy’s heroic 15-month struggle, to give us government-run healthcare. Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the charge, saying, ‘Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration.’”

Balderdash. A useless, vicious, amoral man is dead at seventy-seven after a lifetime of excesses — and I don’t see how it can be described as “a heroic fifteen month struggle;” What’s heroic about having cancer, other than that he didn’t die of cirrohsis of the liver as many of us supposed he would eventually? Did he give up drinking, or something?

Are there “cowardly” struggles against cancer? We all know how Kennedy would have fared under what he was trying to foist on the rest of us and never intended for the elite to settle for. He would have gotten a handsome offer to go to sleep quietly under a doctor-induced overdose of morphine.

We have the best quality health care in the world; what we don’t have is the taxpayers paying all of the costs. We hear constant howls of how high our mortality rate is; if you add the number ten cause of death to our stats it makes a difference. That “disease?” Auto accidents. The same estimates do not filter out the high number of homicides among those who toil not, neither do they spin. This is another cost of life on the Welfare Plantation. Take murder and vehicular trauma out and we not only have the best health care in the world but our costs are lower.

What’s wrong with health “care” is government intervention since the Nineteen Forties, which got around government-imposed wage controls leading to the notion of “benefits” such as paying part of the doctors bills in lieu of forbidden raises.

The inchoate Socialized medicine propositions are disastrous from every angle, full of lost freedoms, exorbitant costs, and vast expansions of government, and they won’t lower the accident rate or keep gangs of assorted persuasions from killing each other, either.

The not even vaguely tragic death of Edward Kennedy has nothing to do with the merits of the case, not that I have ever been able to see any. If the fourteen per cent. of hard-core Liberals want to set up a monument to their “Liberal Lion” they may do anything they please with my blessing — so long as it does not involve passing legislation or spending taxpayer or fresh-printed Bernanke dollars for the purpose. Perhaps a vulgar display at Chappaquidick memorializing Mary Jo Kopechne’s swimming lesson. His favorite liquor provider might well contribute, mourning the passing of such a good customer.

I can’t put this better than Mr. Bauer did: “Nationalized healthcare, socialized medicine, or KennedyCare – whatever they want to call it – is a bad idea, and its defects have not been cured by the senator’s passing. No one who was against another Big Government power grab when Ted Kennedy was alive should now toss their principles out of the window and cave in just because he has passed away. In fact, the Left and their media shills should be ashamed of themselves for exploiting his death in such a crass and cynically partisan way.” Bravo, Mr. Bauer.

Over 70% of us don’t want anything to do with the government grabbing 16% of the economy when it can’t run a revenue-neutral postal service. We are already spending ruinous amounts to cover the health costs of millions of illegal “immigrants” and many more millions on welfare. Medicare is so far in the hole it will never be pulled out…unless the “Kennedy Care” bill passes and Medicare is gutted completely to the detriment of a large proportion of the citizenry that actually pays taxes. We don’t want to fund abortion, and we are firmly against the notion that oldsters must go in for mandatory — mandatory!!! — counseling every five years on the benefits of doctor-assisted suicide.

We are attempting to tell our representatives in Congress how we feel, but they are using every trick to defeat us. (See companion article.) We found out that Chet Edwards held a town hall meeting here, today. Gee, tough if you didn’t read the Bryan Daily Eagle in time to go.

The Dems are rightfully hoist by their own petard; Kennedy’s death is one less ultra-left-wing vote, and he cannot be replaced physically quickly due to legislation the Left forced through the Massachusetts legislature a while back when they wanted to prevent a Republican governor from replacing a senator. A special election must be called, and the estimate I saw indicates that Harry Reid will have to struggle along with only 59 votes for a while, poor fellow. This is pertinent because the legislation needed to be thrust through on greased wheels and parliamentary tricks before we the people found out the details or what this abomination would cost.

Too late, Statists. We know.

Every time figures come out they are worse than the previous estimates. When even the White House can’t come up with more sanguine estimates than that Obama is going to add nine trillion to the national debt, up two trillion from their guess just weeks ago, who knows exactly how bad the tab would be? They’re supposed to be on his side!  Such estimates are always far less than actual costs. Over twenty per cent. up already, and just wait until 2024.

The CBO says that a scant five years from now “Kennedy Care” or “Cirrhosis Care” or the “Obama Abortion” or whatever one wants to call it would raise the deficit by five billion dollars, which isn’t exactly snack money. The next year the costs would increase the deficit by forty billion. Why the difference? Because the giveaways aren’t slated to start until 2013.

Fifteen years from now the experts suppose that we will have scattered around over six-tenths of a trillion dollars, and the cream of the jest is that doesn’t even include the costs of the “Public Option” which will replace Medicare and Medicaid. Those are bad programs which waste staggering sums, but the PO will add a new use for a vulgarism ladies are not allowed to utter, indicating that one is upset.

To be trite, if you think health insurance is expensive now, wait until it is “free.” It won’t be free for you or for me. We’ll be paying for what we don’t want and don’t use and paying for untold millions who have no claim on tax dollars even by the lax definition of those who somehow found a “right” to healthcare under that tattered “living, breathing document” the rest of us thought was a straight-forward contract known as the Constitution.

Is there nothing nice I can say about Edward Kennedy?

Ted Kennedy’s record speaks for itself:  Being expelled TWICE from Harvard for cheating, using family influence to keep him out of a war zone and halve a voluntary Army enlistment, cited four times for reckless driving while in law school, injured while driving drunk in 1964 (details sealed for twenty years), the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969, when Teddy got off with a suspended two month sentence for “leaving the scene of an accident,” with no penalty for leaving a conscious young woman trapped in the car, and a great many shennanigans involving liquor and scantily clad young females in public places. A charming episode more recently involving his nephew and cries of “Rape!”

Kennedy’s public career was as “distinguished” as his Army one, where he never rose above private during the two years of his four-year hitch Papa Joe, the bootlegger and fervent Nazi supporter, couldn’t get him out of. Infesting the Senate for 47 years Kennedy did little, but what he did was disastrous: he was responsible for one of the most deleterious of all policy changes, the deliberate flooding of the US with immigrants from third world countries, changing the face of America forever for his own ends. He worked constantly for amnesty for illegal “immigrants,” another way to skew the no-longer-existent “melting pot” and increase votes for leftwing policies. The man who brought us the Balkanization of the USA strove endlessly to ruin the level of medical care available here, as well.

A friend writes, “Not to mention the pious grilling he gave the last two Supreme Court nominees, as if he was the standard bearer for the nation in matters of ‘what’s right.’ What a pompous ass! He is known around Washington as a public drunk, loud, boisterous and very disrespectful to ladies. JERK is a better description than ‘great American.’ ‘A blonde in every pond’ is his motto. Let’s not allow the spin doctors make this jerk a hero  –  how quickly the American public forgets what his real legacy is.”

Part of what set me off so that I broke an ancient shibboleth is that our local rag ran three sentences as a side bar using the new adoring sobriquet of “the liberal lion,” without quotes or capitalization, showing how much in lockstep they are, and that they couldn’t think of anything nice to say about Ted Kennedy, either.

Above the fold the story is that local representative Chet Edwards having a town hall. Oops…was. Surprise…if you don’t take the paper (and most don’t, any more)…you didn’t know about it until too late. The details were released conveniently at a time and in such a way that few knew to attend, although the Sheriff’s Department was laid on to be there. The other banner is “DEBT NEWS DIRE, 17 T deficit feared by ‘19.” Below the fold two bold headlines, “Layoffs part of Bryan budget plan,” and “Swine Flu could follow path of 1957 outbreak.” (A “pandemic that was briefly harsh but rarely fatal!” exclamation point mine.)

What ails America as revealed in those headlines is due to Ted Kennedy, fellow legislators from Massachusetts, and collectivists everywhere.

I’m half Irish, and I regard Kennedy as a disgrace to my ancient heritage. It’s enough to make me think “No Irish need apply” may not have been such a bad idea.

“Nil nisi bonum?” If I had chosen to do that this would have been a very short article.

Unrepentently yours,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 1, 2009

Pushing National Healthcare with Senator Kennedy’s Corpse was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

I keep getting complaints like this:

“Dear Aunt Libby:  I just can’t seem to find a nice girl no matter how I try.  They all want to talk about how wonderful Obama is and how we should do more for the poor.  They don’t even like my guns.  What’s a guy to do?  Bubba”

“Dear Aunt Libby:  Men are so shallow!  They think I care that they drive BMW and Lexus and wear Bally and Coach loafers.  Aren’t there any left who know a Laffer curve from mine from a Kondratieff?  Brainy But Nice”

Children, children, children:

There are rules about how to find a mate, when, and why.

If Aunt Libby were Empress of the Universe she would reinstitute marriages of convenience for two generations and see if that would facilitate breeding true for principles.  The world ran much better when parents chose brides and grooms for their progeny, although I will grant that the kids should have opportunities to get to know each other and their choice of three candidates.  Since this is no longer the case, listen while Aunt Libby explains to you why you end up divorced, unhappy, and disillusioned.

The purpose of marriage is to protect people and property.  All conservative rules have the same goal.  It has nothing to do with a cute rear end, pheromones, or settling for what is handy.

1.  NEVER go out with anyone about whom you know even one thing which would be a bar to marriage.  Break off immediately if such a trait or fact emerges.  Even if it is the boss’ daughter.

2.  NEVER attempt to change anyone.  Do not believe that he or she will “change,” or “grow up.”  Ignore trifling flaws that do not deal with character because otherwise you will end up with no prospects at all, but have nothing further to do with a liar, a cheat, a thief, a vulgarian, or a liberal.  Look askance at vegetarians.

3.  NEVER continue seeing anyone who wants to change you.  That isn’t going to happen, either, other than on very small items such as “If you don’t ask me if that dress makes you look fat, I won’t call you ’snookums.’”  (In your spare time, watch a little Jeff Foxworthy.)

4.  If you want a nice girl, go where nice girls are.  They aren’t found hanging out in bars, and the ones behind the counter at MacDonald’s may be cute but they are too young to date and they are far too callow.  The same basic instruction works for ladies:  nice guys don’t hang out in bars looking for females to pick up.  I, myself, would not date anyone who had ever worked for Goldman Sachs, but your Aunt Libby is extremely nice in her requirements.

5.  If at all possible get to know the person first through e-mail, and I don’t care whether you use Match.com, the tiny bizarre site for self-styled intellectuals, or start a lively debate below this article, which is a better idea.

Calling all nubile, suitably intelligent and sensible ladies!  Your Mr. Wright could well be a subscriber to W&G, and Aunt Libby will monitor your conversations, coach you, and smack knuckles with verbal rulers as required.  Attention, superior men!  Tell me about yourselves, and unless you are too much of a yum-yum to offer to others, I will play matchmaker.  If you are lowlife Statist scum I will chase you off with words.  Go find yourself a mouth breather with mush for brains.

6.  Do NOT be in a hurry to meet.  Don’t even be in a hurry to talk on the telephone!

Both of those things change the equation.  Finding someone whom you can truly love and be happy with is a very lengthy job-interview process even to line up on the race track.  It takes a lot more than Jacks or better to get into my game.  As I told our darling Gary, I am certain there are at least six men worthy of me in the continental US, three of them might feel the same way, and a couple of them may not even be taken.  He’s one of them!  Alas, he is scarcely more than half my age and lives 1800 miles away, so I can’t annex him.  I do look at his writing occasionally and feel like Russia eyeing Poland…If there is a truly magnificent lady between 35 and 45, please write below this article and explain to me why I should consider you a fit consort for a very, very dear friend.

My son has never brought a young lady home that I have not liked, but he wants a girl just like the girl who married dear old Dad.  His girls are always very, very intelligent, sweet, funny, kind, and have Barbie doll figures.  They have cute but definitely not beautiful faces.  Andrew figured out very early in life that highly finished bits of nature tend to be dull, boring, arrogant, and ignorant.  All they have ever had to be is beautiful.  Gary did not have the benefit of having me for a mother, so he–and the rest of you menfolk–need to have these things explained to you.

7.  Life is really very simple, my little sweet potatoes.  By the time you have exchanged a dozen lengthy e-mails each, one or the other of you will almost certainly have transgressed Rule One.  You will discover undesirable character traits, or demonstrate that you bore the other person.

You, with your pure, clean, innocent, ignorant young minds will find this difficult to believe, but your very own Aunt Libby was rejected by a yahoo who responded in horror, eventually, “I just want a nice, ordinary lady!”  Well, gee, sorry, but I refuse to be dull, typical, and always predictible.  I told him kindly, “Go find yourself a nice little robot or Stepford Wife.”  Amazing, huh?  I have spent a lifetime becoming what I am, usually deliberately, and he wants plain vanilla, and not even French vanilla at that?  (We use only the real stuff out of Mexico, both beans and liquid.)

Best of all, you can weigh each other’s words carefully, at your leisure, and you don’t have to get dressed or even put your shoes on.  Extra hint:  if the brute tries to lure you into lurid discussions of sex early in your correspondence, he almost certainly has other repugnant habits.  You can give him the benefit of the doubt and make a demure, ladylike, but not cold, response…but if he keeps on–ditch him.  Beware of those who want to take photographs; I am told they tend to show them around, sometimes to a new “love” interest!

Here’s another of Auntie Libby’s mistakes:  I got coaxed by a friend into having dinner with a college professor here where I live.  He showed up ten minutes late reeking of alcohol since he had started three hours earlier at Happy Hour at the country club.  He continued to drink while I had On The Border, and I was so furious that I grabbed the check!  I didn’t want to be beholden to that crass boor for so much as a glass of iced tea and a Marguerita.  Yeech.  College degrees and cc memberships are definitely no guarantee that you’ll have a nice time.  The best to be said for him is that he sent me a charming poem (the only thing about him that charmed me) about how I was a type A and he was a type B.  Moral:  don’t break my own rules.

8.  Take your own sweet time before you agree to talk on the telephone. That changes the rules of the game.

Alas, there are men you can talk to for many happy hours on the telephone only to discover upon meeting that you’re chalk and cheese, instant brothers and sisters.  That’s th’ biz.  Again, though, this phase has a very real purpose.  You can see better what you have in common and how you enjoy conversing.  You avoid a host of distractions.  And you don’t have to put on makeup or your shoes.  Men don’t have to wash their cars and put on a tie.

You are superior beings or you would not be listening raptly to your darling Aunt Libby.  The chances are high, my cupcakes, that the person you really want in your life is not some glossy, pneumatic little lollipop with a tabla rasa for a mind.  The sneaky idea, here (and very practical it is) is by the time you meet you will like each other down to the bones.   So much so that physical attributes will not matter.

9.  You really don’t need to be sitting in a restaurant, distracted by waiters and sweet, ladylike thoughts of “Oh, dear, I don’t want to order anything too expensive, and I really wish he would make a suggestion!”  I have one of those, a suggestion, that is:  if anyone hands you a “date” menu, demand, sweetly, of course, a regular menu with prices.  Your date will appreciate your consideration and this simple demonstration of conservative principles.  You may suppose that the gentleman would not have chosen a restaurant he could not afford, but that doesn’t mean he is prepared for you to order Michelle Obama’s $400 appetizer of champagne and caviar.  A thoughtful gentleman would say, “The crab appetizer is very good here,” or you might smile, “I love onion rings, do you?  Maybe we could share some?”

10.  Do NOT whine about your diet.  My way, you will know each other so well before you ever meet that you aren’t going to be filled with insecure thoughts about your attractiveness.  You will like each other for things that are real and eternal, or you wouldn’t be there.  By that time the fellow who interested you enough to agree to dine with him really isn’t going to care that your waistline isn’t quite what it used to be, and you really aren’t going to care that he doesn’t have as much hair as a Beatle.

11.  Keep  your hands off each other! Of all the things that will addle your minds (or, as bad, be unsatisfactory) and change the dynamic irrevocably, the very worst is beginning a sexual relationship prematurely.  That stops conversation cold.  It ends the process of discovering how his or her mind works.  It trivializes your growing relationship. While it is true you might end up with a “friend with benefits”, that will distract you from your hormones and not take up a lot of your valuable time…well, put that way, perhaps it isn’t all that bad an idea, but it isn’t how you are going to find someone who can finish your sentences, as you can his or hers, who knows that nothing is worth arguing over other than principles, and if you don’t agree on those one of you should walk away politely instantly.

12.  Absolutely, positively, no exceptions, never have anything to do with anyone who is “separated,” far less married.  If he or she will cheat on his or her spouse with you, you can be quite certain that such a person will not be faithful to you in the long run either.

13.  Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.  Do look for the best combination you can find of all of those.

These are very simple basics, but if you apply these principles to choosing social companions you will be much happier and have a far greater chance of success.  Oh…go catch up on back reports, polish your resume, or buy silver.  Most of our lives it is far better to be an island.  If you think you have problems now, give in to the nesting urge and complicate your lives with progeny and someone unsuitable.  You’ll pay for that mistake for at least the next quarter of a century.

Do write if you have any specific questions.  The chances are great that sweet Aunt Libby will tell you, “Read Rule ___ again!”  Until the next time I feel inclined to untangle the messes you have gotten yourself in,

Regards,
Aunt Libby Tarian

August 14, 2009

Libertarian Mating was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The producer of the screed’s triumphant cry is…”Ding, Dong, the Bear is dead!”

Old piece of country wisdom: when you shoot a dangerous predator reload your weapon and take your own sweet time before approaching the presumed carcass. With your gun at the ready when you finally decide it is safe to assume the b’ar is actually dead. It may turn out the thing was only stunned — or it could have been playing ‘possum.

Don’t go riling a wounded animal up; let the adrenalin die down first. Yours and its.

Sure, we’re tired of the Bear but the market does not run to our wishes, so let’s be a little cautious. A genuine new Bull will be good for at least eighteen months and it is far better to forego the chance of capturing the market version of golf’s hole in one by calling the bottom exactly and jumping on your chosen stocks lest we find we have leapt imprudently to a ledge halfway between top and bottom with no way out but down (or averaging down.)

Let some braver soul stroll up and kick the bear, because I’m not going to do it.

From my side of the table the proposal gets a solid nix. My soul reaction (sic) is relatively polite surprise and shaking my head at the naivete of the intrepid who rush out to add to the old adage, “There’s a lot of money in the Stock Market. I know; I put a bunch of it there myself.”

Okay, so the Spring Fling has continued through the long hot summer, the Dow is up handsomely, and a pack of Statists who don’t know a round lot from a round up are shouting “Green shoots, ho!” from the Crow’s Nest.

In time, they will choke on those crows who are watching the absurd proceedings with interest.

The whole premise is ludicrous. The Bear is dead because losses have slowed in the durable goods sector, not counting transportation? The Bear is dead because a “jobless” recovery “is still a recovery?” The Bear is dead because connected players have trillions of electronic dollars stuffed in their computerized vaults? The Bear is dead because new job loss claims are down 20% from the stats of the last many weeks? All of which, as I recall, were revised upwards later? The Bear is dead because one of America’s most famous investment firms managed to lose another 15% of what’s left of ten thousand I overlooked two years ago when I meant to get totally out of the market? How can anyone be down to $4750 when the market is up 48% in recent months? Ted managed.

All of that is on a par with the wisdom of “You aren’t jobless if you have been looking unsuccessfully for more than six months or if you are drawing unemployment insurance!”

I didn’t have to listen to the hype coming out of Washington to ascertain whether or not I were interested in government bailouts. I find it equally easy to resist happy cries of, “C’mon in! The water’s fine!” when the swimmer isn’t in a nice, big, clear, chlorinated, filtered, and skimmed pool but has jumped, inexplicably, into one of the lakes here on the ranch.

If anyone asked I would advise against such a course. Our lakes contain a fascinating assortment of wild life I would not care to encounter personally. No, I do not know that there are still leeches in our West lake, but I do know they were there fifty years ago and I see no reason to suppose they have moved on. You can see snakes and snapping turtles. Big fish come out of there, and while we don’t have any alligators, it would be unpleasant to step on a catfish. I know. My mother did it, long ago, and ended up having to visit the hospital to have the spiny fins removed.

“If you can’t see your way clearly, don’t step into it,” sounds like an excellent guideline to me.

I have every reason to suppose that the current financial climate is just as full of disgusting, painful, and dangerous entities and a plethora of particularly potent phenomena and petrifying possibilities, along with, perhaps, putrescent products, to go alliterative on you.

Nope, I’m going to stay right here hunched over my ancient computer (my only “lightning” offer recently took eight seconds to initiate and was on the board for an eternity: thirteen seconds) trolling for bargains in Reed & Barton and terrific trades in Towle. I don’t intend to play “Let’s feed it to Mikey!” by plunging in stocks. Signature chuckle…literally, many times old, slow technology we understand is far more efficient than the latest model with Vista, which I unplugged after two frustrating days. Figuratively…stick with what we know.

A jobless recovery…a jobless recovery…rolling that around on my experienced intellectual tongue, I’m going to spit it out inelegantly. A “jobless” recovery is a concept so inane and insane that only a Keynesian Statist who has never even patronized, far less run, a hot dog stand could come up with such a phrase.

You all know that I’m a technical analyst when it comes to the literal Stock Market and that I use my own bizarre brand of pragmatism when it comes to finding places to park stored value safely. My son is the Finance major with an MBA, and I don’t know if even he mucks around in P/E. I’m the Philosopher and Counselor who “reads” behavior and reeks of common sense.

You can’t have a “jobless” recovery for reasons so basic a reasonably bright pre-schooler can discern them. People without jobs cannot consume more than the most meager basics, if those. The jobless cannot make payments on credit card debt or mortgages. They do not buy new cars even during the tragi-comedy which lasted less than a week, the duration of the destructive (literally) “Cash for Clunkers” program.

Statists come up with cute slogans for their idiotic ideas. America took a very large capital loss, destroying billions of dollars’ worth of perfectly good used car parts for a Green victory. That was the purpose of the drill: to ensure that other older cars would be harder to repair. To reduce the inventory of usable radiators and hubcaps, transmissions and dipsticks. It “worked” so well Congress has thrown twice as much money in the pot to see how many more can be induced to give up workable cars in return for lesser vehicles which will never make back their cost in gas savings.

What concerns me isn’t what I see and advise you to do, it is what I see and back away from telling you for reasons ranging from the fact that this is an investment site, not a political one, although those factors are definitely intertwined inextricably, to not wanting to look like more of a domestic errorist (If I put in the T it will trip an automatic program to have this e-mail read by some bureaucrat I would prefer not to benefit from such wisdom as I have) than Janet Napolitano already says I am.  The same day an overeager columnist declared the Bear’s demise, the Daily Bell, out of Switzerland, mentioned in print something I had known about for a couple of weeks. I believed it the first time a source sent it to me, and have had two different reports come across my screen prior to then.

Let’s make this hypothetical…what would your analysis and reaction be if you were told that large amounts of cash were being stuffed into diplomatic pouches with instructions, “Purchase all the local currency needed for a year’s operations?” Well…perhaps that the government thought it could save money because the current price is low? Snigger. Uh…that anticipated rising JP4 prices would curtail flights? Perhaps that electronic transfers of digits were not likely to be honored in host nations? Really reached for that one..who would dream of refusing USD..particularly considering the splendid reception of the last couple of offerings of US bonds? (Pretty much, we’re printing the things and selling them to ourselves, paying for them with money we printed ourselves. At last, a true perpetual motion machine. The world’s taste for fiscal cotton candy appears to be waning.)

How about if accumulating foreign currency is linked to a projected shortage of bank services, as in the anticipated imposition of bank “holidays?” That makes sense, the “holidays,” which would be “closures,” of course, have been on the table sporadically for a while…and just to make the matter more deadly, potentially, are usually linked with official devaluing of the dollar. Uh-oh. That one has a ring of plausibility to it greater than ding, dong, the Bear is dead.

You don’t need my (possibly paranoid) decision that the two best things we can do with money are to get it out of banks and to turn it into durable goods with all due dispatch.

I am definitely putting my remaining funds where my fears are. If Jesse James raids the banks he isn’t going to find much of mine to steal. Now, if Sherman marches through raping the pigs and stealing the chickens he’s going to do pretty well, at least on the first pass through. Yuh cain’t bury the livestock, but you could be hiding the smoked hams and great-grandfather’s gold-headed walking stick. And your clunkers.

Y’all do as you deem best, but here at the Whiskey Outpost the big pit over on th’ South Forty isn’t to bury the Bear in. We’re going to have a pig roast–and all my instincts say that so is the market!

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

August 11, 2009

P.S.: It is said that “Hindsight is 20-20,” which is another very large piece of nonsense. Few people ever figure out what happened in most instances. They do not learn from experience. A pertinent example is those twin debacles, the policies of FDR and the purported efficacy of socialized medicine.

The US is heading to the Greater Depression and our dear leader is determined to foist not only Canadian-style medical practices on us, but also the biggest “budget” deficit since the world began, the business-killing tax known as “Cap & Trade,” and the destruction of the small farmer and rancher under the noble title of the Food “Safety” Act, while Congress is hoping to add a VAT. I’ll discuss the everything-less “recovery” soon.

Ding, Dong, the Bear Is Dead was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder