February 2020 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Being Overwhelmed, a Survival Guide

“I guess this whole experience has left me feeling a little overwhelmed. Flying at warp 10, evolving into a new life-form, mating, having alien offspring . . .” – Star Trek: Voyager

Whenever I get too overwhelmed and I need motivation, I think back to what Grandpa Wilder said to the doctor on his deathbed: “Be positive.” I just wish he would have answered the doctor about what his blood type was instead – they might have saved him.

Overwhelmed.

It’s that moment when everything is happening at once. When the dishwasher is flowing a mass of foam that looks like a 1960’s science fiction monster onto the kitchen linoleum. When the new baby has a fever of 102°F and is expelling fluids at high velocity from every orifice. When the wife is crying because it’s Sunday night and someone left a Sharpie® in a pocket and it’s now all over her white skirt that she was going to wear for her presentation that was going to make or break her career. And then out in the driveway the car has a flat. And when these are all happening . . .

All at once.

It’s overwhelming.

I’ve been there. And so have you. It’s part of life.

Being overwhelmed brings with it that moment of time when you feel hopeless. There’s literally too much input for you to make rational decisions – deal with the suds on the linoleum or put the baby in the freezer? In some cases, if you’re overwhelmed enough, there’s a tendency to not make any decisions and freeze like an artificial intelligence told to compute ways that Mayor Pete could really be elected president outside of his home planet.

But somewhere between the intersection of life, family, work, and self you’ve created that moment and now you’re overwhelmed. There is but one salvation:

Scotch. Action.

I think one of those might have a slight door ding.

The first thing I do when I find myself in a situation like this is, well, something. Not just anything, however: I try to prioritize loss of human life or loss of property first. Which one life or property? Depends on who it is and what’s going to be lost, I mean if the choice was to save the life of the ex-wife by donating my used shoes or to let her die and collect aluminum cans by the side of the road in Arizona in summer instead?

What’s aluminum going for nowadays? I kid. I hope she does well – Star Wars® well. In a galaxy far, far, away from me.

I kid. She wanted to leave as much as I wanted her to leave and I really don’t bear her any ill will, and I think that she would agree with me that divorces are expensive because they’re worth it.

After taking whatever emergency action is required, I like to list the rest of the things that are overwhelming me. While it’s not actually solving the underlying problem(s), it at least puts a boundary on the situation. It’s translating me from thinking that “there’s too much to do” to a list that, while it might be really long, is finite.

And then? I like to prioritize. First on the list are the things that have to happen now – the urgent and important issues. Then I take action to get them off the list. I know it sounds crazy – making yourself feel better by taking the issues that are bothering you and dealing with them? What sort of sorcery is this?

I know, it sounds as foreign as a “job” to a Bernie Sanders supporter. But unlike a Bernie Sanders supporter, my method works. Crossing something off the list that’s urgent and important – it makes me feel less whelmed. Bonus – now you and I know that whelm is really a word. (I didn’t until the little red squiggly didn’t show up underneath it and then looked it up to make sure.)

I did this a while ago. It’s based on comments from Eisenhower but has the stink of MBA all over it now.

Items that are urgent and important are the ones to do first. But even though you get a burst of dopamine from solving those important and urgent items, it’s a tyranny in your life – a tyranny of crisis. Unless you’re a drama queen or a Kardashian (but I repeat myself), being in a constant state of adrenaline from always having to react to the latest emergency is tiring and probably wears out your deodorant.

The first step away from this continual crisis management state is an understanding of a simple truth: not everything matters. The second step might be to understand that a deodorant that’s “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman™” may not be enough if you have the scent glands that produce Kardashian mating musk.

I hear they’re filming a remake of Gorillas in the Mist, but to save money it will just be ninety minutes of Kardashians showering.

When you are stuck in that emergency, dig out, not deeper down. I’ve seen people respond to emergencies by taking more and larger risks. They hope that a home run will save them. Eventually, the risks get higher than a hippie in a hot air balloon so that even if they won, it still wouldn’t save them.

Dig out. Solve one problem. And then the next. I have always found that one solution leads to the next, and before too long I feel in control. Success breeds success.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t be like Hillary Clinton running for president for the 35^th time: learn from the situation so you never have to repeat it. Some advice:

Learn to say “no” and mean it – there are large numbers of charities, clubs, boards and even hobbies that will consume all of your time if you let them. Guard your time jealously – it’s all you have. Time is the biggest resource – nine pregnant women can’t make a baby in a month.
Understand that other resources matter, too. Money is a pretty big one. I know that some folks preach that you have to have an “attitude of abundance.” That’s fine, if it teaches you to be happy with what you have. It’s not fine if you end up buying three new cars and a European vacation on $12,000 a year.
Understand that some results matter more than others – in some races there really isn’t a second place. If a loss will be devastating, either plan to win, or don’t play.
Learn that effort is better than genius. Combine the two and you have a nearly unstoppable combination, but if I have to pick just one, I’ll pick effort. There’s rarely any traffic on the second mile, except for that Jesus guy.
Schedule. Anticipate. You can’t plan your future entirely, but you can plan to have skills and competence in things that may help you in the future. You can never tell when carving a flute out of your enemy’s shinbones might come in handy, so practicing early is recommended.

Beware of the comfy chair.

But sometimes, even though you’ve planned, even though you’ve attempted to do the right thing, you’ll lose. Sometimes, tsunamis hit.

And sometimes the dishwasher shoots suds all across the kitchen floor, even if you tell her to stop it.

So get to work.

The Coming Recession, Explained Using Six and a Half Bikinis.

“Well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a really high tolerance for being second guessed and start pumping out the little uber Scullys.” – The X-Files

After the next recession, most people will be on their feet in no time, after the bank repossesses the cars.

This wasn’t my originally planned topic. My originally planned topic was a discussion of PEZ® seed pricing mechanisms in 1850’s Great Britain, complete with discussion on how many orphans could be traded per bushel of finished PEZ™. Alas, I’ll have to return to that exciting topic some other time, since the world financial system seems to be imploding.

Okay, imploding isn’t the right word. And it really may not be as bad as it looks.

But today? It looks bad. Maybe not implosion bad, but I heard that some bankers had been discouraged. I guess they lost interest.

How bad could it be?

If it just stays at a financial level, the worst I would expect would be a W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 4 (Great Depression) in the United States, though it might hit a W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 5 (National Collapse) in China. You can read all about the W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Levels here (The Lighter Side of the Apocalypse) in an article praised by critics as “one of the best things ever written by a man with such questionable levels of personal hygiene, fashion sense, and grooming.”

In order to understand and guess at the future, let’s take a look at the past. The most recent past economic downturn was the Great Recession. What happened then?

As you can see from this chart, the S&P 500 experienced a big downturn right around the calf and knee area. Feel free to enlarge – just explain that the study of economics is really interesting.

Several things: first, lowered interest rates and the idea that anyone could and should get a mortgage led to a massive mis-investment in housing. Part of the cause were things called stealing and looting mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. I won’t go into technical details, but it was a way that Harvard® educated MBAs convinced themselves that a strawberry picker making $14,000 a year could afford a $720,000 mortgage (LINK). And, yes, this really happened.

Second, the world was awash in money after the Fed flooded the fields with money after the Dotcom Bubble. Where did that money go? Everywhere. Houses. And . . . oil. Oil prices skyrocketed during that time. Companies rented oil tankers and kept them full, sitting at sea, continually selling futures on the oil in the tanker. They made fortunes by pretending to sell oil. I know that sounds like I’m making an obscure joke, but no, that really happened.

The price of housing hit the financial system like a mousetrap on a cat’s tail. Or a cat with a mousetrap on its tail? Or . . . nevermind. People kept borrowing more on their houses as their houses appreciated. They spent that money on pickups and boats and child care and food and vacations. The people weren’t evil, but they thought that the value of their house could never go down, so the risk was small. Rational people, like bankers, were telling them this. Heck, some even invested in more houses so they could double or triple their magic ATM.

This view of 30 year mortgage rates explains that there have been mortgage rates. Look closely, and you can see them.

Finally, one day the music stopped on the housing prices. Was there a cause in particular? Not really. But the market lost the one thing required to keep it afloat – belief. Every market rises as the beliefs of the participants overcomes the worry of loss. Wow, that sounded poetic and cool. But it’s also true.

In many ways, the stock market is a barometer not only of the actual underlying economic performance, but how people feel about the future. It keeps going up as long as people keep being optimistic and has proven to be a much better barometer of economic activity than the amount of leg hair I grow before each winter and then form into a nice, soft nest to sleep in when it gets cold.

Crude oil prices had Exxon® jumping for joy in 2008!

One thing that brought the mood of people down in 2008 was the price of oil. In the midst of the recession that came from the housing bubble, the secondary oil bubble inflated. Prices increased more than double in a single year – from $70 per barrel to over $140 per barrel at the peak. Oil acts as a tax on everything to do with physical goods. To move a Tom Brady’s booty dinghy from where it’s made in by incontinent baboons in Romania to his rump mechanic in Massachusetts requires energy – energy from oil.

So that’s the “why” for 2008. How does that relate to today?

The Great Recession was brought about by an actual recession – things slowed down in the country because there were only so many houses that could be made. That’s different than today’s trouble. The stock market is tanking not because of a recession, but because the worry about Corona-Chan locking up the flow of physical goods from China. I wrote about that last week (Corona Virus, with a Slice of Recession?).

What have we seen so far?

This was a pretty good miniseries documentary.

The stock market has decreased in value. In general, a stock price has two components – the first is the value of the factories and land and machinery that the company owns. This is boring, it’s like saying a Stradivarius violin worth less than a piece of firewood because the firewood weighs more – in the hands of a genius, the violin can make masterful music, though in the hands of my kids it just made me contemplate the positives of being deaf.

The second and often biggest component of value to a stock is the assumed growth of that stock. This is why older, boring stocks like Ford® are priced closer to the value of the assets they own – no one thinks that Ford™ will end up tripling in size in the next three years. There’s an ex-wife “tripling size in three years” joke, but I’m bigger than that.

But people do think that Tesla© can triple in size in three years. Therefore, people value Tesla™ more than Ford® even though it sells about six million cars a year and Tesla© sold only 370,000 cars in the last year. You’d think that Ford™ would be worth about 10 times what Tesla® is. But in reality, Ford© is valued at $28 billion, while Tesla™ is valued at $147 billion. Is Tesla™ really worth that much? That’s up to Tesla®. But give me $147 billion and I bet I could sell 380,000 cars a year, too. And they would be pretty neat ones and they wouldn’t look like they were designed by a third grader with limited imagination.

Elon took a lot of heat for the Cyber Truck design, primarily because it looks like something that no human would buy. Thankfully, Elon’s next advance will be robotic customers.

Tesla© has convinced people it is almost six times more valuable than Ford©. That’s what I call optimism. Or a con, but at least a con for a good cause (Elon Musk: The Man Who Sold Mars).

Since the stock market is based on optimism, this latest decline in February of 2020 shows that investors are shaken. The world hasn’t (yet) changed but the implications are now becoming concerning enough to cause the market to drop. Is this going to be a big drop, like in 2008, or another head fake?

I can’t be sure. But I do know that this seems like a good time to trot out what I learned the last time the economy went south.

Lesson One:

Market bubbles aren’t rational. Companies rise faster and farther in a bubble without regard to, well, anything. Uber®, which is basically “Taxi App” is worth $61 billion dollars, which is more than Elon Musk spends in a typical year on hair plugs. Uber© lost $8.5 billion dollars last year while generating tons of bad publicity because its founder is a douche and it treats drivers worse than Mongolian bull milkers. There are tons of companies just like Uber™, and all with an idea that they’ll “disrupt” segments of society. Essentially, disrupting involves an app, a smart phone, and booting someone out of a job. Some are, I assume, legitimate ideas that will be profitable in the future. Others are like GoPro™, which is (in Karl Denninger’s words) just “camera on a stick.”

I heard someone call this the Disruption Bubble, and it’s as good a name as any to describe the distortions and irrational money flows as everyone tries to find the next Amazon™, Facebook© or Google®. In a real panic, stupidly valued things like Uber® deflate, and deflate quickly. But companies that are really worth something will fall in value, too.

The best time to buy a company is when it is cheap. It will never be cheaper than when people are panicking like Godzilla® is hungry for Japanese take-out and orders Tokyo. Finding quality companies that are selling at a 90% discount is possible during a real panic.

Lesson Two:

When the market falls, investors have less money. But they still have bills. So what will they do? If this is like 2008, they’ll sell other things. What kinds of things? Cool cars will be cheap, but not everyone is in the market for a Lambo. But gold dropped, too. During 2008, gold went from $1000 per ounce to as low as $720.

You can see the price of gold really drop around the shoulder area, and take off afterwards.

I can’t guarantee that gold will drop, but I’d be watching if you want to buy some – there might be a great opportunity to buy gold at a lower price than the current $1655 per ounce.

Lesson Three:

In past recessions, the interest rate that is charged for the 10 Year T-Bill generally dropped. Why? People wanted to get to a safer asset. That asset has generally been the dollar. The most likely candidates to replace the dollar were the Chinese whatever-they-call-it and the Euro. As China is now in the grip of Corona, it’s not a flight to safety. Every European country with a beach is thinking about dumping the Euro and exiting the EU so they can print wrapping paper and call it money, the Euro isn’t a great one, either. The Swiss Franc is kinda awesome, but they only make so many of those.

Look closely and you can see that the Fed doesn’t have a lot of room to lower rates.

Nope. It’s the dollar. In times of economic uncertainty, the dollar will increase in value relative to other currencies. Does it make sense? Maybe? It seems that the world notices the Navy, Army, Marines, and all of those nuclear weapons and those make the banks in New York seem a bit more secure.

Expect that if this goes like 2008 for a while you can buy foreign stuff like a king. For grins I track the New Zealand dollar – it’s right now at its lowest value in five years. I bet it goes even lower soon, so sheep should be quite a bargain. Remember New Zealand’s national motto: “We’re not Australia.”

Don’t expect to find a great place to get a good yield anytime soon if Uncle Sam is paying less than a 1%, you’re not going to get even that good of a deal. Negative interest rates have already hit Europe, and there’s no reason they won’t hit the rest of the world. Investing in cash in mason jars buried in the backyard might be a good idea. Send me your map, and I’ll keep it safe.

Lesson Four:

No financial collapse looks the same. Each one of them is unique, and this one has been a long time in coming so, if it’s hitting right now, it could be really bad. Each of the above lessons might be wrong, so look for opportunities where you see them, not where an Internet humorist thinks they might be, no matter how charming and freshly showered he might be. Oh, if you have cash, it does no good if it’s in a bank that collapses. Just sayin’.

A friend of mine made the joke in 2008 that “when the tide goes out, you see who isn’t wearing a swimsuit.” There are vulnerabilities that very few people know about right now that will (in hindsight) become obvious in the days or years ahead. Just nod sagely and pretend like you expected it would happen all along. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Wildcards:

Desperate people sometimes do desperate things. As the Soviet Union collapsed, there was some small risk that an official decided he was better dead than not red, and pushed the button. That didn’t happen – in large part because by the time the Soviet Union collapsed, nobody believed in it anymore: it was as tired as Joe Biden’s campaign.

Okay, I’m sorry.

If China were to teeter near collapse, would they decide to launch a regional war to keep the people together so the nation didn’t collapse or fall into civil war? Hopefully not, but the chances of it happening are greater than zero. As you prepare for a world where there is a financial dislocation, don’t forget to prepare for a cultural dislocation as well. Buying food now when it’s cheap and easy to get doesn’t make you a hoarder – it makes you one less person who is drawing on system resources if things go bad. Preparing for bad times when times are good is a profoundly moral thing to do. But don’t forget to complain like everyone else.

Nobody likes a smug prepper.

Disclaimer:

Keep in mind, this is NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. I make fun of Johnny Depp and PEZ® and post pictures of girls in bikinis over economic graphs and am even writing this sober. Consult someone who has those credentials and maybe drinks martinis at lunch since that seems pretty swanky. Also, I don’t own any direct positions in any of the stocks discussed, and don’t plan on taking any positions in them (maybe ever), though I do own a Ford™ truck. I’m betting that maybe some of my 401k money is investing in, well, something and might include these stocks, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s just invested in magic beans?

Stalin’s Cannibal Island and Distracted Driving

“All the best doctors are in the Gulag or dead.” – The Death of Stalin

Stalin has a special place in his heart for you, right at People’s Worker Camp Number 1323.

I’ve been more time driving recently, and with that time, I’ve learned to speak Dutch, memorized the Dewey Decimal System, and figured out how to make a bagpipe using trash bags, duct tape and copper pipe stolen from abandoned buildings.

I kid. PVC pipe works better.

I’ve actually spent most of the time driving listening to commentary on the news, history, or other podcasts that drift on up into the “play me next” list. I guess that means to a certain extent my viewing history is determined by an algorithm written by a pimply-faced 19 year old in the basement of the Google® complex. Thankfully, he writes pretty good code, and I thank all of the girls that wouldn’t date him for that.

Yes, I know that it’s YouTube®, but I really don’t let watching it distract me from driving – I swear I never actually watch YouTube™ while I’m texting and drinking coffee at the same time while steering with my knee in a school zone. In reality, most of what I “watch” doesn’t require any visuals at all, since often it’s just a person talking.

The Mrs. tells me that the steering wheel is just in my way.

However, in the case of one particular video, the story was one of the most horrible I’d ever heard and I was thankful that pictures didn’t survive to illustrate it.

Let me tell you about it.

In 1933, a guy named Genrikh Yagoda (head of the OGPU secret police, which eventually become known as the KGB) got together with his best buddy Matvei Berman, who ran something called

Главное управление лагерей

– which has the sort-of boring translated name of “Main Administration of Camps.” I first heard about Berman’s organization though its more common name, Gulag. Yagoda and Berman had a fantastic idea. Stalin had decided to punish the Kulaks by taking all of the food out of the Ukraine and closing the border – I write more about that little adventure here (In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!). That meant that there wasn’t as much food in the Soviet Union since they were purposefully killing all the people who made the food in the area where the food came from.

A rational leader would respond by, oh I don’t know, stopping the slaughter of all the farmers that grow the food? But not Stalin-era Soviets. No, they needed a solution that allowed them to keep killing their own farmers, yet still grow food. Since Yagoda had police and Berman had prisons, they’d use the police to arrest citizens to fill the prisons and make the prisons farms that grow food.

Secret, secret police: the CatGB. Only known weakness? Laser pointers.

But what crime to arrest the citizens for? Yagoda and Berman came across the idea of requiring internal passports. If you were caught without your papers? Boom. Deport to the Gulag where you could be magically made into a productive farmer to patriotically feed the Motherland.

The local secret police that worked for Yagoda loved the idea. They loved it so much, that even if you had the internal passports, you could still get arrested. Why? Quotas. The plan was for the secret police to arrest 2,000,000 Soviet citizens for export to the farms. With a demand of 2,000,000, there was no reason for actual guilt to be required.

In the infinite wisdom of Yagoda and Berman, they decided the best people to abduct for their new farming plan were . . . city people. I mean, how hard could farming be? This was the Yagoda-Berman plan – they would send these arrested city dwellers off to Eastern Russia so they could make farms in Siberia and gloriously feed the Soviet Union.

Red Acres is the place to be . . . farm living is the life for me . . . Siberia stretching out so far and wide . . . Comrade, keep Moscow just give me that Gulag life

If you’re like me, you’re immediately wondering how this bulletproof plan could fail. As their plan was being enthusiastically carried out, tens of thousands of people were being arrested. Time to ship them east. How? Open barges used to haul timber. In May. In Siberia. Amazingly, of the first 5,000 shipped out, only 27 died on the 2,500 mile trip.

Immediately died, that is. The day they got there several hundred more died of exposure.

Not having any real orders, and not having any tools or shelter or, well, anything, the guards dropped all of the first 5,000 prisoners on an island in the middle of a river. Another 1,200 or so were shipped to the same island by the end of May. Nazino Island was the chosen site. Why? Who knows – probably made sense from the viewpoint of a map in Moscow. And those guards? They had no shoes. No uniforms. No training – they were new recruits as well.

Nazino Island is 2000’ across at its widest point, and about 2 miles long as it squats in the middle of the Ob River. As a landing point for 6,000 city-bred farmers, it probably couldn’t have been worse – part marsh, part forest. The forest part would have been fine, if they had axes.

But they didn’t have any equipment or shelter of any kind. Thankfully things couldn’t get worse, could they?

If only it were just rain . . .

Wait, they could – there were regular, violent criminals tossed in with the poor randomly arrested citizens. And violent criminals tossed in with scared people was a way to make the disaster even worse as the criminals took charge. What little food was given to the prisoners (about 900 calories of rye flour per person – 300 grams per day) was often given to the criminals to distribute, with worse than predictable results.

How could it have been worse than predictable? The city folk mixed what flour they actually got with water so that they weren’t eating handfuls of dry powder.

What water did they use? River water. Raw river water. Unboiled raw river water.

Many became violently ill.

It gets worse. Much worse. By June, only 2,000 of the Nazino deportees are left alive, and only 200 of them were in any condition to work when they were moved to the next labor camp – one that actually had buildings and tools and food this time. Go to YouTube© and search for “Stalin’s Cannibal Island,” if you want more details. But I’ll warn you – it’s disturbing content which should be clear because you’re using “Stalin” and “cannibal” in the same search term. I don’t recommend you watch or listen to a video on it, so I’m not linking to it – you can’t unhear it. Make your own call if you really want to watch it – it’s not hard to find, especially if you’re driving.

No one knows if Nazino was the worst of Soviet excesses. We only know about it because a local communist leader was so appalled by what he saw that he sent a report to Moscow. The report was immediately classified, and popped in a folder in a featureless warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did this information come out because someone found a dusty copy in that Siberian warehouse.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy. The following phrase has been (rightly or not) attributed to Stalin, “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.” Not long after the report reached Moscow, Stalin stopped the program that Yagoda and Berman had started. Millions were still sent to the Gulags and millions died in them, but there was at least some planning, food and logistics to go with the casual cruelty.

In 1938, five years after Nazino, Yagoda was shot after a show trial because he irritated Stalin. One year later, Berman was shot as well after his own show trial. It’s unlikely that either was executed with Nazino in mind – Stalin just didn’t like Yagoda and Berman after a while and when Stalin didn’t like you, it was pretty common that you were guilty of huge numbers of crimes. It’s likely that Stalin simply didn’t care about the dead citizens and had probably forgotten about them by the time he got around to thinning the herd.

This is communism. It’s not an aberration. It’s not an unusual condition. It’s a story that’s repeated wherever communism is tried.

Che, showing his skill at mining for glorious mineral resources for the worker’s paradise!

Despite the soft face put on socialist regimes by their proponents, this is the inevitable end state. Communism results inevitably in a war against the people, with places like Nazino being the rule rather than the exception. When you see the faces promising class warfare and offering free things, remember that this is what they mean – eventually every citizen either cowers in fear of the state, or is consumed by it.

There is an alternative, thankfully. You too can learn to make your own bagpipe . . . but I’d avoid doing the tricky bits in a school zone.

Don’t wish your life away, complete with Catch-22 and bikini picture

“Mr. Frond. He’s a tall glass of . . . annoying.” – Bob’s Burgers

I guess you could say that Bernie engages in wishful thinking.

A few years ago I was in a meeting with my boss, who has since retired. It was a particularly hectic time at work – we were looking down at a calendar of 13 hour days, 7 days a week, for the next few weeks. We had already been on that hellish schedule for at least 20 days. We couldn’t have been more exhausted if we were a car muffler or the guy charged with keeping Joe Biden away from functional microphones.

At this point, the most dangerous place in the office was getting between me and the coffee pot. HR had cautioned me about my threatening language when I found someone in the way of the coffee, but I responded that growling wasn’t really a language. They said I was being intimidating, but I stared at them silently and then they went away.

So, we were busy. As I said, I had a meeting with my boss. My boss leaned back in his chair. In a very tired voice he said, “Well, I don’t want to wish my life away, but I’m looking forward to finishing this.”

The part of that sentence that really stuck with me was, “I don’t want to wish my life away.”

When faced with something unpleasant, I want it to be over, and the sooner the better. I think that’s just human nature. I’d actually never given that desire a second thought. “Let’s finish the bad times so we can get to the good times, right?”

It serves you right, you knock-kneed slobbering tuna monger.

I also recalled another, slightly different example of this kind of thinking. When I was a child waiting for Christmas, I wanted the days before Christmas Eve to dissolve into the past like all of those bodies in Bill Clinton’s basement so I could begin unwrapping presents like a Tasmanian Devil® with chainsaw arms. A similar example is how people can’t wait for the work week to finish so that they can get to the weekend and live their “real” life.

But life isn’t just the good times – it’s also the crappy ones, too. It’s also the dull ones. It’s the hours spent at work. And it’s the hours spent in a dentist chair. And that really is the sum of life – it’s not the great moments, it’s all the moments. It’s what we live in every day: that’s life. Life isn’t just hopping from peak to peak, victory to victory, Christmas present to Christmas present. Nope. Most of life is spent in the valleys and hillsides and Bill Clinton’s basement.

I will say the one time I had Tequila I did end up on my knees.

I did an experiment once on a warm spring day. I was in the parking lot of a liquor Bible store to get some beer to buy extra Bibles for the Bible room in my house. For whatever reason I stopped and just looked around. I observed as closely as I could. I looked everywhere. Up into the blue sky and the wisps of clouds moving lazily to the east. I looked at the grain of wood in the gray sun-bleached privacy fence by the parking lot. The staggered brick pattern of the store wall contrasting with the evenness of the mortar joints holding them in place caught my eye. From the natural to the manmade, I looked deeply.

As I spent time that afternoon really looking at and observing my surroundings I was struck by how much beauty that I was surrounded by, day after day. This was a beauty that I never noticed – it was just visual noise in my daily life. But that beauty really was there, hidden in the small things that are everywhere. Also it was in bikinis, but those really weren’t hidden.

It has been mentioned that I needed more bikini. I assume you mean on hot chicks, because it’s considered an international war crime if I posted one of me in a bikini.

There was a weird majesty in the moment. Most days I don’t take the time to look for it. But I know that it’s there if I want to take the time to look. After that, things weren’t really the same. I began to look closer at all aspects of life.

Not too much later I read an article that said that even when it gets fairly cold, say -5°F with a wind of 10 miles per hour, it would take up to half an hour to get frostbite. I’m not making fun of those temperatures – they can be deadly. But if I was walking around outside and the temperature was 40°F with a wind speed of 10 miles per hour I might be a bit uncomfortable, but a healthy person with exquisite DNA that was the result of a secret government breeding program named Project Lunchbox (like your humble host) could easily stand those conditions for hours in just a light jacket with no lasting negative impact. Shiver? Sure. But I’d be fine. And so would anyone else without a weird medical problem even if they weren’t part of Project Lunchbox.

When we had to do a group project in school we were in trouble – we were all “that guy”.

The same is true about high temperatures. Yes, I might sweat – it’s not like I’m a member of the English royal family. But for the most part, most ranges of heat you’d encounter in the United States isn’t life threatening to a healthy person. Uncomfortable? Yes. Sweaty? Certainly – we already established that. But only uncomfortable, not in danger. One summer the air conditioning went out on my car. My response? I rolled the windows down when I headed home from work. After a week or two, the heat ceased to bother me at all.

As I kept at it, I realized that there were a lot of other conditions I could simply ignore if I chose to:

Hunger – Most people reading this have never been really hungry in their lives.
Thirst – Water is important, but it how many times are we actually thirsty versus just drinking because of habit?
Airline Seats – Okay, these really are from the fifth circle of Hell. But I can scrunch up in one for an hour or so.
Ear Hair – If I let it grow long enough, I can braid it like the bride at a Leftist wedding.
Bad Smells – How many of them are just annoying? I mean, besides the French?
Disorder – Not everything in my life needs to be perfectly arranged, but it would be nice if Pugsley put the Vise Grips® back after he was done braiding my ear hair.

After all of this, the minor irritants of life ceased to irritate me on most days. As I became less irritated, the thing that oddly became more irritating was people complaining about minor irritations. I then had yet another realization: some people just like to complain. So I added another thing to my list of things I could ignore if I chose to:

Annoying People

I’ll admit that not everything in my life is always exactly the way I’d create it if it were entirely up to my choice. And that’s good. It’s that difference (along with carbohydrates) that forces me to grow. Bad times give me an excuse to call my friends and discuss my problems with them.

Jesus told me I could turn water into whine. I guess he had enough the third time I brought up airline food.

Also, I am human. Annoying people, especially the professional-level annoyers, still annoy me. And the list of things I can choose to not be angry about is just that, a choice. From Catch-22:

Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly.

…

“Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?” Dunbar asked Clevinger. “This long.” He snapped his fingers. “A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you’re an old man.”

“Old?” asked Clevinger with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Old.”

“I’m not old.”

“You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?” Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.

“Well, maybe it is true,” Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. “Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

“I do,” Dunbar told him.

“Why?” Clevinger asked.

“What else is there?”

Joseph Heller was probably a bit more pessimistic than I am. I don’t think that living a life filled with unpleasant conditions is required for a long life. If so, people would be lining up at chiropractors to have them misalign their spines. But, on the other hand, someone did marry my ex-wife . . . .

And you pay half of all your stuff.

No, the wisdom that my boss shared with me is clear. Spending your life torturing yourself isn’t productive, except in California. But even during a bad time or when you’re anticipating a good time in the future, don’t wish your life away. Each minute is a precious one.

Use them all.

I suggest skeet.

Corona Virus, with a Slice of Recession?

â€œGlobal? Oh, great. I’ve doomed humanity.â€ â€“ Ash Versus Evil Dead

I hear it can only be caught from crowds.Â Introverts everywhere smiled as they stared at your shoes.

The other day I was emailing back and forth with James M. Dakin, proprietor of the Bison Prepper (LINK).Â I mentioned that Iâ€™d bring up an old essay weâ€™d both read back when Jim and I went to different high schools together. Â That essay was I, Pencil.

I, Pencil was written by Leonard Read and published in 1958.Â The essay is available here (LINK).Â I, Pencil is a fairly short essay with a fairly long introduction.Â Spoiler alert:Â Leonard felt that no single person on planet Earth can make something as simple as a boring old yellow No. 2 pencil.Â And, heâ€™s right.Â A pencil, even a 1958 version, uses components that are sourced all over the globe.Â Mr. Read makes a great point â€“ the free market takes components from all around the world to make even the simplest and most mundane object.

I cut myself with a pencil â€“ I drew blood.

Likewise, the knowledge required to make that pencil is distributed across the globe.Â No single person can make the pigments for the paint by milking the Tanganyikan paint turtles, and pick the aluminum from the Australian aluminum trees to make ferrule that holds the eraser on.Â And that eraser?Â Itâ€™s made of rubber from the Congo.Â Iâ€™d make fun of the Congo, but, really.Â Itâ€™s the Congo and they have enough problems (LINK to a really fascinating story of crossing the Congo).Â Plus the wood is made from sustainably farmed free-range vegan trees in California.Â Donâ€™t forget the graphite â€“ itâ€™s from the Sri Lankan graphite glaciers.

The humble pencil is a creature of Globalization.

How much Globalization?Â Sadly, it looks like Dixon Ticonderoga used to make most of its pencils in the United States, but now apparently makes only enough pencils here to claim that it actually makes pencils in the United States (LINK).Â There were a few pencil jokes I was going to make here, but theyâ€™re pointless.

While we talk about globalization as being a new phenomenon, Globalization has been a thing since the days of the American Revolution â€“ the tea that Sam Adams threw in the harbor during the Boston Tea Party came from halfway across the planet.Â Even back to the days of Rome, there is evidence of far flung trade â€“ shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean are often found filled with wine or olive oil being shipped across the Empire.Â Sadly, the Romans abandoned those cargos after they broke the V second rule of being on the bottom of the ocean.Â Â

X/X

Globalization provides a huge advantage.Â Some things arenâ€™t available around the world â€“ resources come from other places for a reason â€“ corn is imported to the South Pole because corn grows rather poorly in ice.Â Shockingly, wood comes from places with trees, and having Saudi Arabia export timber is probably not a great business strategy.Â But having Saudi Arabia export oil is.Â And having the United States export food also makes sense â€“ we grow more than we can eat.

When done right, Globalization provides the benefits of bringing together resources and knowledge from far-flung corners of the world to meet the needs of people that most of them will never meet.Â But Globalization doesnâ€™t consist only of benefits.Â With Globalization, TiconderogaÂ® can decide to make pencils in China.Â Hundreds of jobs are then lost in the United States.Â A typical journalist would indicate that the people who lost pencil-making jobs should, â€œlearn to code.â€ Â When those same journalists lost their jobs due to Globalization, they cried on TwitterÂ® when told that perhaps it was their turn to #learntocode.Â The journalists even got people banned for suggesting they take their own advice (LINK).Â Still missing:Â journalists who became coders.Â Also missing:Â journalists with a sense of humor and irony.

Although the United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on yellow No. 2 pencils made in China, should pencils stop showing up from China, there wonâ€™t be chaos and anarchy in the streets except around SATÂ® test taking time.Â I mean, we all remember the No. 2 pencil riots of 1989, right?

But that is just a humble pencil.Â What other things are imported from China (LINK â€“ warning â€“ quite an addictive set of graphs)?

You can tell that toothpaste was invented in New York City.Â Otherwise they would have called it teethpaste.

A lot of the things the United States imports from China are trivial, or convenience items that we could live without:

Lots of toys are manufactured in China, including trikes and video game consoles, virtually all Christmas decorations, and (the census has a category for this) practical jokes. Yes, the Corona Virus could directly cause a shortage of fake dog poo.
Strollers and toasters are almost all made in China. Why did I combine these items?Â No reason.Â None at all.
Millions of wet heads could result.
Artificial flowers. Now here the Chinese are particularly cunning â€“ theyâ€™ve cornered the production of not only plastic artificial flowers, but also artificial flowers not made from plastic.Â This is a true strategic threat.
Nearly every thermos. The United States could bankrupt itself in additional ice costs.Â Also, cold soup?
100% of lawn edgers are made in China. 100% of my lawn edger hasnâ€™t left the garage in five years.

Okay.Â There is a lot of stuff that comes from China we live without.Â Unless you work at Wal-MartÂ®.Â Without those imports to be sold, the impact should be minimal.Â Very few people have ever had a life or death situation that could be solved by fake dog poo.Â Iâ€™m pretty sure this is the first time that last sentence was ever written in the English language.

Had much super fun time inserting receptacle into hand.

But . . .

Nearly every â€œportable digital automatic data processing machine not weighing more than 10 kilogramsâ€ comes from China â€“ all $37 billion worth.
65% of cell phones – $72 billion.
80% of â€œother radio telephonesâ€ $44 billion.
And, oops, it seems that 80% of pharmaceuticals and 97% of antibiotics in the United States are imported from China ().

Amazingly, everything that China exports to the United States only amounts to (about) 3% or of the United States economy.Â Stopping Chinese imports to the United States would have an immediate impact because of lowered sales regardless of what we import.Â But as the bullet points above show, slowdown of imports from China could also have an immediate effect because of what we import.

The third impact would come from what we make out of the things that China sends us.Â Things like . . . cars and pickups.Â Where does the housing for the alternator in the FordÂ® pickup come from?Â Touch screens?Â How many are made in China?Â How many days until Chevyâ„¢ canâ€™t build a car because itâ€™s missing a switch that runs an air conditioner?Â Last time I checked, most cars need nearly 100% of the parts to be called a car.Â At least until I work on the engine â€“ then I always seem to have a few bolts left over.

Not one of my repairs.Â But I have used zip ties as a structural material.

The third impact of reducing manufacturing in the United States would be large. Â I donâ€™t have precise figures but I can guess â€“ it might be as much as a 10% drop in the economy in the year it happened.Â For reference, the Great Recession of 2008 had a 4% drop in economic activity.

Iâ€™m probably not the guy to talk about how the Wuhan Flu is going to spread.Â Iâ€™m certainly not the guy to tell you how to treat it if you get it.Â But I do know that something like the shutting down of factories in China can spill over to the United States and cause recessions or worse, even if the Corona virus never became an epidemic here.

Stock up on pencils while you can . . . .

The Revolutionary: A Wilder Review

“We, the soldiers of The National Liberation Front of America, in the name of the workers and all the oppressed of this imperialist country, have struck a fatal blow to the fascist police state. What better revolutionary example than to let their president perish in the inhuman dungeon of his own imperialist prison.” – Escape from New York

Rittenberg and Mao. One of them was working for his country at the time.

Two weeks ago, Concerned American over at Western Rifle Shooters Association (LINK) posted about a documentary, The Revolutionary. His request was pretty simple – “Find it. Watch it. Tell us about it. Any takers?”

I raised my hand. Here we are. As you read this, I suggest one little thought: would a Leftist takeover be any different in the United States?

The film opens with a shot of a library, filled with books with Chinese ideograms written on the spines. Finally, the hand of an elderly man pulls Mao’s “Little Red Book” – Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung from the stack. That elderly man, Sidney Rittenberg, then announces with gravity that Mao was a “great hero and great criminal.”

The Revolutionary is a documentary about Sidney Rittenberg and his time in China.

Sidney who?

Sidney Rittenberg was born in Charleston, South Carolina to a wealthy and politically powerful family. Rittenberg went to college at the University of North Carolina. The documentary doesn’t mention graduation (he didn’t), nor does it mention that he became a committed communist while at college (he did). His first work was as a union organizer. What union? Apparently all of them. Rittenberg recounts that one paper described him as: “an alien element who is here spreading class hatred.”

I’m surprised he didn’t get shirts made.

“I don’t always fight for my country, but when I do it’s not really for my country.”

Sadly for the Chinese people, Rittenberg was drafted and sent to Stanford to learn Chinese for the U.S. Army. After being sent to China with the Army, Rittenberg did the usual thing soldiers do and stayed and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1946. The film hints that Rittenberg made contact with communists as soon as he could after reaching China, so he might have been playing for both sides at once.

After joining the Chinese Communist Party, RIttenberg acted as a liaison and translator with the U.S. Army in the area – even translating the Laurel and Hardy movies that the Army brought (I’m not making this up) for Mao to watch. Per Rittenberg, Mao told him that he wanted to show the world that “China could be civilized and democratic,” which I’m betting Mao thought was the central message of most Laurel and Hardy films.

In his first real taste of actual communism (versus the imaginary unicorn communism Rittenberg made up in his head) as Mao was about to take over Beijing and consolidate final victory on the Chinese mainland in 1949, Rittenberg was arrested because Stalin cabled Mao that Rittenberg was a spy. This may be the only thing (besides dying) that I ever was happy that Stalin did.

The Chinese version of Swan Lake has a slightly different ending and involves a steel mill.

For the next five years Rittenberg was in prison, and his account of this time in the documentary is filled with self-congratulation that he was a fine, faithful communist even in his jail cell. Offered the chance to go home to the U.S., Rittenberg declined and studied for five years in his jail cell until Stalin died and he was released. During the time he was in prison, the communists actively purged countless people on the losing side of the Chinese Civil War, and lost hundreds of thousands fighting Americans in Korea. These were down from the 11,000,000 or so killed during the Chinese Civil War, so it almost seems like Mao was getting tired of killing Chinese.

Spoiler alert: Not at all.

In theory, Rittenberg could be absolved of culpability in those deaths and the treason of supporting a government at war with the United States. But after Stalin died, Rittenberg was released. And after showing such loyalty by staying in prison, he was admitted to the “real” Communist Central Party. He was on the inside.

How far inside? In a country where hot running water was nearly unknown, he had it. He had a driver and car at any time of the day or night. If he wanted entertainment? He had tickets to any shows. Vacation travel. And, he noted he was, “paid better than Mao.”

Rittenberg’s first crime, at least as shown in the documentary, was in 1957. It was at that point where Mao’s “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend” scheme unfolded. Mao, in theory, told people to argue about what would be best for China and let the best ideas win. Rittenberg admiringly notes that Mao, “with great artistry,” coaxed anyone who had a different opinion than Mao to speak it. Then like a vengeful junior high cheerleader, after Mao knew who his enemies were, he crushed and ruined them.

Who says Mao doesn’t have a sense of humor?

One person who worked with Rittenberg in the Radio Beijing propaganda section during the “Hundred Flowers” was the daughter of the founder of Goldman Sachs®. This unnamed daughter fought for the civil rights of those being crushed by Mao, and challenged Rittenberg. Hadn’t Rittenberg fought for civil rights in the United States?

He had.

But she just didn’t get it, said Rittenberg. Apparently civil rights were to be fought for before power was achieved. After gaining power, civil rights weren’t something to fight for – they were a negative. But Rittenberg got it. Rittenberg described taking part in “struggle sessions” where people – his friends – were denounced, beaten, and berated. Often, Chinese would commit suicide rather than be the subject of a struggle session.

Rittenberg’s second crime was in the Great Leap Forward. I wrote (a bit) about the Great Leap Forward here: In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!. This was Mao’s attempt to modernize the Chinese economy to match the industrial output of China to that of Great Britain within fifteen years. The idea was that food production would exponentially increase, and that, from small steel forges in the backyards of peasant huts, steel would be made to match the output of a first world producer of steel.

But the Chinese had a problem. How on Earth could they get that much iron and steel so quickly?

Easy!

Melt your pots. Melt your pans. Melt your plows and tools. And while you have all the men working at melting down useful items, leave the fields to the very young and the very old. Call the death toll due to famine as 40,000,000. This brings Mao’s total up to 51,000,000.

Oops. But he’s not done yet.

Spoiler: there wasn’t a Chinese spaceship during the Great Leap Forward. Also? No Lucky Charms®.

This led to the largest famine in world history. When this was pointed out to Mao by one of his trusted lieutenants, Peng Dehaui, Mao had Peng placed under arrest – later (during the Cultural Revolution) Peng was beaten so badly his back was splintered. Taking constructive criticism might not have been at the top of Mao’s skill set.

But that’s not how Rittenberg sees it. “Everybody lied.” Rittenberg said that the lies started at the bottom, and the leadership farther up was “deceived.” Certainly lower level officials gave the numbers Mao wanted to see. They knew the alternative.

They also pretended to make steel.

For Rittenberg to blame the peasants and low level officials for lying is pretty much the “she had a short skirt on and I couldn’t help myself” level of defense – the defense of a man who knows that he was corrupted by luxury and ideology.

I’ll note here that for the last 2,000 years, China has led the world in killing Chinese. The cumulative total for the various civil wars and fights dwarfs any other conflicts in the world. And Mao killed more than Chinese than any person in history.

But a catastrophe as bad as the Great Leap Forward hurt even a near-deity like Mao. He lost tremendous amounts of power as sane people tried to get the economy working again so that the Chinese would be a little less accomplished at killing Chinese.

Mao would have none of it – by far he was already the best killer of Chinese in history, and there was no way he was going to let up as long as he was alive. He created Sidney Rittenberg’s next, and probably worst crime: the Cultural Revolution. I wrote (a little) about that, too: Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be.

To put the Cultural Revolution in perspective, it was really just a way for Mao to regain power. Essentially, he told the youth that it was, “right to rebel” and to oust those that ran the communist government because they presumably weren’t good enough communists. What was a bad communist? Someone who was against Mao.

The nuclear spinach helped the most.

This is where Mao’s Little Red Book made its appearance. Everyone had one. Everyone HAD to have one. What did it mean? Whatever you thought, unless Mao said different. Teenagers and college students were told to take control of their institutions, and they did, forming what they called the Red Guard. But there were lots of different Red Guard organizations, and they often fought each other for no other reason than they had different opinions on the best way to support Mao. Think of it as Lord of the Flies, but running Congress and every public institution.

Oops. Too late.

At the least, hundreds of thousands died, with every kind of atrocity listed from cannibalism to baby-killing, all in the name of Mao. The high range of the death toll was 20,000,000, which would take Mao’s total to over 70,000,000. And Sidney Rittenberg was right in the middle of it. He gave speeches to these Red Guards supporting them since that was, according to him, “my role to play.”

Sidney gave speeches to every size crowd, from 100,000 at a stadium, to 12 people at a Denny’s™ grand opening.

Rittenberg was a prime figure in the start of the Cultural Revolution, he knew of the violence. He knew of the murders, the suicides, the atrocities, and the ruined lives. In his words, he “made feeble protests . . . against it.” But he gave up, rationalizing that, “ . . . revolution is not like having guests to dinner . . . not gracious, not gentle.”

Rittenberg knew what was going on. He related a story where one group of Red Guards captured and tortured rival Red Guard members. They tortured them, and recorded the screams of the tortures. Why? So they could play them to their members to “harden” them. Rittenberg knew that about shopkeepers killed. Teachers stabbed. All of this occurred while the army and police were told to keep their hands off and let the Red Guards do as they pleased.

Rittenberg knew that millions were being murdered. One military leader told him that, “more soldiers were killed in the Cultural Revolution than in any campaign in China’s history.”

Yes, Rittenberg knew this was going on. And he willingly went along with it.

Eventually, if you play with dictators, you’ll eventually end up on the wrong side of them. Rittenberg did. At this point in the documentary, The Mrs. noted that, “it was too bad they didn’t put a bullet in his head.” She’s cuddly that way. But she’s not wrong. Instead they stuck him in solitary, and let him out after Deng Xiaoping took control after Mao died.

Since it looked like there wasn’t much country left to loot and they stopped killing Chinese by the bucketful, and finding his luxurious lifestyle gone, Rittenberg felt his job in China was done and took his wife and family and moved to the United States. He was only there for 60,000,000 of the 71,000,000 deaths that occurred during Mao’s time.

Several of the scenes of the documentary were shot in Rittenberg’s house, I assume. The house was beautiful – lake or oceanfront beautiful, and contained a dining room set that probably cost thousands of dollars. How did a poor communist afford it?

After coming back to the United States, he sold his Chinese connections to the highest corporate bidder, and charged millions. After taking part in activities that destroyed millions of lives, he lived the last forty years of his life in luxury, apparently unburdened by self-reflection of an odious, treasonous, treacherous, and pathetic life that brought tragedy to so many. Not that I’m judgmental. To me, the most chilling part is how the one person he didn’t blame for the horror that was Chinese communism was, well, him.

At the end of the documentary, he has a rare moment where he reflects that maybe he would have been better just going over and helping the Chinese and teaching English, and not being a leader in the Chinese Communist Party.

“But I didn’t want that.”

And neither do the would-be Rittenbergs that are present here in the United States today. They want the power. They don’t mind the body count.

The Revolutionary, 2013, 1 hour and 32 minutes, is streaming now on Amazon® Prime™.

Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously – Meghan Markle PowerPoint Edition

“Okay, that is not the answer I was looking for. You show me a man with pride and I’ll show you a man with limited options.” – Malcom in the Middle

Maybe we should sell PowerPoint™ presentations as an anti-insomnia treatment?

One time I volunteered to put together a presentation. On what? It doesn’t really matter, it’s my theory that Scott Adams is right – “PowerPoint© slides are like children: no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours.” Heck, I like PowerPoint® so much I can’t even have a conversation with The Mrs. without stopping her and letting her know that they’ll be time for questions at the end.

The real reason that I volunteered to put the presentation together is that I knew the material really well, and I could work on it alone. It’s not that I have disdain for my coworkers, it’s just that I generally think they’re insignificant insects. I suppose qualifies me for a career as either a serial killer or being best buddies with Meghan Markle.

Meghan, one bit of advice – seat belts.

One other bonus of this presentation work. I was getting paid to do something I really like to do anyway, which is write. So, based on an agreed upon structure and content, I was free to create a masterpiece of business information, one that would resound for ages through the annals of corporate history, or at least sit unnoticed on a shared network drive until the aliens from planet Zatar invade in the year 2241.

I will admit that I’m only nearly perfect. The presentation was sent out the group for comments. I’m very pleased that some typos were found, and some people had some pretty good suggestions on where I had been less than clear could have been clearer. And I thought that the feedback was great. In general, I really do think that more eyes will help make a presentation like this clearer and more informative. Since this presentation would be used for training throughout the company, I did want it to be good.

Mathematicians have an alcohol problem – they can’t drink and derive. But they do know their limits.

However, there was one response that suggested a major change in format. That email was followed by other team members emailing that they thought it was a good idea in a lemming-like way. Once a group of lemmings is in full motion in a corporate setting, forget it. Standing up against the onslaught of emails from the ever-reliable corporate coalition of the uniformed and the uninvolved never looks good.

For whatever reason, this particular situation made me as angry as a Harrison Ford when the nurse at the desk of the retirement home is out of those hard candies he likes. The comment that suggested the format change came from the New Guy, who joined the group long after I volunteered and we decided on just what we were doing.

When I find I’m getting angry at anything in life, I try to take a step back. I understand that, for the most part, I’m not just a sack of water and chemicals. I was angry because I was letting myself stay angry. Yes, your first response is your first response. But after you have that sudden impulse of emotion, you get to choose how you feel. Being angry is, at first, a reaction. After that, it’s a choice.

And I was choosing to be angry.

Sorry, I can’t hear you over my inner monologue.

I pushed my chair back from my desk and away from my computer. I think dramatic music was playing, and there may or may not have been a crescendo while the camera pulled back. I sat for a minute and thought.

“Why am I letting myself get mad about this?”

In reviewing his commentary, the major change wouldn’t impact the actual content. In fact, it could be used in a similar fashion. The only change was (in my opinion) that it would be packaged with more Stupid – it was mainly a formatting change. Stupidity is more common in the universe than hydrogen, and is universally fatal if taken in large enough doses, but this wasn’t a fatal (or even harmful) amount of Stupid, merely at the “minor inconvenience” level.

So why was I letting myself be so cheesed?

I got up and got another cup of coffee. I try to limit myself to two pots a day.

I sat back down at my desk, and exhaled slowly. I would refuse to be mad. And the anger went away. For whatever reason, this suggestion had hit at my pride. My conclusion was that I was taking myself too seriously. I was taking my own opinion too seriously. And also that I hadn’t yet had enough coffee – I could still feel my jaw.

What happens when you take yourself too seriously?

So, you’re saying George Lucas is the problem?

In the worst case, you become a stereotype – the screeching over-educated-sociology major with a dozen cats and Trump Derangement Syndrome who would jump from pro-abortion to raising babies with a loving husband instead of cat farming with chardonnay if Trump decided he hated babies and marriage. But there are other examples. Let’s look at familiar characters that take themselves too seriously:

Cartman©, from the comedy cartoon, South Park™. His major source of humor to the show is his inflated self-importance and complete narcissism. You must respect his authorit-ay.
Nancy Pelosi, from the live-action comedy, Congress. Like Cartman®, but skinnier and older.
Evil©, from the Austin Powers© movie series. Dr. Evil™ has a series of grandiose schemes based on old Bond® movies. So, this is like Congress, but with better special effects.
Most Hollywood Actors. It always makes me chuckle when they take private jets to climate change conferences to meet with autistic teens who ride in multi-million dollar yachts.
Leftists who knit (as noted in this excellent article – LINK).

View at Medium.com

What do you call a Frenchman in a World Cup® final? Referee.

When you take yourself too seriously you become a stereotype. You become a subject (rightfully) open for ridicule, like most of the examples listed above. As I noted, I got over being angry by putting things in perspective.

Things I try to keep in mind:

I’m an Internet humorist. Life is inherently a comedy, and not a tragedy. So I try to see the humor and potential for goodness when I see myself taking things too seriously. I have a killer standup routine that’s perfect for funerals.
Part of my job is changing the world to meet my expectations. It’s actually fun. But when part of your job is to change the world, you sometimes forget that you can’t make all of the world meet your expectations. I’ll just leave this one thought:
Do I really want to be the kind of person who gets upset over PowerPoint® slides? They’re not actually poisonous if you have less than eighty in a presentation according to the CDC. In reality, most decisions that you make are meaningless. Buy the Progresso® soup or the Campbells™? Who cares? You probably won’t remember the outcome of the decision in a month. Why take that decision seriously at all? (Get Ruffles® instead.)
There are things that are based in my values (Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python): I care about those passionately and act on them. But the effort to care about everything the way I care about those values will burn me up inside. So, at least I could cut down on the heating bills. Maybe I should only obsess in winter?
I have to realize that the person who remembers my silly mistakes, my miscues, and my faults most is me. And my ex-wife. But my ego thinks it lives at the center of the world and that’s why it’s so protective of itself.

In the end, I made the change that irritated me to the presentation. Yes, the presentation got a little Stupider and less easy to use, but I’m willing to admit that it doesn’t really matter. The biggest gifts I got was two less things to care about – my ego, and changes to that presentation.

The Lighter Side of the Apocalypse

â€œIt’s theÂ ApocalypseÂ all right. Â I always thought I’d have a hand in it.â€ – Futurama

I make apocalypse jokes like thereâ€™s no tomorrow.

Wednesdayâ€™s are normally a day to talk about wealth, and when youâ€™re prepping, what is wealth?Â Is it gold coins?Â Is it ammunition?Â Is it beer?Â Is it a paid off house?Â Is it a decadeâ€™s worth of PEZÂ®?

In many cases when I go to other websites that discuss either economic or social dislocation I see people arguing in the comments section about the way to prepare.Â In some cases, these arguments have even occurred here at this humble bastion of Internet civility and decorum.Â All of the people arguing are right.

No, that doesnâ€™t mean that John Wilder is out there awarding participation trophies for comments, far from it.Â The problem is one of definition.Â As Tolstoy said in Anna Kareninananana, â€œAll happyÂ familiesÂ are alike; eachÂ unhappy familyÂ isÂ unhappyÂ in its own way.â€Â Each of the stunningly attractive and freshly washed (and waxed!) geniuses that comments here has an IQ that would put Joe Biden to shame.Â Yet they disagree because theyâ€™re talking about different things â€“ each apocalypse is unique in its own way.

Protip:Â if youâ€™re a mortician, tie all of the corpses shoes together â€“ that way if we do have a zombie apocalypse, itâ€™ll be funny.

Therefore, Iâ€™ve decided itâ€™s important to talk about the W.I.L.D.E.R. Scale.Â Itâ€™s like the Richter Scale for earthquakes or the Fujita Scale for tornados or the Joe Biden Scale for Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldiers.Â But this one is better, because I came up with it.

Most importantly, what does W.I.L.D.E.R. stand for?Â Itâ€™s the:

Wilder Index of Life Disruption and Economic Ruination.

See?Â W.I.L.D.E.R.Â No, wait . . . W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢Â There.Â That looks better.

The scale is broken up into a ten point scale, as described below.Â Why ten?Â Besides being my mental age, it also describes the number of fingers that I had before using a table saw.Â Itâ€™s also metric.Â So, all of you people who live in countries that havenâ€™t nuked Japan (excluding the Japanese) can have this one in metric.Â But you have to keep the soccer.

NOTE:Â This is not a comprehensive financial guide or preparedness guide.Â Depending on the W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢Â level youâ€™re preparing for, this is only the barest bones of a start.Â

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 0:Â All Quiet

Everythingâ€™s fine.Â Life is good.Â Life is projected to be good â€“ you have a job, itâ€™s fairly secure and has good benefits and it pays the bills, mostly.Â Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.Â Go back to sleep.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 1:Â Local Slowdown

What is it?

A W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 1 is the lowest level of economic disruption â€“ local job loss, minor and non-chronic civil .Â Itâ€™s not great if youâ€™re caught up in it, but itâ€™s pretty mild.Â There may be widespread local job loss â€“ a factory was closed.Â Itâ€™s not pleasant for those caught up in it, but the underlying economy outside of that local area is sound â€“ you may have a longer commute, but you can get a job.

What to do?

Have savings.Â Have minimal debt.Â In many cases, youâ€™ll be able to keep doing what youâ€™ve been doing, but you might have a farther commute or reduced wages.Â The nice thing about a Level 1 is that if youâ€™re willing to move to a new city, chances are youâ€™ll find something.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 2: Â Regional Slowdown

What is it?

One thing that was more common in the past in the United States was a regional level of economic slowdown.Â Entire areas would remain stagnant for periods at a time, sometimes years.Â In the case of New Mexico, no one really knew it was a state anyway, so weâ€™re not even sure if New Mexico has an economy.Â As we have been in the â€œBoom Everywhere, All the Timeâ€ mode for the last 20 years (with the exception of that pesky Great Recession), the economy of the United States seems to be far less regional, but more centered in larger cities.

But regional economic slowdowns do occur â€“ an example would be in the Oil Patch when the price of oil first goes up, and then collapses like my resistance to a steak on Friday night.Â The good news is that when the oil price collapses, you can buy a small child in Oklahoma for the price of a cheeseburger.Â Not a plain cheeseburger, but the fancy one with lettuce and tomato and onion.Â Oklahomans have standards.

What to do?

Have savings.Â Have minimal debt.Â Have a realistic budget and know the difference between whatâ€™s really required and whatâ€™s nice-to-have.Â Have a house that you can either sell or walk away from.Â Be prepared to change careers â€“ have an additional skill that people will pay you for if you have to change careers.Â Be prepared to sell a kidney â€“ grow an extra one or two if you can for a rainy day.

Philosoraptor.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 3:Â National Recession

What is it?

Since World War II, most recessions have lasted, on average, a little less than a year.Â Recessions mean that, broadly, the economy is shrinking.Â Since the entire economic (and banking) system is based on continued expansion and growth, a recession typically kicks people out of work.Â During a national recession itâ€™s easier to drive drunk and text Shakespeare from memory while smoking weed than to get a raise.

Even though the economy â€œrecoversâ€ after a year or so, the failures and economic transitions that come from the recession linger in many lives for up to a decade â€“ careers at failed businesses may not be viable anywhere.Â If the entire factory is shipped to China, chances are slim that the Chinese will want to import people â€“ itâ€™s not like there are enough bats for everyone.

What to do?

If you are graduating from college, think twice.Â People who graduate during a recession and take a job during the recession typically earn less for their entire careers.Â Several of my friends went to graduate school instead of into the job market during a recession.Â It worked out well for one guy â€“ he became a dictator of a country in the Middle East.Â Heâ€™s generous, too.Â I heard that he last week at the bar he ordered shots for lots of his friends.

If you have a job â€“ do what you can to keep it.Â Pay down remaining debt, but understand what bankruptcy might mean if you donâ€™t have six months (or more) of cash to cover expenses.Â Stock weeks of spare food, if you can.Â If you canâ€™t, start making friends with neighborhood cats.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 4:Â The Great Depression

What is it?

The Great Depression, and, to a lesser extent, the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the Stagflation of the 1970â€™s fit here.Â These are much greater economic hits than a recession.Â They are nationwide, and may threaten the economic collapse.Â Expect extreme measures to get the economy working again, many of which will actually be counterproductive, but itâ€™s government, so you expect that.Â Banks will fail.Â Weird things will happen to the money supply.

What to do?

If you have spare cash, this is the time to pick up great bargains.Â As the Great Recession hit, the price of gold dropped significantly.Â People who had debt but too many toys had to sell them â€“ it was a great time to buy boats and cars and motorcycles and mistresses and admission for your kid at HarvardÂ®.Â Several stocks were selling at ridiculously low prices.

Why was this?Â Money had dried up, so there were bargains everywhere.Â Of course, I didnâ€™t have enough money then to buy anything.Â Except a house.Â Before the prices collapsed.Â (Spoiler â€“ I got out of that house okay.)

Again, having no debt and cash to cover expenses is key.Â Having a spouse who doesnâ€™t work (but could) is also key â€“ in a pinch, they can work, too, or you can sell their kidneys for buckets of wheat.

Diversify your banks.Â Diversify how you keep your money â€“ is one currency enough?Â Desperate people will be desperate.Â Be able to protect yourself and your family.

Hey, donâ€™t laugh â€“ I can almost buy two packs of gum in 2024 with the money in that picture.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 5:Â National Collapse

What is it?

Governing structures cease to function in a meaningful way.Â This is also known as â€œTuesdayâ€ in most African nations.Â Weimar Germany, and the late Soviet Union are examples.Â They didnâ€™t collapse in the same way â€“ Weimar Germany collapsed in an explosion of hyperinflation.Â The Soviet Union collapse was the collapse of an entire economic system, and now nobody knew who got to take the cow to the dance on Saturday.

What to do?

When nations collapse, their currency collapses.Â This always happens.Â In surviving any of those collapses, a pocketful of gold was more helpful than a pocketful of paper.Â If the nation collapses, it can be difficult to predict the system that will replace it, but they generally are totalitarian strongmen who take over in the chaos after collapse.Â The Soviet Union was a happy departure â€“ as rough as it was on the former Soviet citizens, it could have been far worse.Â Chef Boyardee was originally chosen as Gorbachevâ€™s replacement, but they didnâ€™t like that he called his secret police the Gazpacho.

Six months of food isnâ€™t extravagant in a situation like this.Â Some means of protection are mandatory.Â Realize that changes could happen in a second, so plan.Â Have friends.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 6:Â Civil War

What is it?

The American Civil War, the French Revolution, and the Balkans War are examples of civil wars.Â Civil wars are probably more vicious than any other type of conflict.Â When the Germans started fighting the French and English in World War I, they werenâ€™t really into it â€“ they even stopped the war for Christmas in 1914.Â But when the French finally snapped before the French Revolution?Â They were ready to throw down like a rabid epileptic cat in a strobe light store.

What to do?

Moveable assets like gold or foreign bank accounts, a second passport, and lots of lead are preferred.Â Be in a place (if you can) surrounded by like-minded people.Â It helps if youâ€™ve been there for years before trouble breaks out â€“ being an outsider during a civil war isnâ€™t preferred.Â Have food â€“ a year?Â Have weapons.Â Have a supply of necessary pharmaceuticals if you can.Â Be aware that your side might lose the war.Â What would that mean?Â Oh, and donâ€™t forget to floss.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 7:Â International Collapse

What is it?

World War I and World War II are modern examples of this, but earlier examples include the fall of the Roman Empire and the late Bronze Age Collapse (~1200 B.C.) (LINK).Â These are collapses that take down multiple nations and re-write borders and history.Â They are cataclysmic, and are often followed by the mass movements of people, either as invading conquerors, or fleeing refugees, or in the 2010â€™s, fleeing conquerors and invading refugees.

Some things never change.Â Image:Â Lommes [CC BY-SA 4.0)]

What to do?

Be away from where the war is happening.Â That may be more difficult than it says on the label.Â All of the suggestions for Level 6 responses still fit, especially flossing, but finding a place not torn by conflict is exceedingly difficult.Â Events have the ability to move very, very, fast.Â If youâ€™re in continental Europe, learning German is probably a good idea.Â A year of food will likely not be enough.Â Lead is recommended.Â Gold may or may not help at all.Â If you think it wonâ€™t, Iâ€™ll watch it for you.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 8:Â Regional Extinction

What is it?

Regional extinction last occurred when the population collapsed after the Europeans brought disease to the New World.Â Smallpox, measles, and high cholesterol (eventually) killed an estimated 90% of the pre-Columbus population through either disease or carryover effects.Â That amounted to, perhaps, 10% of the world population at the time.

What to do?

Donâ€™t eat bats.Â Donâ€™t welcome Spaniards.

I fell in love with a calendar.Â Together we had a lot of dates.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 9:Â Continental or Multi-Continental Extinction

What is it?

This hasnâ€™t happened in recorded history.Â There are some scientists that theorize that the supervolcano Tomba that erupted 75,000 years ago nearly eliminated humanity.Â How close?Â Genetic evidence indicates that it might have been as low as 1,000 breeding pairs of humans.Â However, some people think those scientists are bunch of cotton headed ninny mugginses, and say that people were just fine â€“ the restriction in genetic variation shows up because some people were MUCH better at propagating their genes, if you know what I mean.Â Also?Â Asteroids arenâ€™t your friend.

What to do?Â

Be lucky.Â Wear clean underwear.Â You cannot save enough food for this contingency â€“ it may last years and the task will be nothing less than rebuilding civilization.Â Read Luciferâ€™s Hammer for a lighthearted look at life after a Level 9.

W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ Level 10:Â Planetary Extinction

What is it?

Game over, man.

What to do?

Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.Â Go back to sleep.

And thereâ€™s the W.I.L.D.E.R.â„¢ scale.Â Drop me an email or leave a comment if I missed something.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report Number 8: What’s After Virginia?

It’s 11:59 on Radio Free America, this is Uncle Sam with music and the truth until dawn. Right now I’ve got a few words for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone: the chair is against the wall, the chair is against the wall, John has a long mustache, John has a long mustache. – Red Dawn

I must say that I think 6:30 is the best time on a clock – hands down.

People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology. Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.

The clock didn’t move this month after last month’s increment – thankfully the step between 8. and 9. above is a big one. But I thought that about the step between 7. and 8., too.

In this issue: Front Matter – Violence and Censorship Update – Virginia: Win or Loss? – Updated Civil War II Index – Vexit – Links

Welcome to Issue Nine of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War II, on the first or second Monday of every month. Issue One is here (LINK), Issue Two is here (LINK), Issue Three is here (LINK), Issue Four is here (LINK), Issue Five is here (LINK), Issue Six is here (LINK), Issue Seven is here (LINK) and Issue Eight is here (LINK).

Violence and Censorship Update

Obviously, there was more censorship in January – it’s become a fixture. It wasn’t censorship, exactly, but the real story wasn’t was Project Veritas (LINK), which didn’t get a lot of coverage. Project Veritas is run by James O’Keefe, who has been better than anyone at getting Leftists to drop their masks to show what the real plans are and what they really feel. In January O’Keefe dropped several videos showing Leftists within the campaigns of various Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Notice how when it came time for surgery, Bernie didn’t hop a plane to Canada? It’s almost like he had a change of heart.

The following quotes are all from Bernie Sanders campaign workers – paid workers from the information that I can find. After these statements were made public, I can find no public repudiation by Sanders or his campaign of these views or the employees that made them. I can’t find any record that these workers were fired. If this were on the Right? Each employee would have been front page news until he was publicly executed by being nibbled to death by ducks wearing Monica’s blue dress on a pay-per-view with profits going to the Clinton Foundation®.

Let’s force them (billionaires) to build roads – rebuild our roads, rebuild our dams, rebuild our bridges. Let’s force them to do that.
Well, the Gulags were founded as re-education camps. What will help is when we send all the Republicans to the re-education camps.
I’m ready to start tearing bricks up and start fighting. … I’ll straight up – I’ll straight up get armed, I want to learn how to shoot, and go train. I’m ready for the f___ing revolution, bro, I’m telling you. Guillotine the rich.
… do we just dissolve the Senate, House of Representatives, the Judicial Branch, and have something Bernie Sanders and a cabinet of people, make all decisions for the climate? I mean, I’m serious.
Yeah, you’re not gonna get Bernie to say “Gulags,” but like, I’m all aboard for Gulags, like, I feel there needs to re-education for a significant portion of our society. I mean, but running for president in the United States you can’t say anything like that, right?
…putting them up against a wall. I mean the alternative, instead of trying to like…re-educate these people and put them back into society the only option is, the only other alternative is to f___ing (makes shooting gesture/noise) you know what I mean?
I’m ready to throw down now. I don’t want to wait and have to wait for f___ing DNC. The billionaire class. The f___ing media, pundits. Walk into that MSNBC studios, drag those motherf___ers out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets.
Well, I’ll tell you what in Cuba, what did they do to reactionaries? You want to fight against the revolution, you’re going to die for it, motherf___er.

When the Left is telling you it wants to either kill you or put you in a labor camp, re-educate your children, and destroy the Constitutional government of the country and replace it with a communist junta, you just might want to listen – there are red flags everywhere.

The Soviet Constitution promised freedom of speech. The United States Constitution promised freedom after speech.

Virginia: Win or Loss?

On the Right, the biggest question in the aftermath of the rally on January 20 in Virginia is did the Right win or lose? My answer is simple.

It’s now known as Schrödinger’s Rally.

The case for a win: a group of peaceful protesters, many of whom were armed, exercised their Constitutional rights of assembly and bearing arms. That’s very positive. The media reported 22,000 people – which would be roughly the size of the 1^st Marine Division. And no, I’m not trying to indicate that the group of people that showed up would in any way be as combat capable as the 1^st Marine Division unless the Marines had been given an infinite supply of tequila, pizza rolls, and strippers for six months. Even then, my money would be on the Marines.

But the sheer number of people was a win. It showed that not only were people engaged enough that they’d give up a holiday to show support for their rights, but also that it was significant enough that it wasn’t turned into violence by either the State or agents provocateurs embedded by the State.

The case for a loss: nothing changed. The anti-gun bills are moving through the Virginia assembly with no delay. No politician changed his or her vote. In that respect, the rally was a failure

Why didn’t any politician change their vote?

Because no politician had to pay any price for their support of the votes, nor do they feel that they’ll have to pay a price. And, no, to be very clear, I’m not suggesting violence on them or any illegal action. But what I am suggesting is that if they pay no personal price, they’ll never change. What are legal ways to influence them?

First – make sure that they aren’t re-elected. That requires organization and planning. Oh, and voters.
Second – go through their histories thoroughly. Don’t blackmail them – find (legally) all of their dirty laundry and air it – imagine what Ralph’s browser history looks like. Isn’t that a public record?
Third – make sure that that people are rude to their wives and shun them at social functions. How will Governor Northam’s wife, Pam, feel if people tell her what they think of Ralph when she stops in to get a Starbucks®? What if her public meetings were peacefully protested?
Fourth – remove their privacy in every public space. Park vans outside of their houses with billboards that advertise what a horrible person lives within – they’ve done this with Susan Collins in Maine, so it’s a tactic that’s fair game. But the Geneva Convention does categorize playing Twisted Sister® 24/7 at their house a crime against humanity.

I’m sure that there are people who are far better at this than I am who can come up with dozens of legal ways to make a vote against Constitutional rights pretty uncomfortable.

Updated Civil War II Index

More graphs. Last month, someone mentioned that one of the graphs didn’t contain a bikini, and I promised bikini graphs, and one graph showed a one-piece bathing suit. My deepest apologies for this journalistic error.

Violence:

Up is more violent. Violence is edging back up for the second straight month. I still imagine it will remain low for the winter, and hope it doesn’t get as high as the bellybutton.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable. It skyrocketed last month, and plummeted this month as impeachment proved to be nothing.

Economic:

Down indicates worse economic conditions. The economic indicators all were positive, and strongly so, in January – they were so strong I would expect they’d go down in February.

Illegal Aliens:

Down is good, since (in theory) ICE is catching fewer aliens because there are fewer people trying to get in. The numbers are down this month, all the way to near her finger. Numbers are also becoming lower on an absolute basis – fewer crossings seem to be real.

Vexit

In January, there was a proposal filed in the West Virginia legislature to invite counties from Virginia to come on over and join them, since the only think most of Virginia has in common with the Democratically controlled sections is a license plate.

The major problem with this sort of a solution is that it makes too much sense. It allows people to peacefully self-determine the government they have and also begins a process that might lead to a peaceful disassociation between Left and Right. Let’s face it, the Right doesn’t want to hang around the Left, but not nearly as much as the Left dislikes the Right.

What do you expect from a group that tried to get Hannibal Lechter to run for Governor of New York?

Easy choice then – have a peaceful divorce and figure out who has to take the kids to the dentist, right?

Nope. That isn’t the way the Left really works. The Left doesn’t want peaceful disassociation – the Left wants power and control. The words from the Bernie bros are clear – Gulag, firing squad, or being burned alive are the choices on the menu. Heck, the Right builds walls to keep people out – the Left builds walls to keep people in. There is absolutely no way that either the Leftist Virginia General Assembly or Congress would approve people leaving their control. Aesop’s treatise on this is well-written and clear (LINK).

But.

When Gandhi wanted to Inexit, what did he do, besides walk around nearly naked? He started a resistance movement that eventually led to the British Empire telling India, “Yeah, you’re more trouble that you’re worth,” while at the same time striking a blow for the rights of the nearly nude. Is that something that can happen in the United States, a peaceful separation? To be clear – if everyone decided to stop paying taxes tomorrow, the IRS would cease to exist. The existence of the IRS shows that people, while not liking it, consent to it.

Any government exists so long as it reflects the will of the governed. East Germany dissolved over the course of five days in November of 1989 after having existed for over forty years.

Is Virginia there yet? No. But don’t underestimate the power of a people that want to have freedoms.

Links

Most are from Ricky this month . . . enjoy!

Soleimani background

Left not standing for flag

Here’s how asymmetric warfare will be waged during the next CW. Substitute “drones” for helicopters and “anything” for pigs, add cellphone coverage for viral optics, and away we go….

Q showing up again.

Brand new…top media continues to cover this. The graphic in the first one is awesome.

Boogaloo is bad think.

Vox doesn’t like guns.

The British looking for an in.

Billionaires?

Left thought.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/21/war-menu-2020-elections

Carville thinks the Left is nuts.

Hans Gruber, a Hooters Waitress, Patton, and Health

“And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer. Benefits of a classical education.” – Hans Gruber in Die Hard

Alexander the Great loved chewing bubblegum and conquering Persians. And he’s all out of Persians. And bubblegum wasn’t invented until 2,251 years after he died. Poor Alexander.

One thing that I think holds people back isn’t that they plan, it’s that they don’t plan big enough. I’ve been fortunate enough in my life that I’ve made most of my goals come true. That may sound like a good thing, but is it?

Of course it is. It’s really cool to be able to be successful at achieving your goals, because losing sucks, and if you have great goals you end up with Cash and Prizes®.

But what would happen one day if I looked around and said . . . “I’ve done it. I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set out to do.” What purpose is left to drive me? And if I did reach all of my dreams, what’s left to work for?

An example of exactly this happening is Buzz Aldrin. At the age of 39, Buzz walked on the Moon. The frikking Moon. It’s so difficult and expensive to do, we can’t do it today. Yet Buzz was the second guy to walk on the Moon. As a goal it’s awesome. But like the miniature schnauzer that catches a Humvee®, what do you do once you’ve won? Buzz didn’t have a clue, but he didn’t have a problem asking Jack Daniels™ for assistance.

Another example is General George S. Patton. Patton had been a highly competent general in World War II – daring, audacious, and cromulent. Yet, he found himself in a position where the war that he knew how to fight was gone – it was over. In his diary he wrote: “Yet another war has come to an end, and with it my usefulness to the world.”

Little known fact: French tanks in World War II had rear view mirrors. Those were so they could observe the front line.

But Patton and Aldrin aren’t alone with this conundrum of having their success be the source of their discontent – you see this behavior again and again. It’s a common story in Hollywood: nobody to somebody to discovered cocaine to dead. Or, if the actor has a heart made of titanium, they become beloved actor Robert Downey, Jr. The most interesting part of that is the cocaine, especially to Robert Downey, Jr. Although you might think cocaine comes from Colombia, it really comes from the boredom of having everything you want.

It’s curious that one of the things that keeps us healthy and not developing a liver the size of Johnny Depp is the struggle to achieve a goal. In the absence of meaningful goals, bad things happen to people. They drink too much. They vote for the Left. They get depressed – why get out of bed when there’s nothing to work for?

Goals are important – and there are two ways that you can lose them:

Believe that they are impossible and give up, or
Achieve them all and run out of goals.

Essentially these are the opposite problems – one is believing you’ve got to play a football game against the 1985 Chicago Bears® using 11 toddlers. The other is being on the 1985 Chicago Bears© and playing 11 toddlers.

I know it’s a soccer ball in the trophy. It’s not like the Cowboys® would recognize a real football.

Both are no-win outcomes. Toddlers cannot run a receiving pattern at all. And they cannot hold a block long enough for their toddler-quarterback to get a decent pass off. And if you’re the 1985 Chicago Bears™, what’s the best thing that could happen? You beat a bunch of toddlers. I mean, it’s fun and all, but it’s hardly a greater achievement than defeating the Dallas Cowboys© or a school for ten-year-old girls that lisp.

A goal is required for good mental health. The very best goals require that you work at your limits, pushing yourself to become better. They’re goals that you believe you can achieve. And they’re goals where you can see a path to make them become real. And the best part of the goal is at the end, after you’ve achieved it, if you plan ahead you’ve got another goal waiting.

One of the waitresses at Hooters® lost a leg in a car accident last week. She now has a job at IHOP™.

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post (Playing The Game, And Goals For Life) I had goals, just not work-related goals. I’ve been working to create some, and I’m not there yet. That’s okay. The goals have to be meaningful. And I’m not working without a net – I have sufficient goals out in front of me that even if I couldn’t work out a work goal, I have plenty of others. Is having a cup of fresh, hot coffee a good goal? Dangit. Back to the drawing board.

So, what about these great men who had everything when they accomplished the goals of a lifetime?

Patton’s uncharacteristic self-pity in the quote from his diary was the result of his achievement – the war was won, and he contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. He had fame. Only 11 men had ever had a higher rank in the military. From what I read about Patton, I’m willing to bet that he would have been able to channel himself into a post-war United States without too much difficulty.

Would he have been a politician? Hard to say. It’s unlikely that he would have the desire to speak pretty little lies just to get elected. But you can bet one thing – if he hadn’t died, Patton would have done his level best to shake up the United States. I wouldn’t bet against him.

And what about Buzz Aldrin? Buzz crawled into a bottle and managed to skip most of the 1970’s. Admittedly, that wasn’t a bad decade to skip since not having a memory of the Bee Gees® is something some people would pay for. At some point I believe that he managed to come to a truce with the Moon. He decided to instead focus on making money for himself and to be a spokesman for his cause: “Get your ass to Mars®.” Is being a celebrity spokesmodel as exciting as going to the frikking Moon? Certainly not. But you might as well be comfortable if you flew to the frikking Moon.

Buzz Aldrin sadly got divorced in the 1970’s. Apparently his wife needed space, too.

But Hans Gruber got it wrong. Plutarch actually wrote:

Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: “Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?”

In this case, Alexander is saying the exact opposite of the Hans Gruber quote – that he had a goal to conquer an entire world, but wept because his dream wasn’t yet complete. The moral of the story?

Maybe if Hans knew his Plutarch better he might have not fallen off the Nakatomi Plaza Tower.