John – Page 61 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Bikini Economics, Guns, and the Problem with Free Stuff

Attention – this is a repost from 2019, though still very, very valid. Had a mechanical issue to fix around the house (stuff you don’t want to freeze) but that’s all (fingers crossed) fixed. Regardless, no time for a new post. Enjoy!

“Good job, isn’t it? Type something will ya, we’re paying for this stuff.” – Ghostbusters

I like guns. And butter. Especially cocoa butter. Admit it – you’ve never enjoyed economics more.

Economics means choices.

One choice presented by Marxist economics professors to hung-over sophomores in college is between “guns or butter.” This is a classic economic model. In it, a choice is presented: produce guns for defense, or food for the people, or another shot of Jägermeister© before Calc 201. I added the Jägermeister® for the sophomores. No one should have to learn 3-space vector calculus sober.

The idea is that there is some balance where government can feed people just enough so that they can make guns for beautiful Marxist bikini soldiers to take over the world with love and kindness and AK-47s. In this fable, once the world chooses peace (that means Marxism), guns will no longer be produced and the glorious workers will now luxuriate in a worker’s paradise.

These are the deep thoughts of a dimwitted socialist like Kamala Harris, or of an overly caring 11 year-old who is earnestly trying to solve the world’s problems. But I repeat myself.

Don’t be mean to Kamala. She already enough difficulty explaining to her husband why she’s in the top results for “slept her way to the top” on a Google® image search (this is true).

Just because Marxists were wrong about economics doesn’t mean that economies that there aren’t economic choices to make. There are. The biggest actual economic choice to make is whether to spend the output of that economy on building additional productive capacity or on Free Stuff.

Building additional production is investment in the economy. Sure, Leftists like to use “investment” as just another word for Free Stuff, but investment, by definition, produces a return. In the case of investment in an economy, after the investment is done the economy produces more than it did before. Instead of dividing a finite economic pie between guns or butter, the genius of investment is that it creates a bigger pie for everyone. By definition, that’s a win, because it also means more guns for everyone!

There is a time to tell the truth, and a time to lie. If she’s holding an AK, it’s time to lie.

This was self-evident in Western Civilization during the Cold War. We picked the strategy that we invest in our economies so that they became larger, and we’d defeat Communism by out producing them. In order to do that, we increased freedom of the free market so that instead of handfuls of production bureaucrats and commissars guessing what should be produced, millions of free people experimenting in an open economy would make that choice. The winners were selected by the market, and even when things like the Hula-Hoop® or Justin Bieber became wildly popular, industrial capacity was increased all across Western Civilization (and Japan, which had largely adopted all of the winning parts of Western Civilization).

I would try to Hula Hoop©, but last time the neighbor called an ambulance because they thought I was having a seizure.

We allowed this to guide our military spending, too. Multiple companies competed to produce new jet fighters that were more capable, missiles that were more accurate. The technical prowess of the military came not from a top-down dictate, but from the companies competing to produce better defense products. Sure, some of them were horrible, but most of our equipment and doctrine was better than the Soviet stuff. How much better? Ask Saddam Hussein.

As the focus of our economy was growth, the economy grew. How big did it grow? It grew to the point where Reagan could consciously bankrupt the entire guns and butter Soviet economy through pretending that the Star Wars™ missile defense was going to make intercontinental ballistic missiles obsolete. The economy of Western Civilization was such a potent weapon because it harnessed the ingenuity of everyone through capitalist incentives and rewards. The system of capitalism was so obviously successful that China®, Inc. decided to copy it for their economy and get rid of the silly Maoist collectivism. Keep in mind, capitalism does not mean freedom.

Economies still have limits. There’s a maximum amount of “stuff” that the economy can produce, and certainly there’s a limit based on sheer physics, if nothing else, though we’ve yet to see it. The real choice isn’t guns or butter, it’s investment versus Free Stuff. It used to be that money mattered, but that was in the time before Modern Monetary Theory (The Worst Economic Idea Since Socialism, Explained Using Bikini Girl Graphs) fans tossed bottles of Jägermeister© into Congress and told ‘em to spend as much as they wanted.

If Venezuela had a dollar for every time giving out Free Stuff worked, they’d have zero dollars. Oh, that’s exactly what Venezuela has. Never mind.

What Free Stuff do the Leftists want to toss out?

“Free” Healthcare – for everyone. Including illegal aliens. You might think that they don’t give it away now – they do. A pregnant illegal alien show ups to have a baby? You get to pay for that right now. I guess the good news is you don’t have to change it’s diaper.
“Free” Daycare – for everyone. Why? Because who could be better at raising your children than the state. They do such a good job at the DMV.
“Free” College – for everyone. That kid that sat behind you with his finger up his nose, who talked about how he wanted to ride a tyrannosaurus on Mars? When he was a senior in high school? Yeah, he gets free college, too. Although riding a tyrannosaurus on Mars does sound cool.
“Free” Income – for everyone. Why not give everyone $1000 a month for free. It won’t distort the economy at all.
“Free” Reparations – not for everyone. People who were never slaves would get paid by people who never had slaves, for the sin of slavery. Makes about as much sense as the rest of this list.
“Free” Housing – just not in the gated communities where Congressmen live.

Oh, and don’t forget regulations, since regulations is another way to give Free Stuff. They take freedom from the economy and create winners and losers. The Green New Deal is an example of this – the idea of the Green New Deal has nothing to do with the environment – it’s all about creating a socialist economy. In the words of AOC’s advisor: “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Saikat Chakrabarti asked. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Regulations are used to change the economy.

Take a look at all of the innovation spawned by Communism!

At some point Free Stuff will grow to encompass the entire economy leaving nothing for productive growth. Ever notice that every Communist economy freezes at the technology level (outside of military technology) that existed when it went Commie? Cuba is a great example, what with all of the vintage 50’s Ford® and Chevy© rust buckets and fine Soviet cars they have on the streets. If only they would have waited until the 1970’s to go Communist they could have had Ford© Pintos™. That would have made driving exciting!

The same thing happened in Venezuela. PDVSA was a very profitable oil company before Hugo Chavez gutted it to provide Free Stuff to the Venezuelan people. Now? PDVSA is deeply in debt and incapable of producing as much oil as it did in 1998, despite having 77.5 billion barrels of reserves.

Yeah. Free Stuff can make a country bankrupt.

The nice thing about this concept is that it also applies to individuals. Every day each of us has a choice: do we work to make ourselves better, or do we goof off? The choice is an important one.

Do you invest time in increasing your capabilities every day? Do your work to make yourself better? I mean, really work? Take Steve Martin’s advice – “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” (“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”-Steve Martin Plus? A sniper joke.)

You have the choice. And time is running out. And I’m certain you can’t afford Free Stuff.

Ignoring Reality Catches Up With All Of Us

“When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record.” – Star Trek (The Cage)

After creating the Nile, God became a podcaster, “Check out my stream!”

Philip K. Dick said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

It’s a pretty simple definition, and it mostly works unless you have really persistent hallucinations. Persistent hallucinations just like Philip K. Dick probably had. This may explain a lot of his fiction and his fascination with reality. And as for 2021, I’d say reality has great graphics, but horrible gameplay.

In 2022, though, we live in a world where reality seems to be split, and split along ideological lines. One generally reliably Left member of the media (but I repeat myself), Bill Maher, just gave up on the fiction: “It’s just gone on too long, nobody cares anymore. I don’t want to live in your mask paranoid world anymore. You go out, it’s silly now. You have to have a mask, you have a booster, they scan your head like you’re a cashier and I’m a bunch of bananas. I’m not bananas, you are.”

Still not on your side.

With that, the cracks of reality on where we’re at with COVID have swung wide open. There is the fiction that has the single, double, triple, and mega-vaxxed living in constant fear. The Mrs. was reading the comments to me from some Lefties on a website she frequents. One particular set of comments was of Lefties looking for test kits like they were looking for crack. One commenter had consumed at least four instant kits (without a positive result) because they were certain that they had . . . the Rona.

I have no idea what induces that level of fear in a healthy person. When one of them pointed out that they were consuming tests that could have been better used by people in nursing homes, this entirely common-sense idea was shouted down by a sea of Leftist fear.

This is a denial of reality. COVID has killed quite a few people, but it’s no Black Death. Everyone in my family has had it, and for us it ranged from two or three days in bed (The Mrs.) to an afternoon of fever (me). I’d go so far as, having had it, to bet that millions of people have had it and don’t even realize it. For two years, these people have managed to live every moment dripping in abject fear.

How a Leftist imagines a trip to COSTCO®.

Beyond the impact of the fear, there’s the impact of the Vax itself. There is more than sufficient anecdotal evidence that the mRNA shots have significantly more complications than any vaccine ever delivered. No one can say what the long-term implications are. With any luck, the negative health impacts are over more quickly than the protections offered by the shot, but there are no guarantees.

Especially not a guarantee from the manufacturer. Hmmm.

The “adverse health impacts”, of course, are being denied as well. But such an overwhelming amount of data leads to even the monolith of “jab good, deniers bad” being breached at an official level. The current shot does nothing against the current strain of COVID, and it appears the current strain of COVID leaves those that get it immune to certain other forms of COVID.

Huh. It’s almost like the virus is attenuating like, oh, every virus, ever and becoming progressively more infectious and less lethal. Even Bill Gates is ready to call this one over.

We know that Bill Gates didn’t invent COVID – none of his other products come up with new versions this frequently.

This isn’t the only reality the Left is denying. It’s not even the most important reality that is being denied.

What’s falling apart, that Leftists say isn’t?

Well, the economy, but I’ve been on and on about that, so I’ll give you a rest. Besides, Wednesday is a better day for bikini economics. For whatever reason, Biden owns the economy now. In this, I’ll give him a pass. He’s like the last player in a game of Jenga® where you know the tower is going to go, but he’s gotta try to make it one peg higher. More on that later.

Our border. The character of a country is in its people, and so is the success. I do believe that the traditions of our great nation led to the great prosperity that we had. That, and having thousands of nuclear warheads. Yeah, having great traditions is nice, but having the ability to obliterate anyone who disagrees with you never hurts.

Regardless, there’s a group that actively says that the United States, “has no culture” which is like a fish wondering what water is. The fact is that the culture of the United States was so successful and pervasive that people didn’t recognize its influence because it is literally everywhere. Is American culture perfect? No. But it certainly has remade the world, in some ways for the good, in others for the not so good.

I killed an Australian spider with my shoe. I’m glad he wasn’t big enough to carry both of them.

But if you replace the people, you’ve replaced the culture, and the Magic Dirt won’t make them prosperous. Just like if you replaced the Japanese with (spins wheel) Argentinians, it wouldn’t be Japan anymore, you can’t replace Americans with (spins wheel) Japanese and expect anything but another Japan.

The Left somehow thinks the thousands of people in the medical professions (doctors, nurses, administrators, etc.) are magically going to be replaced when they refuse the Clotshot®. No. These are skilled positions requiring education and practical training. Replace these professionals with idiots like me, and you’d end up with every solution being amputation. They don’t call me “John Wilder, Civil War Surgeon” for nothing. It did cut down on the owies my kids brought me, though.

Our relationship with each other. At every level this is breaking down. That’s not fair. At every level, people are being pushed apart. On a racial level, everyone is being taught that, even when there’s no intent, one group of people is awful and the other is blameless.

One of the most pernicious things that can be done is to create a victim class. No matter what happens, they are told, they have no responsibility. If they behave badly, well, it couldn’t be helped. Why not? Well, something happened three hundred years ago, you see.

It’s nonsense. I know Scott Adams has been taking a few lumps recently, but a while back he had a thought experiment I felt was interesting: what would happen if you asked an alien about the situation of blacks in the United States and if reparations were owed. If the alien looked over the situation, Scott seemed to think that it might say, “Well, comparing your life span, material goods, and general standard of living compared to if you had stayed in Africa, you probably owe the white people.”

Women drinking coffee. My three favorite things.

Probably not a popular idea to float in 2022, but the constant stream of victimhood replacing any sort of rational assessment will end up doing only one thing: tearing us further apart. Which is just what Leftists want.

We are on the road to many reckonings. From the looks of them, they won’t be delivered sequentially. I tend to think the big trigger will be the economy, but regardless of the trigger, there comes a point where, regardless of what we believe, reality will set in.

I hope it doesn’t have too much Kardashian.

Fasting: Why Not?

“Your brain, for example, is so minute, Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open there wouldn’t be enough inside to cover a small water biscuit.” – Black Adder Goes Forth

Cows don’t make sounds after they run out of milk. Udder silence.

One of the main battles that the United States is losing is to . . . fat.

There are plenty of reasons for this. The first is that we have a culture where billions of dollars are made by corporations to sell stuff. What stuff? Stuff that tastes good. I don’t fault them for that – they’re responding to incentives. People want nachos covered in cheese and steak and sour cream and . . . dang, now I’m hungry.

That’s one reason. The other is that we live in a culture that’s obsessed with food. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” say people whose paychecks are tied to everyone eating breakfast. And, meals are more than just consuming calories – they’re also social occasions. People get together to feast – not about the food, but about the sharing, or close-quarters combat as it’s known at our house.

And you thought I was going to ask what he wants on his omelet. Easy. One with everything.

There are also some amazingly unhealthy ideas out in society. One of them is “healthy at any size.” That’s provably false, yet now we see models who wouldn’t fit in a semi. Or a semi-trailer. Flatbed.

I understand the idea not to bully people who are overweight, but the idea of idolizing them and holding this condition out to be virtuous is damaging.

Losing weight is, though, astonishingly simple to do. As the math shows, simply eat less than what your body burns. Simple as.

The problem is that requires willpower. And the other problem is that food today is often very calorically dense: a single McDonalds milkshake can have as much as 700 calories.

So, nothing but problems, right?

Muslims won’t go to McDonalds® anymore. The go to Burka King™ now.

No, not at all. There are many solutions. When I was younger, all I had to do was amp up the exercise and I could drop weight amazingly quickly. Now that my knees seem to be coated internally with sandpaper after that first mile, that solution is a bit more difficult.

One thing that works very well for me is something a bit more radical: not eating. It’s amazing, because this particular diet costs nothing. There are no pills or powders to buy. There is no special club to join. Just don’t eat.

For how long, twenty minutes?

No. There are several strategies. One is just eating one meal a day – the nerds call this OMAD. Only eat once a day. And, honestly, that has always worked just fine for me, and was a pretty easy habit to get into. I don’t lose weight just eating one meal a day, but I don’t gain it, either.

And the meal isn’t breakfast.

And who made this? Where’s the bacon?

There is an even more radical idea – actual fasting, for days at a time. Now, I’m not a doctor, but there are actual doctors who recommend this. Jason Fung is one. Fung’s story is a simple one. He had diabetics showing up for treatment due to failing kidneys. Fung is a kidney specialist.

They told Fung that the only thing to do for these folks was to help them along. They’d die (eventually) from the complications due to diabetes. Fung rejected that, and started experimenting with fasting. And, of course, all of his patients drink all of the water, coffee, or tea that they want.

It worked. He actually increased positive outcomes for his patients. Again, I’m not a doctor and if you want to consider this, well, don’t say “the internet humorist seemed to think it was a good idea.” No. You go see a doctor or whatever it is you do to make medical decisions.

Last time I was in the hospital it was because I was confused about what the Dyson© Ball™ cleaner was for.

Me? I stumbled upon this a few years ago. It works for me, pretty well when I keep up with it. For me, what I do to lose weight is just not eat between, say, Sunday and Friday. I will tell you that if you’re not eating for 140 or so straight hours, you tend to notice it.

Oddly, the feeling I feel is mostly not hunger, but rather the idea that I should be eating. And when I’m fasting if The Mrs. cooks up something especially tasty that smells wonderful, it does make me really, really want to eat.

Am I completely willpowerful? No. I do “cheat” during the fast. Pickles have (for instance) nearly zero calories, and are salty. When I’m not eating, I’m not getting electrolytes (which, I hear, plants crave) and so salty pickles solve two problems at once.

Business lunch? How about a side salad that’s just lettuce and tomato? Vinegar or mustard as a dressing turns that into about . . . 20 calories. I really don’t sweat it on a fast day if I consume less than 100 calories. And, if I break that (I haven’t so far) I don’t consider it a loss – I just pick back up and keep going.

My ex-wife was so bad that she’d make a cannibal order the house salad.

This month (so far) I’ve done three fasts: one was four days, one was five and a half, and the one I’m on right now is (as I write this) 128 hours on the way to at least 140. From personal experience, the first day is the easiest, the second day is the worst, and after that they’re okay. I stop when I do to eat with family on Friday and Saturday.

So, yeah, fasting means not eating. And it sucks. But there are bonuses at the end.

The first time I ever did an extended fast I ended it with a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. That soup was the best I’ve ever had in my life. The second bonus is that my stomach shrinks over five days. It takes only a small amount of food to make me feel full. Finish a steak dinner? Nope. Can’t do it. Just not enough room.

Of course, there’s also the other benefit – the scale.

And with the experience I’ve gained new perspectives. Whenever I see a story on the news about, “Local man stuck in car for three days, survived on Taco Bell® Fire Sauce™ packets,” I know that’s a joke. The average person in the United States is already walking around with decades of Taco Bell© already strapped to their bodies.

Taco Bell® is like DNA. Just four ingredients combine to make infinite combinations.

When it comes to prepping, the same lesson applies. Whenever I see lists of things to go into bug-out bags, I always see food listed. After fasting, I know the truth – unless there’s a medical condition that requires food, it can safely be skipped in almost every bug-out bag, unless it’s planned for use for over a week.

So, nationally we have a problem. The answer is simple: stop eating so much. For me, though, I’ll be the happiest man in the county around dinner time tomorrow.

Pirates, Rail Looters, Fed Looters, And Bikini Economics

“Pirate Ghost would suggest that a pirate died and became a ghost, but a Ghost Pirate is a ghost that later made a conscious decision to be a pirate.” – South Park

What decongestant does the Federal Reserve© ban? Sudafed™.

Most of the time when a train story hits the news, it involves the comically overloaded trains in India. The typical headline in a newspaper (back when those existed) was on page 7, and went something like this: Train Derails In India, 471,320 Dead. The news story was typically right near, “Local Cat Makes Good!”

It’s been a while since I saw much about trains in the news. Imagine my interest when I found out that people were hopping on trains in Los Angeles (Translation From Spanish: Tarp City) and looting them. What the Corsairs from Compton Boulevard are looking for is . . . merch. Amazon® packages. Best Buy™. Nike©.

If Amazon® delivered by drone, for these folks that would just be skeet shooting, with prizes.

It’s really piracy on the rails. Mobs attack the slow-moving trains and proceed to loot them. They’ll load up on televisions and laptops and video game systems and almost everything that you can order online. Except for books. And, probably, work boots.

The fact that this is tolerated is a symptom that Los Angeles is now, officially, the Somalia of the West Coast. There appears to be no effort to stop the mob, and no effort to arrest any participant. Recent news reports would indicate that an ax-murderer, after arrest, would be given his (oops, California!) xir ax back after getting booked and not even have to post bail.

But try to smuggle a plastic straw in? It’s off to Workers Leisure and Re-Education Camp #495 for you.

When you think about it, using a straw is just like snorkeling in reverse.

The fact that land pirates are actually a thing in 2022 means that, in Los Angeles at least, the rule of law has broken down completely in areas. Thankfully, that hasn’t translated to other parts of the country, right?

Well, about the Federal Reserve® . . .

It’s not as if the Fed™ governors have been caught in a scandal where they unethically traded stocks. Oh, they have? Dallas Fed© President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed™ President Eric Rosengren and Fed® Vice-Chairman Richard Clarida all resigned in disgrace after trading based on future Fed© decisions that hadn’t been made public?

Say it isn’t so! Oh, wait, it’s completely so. Apparently, the Fed© treats their “management” of fiscal policy just as seriously as the Watts Porch Pirates treat their “management” of Amazon® freight logistics.

Well, at least they’ve done well with the economy, preserving the purchasing power of money over time, right?

Of course . . . not.

I’d point out how bad this graph is, but somehow I don’t feel as sad with this one.

In reality, monetary policy since the Fed™ started has been to make your cash worthless, over time. You can see what a great job they’ve done since 2000. In effect, the Fed© has been in your bank account, robbing it bit by bit, just like the Hollywood Buccaneers have been boosting freight out of the train yard. They just leave a bit less trash.

But certainly, they’ve been operating now as a sober bunch.

Ha!

No! They’ve taken every Fed® interest rate record since 1955 and smashed it! They are, absolutely provably, so drunk on Jack Daniels® that they can’t feel their collective jaws. They are knee-walking, porcelain-grabbing drunk.

Wolfstreet.com called them . . . The Most Reckless Fed® Ever. (LINK)

They put together a nice graph (below) that shows that if you take the Fed™ funds rate (what they charge to borrow money) and subtract inflation, we’re at a LIFETIME level of irresponsibility. The Quantitative Easing (ahem, helicopter cash) and Stimulus Bills (ahem, more helicopter cash) have pushed inflation up.

The reckless bit is on the right. No, farther right. Yes, farther.

So, all of the “Fight for $15” folks are quiet now, because whatever the minimum wage is, $15 is attainable doing temp work. Everyone not making big bucks? Inflation is eating the raises of most people. So who’s winning? I mean, besides the insider traders at the Fed™?

People who own stuff. Inflation makes cash worth less, and eventually worthless. Owning things makes sense in a world where cash is becoming worthless. Who owns things? Rich people. They’ve done very, very well. Why is Tesla®, which made 936,000 cars last year, has a market cap of $1.1 trillion dollars. Doing the math . . . that has Tesla© worth $1,175,214 . . . per car they made.

Huh? Honestly, it’s not a stock: it’s a meme.

I guess people have to buy something. Notice that Elon himself was selling his stock to convert it to (temporarily) cash to convert it to . . . stuff. Even the tax hit wasn’t enough to deter him – he might well have the biggest tax bill of any individual in history this year.

Why? Do you sell a stock that you think is going to go up? No. You sell a meme. And let’s not talk about how the Fed© has force-fed banks billions of dollars to prop them up and increase their profitability.

I hear he wears Space-Axe® body spray.

So, we have pirates looting railcars to take home blenders and game controllers. We’re not stopping them.

We also have much, much bigger thieves – the Freebooters of the Fed™ who have done their very best to, first by inflation, then by recession, to drain trillions of dollars of savings of average Americans, and it doesn’t even get higher up in the newspaper than an Indian train accident.

Looks like the D.A. isn’t prosecuting these guys, either. Guess they haven’t tried to smuggle any plastic straws . . . at least then they’d get sent to Workers Leisure and Re-Education Camp #495.

Biden’s Bad Year

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.” – Airplane

Jill caught Joe chewing on electrical wires, so she had to ground him.

Joe Biden is having his worst week in office. In fact, so far his time in office has been an utter string of failure that makes the whole farce looks like it’s on purpose. Let’s just look at the catalog of mess (not in order) that he’s created/made worse since last January.

I thought that Biden was in denial, but from the picture, looks like he was in the Suez.

In March, that cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal. Not Biden’s fault (probably) but I think Kamala might have been driving.
Increased inflation so it is now at multi-generation highs. Biden has successfully turned the economy into the number one fear of Americans. I guess that’s one way to solve the COVID crisis.
International embarrassment about fleeing Afghanistan in the middle of the night. Certainly, we should have left, but we left like a fat man sneaking away from the dessert bar with a full plate.
Announced a mandate for workers at companies with over 100 employees to force-vax as a last-ditch effort to get support, only to have the Supreme Court deny it. This actually was to his benefit, except that it makes him look weak politically. Or like an old man with dementia.
Actually got in place a requirement for health care workers paid by Uncle Sugar to be force-vaxxed. While it might seem like a political win, the fallout from the health care systems will be very dark indeed – expect emergency levels of personnel shortages coming soon.

How does a pirate set up his Bluetooth speaker? Parrot with his phone.

As I’ve mentioned before, Biden has made himself as popular as morning-after-tequila breath. People actually would rather have that volcano that just exploded near Tonga as president, since it would certainly do less damage to the country. A tornado? That would be a huge improvement on Biden – at least the tornado stops destroying after a while.

In previous years, I would have asked the question, how could it get worse? But since I asked that question about 2020 “How could 2021 be worse?” I’ve learned to stop tempting fate since I don’t want a plague of Leftist vampires with electric cars to appear suddenly as the Sun goes nova. So, I don’t want to push my luck.

With good measure. Biden’s problem is that . . . he has nothing but problems. I had a boss once who said, “Nothing succeeds like success.” What he meant by that was that when things were going well, if you could keep them going you could end up in a virtuous circle. Things just got better and better, and the momentum led from one victory to the next.

Little known fact: you don’t need a parachute to skydive. You need a parachute to skydive twice.

Success leads to success. Does failure lead to failure? Absolutely. Joe Biden’s life is a patchwork of failure that somehow has led to him to the most epic failure of all politicians since Louis XVI said, “Nah, you can ignore them. The peasants never do anything.”

But failing politicians are like failing businesses. They’ll do almost anything to try to turn things around. Businesses will borrow increasing amounts of money while promising increasingly ludicrous deals. Politicians will . . . do exactly the same thing. Except with a politician, they’ll toss in war as a bonus.

That’s just what Joe is doing. Why would we want to increase the size of NATO by one Ukraine? I have no idea. But right now, I have no idea why NATO exists. The Warsaw Pact and Stalin are both long gone, so who, exactly, are we worried about attacking Europe?

And why would we care about Ukraine enough to do, well, anything? When Putin took the Crimean peninsula over, I was surprised – surprised he didn’t control it already. But, again, why would we care? I personally wouldn’t care if Guatemala took over Nicaragua, but that would be far more relevant to the United States than Ukraine is. I see no role for the United States in any of these issues, but I’m not a politician looking to score popularity points like Joe.

I’m glad I wasn’t born in Ukraine. I don’t speak a word of Ukrainian.

Additionally, though, Biden is playing the war card inside the United States, defining over 80,000,000 Americans as “terrorists” that the FBI just hasn’t organized terror plots for. I do hear that the 2022 New Year’s Resolution of the FBI is to make their plot planning just a little less obvious. The big advantage here is the government can time their schemes so they get all the Federal holidays off.

In one sense, Trump should be happy he isn’t in office: the economy is was cooked for 2021 no matter what happened. The aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdowns combined with the currency faucets spraying cash everywhere was bound to create an additional economic catastrophe. That was baked into the cake already.

But Biden took that situation and made it worse. The biggest mistakes were (and are) the Federal stimulus bills that have directly led to the inflation we’re seeing today. You can only pour so much money into an economy until it shows up everywhere.

And it’s about to get spicy for Biden, the Federal Reserve® has signaled that they’re more than fine with abandoning Biden, too. The only real cure for an inflating currency is to dry it up through higher interest rates.

If you had a dollar for every time you thought about me . . . you’d think about me more often.

The higher interest rates will (eventually, and if the rates are high enough) reduce inflation. But the cost includes lowered prices on things people need to borrow money to buy, like houses. So, while interest rates make borrowing more expensive, housing prices will drop, while rents stay high, and inflation remains.

Joe’s approval rate is 33% now. What will it be when that perfect economic storm hits?

I bet that week will be even worse.

SCOTUS, Salt Mining, And All The Memes

“This man has no salt in his body at all.” – Star Trek, TOS

I had dinner with Bobby Fischer once. It took him two hours to pass the salt.

In the wake of the Supreme Court (which we all know is just Regular Court with tomatoes and sour cream), I thought I’d post some Leftist tears with plenty of salt that we could all mine, along with a selection of “as-found” memes.

Were the rulings all we wanted? No. Rather than collapse the whole economy, SCROTUS decided to keep the mandate for health care workers. I can expect that this will result in breathless headlines in about a month when the health care system starts to crater (it’s never really overstaffed at the nurse/doctor level) and the blame will go on (spins Biden’s Wheel of Blame-Shifting) to dart-shooting ninjas. Aesop, who is in health care, (LINK) has a take on this. His post is labeled as, BURNING HATRED LIKE A THOUSAND SUNS. That might actually understate his level of anger.

But, for tonight, let’s enjoy a selection of memes, all are “as-found” on ‘net with zero originals. Some of them are so full of salt that if you just add water, they make their own sauce.

Predictions On The Supreme Court COVID Decision

“Did having a girl on the team ruin the Supreme Court?” – King of the Hill

Ginsburg used to steal food at diners. They called her Booth Raider Ginsburg.

Normally, Wednesday is for topics related to the economy or money. Given that tomorrow is a big day for the Supreme Court which will announce at least one mandate decision, I thought I’d break from the usual.

Several of the Supreme Court Justices showed that they have all of the cultural awareness of a Hollywood gerbil. They utterly flunked Current Events. Justice Grimace Elena Kagan seemed to think that “jabbed” people couldn’t give the ‘Rona to other people, even though the vax doesn’t stop people from getting COVID, and doesn’t stop people from spreading it. Oops.

But Justice Kagan looked like a genius compared to blithering idiot, Elmer’s Glue® eating Sotomayor. The “Wise Latina” has zero understanding of the difference the powers of a State and the powers of the Federal government. Sotomayor also seemed to think that 100,000 kids were in the hospital with the ‘Rona, “many on ventilators.”

No. Just over 3,000. And that includes kids in the hospital with COVID, not necessarily because of COVID.

Breyer is fast at math. He’s not right, but he’s fast.

Justice Skeletor Breyer, though, invented people to have cases. He said there were 750,000,000 cases, causing our hospitals to fill up. If correct, everyone in the country has at least two cases right now. Some poor people would have to have three cases. Thankfully, Breyer has a driver, or otherwise he wouldn’t be able to find his way home.

Yes. This is the level of basic life competence that you get when you restrain Clarence Thomas from giving them the occasional sleeper hold and throwing Kagan over the top rope. Let’s face it: life would be better if he smashed a chair over Sotomayor’s head once in a while. It wouldn’t increase her stupidity.

What does Clarence Thomas wear to work? A lawsuit.

I tend to think the Supreme Court, especially Chief Justice Roberts, is compromised. Are they told what to rule on every case? No. But on some? Yeah, I think so. But that might mean something different when it comes to the mandate.

Back in September when Biden first announced his mandate, I posted my take on the situation: Biden’s Big Bluff (LINK). I thought then that this was nothing more than a naked ploy to increase his popularity. As Biden has spent the next five months becoming less popular than back acne, he still needs the mandate.

But now he needs it to lose.

I’m not sure that he ever thought it would have gotten this far. I think he was (internally) jubilant when it was struck down and put on hold by the Circuit Court. This is the politician’s best scenario: “I tried to fix the problem but [INSERT GROUP HERE] won’t let me.” The politician gets to show that he cared, “but, gosh darn it, our enemies just want to use baby rabbit tongues to lick envelopes for fascist junk mail.”

Losing on the mandate gives Biden the ultimate out.

At least if you have dementia, all of my jokes sound new.

What happens if the mandate is upheld?

The economy still is a mess.
A group of millions of people are now being forced to choose between having a vaccine that looks more and more to have the effectiveness against COVID of a voodoo spell (except it’s great, apparently, at causing heart inflammation) or to lose a job.
OSHA has been weaponized for future Republican use. Illegal aliens have higher rates of COVID or measles or mumps or the flu? Verify them to make sure they’re legal, because it’s for health and safety.
If the adverse effects from the various “jabs” keep getting worse at the current rate? Biden owns it.

Lots of times politicians are like dogs chasing cars. They love to make noise and run around, but have no idea what they’d do if they caught the car. ANWAR in Alaska and abortion are two of those issues, and Biden has no idea what he’ll do if he catches this particular car.

Joe was in two states today – confusion and disorientation.

But what happens if the mandate is overturned?

The Supreme Court can be blamed, and then threatened with either packing the Court, or not allowing Clarence Thomas to lift weights and maintain his Thor-like physique.
The economy gets better and the labor shortage doesn’t get worse. COVID fizzles into irrelevance when omicron gives everyone immunity and the ‘Rona is “solved”. Biden then claims it was his leadership that did that.
The Republicans can be blamed for being evil. Pressure to end the “undemocratic” filibuster will increase on the Left, so the Lefties can push through voting rights “reforms” that allow individual bacteria to vote.
Lefties run in the midterm election against the “regressive” Republicans. They still lose horrifically, but not quite as badly as the massacre that’s currently in the making.

As Yogi Berra said, “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.” And, I didn’t say this was a great outcome for Biden. In less than a year, Biden and his administration has managed to take a bad situation and make it worse in every single way, and this is just about all Biden has.

Of course, Thursday will tell if I’m right or not. Whatever happens, don’t make Justice Thomas mad. You won’t like him when he’s angry.

BLM Has Killed More Blacks Than Lynching Has

â€œIt doesn’t matter who we are, what matters is our plan.â€ â€“ The Dark Knight Rises

Whatâ€™s the difference between protestors in Hong Kong and Minneapolis?Â In Hong Kong they protested against censorship.

I have written before about the Marxist origin of Black Lives MatterÂ®.Â That doesnâ€™t appear to bother the news media, Leftists, or the corporations that shovel money into it like theyâ€™re feeding a machine.Â Yes, Black Lives Matterâ„¢ is a machine, but itâ€™s not quite the machine that the liberal wine-aunts that listen to NPRÂ© think it is.

But challenge Black Lives MatterÂ© while working for a major corporation, even in good faith?Â Thatâ€™s going to shorten your career.

Zac Kriegman worked for Thompson/ReutersÂ®.Â â€œWorked forâ€ is the proper tense.Â Kriegman had a bachelor’s in economics topped with a law degree from HarvardÂ® and was working for Thompson/ReutersÂ© leading their efforts in artificial intelligence.Â His pronoun is:Â â€œWas.â€

A friend go fired from a keyboard factory for not putting in enough shifts.

Then he posted an essay on the internal servers.Â You can read it here (LINK).Â What was the sin he got fired for?Â Objecting to the bias he saw at Thompson/Reutersâ„¢ and then, worst of all, proving via statistics that Black Lives MatterÂ© and the Thompson/ReutersÂ© narrative was . . . a lie.Â A longer version of Kriegmanâ€™s story can be found here (LINK).Â Thanks to Ricky for both of those links.

The results are clear.Â According to the Tuskegee Institute (who apparently are the official counters of such things) a total of 3, 446 black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968.Â Based on Kriegmanâ€™s data, itâ€™s entirely likely that Black Lives Matterâ€™sâ„¢ focus on â€œdefunding the policeâ€ along with the Ferguson and Minneapolis Effects, that Black Lives MatterÂ© killed more blacks in three years than lynching ever did in 86 years.

It is clear that facts like these have to be suppressed.Â Thatâ€™s why Zac Kriegman was fired.Â At Thompson/Reutersâ„¢, the Truth doesnâ€™t matter â€“ just adherence to the Narrative.

But . . . why?

The answer is that the real goal (regardless of the stated goal) of Black Lives MatterÂ© has nothing to with making the lives of black people better.Â This is obvious from one initiative alone:Â defunding the police.

No, no I really donâ€™t.

I am skeptical of all police.Â I tend to think that many police officers will do as theyâ€™re told, no matter who tells them, and no matter what they tell them.Â History has proven that most cops will go collect guns from lawful owners or round up people for the â€œvaxxâ€ camps if theyâ€™re told to. Â Donâ€™t believe me?Â Check out Australia.

But if I were a cop in the liberal utopias where Leftists have put a target on my back, Iâ€™d do the bare minimum, while looking for a job anywhere outside places where arrests are irrelevant because the Soros-funded DA has installed a revolving door on the jail.Â Oddly, this is exactly the desired result.Â Soros wants chaos on the streets, and has found that cops wonâ€™t arrest people that wonâ€™t go to prison.Â Those people are then left on the street, where they keep committing crimes until they get bored enough to kill someone.

Combine the following ingredients:

inflamed rhetoric noting that no problem in the black community is the responsibility of blacks,
occasional â€œmartyrâ€ victims that are selected not because of their innocence, but because the story (Ferguson) or video (Minneapolis) of the incident makes people really mad,
aggressive ignoring of the reality documented in FBI statistics that black neighborhoods are amazingly violent places â€“ 58% of all people murdered in 2020 in the U.S. were black, and 54% of people arrested for murder in 2020 in the U.S. . . . were black, and
a news media, Thompson/Reutersâ„¢ included, that is all-in on the propaganda and what do you get?

More death.

Arguing that having fewer cops in the areas where most of the murders are taking place will make things better isnâ€™t magical thinking â€“ itâ€™s intentional murder.Â Regardless of the reasons that black people are killing themselves â€“ having fewer cops around wonâ€™t help the situation.

According to BLMâ„¢, thatâ€™s okay.Â The goal of Black Lives MatterÂ© obviously has nothing to do with helping actual black people.Â What is it, then, that theyâ€™re up to?

The real goal of Black Lives MatterÂ® is to create enough discontent and pain in the black community so that theyâ€™ll accept any solution.Â Of course, the solution that the Left proposes is based on increased discipline, improving morality, focusing on keeping families intact, creating a culture of personal responsibility, and rigorous academic performance.

Ha!Â Just kidding!Â Itâ€™s literally the opposite of all of those things.Â The current Leftist solution is like trying to help Charlie Sheen via giving him more porn stars and cocaine.

Charlieâ€™s tested positive for everything except the â€˜rona . . . .

And companies that support BLMÂ© are complicit.Â In the case of Thompson/ReutersÂ© they reported uncritically on false claim that BLMâ„¢ made.Â This, of course, provided oxygen for the fire.Â Large companies then threw on bushels of cash, which provided more fuel.Â The result?

Thousands of people, most of them black, who would now be alive except for Black Lives Matterâ„¢ are now dead.Â Â These people had been utterly abandoned by their local politicians, media, and the large companies that earn Social JusticeÂ® points by pandering to those same NPRÂ© liberal wine aunts.

The goal is simple:Â Â to create an army of discontent people to increase violence and chaos.Â Itâ€™s always easier to destroy than to build â€“ and this idea is to destroy everything, leaving an America thatâ€™s hollowed out â€“ a place with no center.Â Thatâ€™s what Leftists are good at.

Building and creating?Â Not so much.

But at least black people donâ€™t have to worry about lynching now.Â They can just worry about how Black Lives Matterâ„¢ is going to â€œhelpâ€ them next instead.

Currently Reading:Â The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

How I’m Doing My Resolutions, Complete With Rocky II

“Well, you should have had him! Now don’t let up on this man. This man is dangerous!” – Rocky II

After he got the “Eye of the Tiger” he got a lifetime ban from the zoo.

It’s the new year, so, I have to buy a new calendar. Objective achieved!

When I was a young kid, say eight or nine, there were several things that I never quite understood. The first was the impact of foreign debt flow on monetary policy. The second was why people got so excited about changing from one year to another.

At best, New Year’s Eve seemed a useless waste of an evening. My parents would occasionally go to see friends, occasionally they’d host the party at our house. They’d talk, and drink, and generally have a good time. My interest in hanging out with them approached zero. Oh, sure, they were all nice, but the “got your nose” game loses its luster past the age of, oh, one.

What’s the sentence for shoplifting a calendar? 12 months.

Honestly, I really thought the concept was overblown until 2020 – I couldn’t wait to see that year in the rearview mirror. 2021? Potentially worse than 2020, and I’m glad it’s gone, too. I’m (honestly) not very optimistic about 2022.

But one thing I have learned is that I can use the concept of a new year, as stupid as it is, for me.

The nice thing about most Christmas/New Year holidays is that I have time off – time to think, time to get back with the family, and time to reassess:

who I am,

Am I following the virtues that I value? Am I being honest and truthful? Am I doing the things that provide the most value? Is my driver’s license data correct, I mean, with the exception of the weight because everybody lies about that?

what I am, and

Am I doing the things out in the world that add the most value? Am I changing the world for the better? What are the things I need to stop doing? What am I intentionally avoiding? Did I leave the waffle iron on?

where I’m going.

Am I on a path, or am I just wandering? What is keeping me off the path? Do I really have to wear clothes outside like the court order says?

Drinking alcohol doesn’t solve my problems. On the other hand, neither does drinking milk . . . .

I do this annually now. I find that one of the best places to think about these things is in the hypnagogic state where I’m not awake or asleep. I’ve had some very good insights during those moments. It’s (for me) a great place to find uncomfortable truth – things I really already knew, but that I was hiding from myself. Those insights can be utterly lost in the clutter of everyday life and the constant actions and demands.

Some of the past successes from these New Year reviews have been amazing for me, lost weight, and bad habits quit among them. I’ve used those times to understand me better.

I used to be a taxi driver, but the riders were boring. About all they said was, “Hey, I don’t live in the woods . . .”

I’d give you a list of what I’m doing/changing/quitting this year, but I’m not sure it’s at all interesting. My life is mainly a fairly boring one and except for the “acquire a chimpanzee named Bear and ride around the United States having wacky adventures” most of the items on the list are probably all items on millions of lists belonging to other people.

What happens next, though, is action. Thinking is one part, but once the decisions have been made, life comes down to taking action and making sure that I have sufficient discipline to do what I’m looking to do.

With small goals, discipline is easy. It’s not changing habits and patterns that I have built into my life over the course of decades. Changing habits that have been around since I was 18? Those are far harder. For those levels of issues, the only real solution is fanatical discipline, repeated and sustained. Muscle isn’t built on one good day at the gym. Muscle is built on hours of effort and pain.

And if the unvaxxed are a danger to the vaxxed, aren’t I putting myself in danger from the unvaxxed if I get the vaxx?

For me, the best goals are based on real, hard data. When lifting weights, the iron never lies. Choosing those things that I can describe with absolutes is crucial. “I will not ever . . .” is much better than “I’ll try not to . . .” When I combine “I will not ever” with a value? I have a goal that is stark and sleek, and one I can’t fudge.

I want this to be about the change I want versus me. I want it to be measured, clearly, in absolutes. I want the absolutes to be in my control. If I say, “I will never kill a zebra with a Ronco® Pocket Fisherman™, that’s something that’s absolute, even if that stupid zebra had it coming.

One example of a hard goal is dealing with The Mrs. When we met and dating got serious, I told her simply, “I will never lie to you.” I haven’t. It’s simple.

It’s absolute.

I also don’t have to revisit that every year. Since we’ve been married, that’s been a promise I’ve kept.

I think these absolutes scare the Left. They like to deal in degrees and shades of grey. A fudge here. A cheat there. A value subverted, and then (in many cases) a value inverted.

The last part is about failure.

Just because I start a change, doesn’t mean I have to follow through. I’m allowed to change my goal, especially as my knowledge changes. Heck, I could even be getting the opposite effects from a change that I anticipated. Time to reassess.

The last part is failure. Just because I decided to do something and failed doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try again. It doesn’t mean that I should be afraid of trying again. In many cases, (like Rocky II, for instance) the difference between failure and victory is just getting up one more time.

Also, with the Biden administration, failure is not an option. It comes with the basic package.

Finally, I’ve learned to not fear success. What happens if I succeed with all of my goals? That has happened, and more than once.

Add more goals. I’m breathing. I’m not done. And I’m not perfect. More discipline, and getting up one more time? That’s the key.

I still think celebrating a new year is silly, but I’m going to use it this time. With enough discipline, 2022? That could be, for me, the best year ever. Heck, might as well put the new calendar to good use . . . .

Gold, Silver, And The End Of The World

“What do you know about gold, Moneypenny?” – Goldfinger

Why don’t pirates travel on mountain roads? S’curvy.

A reader writes: “. . . if you could explain to me the rationale behind buying gold or silver as a hedge against economic collapse, I would appreciate it.” I answered by sending him bikini graph after bikini graph, but yet he persisted in wanting to know an actual answer.

I don’t think anyone will complain that this one is a repeat . . . .

He had me cornered. I wrote to him (embellished for this post and clarified for readability):

Thank you for the question. I promise to answer, just as long as you give my dog bag safely. He may be old and one-eyed and have diabetes and alopecia . . . we call him, “Lucky.”

It’s good that he’s not a dinosaur – he’d probably be called an eyesaur.

I thought that I had already answered this question and looked for the post.

As I’ve got over 1,000 up, I couldn’t find it after I looked for about 22 seconds. Maybe I developed notes on it and never posted? Maybe I’m just lazy at searching. In the worst-case scenario, a previous version exists, and everyone just has to deal with this new, superior post.

The question is a subtle one. The first part of the answer is the degree of collapse. I’ll start out with this idea: how bad does it get?

Another Boring Wednesday: Would I rather have a ton of gold on a Wednesday morning than not? Of course. But I’d probably worry about George Clooney and his wisecracking band of thieves breaking into Stately Wilder Mansion.
Personal Economic Problems: Again, in a sequel, having that ton of gold is still great, but I still have that pesky George Clooney problem. In reality, gold is somewhat less liquid than cash, but having a bunch of it is still nice. Also, if you bought gold in 1990, you would have had zero profit on it until 2006. This was mainly due to sane economic policy and high-interest rates that tamed inflation.

Or is this why they were always after his Lucky Charms®?

Recession: What’s going on in the economy? If you look closely, silver and gold actually dropped in value at the start of the Great Recession in the 2000s. As people liquidated their “stuff” so they could still buy the G.I. Joe® with the Kung Fu™ grip for their kid at Christmas, the price actually dropped. For a while. Then the price jumped up when it became clear that the Fed® would print as much money as required to choke every person on the planet. In the fiat world, gold and silver are something I’d look to have.
Depression – 1930s Style: This is a hard analogy – back in the 1930s, the dollar was backed in gold, until FDR (press S to spit) stole the gold from the American people. Now? The dollar is nothing more than, to quote Aerosmith, “a lick and a promise.” (See below)
Weimar-Style Hyperinflation: I don’t think we’ll get here, until there’s a lack of faith in the dollar. Brandon is doing his best to make Jimmy Carter look like a master of economics, so, if hyperinflation hits? Gold is awesome, and you might be able to repay your mortgage with five or six pre-1965 silver quarters. So, yes, gold and silver make sense. A lot of sense.

In a Leftist world, everyone is a Billionaire. And also starving.

Country Collapse: What happens if the country ceases to be? It has happened again and again through history, especially with large “empire-like” countries that don’t have any sort of ethnic commonality. Japan will always be Japan because there are Japanese and it’s a nation, not a country. China, likewise. Without a functioning country, there is no nation to fall back on. This is where we add another precious metal: So, yes, gold and silver, but understand that it might be some time before it’s useful again.
International Collapse: Rome provides a powerful example here. In Great Britain, they’re constantly finding hordes of money – including silver money, and gold. Why? Because people stopped using it, and you can’t eat it. Did that last forever? Of course not, but 100 years is nearly long enough. Lead is nice here, too.

Who sang “Can’t Touch This” for Caesar? 1100 Hammer.

Civilizational Collapse: What happens if there’s no oil for the cars – anywhere? What happens if we don’t have phosphorus for fertilizer? Bad things. Gold and silver might be helpful, but lead is much better here. If the warlord wants your stuff and you can’t keep it from him, welcome to no longer having that stuff.
A Kamala Harris presidency: Looks pretty much like number 8, but with more makeup.
A Neutron Star Eating The Earth: I suggest investing in SpaceX®.

I think that we underestimate the likelihood of things getting really, really bad. To give an example, I once worked at the headquarters of a big company. They asked me to look at disaster recovery. I looked at all of the natural hazards that might hit the company. The most likely disaster would hit the headquarters once every three hundred years.

“Huh,” I said to my boss, foreshadowing future writing endeavors, “a new civil war is far more likely than that . . . I mean if the company lasts that long. Companies go out of business all the time.”

He was not amused. Corporations tend to not like actual reality to interfere in their projections. But, I maintain I was right. How many companies have ceased to exist – big companies – since 2000? I’ll leave that work to the reader. Enron®, anyone?

Country music and calculators are both produced by Texas instruments.

Listen, I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but banks are giving mortgages out at 3.3% and inflation is at 6%, which means that banks will lose money every year as long as inflation is a thing. How can they do this? Volume!

No, I’m kidding. The Fed® is giving them tons of money to lend cheaply to keep housing prices up. When mortgage rates go up? Then the housing bubble bursts. So, we could end up in Scenario 3., 5., or 6. very, very quickly.

Gold and silver (in my NON FINANCIAL ADVISOR) opinion are awesome in most scenarios. If it devolves past the point where order matters at all, then it comes down to weapons, political connections, preps, and sheer dumb luck. If nothing happens, then my kids will get to enjoy some shiny metals after I pass away.

What’s the best way to tune a bagpipe? A pitchfork.

I would, however, not want to put all of my eggs in any one basket. I will personally limit the amount of gold and silver I own to about 10% of my net worth. Why? Random number – not bad if things go well in the rest of the world and gold and silver don’t go up in value. If things go really south, it’s a decent enough hedge to act as a parachute as the plane goes down in flames.

So, that’s my answer: it depends. What do you think? What Scenario above is the most likely? What’s missing?

Ohhh, Lucky, come here, boy . . . oh, wait, he’s deaf, too . . . .

(Appended Graph)