Truth – Page 15 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Possibility, Your Choices, McDonalds, and Your Responsibility . . . (and too many “Your Mom” Jokes)

“And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald’s. And you know what they call a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese in Paris?” – Pulp Fiction

This is a picture of the McDonald®’s shoe car, circa George W. Bush’s presidency. Notice the French fries dangling from the rear view mirror. Must be some sort of talisman that makes him attract your mom.

There is a brief moment at your birth, when every single possibility of who you will be, and what you can achieve is open to you. If your genetics support it, you can do it. You will never have more possibilities open to you than at that moment. And, over time – slowly at first – those possibilities narrow. Your life is a funnel, and the wide open end is the possibilities that you have on day one. Eventually, that funnel narrows. You make decisions that cut off possibilities – you decide to dedicate yourself to a single sport rather than trying to letter in three. Possibilities disappear. You decide to go to college rather than open a business. Possibilities disappear.

Possibilities never reappear. They were always there. You can’t conjure them out of nothing, but you can fulfill them.

Your life consists of two things: the choices you make (which determine the possibilities that you have) and time. And your choices even determine how much time you have. Choose wrong? You lose a few options. Want to shoot up heroin? Chances are poor that you’ll live very long, unless you’re Keith Richards – honestly, I imagine that if you could isolate how to kill him you could make cockroaches AND mosquitos extinct with a single drop of that stuff.

But your life consists of your choices.

Some good choices, some bad choices . . .

Ray Kroc was the guy who got involved with a little restaurant in 1952. He helped franchise it. Kroc built it into a brand we all know today – his vision drove the entire process. Ray Kroc is the single person most responsible for McDonalds™. He created, single-handedly, the concept of a clean hamburger place where you could get a decent meal inexpensively and wouldn’t be afraid that bikers or rowdy teenagers would cause a scene in front of your family. Sure, a dollar burger isn’t five star French cooking, but it’s a dollar burger in a clean restaurant with a clean parking lot.

What Ray was doing at the time he got involved with McDonalds® was selling milkshake mixers to the McDonald brothers (who owned the restaurant). He looked at the hamburger shop and saw it had great possibilities. He went to work with the McDonald brothers (named Ronald, Bono, and Sting), and eventually bought the brothers out. Oh, and in 1954 when Kroc started with them? Yeah. He was 52.

He was a FIFTY TWO year old milkshake machine salesman, and let’s be real – nobody puts that as their career ambition under their senior picture in the annual. And Kroc was trying to sell a dying brand of milkshake machines. Like your mother, his machines weren’t very popular, and unlike your mother, they were expensive.

He didn’t create a single new possibility when he made the jump from being a travelling salesman – that possibility was always within him.

Ray made the choice. He was going to do more, and be more than a washed-up 52 year old milkshake salesman waiting to collect social security. Why didn’t he do it before? Don’t know. Maybe in 1954 he just got up feeling like he had nothing left to lose – at 52 you know you’ve got more weeks behind you than in front of you, and maybe he sensed he had to make something go.

I know that many people like to put the cause of their situation in life and give up. And it’s easy to blame everyone around you. It’s easy to blame society, or your mother (let’s face it, we all blame your mother) or genetics.

Sure, it’s pretty unlikely that Ray could have been competition for Elvis in 1952 – Ray was too old. Likewise, his shot at pitching for the Yankees® was finished. He was past his prime – he would have had to start much earlier, rather than, you know, fight in World War I.

Those possibilities were closed down for him – but the reservoir of possibility was still open for him to lead a restaurant franchise system that’s served billions of meals and created an entire industry – without McDonalds® there wouldn’t be a Burger King™ or a Wendy’s©. And if he hadn’t created that industry, there’d be no place for your mom to work.

Kroc eventually bought the San Diego Padres®, so there’s an argument that not all of his ideas were great, although he bought that team (when he was 70) for $12 million dollars, roughly as much as a current Major League® ballboy makes per inning. As of today, that team is probably worth about a billion dollars.

So, I guess even that was a good deal. True story: when he told his wife he bought the San Diego Padres™ she asked, “What, is that a monastery?”

Friday is the day for health posts, so why am I posting about choices and Ray Kroc?

You are where you are today, almost entirely due to the choices you’ve made in your life. If you feel that your situation is beyond your control, and blame everything else besides you, you’re done. And those are a horrible people to hang around with – always whining and complaining about how the world is out to get them and the deck is stacked so they cannot win.

People who believe that the world outside controls them and their ability for success have what’s called by nerdy psychologists an “external locus of control” – and that’s not a good thing. People who feel that way are stressed out all the time, and it shows in the results: people who an internal locus of control believe the ball is in their hands. The have better jobs that pay more.

Perhaps, oh, just perhaps, people who think that their output matter – work harder, and get better results.

So, short version? Get your big boy pants on (or big girl panties on) and understand that your life is what you make of it. The crappy time that you’re having at work isn’t because people are out to get you. Unless your last name is Kennedy. Then? Yeah, maybe.

The Coming Civil War (United States), Cool Maps, and Uncomfortable Truths

“Well, l could be wrong, but l believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era. l would be surprised if the affiliates were concerned about the lack of an old wooden ship, but nice try.” – Anchorman

politicalspectrum

So, I guess that my “Secretly Wants To Live in a Post-Apocalyptic Society” secret is out of the bag? I guess I need more dehydrated food. And scotch.

(Part II of this series is posted at: The Coming Civil War Part II, and a (Possible) American Caesar)

There are some posts where I know exactly what I want to say, and how I want to say it. Often, those are fairly well scripted, either with a handwritten first draft or a set of researched bullet points. I’ll expand those into the full post. Those are nice. The structure has been created. The post flows out.

Some topics are topics that are well planned out (I actually plan the blog topics about three months out) and fit. Some topics just hit me with a blast of inspiration and nearly write themselves.

And some are difficult. Very difficult – they occupy headspace I know that I’m going to write about them, but the issue is so difficult that I want to make sure it comes out how I want it to come out, that it doesn’t inadvertently come out in some sort of ham-handed way. This is one of those. I’m sort of pleased with the results – it came out the way I wanted it to come out, just like the ending to Breaking Bad, or Jean-Claude Van Damme’s last optometry appointment – he still doesn’t need glasses, yay!

Don’t know a great way to put this, but we’re (in the United States, and in Europe, though my read there is much murkier) heading towards civil war. In Europe, civil war means dissolution of the EU and (likely) expulsion of large numbers of immigrants. But I’m not European, so I won’t go too far speculating about them.

I’m not sure if it will be a decade off or longer, but I put the arrival of this war as soon as 2024, and as late as 2032. Not really any longer than that. What would stop it is a prolonged, total war that would challenge the very existence of the United States. External threats and an external enemy are the best way to create unity (and second term for a president named “Bush”). And that’s not good, because a prolonged war always leads to extremes, and we have extreme weapons – in that way, a civil war might be the best-case scenario. But I digress – back to civil war.

Why? Again, this won’t be exactly the same civil war as THE Civil War – there are some facets that will rhyme, but others that won’t. The major theme is division. And what better way to show that than with . . . maps.

Here’s a map from Colin Woodward and Tufts University, and Brian Stauffer, depicting the 11 cultures that they contend make up the United States:

11nations

So, there’s this. Accurate? I would personally draw a line between those who like Star Wars® instead of Star Trek™. Those people are awful.

And it’s not just culture, the Woodward/Tufts map is pretty accurate at predicting where we are today politically. Here is a map of the Clinton/Trump 2016 vote count:

vote-by-nation-2016

The redder you are, the more Trump. The overlay of the Woodard/Tufts map is clear. These cultures are significant, and real, and explain NASCAR®, country music, and the inexplicable popularity of PEZ®.

And I think I’ve graphically made my case for there being a division. But how significant is it? Well, research shows that it’s pretty one-sided. Liberals (at least young ones) are significantly more close-minded than conservatives:

civilwarstats

Yes, you read that right. 45% of liberals would be uncomfortable with a roommate with opposing political views. 12% of conservatives would be uncomfortable. I guess this means that liberals don’t like diversity?

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar was ordered back to Rome. Quite specifically, he was ordered to leave his army, the 13^th Legion (Legio XIII, Gemina, or “Twins”) beyond the border of the Rubicon river, which was considered the northern border of Rome. He didn’t, and then spawned a civil war that (ultimately) led to the end of the Roman Republic and Caesar being proclaimed Emperor. To this day we celebrate this event by ordering salads in Caesar’s name.

geminaxiii

The last time the 13^th Legion was active, I think they got in line in front of me at Arby’s® in Boulder, Colorado after a Van Halen© concert. Man, when 4,000 people are in front of you in line, you’d expect they’d run out of roast beef. They did. Thankfully they had lots of panda and koala bear left. They also ran out of Horsey Sauce L. They claimed they ran out of horses.

So we have divisions that are significant, enduring (these divisions aren’t new), and deep. Yet for decades we haven’t had a problem. Why are we at the Rubicon?

Well, we were ethnically much more uniform than today. The United States in 1965 (at the time of a major change to immigration policy) was 85% white. Now? 62%. That’s a pretty significant change, and one that impacts politics. Again, cultural divisions lead to war. And the easiest division is what you look like. I know that people like to fight and will pick any old reason to fight. Religion in Northern Ireland (Protestants and Catholics), football in California (Raiders™ vs. 49er’s©), and really important stuff (Star Wars© vs. Star Trek™). People will fight each other to the death because we don’t like each other’s hats. Historically, multi-cultural societies . . . fail. Spectacularly. (Again, this is not an indictment of any individual group, just a reading of history.)

But civil war in the United States is . . . very singular. The Civil War was built upon philosophical differences (with very human consequences). Issues involved in the Civil War include slavery, states’ rights, and Northern industrialism versus Southern agrarianism. But one of the underlying causes might just be that map of the 11 cultures shown above. The Northern states were built on the Puritan ethic. They make up the Boston/New York corridor and the swath heading west from that. The Southern states were built upon scoundrels – the Irish malcontents and Scottish reivers that immigrated later. They’re the ones that make up Greater Appalachia.

So what will cause a civil war in the United States?

The first thing is the philosophic divisions listed above. The desire for the freedom of individual determination is still strong in the Deep South and in Greater Appalachia and the Far West. That hasn’t changed. The Puritans in Yankeedom and the Left Coast still very much want to make their values the only values that matter. Note the graph above that shows relative discomfort with diverse exhibited by liberals. Ouch!

These groups have hated each other since the 1600’s. And it will never go away, especially as long as the New England Patriots® keep winning Super Bowls™. The two sides have never spoken the same language. The time that both North and South united? After the Civil War, the North (magnanimously) allowed the South to keep their heroes (Lee, Stuart, Jackson, Davis) and they were transformed into American heroes rather than insurrectionist traitors. Not a bad trade.

There were places that held out – the first celebration of July 4^th after the Civil War in Vicksburg was on July 4^th, 1945. Admittedly, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4^th after a horrific siege and devastating defeat for the Confederacy. It took 80 years and winning not one, but two world wars for Vicksburg to celebrate national unity on a regular basis on July 4. These divisions remain to this day.

But what else will cause this war?

The Fourth Turning – it’s time. Here’s a previous post (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.) that explains this timing in more detail. The last generation to have experience the horror associated with total war, with the mobilization of the entire economy of the United States to defeat a foe is . . . dead. The youngest boys that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day are 95 today. They control nothing.

Our leadership, our population has no connection to those that saw the horrors of a continent ripped apart by war. They led our nation (and all of the nations of the West) and their actions were held in check by the horrors that they had seen. Now their experiences no longer temper the actions of the leaders (and desires of the people) to avoid apocalyptic levels of violence.

Let’s continue with economics – I’ve discussed before that the current economic practices have a time limit (More Budget Doom, The Rolling Stones, an End Date, and an Unlikely Version of Thunderstruck). One cause of civil war (not necessary, but certainly an exacerbating cause) is economic collapse. When people have more to lose than to gain, they won’t fight. As Janis Joplin said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” And when people are ruined? They fight. See the French Revolution (Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be).

Economics will be a trigger, but not the underlying cause of division listed above.

So, we have a civil war. What’s the end look like?

Breakup.

I don’t think that the things that have held us together as a nation will continue to hold us together. What values do we have in common anymore? It seems like . . . none. Let me elaborate. I could do a post on each of these (and likely won’t – other people cover this on a regular basis, so unless I have a Wilder take, I won’t):

Guns
Abortion
r versus K (r/K Selection Theory, or Why Thanksgiving is Tense* (for some people))
Economic Freedom
Role of Absolute Morality
Definition of what is an American
Globalism versus Nationalism
Cultural Relativism
Judicial Activism
Does Evil Exist?

We don’t speak the same language at all, anymore. Even though I have friends that don’t (at all) agree with me politically, I fear that they aren’t the norm. The end state isn’t 11 countries. It’s probably (at least) four. I can see a Heartland State, an East Coast, a West Coast, and a Northern Mexico. Los Angeles will be Mexico. Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle will be East Coast. The Boston/Manhattan/DC corridor will be East Coast. Northern Mexico will be as shown as El Norte.

But on the bright side? Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn’t need glasses!!! How awesome is that?

Pournelle’s Iron Law, or, Why Conspiracy Isn’t Needed to Explain the Stupid

“An independent, international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion. Above the politics and bureaucracy that undermine the integrity of government-run spy organizations. The suit is a modern gentleman’s armor.” – Kingsman, The Secret Service

When we lived in Alaska and Texas, we learned that this was what the citizens thought of bureaucracy. And taxes. And regulations. And postage stamp increases.

We discussed Dunbar’s Number a few posts back (LINK).

To refresh from that post: Dunbar looked at primate group brain sizes, and compared to the size of the neocortex to the size of the primate “group” or tribe. After running the math, he predicted that humans should have a group size of around 150 – it’s related to the size of working memory that you have about other people. The commonly accepted maximum stable group size (average) is 100-250, which is all three of your inbred relatives and the 247 from your wife’s side of the family.

Dunbar further theorized that larger groups could only stick together under strong survival pressures – you’d have to be pressed to work together by a fate as tough as death. Why? .

Dunbar’s number has other implications as well. We can’t work as tribes anymore, because the major feature of tribes is massive, wanton bloodlust on a national scale. Tribes don’t trust the law to help deter another tribe – no. Tribes kill to solve traffic disputes. So, to work around tribal violence, and to avoid nepotism, bureaucracy was created.

We all love to hate bureaucracy, but the nice thing about those long line at the DMV is that they prevent the tribe from Pixley killing the tribe from Hooterville over who got their license first.

But is there a darker side to bureaucracy? Yes.

Jerry Pournelle was a wonderful science fiction writer that I loved reading. His collaborations with Larry Niven (Lucifer’s Hammer, The Mote in God’s Eye) are amazing novels that made me turn a page a minute when I read them as a kid in the back of the bus on the half-hour ride to town. Dr. Pournelle also worked on the numerous defense department projects, and was a science advisor to President Reagan. Dr. Pournelle was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet Union, as his work on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or “Star Wars”) caused the Soviet Union to bankrupt itself attempting to keep up with our technology.

So, he’s kinda pivotal to stopping nuclear war. What did you get done in the 1980’s, hmmm?

Okay, the title was just genius. The writing’s pretty good, too.

Possibly the best science fiction novel of the 1970’s, if you don’t count Richard Nixon’s autobiography.

Dr. Pournelle also made the following observation:

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Pournelle picked on government – it’s known for bureaucracy. And it’s clear that NASA® has ceased to have spaceflight as part of “what it can do” when Elon Musk can put his car into orbit on a rocket more powerful than anything designed by NASA™ since it was run by the Germans we kidnapped after World War II. And Musk did it for less money than NASA® spends attempting to fix a launch pad. It’s sad that isn’t a joke – it’s true.

NASA© is now run by people whose main job in life is . . . having a job. They hire massive numbers of people, so they have a reason to be a manager. Then they need a bigger budget, and crowd out all of the work the agency was supposed to be doing.

Pournelle’s observation is true for businesses as well as government programs. I’ve seen managers fight to spend every dime they could in the last month of the year – just so they could justify their higher budget request for next year. I’ve seen people move from department to department to department until they found one that wasn’t responsible for doing anything measurable. Then they’d stay in that department for the rest of their careers. Which, I guess, describes Congress perfectly. But I digress.

Where I live, if you cut down trees and branches, and it’s cold, it’s completely legal to have bonfires that are visible from the moon. My next door neighbor and I used to burn these on a dark night, new moon, when the temperature was around 40˚F (354˚C) and watch the flames lick the night sky. He’s younger than me. And we live in a state where you don’t need to stand in line for hours for a burn permit. All you need is wood, leaves, branches, gasoline, lawn chairs, a match, and sufficient quantities of Bud Light®.

My friend and I started talking about politics (this is pre-Trump).

“John, when I look at this whole mess we’re in, it almost seems coordinated. It seems like the government agencies (he works in the highly federally regulated banking industry) want to put the small banks out of business. It seems like a plot.”

My response: “That’s too simple. It doesn’t require for there to be a conspiracy. Let’s look at your business. Do they regulate you exactly the same as large banks in New York?”

Neighbor: “Well, yes. They just have tons of staffers that can answer the bank regulator questions.”

John Wilder: “And you told me you worked for a while as a banking regulator?”

Neighbor: “Yes.”

John Wilder: “Would you have gotten in trouble for pushing real hard on an infraction with a small bank?”
Neighbor: “Never.”

John Wilder: “Would you have gotten in trouble for pushing real hard on a big bank?”

Neighbor: “I did. I got in a lot of trouble. It was why I quit.”

John Wilder: “The big banks own the banking regulators – they’ve captured the regulators and the regulators only do what the big banks want them to do. Every regulator knows that their next job isn’t with the federal government – it’s with the big banks. Don’t rock the boat. Small banks don’t matter. Never mistake that a conspiracy is present when incentives are in place for those same regulators to think that they’re on a job interview with their new boss.”

Neighbor: “I guess that’s why you never got in trouble for letting a bank not get in trouble. Only by pushing the rules too hard.”

John Wilder: “The people in Washington don’t really care about the outcomes of their regulations – the best pollution regulations came out forty years ago and cost very little for the companies to clean up 98% of their pollution – air, soil, and water. The last 2% cost billions. And that’s great with the regulators – they want to have a good budget and a great story to tell to Congress when budget time comes around. The fact that the pollution that they’re cleaning up isn’t really pollution, costs billions to “clean” and is having zero impacts on anyone? That’s beside the point. Bureaucracy acts to save itself. Right or wrong don’t matter. What matters? Department budgets and staff size.”

John Wilder continues to bloviate: “There isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a bunch of little people making themselves important. Nobody makes themselves important by cutting regulations. They make themselves important by adding new, complex regulations. And they increase their value when they go to work from some company. Heck, I was told by a guy that the main author for solid waste regulations wrote them in such a complex manner that they’re nearly incomprehensible. He did that so he could get a high paying job afterwards because he’s the only one who knows where the loopholes in the regulations he wrote are.”

Neighbor: “So, did we really land on the moon?”

At this point my neighbor was killed by a tribe of NASA™ ex-engineers. If only we had a police force and a judicial system . . . hmmm.

Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be

“Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years… Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade… Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall… Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil… Mexico plunged into revolution… “ – Red Dawn (1984)

Maximillian Robespierre, the guy who started it all . . .

On December 3, 1792, Maximillian Robespierre, a lawyer and French revolutionary, gave a speech about the fate of the King, Louis XVI. Robespierre complained that he was totally against the death penalty in all cases, except this one. He ended his speech: “With regret I pronounce this fatal truth: Louis must die so that the nation may live.”

Eventually, it came to a vote on January 18, 1793 – Louis was convicted to die. Two days later, Louis XVI, King of France, was executed. But the precedent was huge. A monarch could be arrested by his people and could be executed based on a public vote.

Who, then, was safe?

Robespierre and the leftist (this is where the name “leftist” comes from – the revolutionaries sat on the left side of the assembly before the revolution) government had a strong bent that advocated communes, and nothing less than the complete and total repudiation and remaking of all of French society. Religion was abolished and replaced by “rationality” – the statues of Saints were actually guillotined. Common measurements were replaced by the metric system (you see why I’m suspicious of it). You could no longer refer to a man as “monsieur,” or a woman as “madame” – they were now simply, “citizen.” Even the names of the months weren’t sufficiently revolutionary – they had to be replaced with new names, and each month would consist of three 10 day weeks.

The idea that replacement of all social norms would be difficult led to a simple solution: kill anyone who opposes you. Robespierre said:

If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the fatherland.

So, we’re killing you because it’s virtuous. And boy, were the French virtuous! The definition of a good revolutionary kept changing as the social norms of France kept changing. Between June of 1793 and a year later (they were calling July “Thermidor” by then) nearly 17,000 had been executed because they were insufficiently committed to the revolution and the shifting definitions of a good revolutionary.

The last victim? Robespierre himself. He was executed on July 28, 1794, along with his 21 closest buddies. When Napoleon Bonaparte took over a few years later – everyone was pretty happy when he called himself Emperor – it seemed far better than the tyranny of the leftists.

Robespierre’s execution. Looks festive!

But the French were amateurs when it comes terror. For real downward death spirals, you have to get to the Russians and the Chinese . . .

This might look familiar . . .

I blame Marx. Marx was born some 200 years ago (as of this writing) and has been, in my opinion, the worst thing to happen to the world since they invented Spandex®. Thankfully, Marx and Stalin never wore Spandex®, though rumor has it Mao wore it when he pretended to be Aquaman®.

After the Soviets finally took over Russia, for twenty years Stalin waged a purge against his own people in his attempt to create a perfect Marxist society. People who had “a little more” – Kulaks, were killed, starved on purpose. This was called the Holodomor, and killed between 4 million and 10 million of his own citizens. Stalin’s totals? During his lifetime it is likely that he was responsible for deaths (often brutal) of 15 million (low end) to 25 million (upper end). And it came about from the same sort of internal purification that the French demanded – Stalin even compared himself to Robespierre on more than one occasion. One story, popular during the day, was of a young Soviet boy, Pavlik Morozov, who supposedly denounced his father to authorities. It was said that Pavlik was then killed by his family, who were then . . . executed. Statues of Pavlik were erected everywhere. His school was a shrine that students from across the Soviet Union would visit to see such a heroic boy. Stalin himself was reported to have said, “What a little swine, denouncing his own father.”

The heroic little swine.

For a great taste of what Soviet life must have been like during Stalin – have a read of an excerpt from a novel here (LINK). It’s what leftism turns into over time, and the deaths are only a part of it – it’s the ultimate ripping apart of social and family structures that allow any sort of resistance to complete government control. Stalin was excellent.

But if the French invented it and Stalin made use of it, Mao made a life of it.

Mao, at a meeting to learn from the master . . . .

Mao was responsible for 40 to 80 million deaths during his lifetime.

And in Mao’s China, families were ripped apart, and the structure was ripped apart. His “Hundred Flowers” campaign appeared to ask for other ways to govern China. In reality, it was looking for anyone who disagreed with Mao, so they could be killed. Mao’s cult reached its height of absurdity with Mao’s Mangoes. Yes, you read that right – Mao’s Mangos.

Pictured: One of Mao’s Mangos. Really.

In 1968, the minister from Pakistan gave Mao some mangoes. Why? We don’t know. But Mao didn’t like mangos, so he split them up and sent them to various places (colleges, factories, government offices) and they exploded like a cultural grenade. People wrote songs. They formed up in lines to praise the mangos. They made perfect replications of the mangos when the mangos began to rot.

How bad was it? A dentist was executed when he said that the mango he saw “looked like a sweet potato.”

Executed. And not for being a bad dentist.

Because he made a crack about a Pakistani fruit.

Posts occur to me sometimes because I had a thought that struck me as funny. Or a memory I though it might be helpful to share. Or an observation that might change a life.

In the last few weeks I’ve seen several editorials in several newspapers and magazines lionizing Marx and communism – some saying that his ideas are the ideas that will save the planet. And I hear politicians and television announcers saying nearly the same words as Stalin or Lenin or Mao. And I read that we need to give Marx another look. I find particular horror in this failure to learn anything from history – as communism is a slow death – a death first of morals, and then of truth, and then of millions of citizens.

The verdict of history, by the numbers shows that no ideology ever, ever, has proven to provide more death to the people it governs than Marxism. By any mechanism of objective judgement, it is by far the most reprehensible system of government ever created. Nothing else is even close.

But we keep coming back to this idea – that others should take responsibility for us, and that we should create a society based on envy. Thankfully the Marxist paradise of Venezuela, gifted with nearly limitless oil wealth shows that Marxism can work. Oh, grinding poverty? Malnutrition? Immense corruption? Guess the right people aren’t in charge. It isn’t real communism.

Well, maybe someday if the Marxists kill enough people it will end up working . . . I bet they get it right in California – they’ll be there soon . . .

Increasing Returns or: Problems are our Friend

“Hey, I have a little expertise in government pensions. I could increase your annual return if you just let me invest a small portion . . . .” – Bones

My current computer techs. Yeah, I’m not kidding.

In my first job after getting my master’s degree I ended up in a department with 10 other folks, all of us technically minded. During college, I had built my own computer and had also done a fair amount of programming. I even knew DOS (no, I’m not yelling “TWO” in Spanish – DOS stands for Disk Operating System, and it was what originally put MicroSoft® into a profit making position). I knew DOS due to some patient friends, and I bought my original PC from a certain frequent commenter (GS) to this site for about $100. When I started my new job, I knew more about computers than most of the people in the group.

And when anyone in the group had problems, they’d ask Willie (the other guy who knew computers pretty well) or they’d ask me to fix it for them. This actually predates the company having an IT department or even a coherent IT policy. If employees with computers made more money for the company than employees without computers? Buy the employees computers. If the employees are too stupid to use/fix their own computers? We’ll get new employees.

So when I was asked a question, I generally (80% of the time) knew the answer quickly. About 20% of the time, I had no idea, but knew enough on what sorts of things to try that might get to a solution for my coworkers friends. (This job was generally sitcom-level fun. We were all recent college grads and we were constantly at each other’s houses for parties, dinners, and what-not.)

Soon, I’d seen most problems you could have with PC software – since I was solving my own problems plus the problems of 10 other people (Willie and I would collaborate on the toughest problems). The company finally got an IT department, but the first commandment was: Don’t Let John or Willie Know Where We Keep The Servers. I have no idea why they did that, since we didn’t know much about servers at all. Maybe they thought we’d take our trial and error methods to the entire company and erase the payroll files while we were installing new screensavers? Maybe they were wise in not letting us know where the servers were?

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that neither Willie nor I knew all that much about computers when we started, but we knew just a little bit more than our friends. A little bit of knowledge combined with solving the problems of 10 people builds the foundation for a LOT of knowledge.

I know a little bit (tiny bit) about making computer chips. Intel®, however, knows a LOT. Intel© has been making computer processor chips for nearly fifty years. So they have fifty years’ worth of experience, right?

No. Intel™ has about 100,000 employees. Let’s pretend that 10% of the staff solves problems in production – learning how to make chips quicker, more reliable, minty smelling, etc. at any given time. That’s 10,000 people. For fifty years.

Doing the math, Intel® has invested up to 500,000 man-years into making awesome chips. To catch them? You’d have to duplicate that level of investment. Numerous examples exist where entire geographic areas become excellent at doing some sort of manufacturing – Japan led the consumer electronics boom. China makes I-Phones® faster than any other country could. Detroit. Well, it used to make cars. And as much as I kid, Detroit still has amazing technical skills when it comes to cars. Silicon Valley? Yeah. They’re the current bright spot for information innovation. Southwestern Art? Go to Santa Fe. Really good at lying? Try Washington D.C.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. If you look into the trash piles of ancient Britain, you find that during the Roman period, the dishes used by the common man were – pretty nice. (And archeologists LOVE dishes. They break, and you have to get new ones, so they tell you a lot about what’s going on with a culture.) Dishes were shipped to Britain from Southern Gaul (France) where they specialized in making plates. Once Britain was cut off from the collapsing Roman Empire? The dishes got crappy – the British hadn’t had to make their own dishes in hundreds of years.

When Rome collapsed, dishes got bad, not only in Britain, but everywhere. When the trade routes and common currency collapsed, the plate makers had to do something else to survive. The trade routes, currency, had created a center of excellence that disappeared pretty quickly once the Empire was gone.

Solving problems to get better works for Nations. It works for Regions. It works for Companies. And it works for Individuals.

If you want to be awesome, solve hard problems. Sometimes the biggest problems are the biggest blessings . . . except that DOS is about as familiar as hieroglyphics nowadays, so solving that problem is probably not important.

Did I mention that you should learn to solve important problems? Yeah. My bad. Important problems. Solve those . . . .

Machiavelli, Business Advice, and You

“Among other evils that being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. That’s Niccolò Machiavelli. Now get! I need to use your bathroom.” – The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT NOSE! You could park a jet airliner under that thing!

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, better known to us today as simply Machiavelli, died in 1527. I know, I know, these posts seem to be stuck in the 1500’s recently – but what better place to study the economic effects of an empire built on plundered gold (LINK), genetics of the amazingly inbred Hapsburgs (LINK) and now . . . political philosophy and business.

Machiavelli, besides having his name turned into a word for amoral behaviors used to get power (Machiavellian) was also a great-great-great-great-grandfather of Madonna, Cher, and Meatloaf which is why they use only one name.

I kid.

Machiavelli’s best known work is The Prince. Reportedly, he wrote this political philosophy book for Lorenzo de’ Medici. Niccolò had recently been fired from his job as a diplomat when he wrote The Prince, and back in 1516, being fired didn’t mean “here’s your crap and two weeks’ wages,” it meant, “we just might torture you and imprison you – just because.” And Machiavelli was tortured by the Medici family – merely because they thought he might have once known a group of people who might have been plotting against Medici rule.

So what does Machiavelli do? He writes an entire book and dedicates it to one member of the family that tortured him. Yeah – I guess he missed that job he got fired from.

Note: All quotes in this post are directly from The Prince.

The Prince has been written about a zillion times. Heck, I had to write a paper on it when I was in college. So what’s my take with this post?

Machiavelli wrote the book with an eye to a ruler in 16^th Century Italy. Does it have applicability in today’s business world? Let’s see. Yes.

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

I’ll mostly skip chapters 1-5. Although there is some applicability, I’ll leave you with these notes:

Machiavelli writes about differing kinds of states – including conquered states. His advice? Kill off all of the old rulers after you take over a place. I’ve seen this in business – one factory I knew about was bought by a new company. Step one? Fire all of the leadership. Not some. All. Every department head except one was immediately fired and replaced.

To quote Niccolo:

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”

So, if you think you’re not replaceable? We replace our President every four or eight years. A business can do without you. And if you’re bought out? Getting rid of the leadership is a great way to immediately change the culture of a company. No mixed loyalties.

If a company or department was ruled by a tyrant, a new leader will find it pretty easy to start out in the department/division/company. If the previous leader allowed or encouraged a large amount of autonomy and freedom? You’re going to have problems. This type of business might be a tough one to lead after you take it over.

“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.”

Chapter 6: Conquest by Virtue

When looking at rising to the top, Machiavelli strongly favored doing it based on your own skill and cunning. This type of power, he felt, was quite durable. This is the company you built from the ground up – the company you bought with cash, the department manager role you won through years of hard work and dedication.

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”

The major danger of this type of power was the idea that you could reform the system after conquering it. It is difficult to do so: the people who liked the old systems will fight hard to keep them – those that might benefit from the new system often won’t fight, since the benefits are in the future, and vague. Machiavelli favored the use of force to make change happen. And by force, Machiavelli meant swords and such. Since running down the hallway cutting down poorly performing employees with swords might be a bad idea, you might want to consider firing them instead.

Chapter 7: Conquest by Fortune

This is the power that you get when you’re appointed – you have powerful backers that want you to have the job/company. Whereas when you take a business over due to virtue (above), here you have to make the people that put you into power happy, as well as deal with the people in the company or department. If you’re lucky, and very, very good, you can keep the job after your father-in-law retires. But it’s not likely.

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.”

Chapter 8: Conquest by Criminal Virtue

If you’re going to take over a place via immoral means, Machiavelli says to do all of the evil up front. If done completely enough, then you can (over time) make people forget your cruel and wicked actions over time. The worst of all possible immoral takeovers is one where the cruelty and evil continue over time.

I don’t really recommend this, but we see it all of the time, and the people who do it are amazingly rich.

Hmmm, maybe I should consider evil?

“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”

Chapter 15: Reputation of A Prince

Machiavelli didn’t think much of the common man:

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”

But that’s plain enough. As a manager, what do you think your reputation should be? Here, Niccolo cuts to the quick:

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

Ouch!

But he’s right. If people love you, they can discount that feeling, especially at times when they feel joy. But if they fear you? They will be vigilant every minute of every day. Fear is a much more potent motivator than love – just ask Maslow (LINK).

How does this apply at work? Sadly, as a manager you have to remove yourself from the after work drinks. You have to remove yourself from the “work parties.” You have to be above and beyond that. If you are just another person in the group? Your authority means nothing. And you have to use your authority – quickly and suddenly, but with complete justification every so often. Why? Because theory would say you should know more than your employees – at least occasionally. Unless you use it – it won’t exist.

Chapter 16: Generosity vs. Parsimony

It’s a sad state of affairs – if you’re generous, people don’t appreciate it – they simply want more.

“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”

And if you’re generous with your employees? Oddly, it makes them respect you less. Yes. Less. If you have to pick a reputation, being cheap is better than generosity. People understand cheap. Your employees understand cheap. They have to make choices everyday with their money. Being generous just means you’ve got so much money that your generosity means nothing . . . .

Chapter 17: Cruelty vs. Mercy

“Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared.”

Machiavelli is pretty simple in this chapter. Create fear if it helps you – the idea is that fear should help your business. But if it’s excessive? Eventually people will leave you.

I’m sad to say that being cruel is a much better way to create loyalty than being nice – it seems that’s just how humanity works. A strong man who is justifiably cruel gets our respect over someone who loves us. Every time.

Chapter 18: Keeping A Prince’s Word

“He should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless, and devout. And indeed he should be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how.”

A Prince should be virtuous. A Prince should look virtuous. A Prince knows when not to be virtuous. Your team, your group, your company will look the other way when you decide the company is more important than your compassion. Oddly? They will love you for it.

Chapter 22: Nobles and Staff

Get good people to work for you. Make them loyal to you. Value competence over cool tee-shirts.

“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”

Don’t have idiots on your staff. And understand the differences between intellects.

Chapter 23: Avoid Flatterers

This might be the most powerful quote by Machiavelli, well, ever:

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”

If you hide yourself from the actual truth, and punish those that would tell the truth to you? Well, the game is over.

“Men are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised.”

If you’re a leader? Being despised is the end.

Chapter 25: Fortune

Here Machiavelli starts looking at risk. Here’s a rough passage, if you’re a feminist:

“It is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.”

Well.

Anyhow – Machiavelli makes a great point: risk is not an enemy. Risk is risk. And when you’re in a risky situation at work, why not take it up a notch?

Actual story: I knew that my boss had interviewed (don’t ask me how) someone for my position. At the next available opportunity, I asked him about it.

I’ve never enjoyed a work situation more. “How did you know?”

My response: “If I told you, would you ever trust me with a secret?”

The look on his face was priceless.

When you have nothing to lose? Doubling down is for sissies. Go all in.

Remember this:

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”

‘nuff said.

Pizarro, The Economic Failure of Spain, and Why Bad News May Be Good News

“You don’t acquire the kind of wealth your uncle commanded by being like the rest of us.” – John Carter On Mars

I love the idea of people carrying me around everywhere I go. Now how do I become emperor again?

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro, accompanied by a force of less than 200 Spaniards, took on a portion of the main army of the Inca. Why? To defeat the entire Inca nation. The plan was at least partially desperation. To retreat would show weakness. As Cortez had burned his ships years earlier to give his men incentive to defeat the Aztec empire, Pizarro was all in.

Pizarro invited the Incan Emperor, Atahualpa, into a down called Cajamarca. Believing this to be safe since there were only 200 Spaniards, Atahualpa was accompanied “only” by 6,000 of his warriors and generals who were admittedly armed only with small battle axes. The Spaniards had waited, concealed and terrified in Cajamarca, for hours.

As Atahualpa was carried into the central square of the town, his honor guard parted to allow Atahualpa down from his litter. History records that he became angry when a single Friar approached him and asked him pledge fealty to the Spanish king, Charles, and become a Catholic. At the point where Atahualpa enraged, the Spanish sprang from their concealment, attacking the Incans with cannon, gunfire, and sword. The cavalry managed to abduct Atahualpa, and Pizarro himself blocked a sword strike at Atahualpa, catching at least part of the sword on his own hand.

Pizarro wanted Atahualpa as a hostage – a living Atahualpa could be used to give orders. A living Atahualpa could be used to prevent the 55,000 battle-hardened troops outside from rushing the Spaniards. A living Atahualpa could be ransomed.

Fake news, 1532 style: a picture of Pizarro meeting Atahualpa looking like everything is nice and rosy. Not pictured: The battle where Atahualpa lost his entire empire.

Also: Do you have a few minutes to listen to a story about Jesus?

And ransomed he was – for a room, 22’ by 8’ by 7’. Not just any room. But a room that big, filled with gold. And two the same size filled with silver. It’s certain that the gold wouldn’t have been solid, but would have been jewelry and other items. Let’s assume that it was 2/3 filled with air. That still means the gold would have been worth (in today’s dollars) at least $20 billion. The silver wouldn’t even be worth a billion.

Atahualpa was executed, anyway. The King of Spain was reportedly not pleased, but was pretty good with the over $4 billion that was his (minimum) cut of Atahualpa’s treasure. In November of 1533, Pizarro entered Cuzco, the capital of the Mayans as its conqueror. He would serve as governor of what is now Peru. Pizarro was killed in 1541 by the son of an assassinated rival.

Pizarro, with a fine, feathered hat. Makes me want to kill some tropical bird so I can have a cool feather. What, I don’t have to kill one for a feather? Spoilsport. Oh, and Pizarro had two kids with Atahualpa’s wife. She must have been attracted to that fine beard.

But the impact on Spain was enormous. The Conquistadors kept coming, and kept taking gold from the New World for over a century more. All of the treasure went back to Spain, and, initially, paid off the debts of the Spanish government. But it did other things, as well.

Seville, the Spanish city had over 16,000 shops making textiles out of silk in the year 1500, before the gold started to come in from the Americas. The population of Spain stood at (around) 10,000,000 at this time. 200 years after 1500, in 1700? The population of Spain had dropped to around 6,000,000.

What happened?

All of the gold. Such good fortune, right?

Where it would have been pretty rough for a foreign power to have taken over Spain (it was in pretty good shape, militarily) the gold from the New World did the job wonderfully. How?

All of the gold led to a change in the culture and value of Spain. Whereas before, Spain had been an industrious nation, after gold, things changed. Why do it, when you could have someone else do it? There were people in the Netherlands that would gladly build it for you and ship it to Spain. There were people in the Netherlands that would gladly come to Spain to do work that Spaniards wouldn’t do. Begging (among Spaniards) and living off of charity became to be seen as more virtuous than resorting to common work, at least that was the message the common man received from watching the nobility. Spain had traditionally been more than self-sufficient in providing agriculture. In 1578, one observer noted that the lack of production “was not the fault of the land, but was the fault of the people.”

Spain’s military and colonial establishment, however, continued to provide the currency that the country needed even as the country sank into indolence and despair.

And what brought about the despair?

Success.

Success took away the hard lessons in life. The Spanish military took the ambitious young men of Spain and allowed them to seek glory. The rest of Spain? Lived off of the glory. Eventually, the rot of success allowed the United States to completely remove the remaining Spanish colonies from Spain. When our new, steel warships fought against the Spanish? They often fought cannon that were 100 years old, and 70 years out of date.

Success allowed Spain to become an economic shambles. Success teaches no lessons.

In my life, everything that ever made me better was . . . awful. Losing a wrestling match. Being deeply in debt. Getting a divorce.

Losing a wrestling match (2-1, in overtime in 8^th grade) made me want to win. And I worked harder. Next time I wrestled that guy? I pinned him in 20 seconds.

Being in debt. That one mad me reexamine my entire life, or at least the spending associated with it. Each spending decision became a moral choice, since I was living in a constant state of (nearly) not having enough money to make it. There’s nothing immoral about being either rich or poor – it’s what you learn.

Getting a divorce, to me, allowed me to really understand how I’d contributed to the failure of the marriage, realize what I was really looking for in a partner, and allow me to both pick a more suitable wife as well as to become a more suitable husband.

If I had won the lottery or become a rock star at 20, what would I have learned? Well, besides learning what a car upholstered entirely in endangered species would drive like, probably not much. I’ve often said that if I’d been immensely wealthy when I was young, I probably wouldn’t have made it to 30. For whatever reason, I find that adversity and challenge are my friends. Success is nice, but only if it holds a challenge.

Holy cow – maybe the ultimate challenge is beating success?

Oh, Seneca figured that out 2000 years ago:

“Let us too overcome all things, with our reward consisting not in any wreath or garland, not in trumpet-calls for silence for the ceremonial proclamation of our name, but in moral worth, in strength of spirit, in a peace that is won forever once in any contest fortune has been utterly defeated.” – Seneca, Letters

So the next time you feel that you’ve just had a spot of bad luck? It might just be your best luck. Or, if you believe Seneca – no luck at all is required.

Taxes, Charity, Morality, and the Immortality of Keanu Reeves

“You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth.” – The Matrix

I’ve always wondered what clothes cost in The Matrix. These three could have told me, but I forgot to ask them before I moved away from Alaska.

I’ve just finished stapling my tax return together for the year 2017. Why did the tax return cross the road? John Wilder stapled it to the chicken.

I can’t (generally) do my taxes before the first week in April because, like Ben Franklin said, the only two certain things are death and taxes. And I’m certain I like to wait, because:

I’m lazy and
I don’t get all the information for one investment until mid-March.

I really hate doing taxes, but, thankfully, an entire tax software industry exists only to allow us to do them ourselves on a Sunday afternoon. Yes. I started on Sunday afternoon after I’d taken one of the cars in to get fixed. As in today. I’m not only lazy, I do everything I can to put off taxes to the last possible minute.

Generally, as the envelopes with “IMPORTANT: TAX INFORMATION” show up I clip them all together and pretend they don’t exist for 70 or so days, so I’ve been preparing for doing the taxes for a while. My information isn’t all that complicated, so I’ve managed to do it myself for, well, ever.

fluxcapacitor

Taxes are more complicated than time travel or Doc Brown’s hairstyle.

How does doing taxes change my mood? The Mrs. says that I have three personalities, and generally, she’s right:

Juan Délegator – Juan is general me around the house. My general motto is: if someone else (like my kids) can do it, they should do it. Why? To make them capable. No, I won’t make them run 480 volt 3-phase power to my flux capacitor, but I will make them do dishes. And I will make them do things that they are capable of and uncomfortable with. Why? So, like Conan, “they will be strong when the wolves come.” Juan is pretty easy-going. And why not? The work is getting done.
The General – The General is like Juan, but The General comes out when time is of the essence – like our house is going to catch on fire due to my poor wiring of the flux capacitor. The General is commanding, and expects immediate obedience and compliance, due to the consequences of not taking that immediate action. The General doesn’t care how you feel, but wants to end the emergency as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Movie reference: The Wolf from Pulp Fiction®.
The Nazi – The Nazi is like The General. But isn’t having fun. And The Nazi kind of wants you to suffer. Only one thing (really) brings out The Nazi (anymore).

wolf

Me when I’m enjoying myself the most . . . fixing bad things in a hurry. Pretty please.

This year (I have to say) wasn’t that bad. Most of the time I get worried that, since I’m doing the taxes on the last possible day prior to them being due, that I’ll find myself without some key piece of information.

Not this year. I have it all, or I did after I looked in a stack of papers on the bedroom. Whew.

So, I entered the information required by the program.

And this year TurboTax® downloaded my work information directly from my employer. Also nice. Not that I’m a huge fan of TurboTax© – they are, at best, a necessary evil. Doing a meaningless task well is still meaningless. Without taxation, fully 20% (my guess) of the economy could be used for more productive things . . . overnight. TurboTax© programmers could program video games. Or something. The IRS™ could do what they would naturally aspire to do, form covens and attempt to steal souls actually produce something in the economy.

And the process of doing taxes today are (largely) meaningless for the average taxpayer. For the average payer, the IRS already has all of the information necessary to send the taxpayer a bill. They already know my income. My interest payments (to and from me, which are getting closer to equal!) and they know how much I made (or lost) off of my stocks. They know if I bought or sold a house.

But the process of taxes is, at least partially, immoral.

Yes. Immoral.

Let me tell a story . . .

paytaxes

I used to go to church when visiting Pop Wilder – it was the same church that I’d grown up going to coloring pictures of Jesus. True conversation, from when I was about five:

Sunday School Teacher: “Johnny, Jesus wasn’t purple.”

Little Johnny Wilder: “Isn’t Jesus God?”

Sunday School Teacher: “Yes, He is.”

Little Johnny Wilder: “Then he could be purple if he wanted to be.”

It was a small church in a small town. Pop would go every Sunday, and when I was around, I’d go with him. One morning, the Pastor gave a sermon that made my circuits pop.

He used the concept and example of Christian charity in his sermon. But in every verse I could find, that charity referred to voluntary giving. Here? The Pastor was wanting to have increased taxpayer spending going to the poor – and indicated that, somehow, this equated to charity.

I sat on the pew, seething, which, generally isn’t very appropriate for a church, but neither was his sermon, which violated the following principles:

Taxes are forced – there’s nothing moral about them.

Charity is given of free will – there’s no coercion other than moral coercion. You have to make a choice to give to charity.

And that’s what made me mad. Charity – the act of giving time or money to someone else, is important for the soul. Government services have nearly completely destroyed the idea of charity – why help the homeless? Government should be doing that. Why feed hungry children? Government should be helping them. Folks drowning in Canada due to all the hockey rinks melting? Government should fix the rinks, because Canadians can’t swim!!

Since government is already fixing the problem people don’t think that there’s the need for charity. Since I already give federal, state, and local governments over 45% of my income directly, and indirectly pay for the corporate income taxes on every item I buy and Social Security kicks on another 15%, I figure the government is already into me for 65%-75% or more of what I make.

That thought doesn’t leave me feeling charitable. And that’s the immoral part. Giving charity makes me a better person, inside, where it counts. Feeling uncharitable because my money has been forcibly taken from me and to (many people and groups) that I feel undeserving, well, that’s immoral. Charity is good. But Jesus certainly didn’t say, “Go forth, and haveth ye government arresteth ye brothers and ye sisters who give not 75% of yon incomes to others.”

And I didn’t feel charitable when the Pastor was asking the congregation to take more of my money. Honestly, it’s not greedy to want to keep some of your money. But I feel that there is truly nothing greedier than asking forcing others to pay for things that you want to do, but don’t have the money for. I mean, I’d love to have a great treehouse, complete with air conditioning and plumbing.

taxesswanson

Now there are legitimate reasons for taxation – common defense. Courts. Common infrastructure. But there isn’t enough money in the world to pay for everyone’s “needs” – and payment for everyone’s wants would bankrupt the planet.

Taxes were complicated this year. The parts that I have to file and send are about 40 pages, but I’ve learned printing off the federal and sending them to the state makes life easier. By the time that I’d printed the copies I’ll send plus the spare copies, I had printed out 160 pages. I’ll send 120 pages out, plus a pretty big check. I don’t mind sending 120 pages out, or even the check. Heck, all the dollar bills I have say they belong to the Federal Reserve® already, right?

refunds

No refund. But I won’t burn the place down. Or try to get my stapler back.

I’m just sad that they make us pay taxes in the Matrix. But, the clothes don’t cost all that much here . . . .

neoforever

And Neo lives forever. I guess the whole “Death and Taxes” must just be . . . taxes.

Russian Wrestlers, Pylometrics, and You’re Probably Not Trying All That Hard

“When the game is on the line, a winner wants the ball in his hands.” – The Replacements

A miniature version of The Boy prepares for a match . . . he now weighs 200 pounds.

The other day I was on Amazon. Yes, I know. The fact that I cannot walk into my living room because of all the little boxes shows I might spend too much time there. Anyway, I was looking for hair regrowth tonic that actually works and carbohydrate free sugar cookies options for fitness equipment for Pugsley and The Boy. One of the things that I saw was . . . a box. You can buy it here (LINK).

I don’t get any money if you buy a box. But you do get a box. One box.

The idea of the box is that you . . . jump on it. That’s it.

What led me to the box I was watching a video of Александр Александрович Карелин. Oh, sorry, you don’t speak Russian – that’s Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Karelin spelled out in the strange chickenscratch that Russians use as a secret code that Putin and Trump devised so we can’t decipher their messages. Karelin was an internationally ranked wrestler for a while. Like for five Olympics. In fact, his career record is 887 wins and two losses. His nickname is “The Experiment.” Because he could do 42 pullups. And he weighed 285 pounds. His signature move? Lifting 285 pound people off the mat and tossing them up into the air so they landed on their shoulders.

The Experiment.

Yeah.

A quote from Aleksandr: “They call me The Experiment because they cannot conceive that every day I train harder than they have ever trained in their lives.” He might be just a bit intense.

Aleksandr was being interviewed in the YouTube® video I saw, and they showed the obligatory clip of him working out. One of the exercises he was doing was repeatedly jumping on a box that was 24” or 30” high. I was impressed. 285 pound guy jumping that high? Wow.

Here’s a picture of Aleksandr. Yeah, that’s a 285 pound human he’s going to toss into the air like a ragdoll. Not sure why they need tanks if the Russians have more guys like this around. Oh, and he’s buddies with Putin and has both a doctorate and a law degree. Don’t you feel like an underachiever now?

It turns out that “jumping on boxes” is known by the $250 per hour consultant word, “pylometrics.” From the Latin root Pylo for “pile of” and the ancient Greek word “metron” which means “communist measurement system.” Pylometrics came to world attention when the Soviet track and field teams of the 1970’s were turning in absolutely amazing performances. One trainer thought, “hey, it must be all of the jumping on boxes stuff that they’re doing,” and completely disregarding the simpler theory of, “win Olympic medals or we’ll shoot your family.”

Regardless, as noted above, he renamed it pylometrics so he could charge $250 per hour to talk about it.

Well, if one of the best wrestlers ever to live thought that pylometrics should be a part of his routine, well, why not? (Previous post: Pugsley decided he wanted to be an NCAA champion in wrestling. (LINK)) If you’re going to try to be the best, you emulate everything you can about the very best people you can find. Everything. Pugsley even has a poster of Putin up on his wall now.

So, I was on Amazon, totally not looking for hair tonic when I found the boxes shown above. Did I say boxes? Yeah. I saw the picture and expected three. Turns out that a cube exists in three dimensions, so they delivered just one box with three heights – 16 inches, 20 inches, and 24 inches. It turns out if you rotate the box . . . well, you get the picture now.

The Boy put it together when it arrived, but then he had to leave, so that left Pugsley and I in the wrestling room with the cube. To be frank, I was concerned that Pugsley wouldn’t be able to jump up on the 16” side and we’d have to get something smaller. I was hoping that it wouldn’t hurt his confidence to have to jump on the “short box.”

He set it with the 16” side facing up. He jumped, and stuck the landing on top of the box like an Olympic® gymnast.

John Wilder: “That was awesome. Okay, try 20 inches!”

He tried once, twice, and was up on top on the third side.

John Wilder: “That was amazing!! Try 24 inches!

Pugsley: “No, I can’t do that.”

John Wilder: “Try.”

He jumped up. Not quite.

Again. A miss.

Third time? He stuck to the top of the box like there were magnets in his feet.

Also this month, friend was doing Crossfit®.

Things you never need to guess about a person: if they are vegan, if they drive a Prius®, or if they are in Crossfit©. Now if you find an actual human that does all three of these things, you might have found a smug singularity – beware or you might get sucked into the smug . . . . (my friend isn’t smug, just often sore after working out).

Anyhow . . . when working up to a max in the deadlift (the king of all lifts) my friend tried to stop at 100 pounds. She thought that was enough. Too hard.

Her coach encouraged her – and she maxed out at 180 pounds.

Most days we have no idea of the things that we are capable of, if only we try. The thing that generally limits your life is . . . you. If you want to be the best, you have to start by working like the best. And believing in yourself.

You might not get there, but you’ll know that you didn’t hold back. You’ve put the game in your hands.

I know where you could go to buy a box . . .

College is Expensive and Your GPA is as Inflated as an Instagram Model

“But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!” – Animal House

Pugsley climbing a climbing wall. Not pictured: college degree he earned.

Last week we reviewed how college may provide (does provide) a lot of poor choices for student degrees – essentially you can get a degree that’s not worth very much to any employer. But, thankfully, in an era where I can look up the most obscure facts online, I can count on college being cheaper now?

No. It’s more expensive than ever.

Huh? You have a service that more people are requesting, one that’s essentially unlimited since Wikipedia® is free, and the prices go up?

Yes. But Wikipedia™ does not have climbing walls.

At least colleges are paying more for instructors/professors, right?

No. Colleges are increasingly pushing instruction onto “adjunct” instructors. These adjunct instructors are generally paid in PEZ® and pity. If the college feels guilty, it leaves a little extra on the nightstand in the morning.

How much have prices gone up?

Prices have gone up everywhere, but let’s pick Harvard™. In 1970, Harvard cost about $4,000 a year for tuition. Not bad? Well, the median family income was about $10,000 back then, so, not so bad. If you hustled you could (with a small scholarship and working a pizza delivery job) make it.

Harvard now costs over $43,000 a year. Median family income is closer to $60,000 a year, so prices (in terms of a family income) are up over 180%. But Harvard® has literally billions of dollars in a cash horde that the administration rolls in when they can’t get enough sleep. Other colleges have gone up more. Much more. One state school has gone up (since 1980) from $6,000 tuition to $40,000. This is more than Harvard’s 180%, but I won’t do the math because I’m feeling like I don’t want to. Oh! The solution is left to the student! Yeah, that’s what the books said . . .

So why are prices going up?

One theory, and it’s a good one, is student loans. Student loans were created as a mechanism to trap young people into debt before they can legally buy whiskey means to allow anyone to go to school as long as they were willing to borrow enough money.

Student loan debt is the very worst kind of debt I know of that doesn’t involve a blood oath with the Mafia. It is the herpes of debt.

Just like herpes is incurable and makes you (when disclosed) a lot less attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex, or whatever combinations including androids that are possible in California) student loan debt makes you less attractive. And you can’t declare bankruptcy and get out of student loan debt. Again, like herpes, it’s forever. Unlike herpes, you can pay your debt down to zero.

But you should avoid both of them, if you can. Debt, especially student loan debt, will outlast your mortgage. I bought and sold four houses, three unicorns and one wife before I paid off my student loan.

I met him. Nice guy. But he never did a song about a unicorn or a Pegasus.

But why would student loans cause the cost of college to increase?

Simply put, there’s more money available? The colleges most exposed to student loans increased their tuition the most. Quite simply – tuition expands to consume as much money as you can feed it. There’s a pretty comprehensive study that proves it – you can find the info here (LINK). What, am I supposed to do all of your research?

So where is the money going?

PEZ® for the adjunct professors? No. Administrators. I’ve seen this before in other organizations that aren’t subject to market punishment (like, say, your friendly federal or state government or school district). One administrator has a job. It’s not a hard job, but it’s his (or hers). They are paid, at least partially, on the number of staff that they have. So, they get approved positions for “essential” work. Soon enough, a job that was barely important enough for one person is now down by a staff of thirty. (This tendency will be discussed again in a future post, and was discussed in “Government is a Jobs Program here (LINK).)

Professor Doom is a very good writer. His blog is “Confessions of a College Professor” and I strongly suggest that you read it, especially if you are certain that colleges are bastions of honor, learning, and goodness. Recently, the learned Professor had a post where he described that at Evergreen College in Washington State, that there is one administrator for every six students. I kid you not. Here’s the link (LINK).

But the education is better, right?

Again, I’ll have to defer to Professor Doom. He writes again and again how grade inflation has taken off (LINK). I tried to find his post about how, due to a computer error, bunches of students at a school he was at were signed up for a class AFTER they got their schedules.

When this error was discovered at the end of the semester, fully a third of students (who had never attended class) had an “A” in the class that they had never been to and weren’t aware of. Yeah, you read that right.

In at least a third of your classes, you never need attend and you’ll pull an “A”.

Wow. That’s not really education at all, except maybe in the “son or daughter of a President or Senator who gets on a corporate board of directors because they can fog a mirror” way.

Why?

On snowy day a long time ago I decided I wanted to teach. A new college had come to town – I had never heard of it, “University of Phoenix™.” They put an ad out looking for faculty, and I sent in my résumé. Or rësümë if you’re in a 1980’s hair metal band.

Well, in the 1980’s I had hair . . .

I got an immediate call back. Pretty soon I was in “New Faculty Training” – which included a batch of people with master’s degrees. Most of us had teaching experience at the undergraduate level – that was, back in the day, how you paid to go to grad school.

We sat in a circle and discussed how to teach at the University. We would get stock options if we did well. The curriculum was set, and it was explained to us that the students were often working. And had a tough time. So we shouldn’t treat them exactly as students.

Think of them as customers instead, we were told.

So, what if a student never came to class?

“Well, they’re paying for it, so, it’s not a problem.”

What if a student didn’t turn in an assignment?

“You should give them a chance to turn it in late – they might have had a sick kid.”

One of the prospective faculty got pretty blunt: “So, we shouldn’t flunk them?”

The leader of the orientation paused. “Well, not if you can help it.”

So, a course you didn’t have to show up for, you could turn in assignments late, and would almost never flunk? That sounds like the state of higher education today.

Was it a smart financial move? I just checked. I wouldn’t have been a billionaire if I would have stayed with them. So, whew.

What happened, John Wilder?

Prior to our current generation, college had been about the reputation of the institution and the graduates. If you were a Harvard® man or a Vanderbilt™ grad, that meant something. Not only was the curriculum difficult, but you only had a very small chance of even getting into the place.

The reputation of the school was that it was difficult – only the best should try to get in. Only the best will succeed. The often repeated story was of a Dean getting up before the freshman and saying, “look to your left . . . now look to your right. Only one of you will be here in four years.”

That was something they were proud of. If you didn’t dig in and study, well, you’re gone. That enhances the value of the school’s name.

This was important. The school would rather eat a kitten (an actual, living kitten without condiments like creamy horseradish sauce that go great with kitten) than put a graduate out that wasn’t up to their standards.

Now? Students are “customers” and the administration wants as many of them as possible so they can spawn a never ending series of administrator clones (college administrators reproduce asexually) to bring into the college administration. They don’t want to kick a student out, because that would mean that they would lose the precious, precious money that the student brings in. So they need things to attract more customers. Like elephant rides. Free panty hose. Margarita Tuesday.

Oh, did I mention that our college has climbing walls?