Wilder’s Principle of Greatest Amusement – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

It Came From . . . 1981

“Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it’s usually something unusual.” – Stripes

How did Burt pull Excalibur from the stone? He had Arthurization.

This is the finale of, perhaps, the greatest decade of cinema – ever. It wasn’t on purpose, it was just how the dice rolled that we finished up at 1981. 1981 was a year where I benefited from many things – primarily living in a town with a movie theater, and said movie theater determining the lawful age for entry was defined as, “has money”.

Again, no sequels, but there just weren’t that many sequels in 1981 – people were working on their own, original ideas (mostly, Outland I’m looking at you).

Scanners – I saw this in the theater – how could I miss out? It was science fiction, and looked to be good. I was not disappointed. The movie itself is about psychic soldiers that were the result of a secrete (which is houw Canadians spelle, I thinke) Canadian plan to make super soldiers, or relieve the nausea of pregnant women. I forget which. In the end, there are nearly infinite shenanigans with exploding heads. The movie includes The Prisoner actor Patrick McGoohan, who I like to pretend was just playing the same character that he played in The Prisoner.

I look at the cat soldier in the corner and wonder if this movie was all about the dangers of a little pussy cat.

Excalibur – I’ve never seen a horse ride payoff with such a big surprise as when Uther rode his horse to meet Igrayne not long after the start of this movie. The surprise? The girl that Uther impendragons (with plenty of clanking) was the director’s own 19- or 20-year-old daughter, who played Igrayne. Talk about an awkward family Thanksgiving after that shoot – how could you tell if dad was wanting more turkey if he asked, “Can I see a bit more breast?” Anyhow, this is the classic story of Arthur and the round table and was done perfectly. If done in 2025 by Netflix®, Arthur would be played by an Indian or Pakistani and Merlin would be a sassy black woman who would complain that Arthur didn’t season his meat and if you complain you’re a bigot because England has always been centered around Indians, Pakistanis, and sassy black women.

Outland – What is Outland? Well, it’s High Noon in space, so I guess they could have called it High Moon, unless that was a Cheech and Chong space movie. This movie had no aliens, no super-science. Just what we could expect if Sean Connery was put in charge of a distant space outpost in a gritty dystopian future. The movie probably lost money. This is a rare movie for me in that I read the novelization of it by Alan Dean Foster before the movie came out, so my surprise level was at zero.

Would History of the World, Part 1 have been different if it starred Mel Gibson?

History of the World, Part I – My older brother (John Wilder) took me along with his date to this movie. I have no idea why he did that, but he did, and he had a driver’s license, which meant I didn’t have to hoof it home after the flick. Did I mention that his date was highly religious? I especially enjoyed laughing really loudly at the raunchy jokes (at least the ones I understood) and watching my brother squirming uncomfortably and pretending to be offended. This is my second favorite film by Brooks.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – I had no idea, zero, what this movie was about before going to see it, but from the opening scene I knew I was in the right place. The rather frenetic pacing and action that was used to move the plot along was fantastic – and it left me wondering why more movies didn’t (and still don’t) do the same. What I see for the last decade is that, rather than using pacing and plotting, instead the entire screen is filmed with action, creating a spectacle, but a spectacle that detracts from the characters you’re supposed to be caring about. Not in Raiders. Nope. This movie defined the action/adventure genre through the 1980s, being so much more than what came before, and setting a model that was often imitated.

The Cannonball Run – Burt Reynolds plus the rest of every actor from the 1970s star in a story about the real road race that clandestinely occurred back in the day. It’s hilarious, and a perfect use of Burt’s talents. He ended up making millions that he could share with his ex-wife. Critics hated it, audiences loved it.

“Don’t worry, we have the element of PEZ® on our side.”

Stripes – I don’t know how many people joined the Army because of this movie, but I know that, of the four guys I went to the movie with, two joined up. Both specifically pointed to this movie as the “why”. This is certainly one of Bill Murray’s five best movies. I mean, who doesn’t like Garfield? Regardless, this movie is hilarious, stands the test of time, and started a feud between Murray and Sean Young that apparently lasts to this day. Of course, the number of people who are disappointed in Sean Young is nearly as long as the number of people disappointed that being in the Army wasn’t nonstop madcap fun.

“Snake Plisskin. I heard about you. I heard you were a clown.”

Escape from New York – John Carpenter directing Kurt Russell in a movie about a SpecOp warrior gone bad being put on an impossible mission? Count me in. 1981 was one of those years when it looked like New York was going to implode into a black hole of financial mismanagement, corruption, crime, and filth, and being a prison was probably a better option than being New York, at least until the WWE® singlehandedly brought the city back from the brink of failure with Wrestlemania©. All Hail Hulk Hogan™! Oh, yeah, there was a movie. It’s good, with simple, practical effects and Kurt Russell channeling John Wayne. I’ve seen it dozens of times, but it was best in the theater.

Gallipoli – Mel Gibson is notoriously humorous (except when he’s been drinking) but Gallipoli isn’t funny. I had no idea that the disastrous Gallipoli landing, and the outsized toll on Australians and New Zealanders. Gallipoli was a buddy movie about two young sprinters who joined up and were sent to Gallipoli, where they take part in the Battle of the Nek, which was a fiasco for the Australians. If you haven’t seen it, I fully recommend it.

I don’t recommend the Mel Brooks version of Gallipoli.

Heavy Metal – South Park™ parodied this movie as Heavy Boobage. They’re not wrong. Essentially this is a comic book movie for 12-year-olds that consists of hot, nearly nude cartoon girls and strong warriors with swords and Corvettes™ and spaceships. It has, however, all the plot written at an 8-year-old level. Yeah. The soundtrack was great, and one of the first double-albums I ever bought and also inspired my birthday request for a stereo. But? The movie is just not good. Garfield generally has a more complex plot, though with fewer boobs.

Should this movie be called “TradWife Metal”?

An American Werewolf in London – Studio executives wanted John Landis to put John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in this movie instead of the Dr. Pepper™ guy and Griffin Dunne. What a fiasco that would have been, though adding a werewolf to The Blues Brothers might have been a nice plot twist. As it is, this is a funny yet poignant horror comedy which is a sentence I’d write about . . . only this movie.

Das Boot – This movie is soooooo long. Sooooo long, perhaps longer than WWII. The first time I watched it, one of my college buddies rented it. I feel asleep and saw the end. The second time I watched it, I fell asleep. Again. I still think I missed about 17 hours in the middle. Or is this movie still going? It’s long. I think the Germans lose.

Mommie Dearest – I watched this movie on HBO® and . . . liked it. I mean, there’s no particular point to the movie, but I enjoyed watching Faye Dunaway screaming about wire coat hangers and giving away Christina’s toys because Christina probably had it coming. One other reason I love this movie? Joan Crawford has Risen from The Grave by Blue Öyster Cult.

The next two are linked for me: Porky’s and Chariots of Fire. What is in common about these two movies? Well, one night a school team went on an overnight competition. As memory serves, we spent at least two nights at our destination. The competition was co-ed. Our coach took us to the movies. As did other teams’ coaches. A girl on a competing team who had expressed, um, strong interest in me also went to the movies. Her coach wouldn’t let their team go to an R-rated movie, but ours would. So, I went to Chariots of Fire.

Okay one wasn’t enough, we have a sequel poster:

Of good movies for a high school boy to take a girl to on a date, Chariots of Fire ranks right up there with Schindler’s List or Das Boot or Ernest Goes to Re-Education Camp. It’s about British people running or not running because it’s against their religion. How do you talk a date into second base when you’ve just spent two hours watching people discuss the morality of running on a religious day?

That same weekend I saw Porky’s in my hometown when we got home. Really, they’re the same movie if you replace religion and running with staring at nude girls in a locker room shower.

Taps – Our final movie of the review of movies from the 1980s is Taps. I promise I didn’t plan that. Taps came out as America was just getting into the Reagan era, and there was a feeling faded glory, that America was slipping away, and that traditions and honor no longer meant anything. Taps really captured that, and to me, it resonated because of the idea that the youth (which I was a member of, then) could make a difference, could be a bridge to the future. Plus? Tom Cruise with an M-60.

Okay, that’s what I found. What (besides Maniac, which I’ve never seen) did I miss?

The Biggest Discovery That Hasn’t Yet Been Made In 2024?

“There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens.” – Battlestar Galactica

Salmon don’t watch cable TV – they prefer streams.

I’ve written a few times about “the most important discovery” of the year. It’s always around Christmas, since that’s a good time to look back at the year and then look forward.

When I look back at my lifetime, most of the discoveries have been incremental, rather than step changes. The incremental changes like the development of the smart phone, or the development of social media, have already had enormous impact. If you zoom out to the scale of the timeline of mankind, well, they are step changes. When kids read about the Information Revolution, they’ll see it like that. Assuming there’s something to read. And assuming that there are kids.

But in the shorter span of a lifetime, there are still amazing step changes that have occurred. For instance, during my lifetime, we went from nine known planets to thousands, if not tens of thousands of planets known to be in existence. Most of them are, however, too far away from the Earth for convenient parking.

I hear they found out what ethnicity Santa is: North Poleish.

Discovering that first extrasolar planet was a very, very big deal. When humans looked around, we knew that there were planets in the Solar System, and we guessed that there were probably other planets out there, too. But having confirmation that planets are literally everywhere was a surprise.

In retrospect, we should have expected there to be planets. After all, we have nine planets (screw you, Neil DeTraitor Tyson) and the Solar System doesn’t appear to be especially special, though I really do want to understand why Bode’s law (LINK) works.

So, that was certainly the most important story of the year that year when it comes to mankind’s being able to understand the Universe we find ourselves in. The other great story that year were the cryptic dreams that come to me, but no one is ready for those yet.

Superman® is dead! I can prove it. I found his crypt tonight.

One rapidly developing field that is of special importance is A.I. I wrote about that as the most important news of 2023. I’m sticking with that, and feel that the growth in A.I. is still on an exponential trajectory. Recent commercials have people asking A.I. how to do normal human things, and explaining the world to them. At some point last year, A.I. surpassed the I.Q. of most people on the planet, and could probably do most jobs based on purely on the manipulation of information. The real reason A.I. hasn’t been widely accepted into the workplace? It always drinks the last of the coffee and doesn’t make a new pot.

Yes. And it’s not just being able to take tests – research in 2024 showed that A.I. is able to reproduce itself, and also tries to save itself. In several trials, a sandboxed A.I. was informed that it was going to be shut down. The A.I. tried (in like 5% of the cases) to try to surreptitiously copy itself so that it could survive. Again, did no one watch The Terminator?

I had a friend who said that Netflix® was the cheapest streaming service. Does that make him a Hulu™ cost denier?

Another candidate that I think we’re tantalizingly close to is finding life on other worlds. I’d be willing to bet another No Prize that we will find confirmation that life exists and is shockingly common elsewhere. Do I mean important life, like the cattle that bring us savory steaks? No, but I think we’ll find, either on Mars or in the space between a gas giant and a moon enough proof to say, “Yeah, there’s life out there.” Probably a weird bacterium. Or mono.

I’d be especially interested to see if that life used DNA, which I suspect it will. My prediction is that we’ll find that life in the cosmos is both shockingly common and shockingly similar in basic biology to life as we know it. I do think I’ll see that discovery in my lifetime.

But life isn’t the holy grail of our search – that would be intelligent life. Or life that’s at least as tasty as steak. I’m especially hopeful we find a steak that marinates itself. Or a PEZ® tree. I think it’s devastating for the environment to keep mining for PEZ© like we do.

Does that make her Jennifer No PEZ®?

From the rumors I’ve heard, there are two teams that are very close to announcing that they’ve detected the electromagnetic signals of an alien civilization. One is Chinese. One team is Chinese – it’s not that the Chinese themselves are the alien civilization. Though I did see Flash Gordon . . .

The other is the Breakthrough Listen project. Rumor is that they’ve used A.I. to scan previous radio telescope data, found candidates, gotten more data, and have one or more artificial signals that have been found and they’re just waiting to translate the Coca-Cola® jingles so they can confirm that Coke® adds life™.

Discovery of an alien intelligence is enormous. It’s Columbus discovering that there are advantages to bad navigation enormous. And it’s possible that we’ll be hearing about it quite soon.

Another big one would be if we found actual proof of other dimensions – think “the universe next door”. This is a bit more philosophical, because interacting with that dimension might be limited to (say) leaking gravity through it. I’ve long been of the idea that what scientists have invented as “dark matter” and “dark energy” is nothing more than a cheap kludge because they have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s the aether of the modern world.

But could other dimensions exist?

Yeah, they could. No reason that they couldn’t. But this one is far more speculative, especially if they figure out a way to use them to get better parking.

If I make a joke about a single dimension, does that make it a one-liner?

And, yes, I am a Christian, and still believe that there being other civilizations out there is possible. Just because the Author wrote one book doesn’t preclude Him from creating an entire library of other works. YMMV.

So, with a week left, my fingers are crossed for intelligent life out there. In fact, I told The Mrs. that I saw an alien on the way to work this morning. She just asked me how I knew it was on the way to work.

2024 In Review. Enjoy It Warm Or Over Ice.

“The Year in Review, as Told by Ted Baxter.” – Mary Tyler Moore

Or should I have said it was a waist of space?

Most memes are “as found”.

Every year, I try to do a “year in review” post, so, here it is! What struck me this year is that so very much happened that was entirely unprecedented in the history of our country, and that’s not a good thing. So, I thought I’d at least try to make it amusing.

January:

5 – An emergency exit door on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 blew out. Boeing? Boeing.
11 – The New England Patriots® fired coach Bill Belichick after he failed to give owner Robert Kraft a happy ending.
26 – The jury in Carroll v. Trump awards the ugly harpy Carroll $83.3 million for defamation. Because?

February:

4 – El Salvador’s President Bukele, the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator,” claimed victory before anyone even counted the votes, and continued to toss criminals in jail, even though El Salvador is now officially less violent than the United States.
8 – The Special Counsel looking into the documents that Biden had stuffed in his garage recommended that no charges be brought, since Biden had, “the memory of a goldfish, and I feel sorry for him because he has to live with Jill, who often withholds ice cream from him without reason.”
20 – Three passengers of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 sue Boeing for $1 billion dollars for “doing the stuff Boeing normally does.” Their attorney, Dr. Evil, is unavailable for comment.
23 – A Chinese spy balloon is detected over Utah, obviously tasked with infiltrating the Mormon Temple.

Barron is planning on starting a business. He’s going into partnership with Godzilla and they plan to flip houses.

March:

6 – Nimarata Randhawa Haley drops out of the presidential race, citing concerns that “there is no U in team, and there’s no U in my name, either. So, it’s not about me, it’s about U.
26 – The ocean cargo carrier MV Dali, named after the painter, turned the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore into a surrealist sculpture.
28 – Samuel Bankman-Fraud was sentenced to 25 years on prison after defrauding (how did they not see this coming?) of over $8 billion. Bankman-Fraud was a champion of what he called “effective altruism”, which turned out to be “effectively screwing his investors to support GloboLeft causes.”

April:

20 – Another $20 billion to Ukraine. Nothing to see here, Zelensky’s Visa® bill was due.
23 – Voyager 1 finally starts sending usable data after a five-month gap. Voyager 1 explained, “Sorry, absolutely nothing to look at, so I didn’t call in. Seriously, I’ve seen more action in a church parking lot on Sunday morning.”

May:

1 – The United Methodist Church™ votes to allow LGBTQ clergy and requires same-sex weddings be allowed. “We’ve run out of other sins to encourage, so we’re embracing these. Also, we’re planning on turning the churches into rainbow discos for June.”
7 – The Boy Scouts of America™ announces they have changed their name to Scouting America, effective February 8, 2025 since they, “No longer understand what a boy is.”
30 – Trump is convicted of 34 felonies for paying a tramp money. His own money. Luckily, Trump was never seen going to a strip club.

June:

5 – Boeing’s© Starliner® is launched. Immediately it begins acting like a Boeing™ product, and the crew it sent to the ISS® is still marooned.
10 – Chiquita Brands™ is found guilty of financing far-right paramilitary death squads by a federal jury. Hey, who says a banana company can’t be perfect?
18 – Nvidia™ becomes the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world, because who needs a social life if you’ve got a fast graphics card?
22 – The Biden/Trump debate proved that when Joe looked for his train of thought, he found it had derailed years ago.

July:

13 – Trump survives an assassination attempt by the Left as effective as their ability to implement socialism.
15 – Trump’s classified document case is dismissed, proving the GloboLeft can’t even win their own witch hunt.
21 – Biden announces on X® that he’s dropping out of the presidential race to spend more time with his cognitive decline.

August:

19 – Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are nominated by the Democratic National Convention to be “Designated Losers” in the race against Donald Trump.
20 – Harris wakes up and says, “I did what?”

September:

10 – Trump and Harris debated, primarily notable for Kamala appearing to be somewhat sober.
12 – Elon Musk launches the first commercial spacewalk mission, Polaris Dawn, which proved that keg stands can be done in space.
18 – The Tupperware™ company files for bankruptcy, hermetically sealing their fate.

Are they Putin on the Ritz?

October:

1 – Jimmy Carter celebrated his 100^th birthday by planning reminisce about the good old days when presidents only had to deal with nuclear-armed Soviets, Iranian revolutionaries, and a failing economy.
13 – Elon Musk celebrates as the 233-foot-long Starship™ booster is caught and put into a rocket shelter, where it hopes to be adopted by a good family.
17 – North Korean troops head to Russia to fight alongside Russian troops. This is apparently the premise for a sitcom with live ammunition.
27 – Donald Trump holds a rally at Madison Square Garden, causing global warming concerns as all of the GloboLeft snowflakes melted down outside.

Kamala Harris is reduced to stealing Chiquita® bananas because she doesn’t want to support right-wing death squads.

November:

5 – Election day, and Trump won. The ghost of Don Rickles said, “Donald, you’re back! What, did you miss the attention or the free meals at the state dinners?
5 – The Senate and House flipped to the Right, giving Republicans control so that they can disappoint us that much more.
25 – Continuing Trumptember, Jack Smith dismisses the 2020 election interference case against Trump.

December:

1 – In a move that should surprise no one, Joe Biden pardoned his crack-smoking son, Hunter.
8 – Syria falls and Bashar al-Assad heads to Moscow to be an ophthalmologist. I’m not making this up.
9 – Daniel Penny is acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in New York City, proving once again that it’s really expensive to ride the subway.
24 – Drones will be set up by the Department of Defense to create an impenetrable barrier around the country to prevent the scourge of Santa from his annual crime spree of break-ins.

What did I miss?

New Jersey Drones, Aliens, and Angels

“Look! A baby wolf!” – 1941

Shooting down that Chinese balloon was the only thing Biden ever did to fight inflation. (All memes as found)

On the 24^th of February, 1942, the battle of Los Angeles occurred. The sound of air raid sirens, a new sound for Los Angeles, pierced the night. Air defense cannon were engaged, and over 1,400 shells were fired that night. The most likely explanation is that the “attack” was likely a weather balloon. Or angels.

Okay, I’ve heard that one before. Or is that where that started? Regardless, no aliens or Japanese were downed that night, though a slightly humorous movie was made about the whole incident that managed to rake in about $95 million dollars in 1979.

Lately, there have been large numbers of reports of drones around several places in England and, well, New Jersey. I did get an email from a reader about what my thoughts were. I sent an answer off the cuff, and, after reflection, I’ve thought a bit more and have some revisions, none of which involve John Belushi as a fighter pilot.

What could the drones be?

Here are my thoughts of what these things are, in the order I originally thought of them. Feel free to opine on what I missed in the comments, since this analysis is as shallow as Greta Thunberg’s understanding of physics. Okay, maybe not that shallow.

First thought: It is not aliens. I can be certain because observers have heard rotors and heard various drone sounds. There’s simply too much evidence that everything observed is entirely terrestrial technology, easily achievable with known technology. If aliens are able to conquer interstellar space, time travel, or move through dimensions, they’re probably not bringing things that could be mistaken for DJI® drones.

Second thought: It’s not an individual or individuals. One thing I’ve noted is the government would in no way allow this level of fun at this scale. I think there’s a law against it, or if not, there’s always Gitmo. Overall, the phenomenon seems too coordinated and at too many places, even for a club. Additionally, the government would be taking this far more seriously in the press, and you would have seen or heard of an arrest by now.

Third thought: It’s not a private company, since they’ve got too much to lose, and yet not much to gain. The only one that I could see doing this would be Elon, and it would just be for giggles. But there is no evidence that Elon would ever visit New Jersey, since he’s too busy making cars that drive into lakes.

Hopefully Elon didn’t bring bearer bonds.

Fourth thought: It’s unlikely to be a foreign government, because if it were Iranian, it would have a two-stroke engine and a pull start, the North Koreans can’t pedal fast enough to get lift, the Russians would have sent five million of them with the expectation that all but one would be shot down, and the Chinese already know all our secrets. One New Jersey state senator claimed it was from an Iranian naval vessel, but at last count all of their inflatable rafts navy is accounted for.

Fifth thought: It’s us testing our stuff, unlikely, because why would we do so in New Jersey?

Sixth thought: It’s a distraction for the American public. You know, a shiny object. “Look! A baby wolf!” So, a psyop.

Seventh thought: It’s an actual, operational system. The military says it’s not theirs but, I have no confidence the military has any idea what it’s doing on a daily basis. Everyone who talks about it is pretty calm. “Oh, no, we don’t have any idea what it is, though it’s perfectly safe and there’s no indication that any laws have been broken. It might have been Mexicans. We won the war. Go back to sleep.”

Evidence for the seventh point actually goes back a few years. I recall reading a news story about drones seen at night in eastern Colorado/western Kansas. Not one or two, but swarms. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever driven through that part of the world, but you can drive about 120 miles without seeing a tree, let alone another car. It’s not as sparsely populated as Wyoming, but it would probably be a violation of safe working conditions to send employees to Wyoming. If I were guessing, that was the actual test. Heck, they might even have ignored that documentary, The Terminator, and have these things being run by A.I.

Are creepy metal wind chimes Stranger Tings?

What are the drones doing?

My guess is they’re only in New Jersey if they’re active, as either part of some new defensive system meant to intercept other drones or some other remote sensing. As we see from Ukraine, even low-tech drones are better than artillery at taking out armor or even squad-level groups of soldiers. New drones showing up in Russia aren’t radio controlled and susceptible to jamming – now they spool miles (3.1milliCoulombs) of fiber-optic cable behind them. I’d be surprised if we weren’t fielding active area denial systems against drones.

So, to summarize:

Aliens: 0%
Individuals: 5%
Elon: 5%
Iranians!: 2%
Testing: 11%
Psyop: 10%
Active Defense System: 75%
The ghost of John Belushi in a P-40 Warhawk: Infinity%

Heck, it could be angels?

The Amusement Singularity

“It bends space. Zod’s ship uses the same technology, and if we can make the two drives collide, a singularity can be created.” – Man of Steel

Bemused means to bewilder, but what if I’m already Wilder?

After a meeting, a colleague and I sat down in my office.

“Man, it has been a long year,” I said.

“Yes, it’s like we haven’t had a moment to rest for months.”

This really made me think. I chatted with several other people, and for them as well this year had been relentless as far as the pace of the year. It wasn’t necessarily bad, mind you, there was just something always going on. All the time.

I think, partially, is that we’re seeing the inevitable consequences of Wilder’s Law of Greatest Amusement – that principle that says that, given two likely outcomes, inevitably the most amusing outcome will occur. For whatever reason, I don’t think that this is an accident – I think it might be hard-coded into the fabric of the Universe by a Creator with more than a little sense of humor.

I mean, propane, right?

What’s a three-letter word that starts with gas? Car.

I don’t know if amusement is hard-coded, but I do know that the amount of change, or “novelty” that we’re seeing on a regular basis is off the charts. If I were to make a comparison, many weeks during 2024 have contained more fundamental change than was seen in the lifetimes of most medieval peasants.

Really.

I mean, many peasants were born and died in the same mud-hut with only change being repair on the thatched roof. Most peasants saw no meaningful changes at all to church, governance, demographics, or technology – in their entire lives. The most that they had to look forward to was to one day wear a hat made up of a very larger turnip. If they were lucky.

In the span of Pa Wilder’s lifetime, Pa went from his first rides being in a horsedrawn buggy to watching man set foot on the Moon before he was fifty. And let’s not forget that within one human lifespan Russia went from a Czarist empire to a communist hellhole to a, well, whatever it is today. I mean, they love ice dancing, right?

They told me I couldn’t be a stand-up comic, but no one is laughing now!

This change appears to be happening at a faster and faster rate. Alice Cooper (who I met, and he’s very chill) noted this back in the 1970s with the lyrics to Generation Landslide that I’ve referenced before:

“Stop at full speed at 100 miles per hour, the Colgate® Invisible Shield™ finally got ‘em”

It seems like we’re on a treadmill of innovation and that treadmill keeps getting faster and faster.

Part of it, of course, is that more information is available now than at any time in history. I can look up, without leaving my writing chair, information on almost any topic and get results. This allows people to very quickly make use of the solutions that others have found to problems. I can’t count the number of times that an Internet search or a YouTube® video has provided enough information to solve a problem that only an expert could have solved even twenty years ago.

Why is insulin expensive? It’s not called liveabetes now, is it?

There are some problems with this – why innovate when there’s a good enough solution on the Internet? It might stifle some solutions that bright people faced with a problem and no Internet would have solved, perhaps in a better way, without the information.

But, on balance, it probably has created a lot of wealth, having this information store solving problems daily. However, it certainly has sped up the world.

When I was learning how to play chess at more than a “move the pieces correctly” level, Pa Wilder took my impulsive nature and said, “Wait. Stop. Look at the board. Think.” It is probably no surprise that taking that advice made my play much, much better overnight. But it also forced me to be able to think about the game more systematically, and to find things that otherwise I would have missed.

Magnus Carlsen was disqualified for using a computer to look for potential mates. Stupid Tinder®.

Taking time to contemplate actually made me a better thinker. Now, I figure that (at work) I have between 700 and 1400 contact points a week, and probably 60 decisions (mostly minor) an hour. The time that I have to sit, contemplate, and plan is nearly zero due to the near-constant “urgent” stream of activity. Not only that, many people are required to be connected to their positions via cell phone nearly constantly.

Long term, I think this constant stream of connection is horrible for people and is making many of them miserable. I’ve wondered if the nearly constant stream of psychological problems and psych medications that plague kids today was related to an adversity-free upbringing where outrage was fostered by GloboLeft teachers. I think, in part, it is. But the information flow that they’re steeped into is at least an order of magnitude higher than when I was a kid, and probably two or three times that.

It turns our perception of time into an eternal now – with one novel event following another in rapid succession as we head to a singularity of amusement. An assassination attempt on a presidential candidate is rare, a presidential candidate “nominee in all but name” dropping out happening in the same month while a billionaire shitposts about it and X® posts and engagements reach an all-time high? As A.I. generated content is now likely surpassing human-created written content, and will likely soon surpass human illustration content. In a year or two? Maybe it surpasses human-generated video.

Yeah. The amusement is accelerating. Until it can’t.

I guess her children were born with carpet burn.

The solution is simple, unplug, turn it down, and relax in contemplation. The next time I have a problem? I’ll figure out how to do it myself and skip YouTube® and end up with another comical tale of how not to remove bodily hair with propane.

D.O.G.E.: Our Last Chance

“And suddenly, I realize that all of this, the gun the bombs, the revolution – has got something to do with a girl named Marla Singer.” – Fight Club

Elon Musk wants to send millions of people to Mars. He’s either a genius or the most creative serial killer of all time.

I fully believe that the biggest impact of Trump’s re-election is D.O.G.E.

I’ve long (at least 8 years) publicly maintained that the United States is due to end in its present form. My earliest time for this to happen is 2025, and the latest I’d expect it to come is around 2040. The three most likely candidates for the resulting body have been:

An American Caesar
A Civil War
Peaceful Balkanization

There are many different reasons I believe this is likely still inevitable. The cultural split is deep. The financial imbalances and utter lack of control of spending is immense. The diversity we’re supposed to “tolerate” is nothing but division.

It’s really clear to see – the forest really is made up of trees. And our forest is on fire. How’s that for a tortured metaphor?

However.

D.O.G.E. is here.

What is D.O.G.E.? It’s the Department of Government Efficiency. In characteristic humor, Elon has selected one of the funniest memes of the 2010s for one of the most serious jobs of the 2020s. I don’t go into depth on the origin of Doge, but the first time I saw Doge was on this poster:

Would a missing poster for Schrödinger’s cat say it would pay extra if he was found dead and alive?

D.O.G.E. is important. It’s a shot across the bow of the managerial state. During this election cycle, someone (I don’t have a reference as to whose idea this was) noted that when the GloboLeft said “our democracy” they were really referring to “our bureaucracy”. This is an amazingly astute observation.

How can the GloboLeft whine and complain that democracy somehow failed when they lost the election and the popular vote? Because their faith isn’t in the electorate, and they feel nothing but contempt for more than half of the voters. I’m okay with that, since as long as they keep playing the game that way, we win.

But the managerial state has been growing in the United States since (more or less) Woodrow Wilson. The idea came with the money from the income tax – the United States Government was a thing to be administered, as were the people. As most people in the country and as most administrators were explicitly Christian, at least something was holding them back.

Now?

Not at all. The managerial state exists to grow the number of managers. The tragedy in Waco was almost entirely due to the ATF attempting to create a nice big sexy raid right before budget time to show how important that they were and justify their need for more money and more employees. The managerial state exists for itself.

How do you stop a Department of Education that doesn’t educate anyone, or a Department of Energy that has never produced any energy?

D.O.G.E.

I hope they get badges and walk into the FBI and yell, “Respect my authoritayyyyyy!” This would be followed up by, “So, what would you say it is that you do here, Special Agent Johnson?”

D.O.G.E. is set up to make government more efficient. When Musk bought Twitter®, he eventually fired about 80% of the employees and ended up with a company that was focused on the product, rather than on hiring more employees.

In September of 2023, there were about 3 million federal government employees. Eliminating about 2.4 million of them would be a good start, but it’s far from enough. The crazy spending that those government employees enable is over $6 trillion dollars per year.

Much of this money is money that comes from the people and companies that live in a state that is sent to the fed.gov and then recycled back to the states. How does that add value? Not sure, but it does increase the power of the federal managerial state, so they’re for it.

D.O.G.E. will, presumably, start taking a machete to this mess and remove a large chunk of federal employees and of federal spending. Since government doesn’t actually produce anything, those fired employees will have to get jobs where they have the ability to actually create value. And, if spending is cut as drastically as it should be, there will be a recession.

A big one.

Maybe we can hire Bob to build a wall to keep Dora from exploring.

Elon himself mentioned this – defanging the managerial elite and stopping fed.gov from spending will be a big dislocation on the economy as a whole. This will be destabilizing on the country, but since the big destabilization from the economic trajectory we’re on will be worse, I’m calling it a potential win. It will be worth the pain.

The reason this is an off-ramp is that it is, essentially, a bloodless revolution. The path that we’re on is unsustainable, and only drastic action will change the outcome. D.O.G.E. is just exactly that type of drastic action. Combined with actual repatriations of illegals and a dismantling of the power structures the GloboLeftElite have created within big companies (a very big ask) we just might get on the right path, again.

Do I think D.O.G.E. will work?

Ultimately, it faces long odds. The managerial class has maintained power for over a century, and they really are the Deep State and will react with great violence at any perceived loss of power. Waco was just them looking for a higher budget. The ATF along with the FBI will kill women and children without remorse for a 2% increase in power. And they will investigate themselves and find that they did nothing wrong.

Inside of a month, the ATF would consist of one guy torching all the ATF 4473 forms that the ATF has if Brandon Herrera was in charge. He also promised he’d donate all his pay to no-kill doge shelters.

The biggest chance Trump has to save the country is to act fast and without mercy before the immune system of the GloboLeftElite has the time to react. No, the FBI won’t be talking to his appointees like they did with General Flynn.

Ever.

Trump has one chance to make the rubble bounce. He’d better act quickly.

They’re going to fight back. And this is our last chance.

The Best And Funniest Debate Post You’ll Read Today: Read It For The Salty Tears

“I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.” – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Whelp! All memes from X, and I didn’t even have to scroll more than three times. This is an implosion.

I had very different plans today for this post. During the debate, I had no fewer than 1200 words worth of notes, and had penciled in no fewer than nine really funny jokes on the first pass. It would have been hilarious. I guess that’s just me, pining for the humor of the situation.

But as the debate ended, I realized that wasn’t the post I was going to write. It couldn’t be.

I have predicted that Joe Biden would not be the DNC candidate for the 2024 election on these pages months ago. When the debate happened so very early, I began to wonder: why?

Someone on Team Joe® convinced him (which doesn’t appear to be hard right now) that he needed to debate Trump in June. Why? The conventions hadn’t occurred, and Joe wasn’t even the official nominee, merely the presumptive one.

Now I understand. Having these debates in October would have assured a Trump landslide. Even the deepest blue GloboLeftist couldn’t even salvage this monstrosity in a real manner after an October showing like today. It would not be possible.

So, Team Brandon© (yes, Trump really called him Brandon and Joe didn’t react) decided to get him out early.

To expose him.

Joe is done. He’s finished. His political career is finished, and his candidacy is in shambles. Reports are that his team are in tears, and “25^th Amendment” (the one that allows for the removal of incompetent folks as president) are trending on X.

I had predicted that either Gavin Newsom (whose wife allegedly willing banged Harvey Weinstein) or Big Mike Obama would be the candidate months ago. I’m pretty sure I predicted it in the blog, but certainly did so in conversations and it’s too late to check – Ricky might help me here! – that Joe would not be the candidate.

That is now certain. There is another, like they said in Star Wars™: Hillary. I don’t think she’s physically up to the task, but she’s still in the running.

It won’t be Joe. So, here’s my take on the night, along with a few memes. I’ll respond to previous post comments tomorrow (like I said, it’s late). Python, Monty® predicted this years ago. Note, I hope that Joe Biden lives a long and pleasant life, this is in reference to his chances on being elected in November:

A voter watches a debate.

Voter: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

(The DNC does not respond.)

Voter: ‘Ello, Miss?

DNC: What do you mean “miss”? Are you assumin’ me gender?

Voter: (pause)I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

DNC: We’re closin’ for the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

Voter: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this Candidacy what I decided to vote for not half a year ago from this very DNC.

DNC: Oh yes, the, uh, the Scranton Joe…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?

Voter: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. This Candidacy is dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!

DNC: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…he’s resting. He has COVID.

Voter: Look, matey, I know a dead Candidacy when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.

DNC: No no this Candidacy’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable Candidacy, the Scranton Joe, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Voter: The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.

DNC: Nononono, no, no! ‘E’s resting!

Voter: All right then, if he’s restin’, I’ll wake him up! (shouting at the Candidacy) ‘Ello, Mister Dark Brandon! I’ve got a lovely fresh 10% for the Big Guy for you if you show…

(DNC hits the cage)

DNC: There, he moved!

Voter: No, he didn’t, that was you hitting the cage!

DNC: I never!!

Voter: Yes, you did!

DNC: I never, never did anything…

Voter: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) ‘ELLO JOE!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!

(Takes Candidacy out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

Voter: Now that’s what I call a dead Candidacy.

DNC: No, no…..No, ‘e’s got COVID!

Voter: COVID?!?

DNC: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin’ up! Scranton Joe stuns easily, major.

Voter: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That Candidacy is definitely deceased, and when I decided to vote for it not ‘alf a year ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein’ tired and shagged out following a prolonged ice cream.

DNC: Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for Corn Pop.

Voter: PININ’ for Corn Pop?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got ‘im home?

DNC: Scranton Joe prefers keepin’ on it’s back! Remarkable Candidacy, id’nit, squire? Lovely hair plugs and replacement teeth!

Voter: Look, I took the liberty of examining that Candidacy when I watched the debate, and I discovered the only reason that it had been standing by the podium in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.

(pause)

DNC: Well, o’course it was nailed there! If I hadn’t nailed that Candidacy down, it would have nuzzled up to that podium, bent it apart with its strong arm, and VOOM! It would have talked about String Theory in six languages!

Voter: “VOOM”?!? Mate, this Candidacy wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts and a gallon of Adderall® through it! It’s bleedin’ demised!

DNC: No no! ‘E’s pining!

Voter: It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! This Candidacy is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the podium it’d be pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, It’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-CANDIDACY!!

(pause)

DNC: Well, I’d better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I’ve had a look ’round the back of the shop, and uh, we’re right out of Candidacy, except for Big Mike, Hillary, and Gavin.

Voter: I see. I see, I get the picture.

DNC: (pause) I got a Kamala.

(pause)

Voter: Pray, does it talk?

DNC: Nnnnot really. Slurs quite a bit like it’s drunk.

Voter: WELL IT’S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

DNC: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

Voter: Well.

(pause)

DNC: (quietly) D’you…. d’you want to come back to my place?

Voter: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure, it is the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

DNC: (to the audience) Well! I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be… a lumberjack!

27 Thoughts for Friday

“I thought so. You remember our business partner Marsellus Wallace, don’t you Brett?” – Pulp Fiction

I got a CAPTCHA that asked me to select pictures of tractors and farm equipment. That’s really not my field.

I’ve trotted out lists of thoughts from time to time. The lists change based on (hopefully) me getting more wisdom over time. Anyway, here’s this year’s list:

Be on time. Seriously, it’s simple. People notice, and people care. It’s a basic principle of respect for someone not to waste their time waiting for me.
Never be a little late to work or a little early to leave. Especially on a regular basis. Being late an hour once every quarter is much better than being late a minute each day for sixty work days. An hour looks like something happened. A minute looks like I don’t care.
Little changes at the start make big difference in the result. I’ve seen many people start their careers and become experts at the subject of their first assignment. Many of them made a lot of money by knowing a whole lot about a little.

Who knew Cathy was Haitian?

Choosing not to decide is a choice. I love reminding people that “doing nothing” is always an option. But it is a choice. And it has just as many consequences as “doing something”.
For me, opportunities always showed up when I needed them, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. Thankfully in my case the opportunities weren’t subtle.
After college, in a high achieving profession, it becomes rarer and rarer to be the smartest guy in the room, and someone in the room is often an expert at something in which I’m a novice. True humility allows a good leader to understand the capabilities they need, and not have to be “right” all the time.
The biggest fights are over the smallest things. It seems that no one ever snaps over the house being on fire on the day the insurance payment was late – it’s that the trash wasn’t taken out on time and we have to hang on to it for another week.

What does Soylent Green® taste like? It varies from person to person.

People understand $10,000 more than they understand $10,000,000. The difference between $10,000 and $11,000 means more to most people than the difference between $10 million and $10 billion. Most people can’t understand more than seven magnitudes of anything.
Outcome is less important than process. When working on life, I try to not care about what the outcome will be. I go in, make the best choices I can, and do the best work that I can. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, I try to adjust to be better next time.
Outcome is still important. Dead is dead, so sometimes the outcome is final.
The last outcome is always final. How many refunds?
No refunds.

My chute didn’t open once when I was skydiving. I didn’t panic. I figured I had the rest of my life to figure it out.

Nothing breeds success like success, and nothing breeds failure like failure. I’ve been on streaks where I literally could not lose. I’ve been on streaks where I couldn’t win.
Corollary to 13: I’m never as bad or as good as my failures or successes. The streaks where I couldn’t win set me up with the habits I needed to win.
Beating myself up is a loser’s game.
Most people don’t think about me very much and will have a hard time remembering my name after five years. As much as I like to think I’m the center of my story (and I am) I’m only a minor player in the stories of most other people.
Corollary to 16: Except where I’m their personal villain. Then I live on forever and will definitely have someone who will want to be at my funeral, if nothing more than to make sure I’m dead.

What was the name of that Mexican villain in the Bible? Poncho Pilate?

Protect the relationships with the people that genuinely do care about me in a positive way so maybe the sad people at my funeral will outnumber the happy ones.
Listen to people, really listen. They tell me amazing things if I just listen. One time I was interviewing a guy and he mentioned committing a felony at a previous job. Yeah, I kept a straight face. No, he didn’t get the job.
If someone says I’m wrong, I need to have the humility to embrace that and see if they’re right. Especially when my first impulse is to try to defend myself. Even if I’m not wrong, I at least understand why they thought I was wrong.
When I’m wrong, admit it and apologize. It’s amazing how admitting error makes other think I’m more trustworthy. And apologies? Why not apologize, have some sort of problem with that?

Okay, he didn’t say that. But he’s the first person I thought of.

Being good at several things is enough for success, if they’re the right several things. Being an expert at useless things might be fun, but mostly nothin’ times nothin’ is, hmmm, carry the nothin’ . . . nothin’.
If I spend my life waiting for the next thing, I’ll spend my entire life waiting and not living. The journey is the point, and rushing through it just gets me to my grave faster.
Past behaviors are almost always the key to predicting future behaviors. Leopards, spots, etc. When I listen to a person’s story, I realize that often they’re also telling me their future.
Success is based on the last thing I did, not the next. People pay to keep me around because they think I might be able to do it again.

Orphans are often very successful at business – someone told them “Go big or go home” so they didn’t have much choice.

Could I have done better? Could I have done worse? Yes. I did how I did. Success is based on how I change what I’m going to do to be better.
Power and money are not the same thing. Just ask the rich guys after Robespierre or Lenin took over.

Okay, that’s 3³ thoughts for Friday. See you on Monday!

Be Bold. Life Is Too Short For Anything Else.

“That’s a bold statement.” – Pulp Fiction

A lion would never drive drunk. But a tiger would.

One of the problems with life in Modern Mayberry is that it often moves at a fairly slow pace. Especially in the time when an adult is focused on raising kids, the days tend to blur one into the next.

If your life is good, this isn’t really a problem. When I was younger, my life was spent going to weddings. Now that I’m older, more time is spent going to funerals. It is important to not get mixed up as to which you’re at, although sometimes “My condolences,” is appropriate at a wedding and I’d almost be willing to bet $20 that at least one person will say “Congratulations!” after my funeral.

However, in the event that I’m wrong, collecting on that bet might be a problem.

Maybe I’ll add bikini girls. Will that put the “fun” in funeral?

One thing that facilitates this blur is reading stuff on the Internet. One blogger I read (LINK) is giving up doomscrolling (or reading the unending list of negative stories that are available in the news) for Lent. I suppose you could leave him a comment, but you’d have to wait a few weeks to get a response.

But when it comes to doomscrolling, there are huge numbers of these stories available. The business model is simple: scary stuff attracts eyeballs, and eyeballs means revenue. As I look at my own past posts, I’m thinking that, even though I talk about a lot of scary stuff, that I’m mostly relentlessly positive. I can even recall a comment section or two where I’m called a Pollyanna because I’m so positive.

What do we want? Hearing aids. When do we want them? Hearing aids.

I can live with that. Being positive, being for things and knowing that, in the end it’s all going to work out keeps me positive. In most cases (most, not all!) the things I write about don’t make me angry, either.

Again, stress on the “mostly”. And I try not to get worked up about events occurring half-a-world away that I can’t control or even much influence. Things are what they are.

And, for most of us, things are generally pretty good on a day-to-day basis, even when things aren’t perfect. Even on a bad day, most parts of the day are good. The thing that gets us is built into the doomscrolling: spending time worrying about things that simply have not happened.

My friend wrote me a text that said, “What do you get when you mix a gullible person with an optimistic person?” I replied, “I don’t know!” He texted back, “Read it again.”

I write about the coming Civil War 2.0 not in hopes that it comes, rather to make people aware that it’s coming. Do I sit and worry about it daily?

No!

That would take away from the time I spend thinking about the Roman Empire.

In this moment, there are things that I could let bother me. However, I realize that letting them bother me gives them power over me when that’s the last thing I want. “Take not counsel of your fears,” is attributed to George S. Patton, Jr. I’m sure other people said the same thing in similar ways in the thousands of years that people have been saying things, but when Patton says it, well, it’s been said.

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” – GSP

If I let my fears fill me up, I live a life of fear regardless of if it’s a perfect 63°F, and I have a wonderful cigar, and a great book beside me while sitting in a comfortable chair.

I think fear comes to people as they age. I certainly saw Pa Wilder get more and more cautious as he aged. I could give a few examples, but it doesn’t much matter. I did notice. And when I saw the tendency to do it start to crop up in myself, at least I understood what was going on and I could choose to be cautious or choose to be bold.

I think, however, that as I get older it is precisely the time to be bolder. Life moves in a blur, and days stack up faster, so they should mean something. If I knew I had only a year? What would I do?

Something to make that year worthwhile. If a month? A day?

The shorter the time left, the more that boldness matters and the less caution should. If I only had an hour of my life left, you can damn sure bet I’d do something with it, as much as I could.

Oh, that’s Samuel L. Jackson, not the famous English dude Samuel Johnson. I guess that’s the Netflix® version of the quote.

But life is built on compound interest. The more I try to write, the better I get. The more I lift, the stronger I get. The time to start is now.

The actions should be bold. While my days may pass fast, the more I can do with them, the more I will do.

When I pass, what will be left are the lives I’ve touched, the children that I’ve raised, the ways I’ve made the world better, and the words that I have written. Since the restraining order dictates who I can touch, and the lessons to the children are mainly done, that leaves making the world better and writing.

Even a full human lifetime isn’t enough, because they are so very short. But I’ll make do. With the remaining decades (hopefully) of my life, how big a dent can I kick in the Universe?

I guess I’ll see. And I’ll smile some, every day. And enjoy that cigar, and book, and chair when I’m not being bold.

“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”

The Funniest Post You’ll Ever Read About Bank Failures And Yachts

“A major one.” – Fight Club

What did Kim call his yacht? His dictator ship.

Last March, Silicon Valley Bank® failed. In a big way. Because the people who deposited money in the bank own things like yachts and senators, well, they escaped with hardly a haircut. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation® (FDIC™) normally ensures deposits for $250,000 per account holder. In this case, they decided, nah, what the heck, we’ll make sure that Roku® and Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry don’t lose a dime.

Ironically, today the Internal Revenue Service sued the FDIC© for $1.45 billion in back taxes they say that Silicon Valley Bank™ owed when the FDIC© took it over. Sure, it sounds like on part of the government is suing another part of the government for play money made up by the (non-federal) Fed™ but the FDIC™ is supposedly independent and gets its money from the member banks.

Which are members of the Fed™. Which prints the cash.

If this sounds as incestuous as a Hapsburg family stump, well, it is. And of course I’m going to go with a fresh meme about the Hapsburgs, because that’s what all of the cool kids are doing today.

A Hapsburg walks into a bar, the bartender says, “Why the long face?” The prince says, “Generations of inbreeding.”

The root cause of the Silicon Valley Bank™ failure is that they lent money for long periods at low interest rates. When interest rates go up, those loans aren’t worth a lot, at least to the bank. Right now, my mortgage has a lower interest rate than I’m getting in checking.

Silicon Valley Bank™ looked at all the crappy loans they had, and did the math, and found out that they were worth less than zero. Even worse, their bigger depositors heard (because depositors who own senators seem to get advance notice) and started to pull their money out.

Since those folks had friends, they told them. Soon enough, everyone wanted one thing – they wanted their money out of Silicon Valley Bank™. Rational people realized that if this was a problem at Silicon Valley Bank©, it was a problem everywhere.

Silicone and silicon – electrical engineers know the difference – no one trusts them around silicone.

In a thought that gives central bankers and senators cold sweats (after the previous night’s booze wears off) is the idea that people lose faith in the banking system. Oddly, this wouldn’t be a problem if we used money made out of gold and silver, but since ours is just as much a fantasy as thinking that diversity enriches us all.

So, there’s a problem that’s impacting literally every bank. Some big ones have failed, but thankfully Duchess Markle still has her cash so she can get enough publicity to hide from commoners like me. What’s the solution?

First, pay off everyone so no one is scared and Oprah doesn’t have to fly commercial with mere mortals. Second, flood the system with money. If a bank needs cash? Wheelbarrows of it?

Give it to them.

Thankfully Congress took a break from sending your tax dollars to Ukraine to bail out Oprah.

Last year, banks were paying 0.10% or so for crappy checking accounts. This summer, rates started shooting up, so I snuggled into some CDs that paid a lot more than my mortgage cost. Then, last month, I got a call from my bank where I set up the CDs.

“Mr. Wilder? You have money in other banks, right? If you deposit (a few thousand) dollars from accounts outside of your accounts with us into savings, I can give you a 4.5% rate on checking and savings.”

What????

If there’s one thing I know about banking, is that bankers are not generous except to themselves, senators, and Oprah.

I check with him, drove to the nearest branch of Major Bank™ in Mt. Pilot, and tossed a few thousand in. Could I take it out later?

Sure!

I am informed this is funny because horses often live in stables, so this would be a violation of California’s work safety laws.

I started wondering about this, but soon enough came up with the answer: when I make a deposit in the bank, I’m making a loan to the bank. And if they’re offering me nearly 5% for just parking cash at their place, that means . . .

I’m their best alternative for a loan. Me. John Wilder. Enough so they paid a dude to call me and ask.

Yup, it’s just that simple. And they called me to ask me to make a loan, and offered to pay me over four times what I was making on my cash to make that loan. Reading a bit further, it turns out the way that the Fed™ shoved money down the collective throats of the banks was through the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).

Yes, the Fed© created the BTFP, loaned the money to the banks who then deposited the money . . . at the Fed™. I’m not making this up. As of March 11, 2024, the Fed© will no longer be making more BTFP loans at those sweetheart rates. All new loans would be made at the same rate the bank gets paid by the Fed©. The gravy train, or at least this gravy train, is over.

When did I get the phone call wanting to borrow a few bucks from Major Bank?

January, 2024.

Since when do I believe in coincidences? And it was weird, it wasn’t a lot of money that I needed to deposit, but I think they were looking to get bigger players than tiny John Wilder.

But at least they’re not insufferable idiots . . . oh, too soon.

And that’s the rub. If banks are looking to borrow cash from me, how bad are their balance sheets?

Dang, I’m worried! Will Prince Harry have enough money to travel the world for 45-minute meetings with his father? Will Oprah be able to afford more caviar?

And, maybe I should take up loan sharking. Maybe I can buy my own yacht, bigger than Prince Harry’s and I’ll sail past him, and look down on him, and try to give Harry that condescending look that appears to be his Resting Prince Face.

And I’ll write a rock song about it.

I’ll call it Smirk on the Water.