Category Archives: Mail

Mail 750 Saturday, November 17, 2012

I noted in View that I am preparing an essay on surviving in an age of makers and takers. That has generated considerable mail, some of which is very relevant. It is worth noting that the subject is a great deal more complex than the title: clearly there are more than rwo categories of people. Makers and takers is neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive of the citizens and inhabitants of these United States. It is a convenient way to refer to the growing number of people dependent on government for basic needs that formerly were not supplied by government nor considered government responsibility.

Makers and Takers

I have been pondering the "Makers/Takers" divide in light of the Cost of Knowledge boycott of Elsevier.

If you mean to write an essay on the matter, the subtle thing is to see where the poles are really located. The simplistic classification most folks on the right want to make that puts business owners in the "makers" and government workers (along with welfare recipients) among the "takers" does not correspond to reality.

Many government workers (e.g. soldiers, homicide detectives, those of us who teach large lecture sections in and conduct research in useful disciplines at state universities) provide useful services to society, and are arguably "makers", while businessmen whose business model is dependent on monopoly rents derived from state-granted monopolies called "copyrights" and "patents" (e.g. academic publishers, patent trolls, consulting firms and lobbyists specializing in expanding copyright and patent protection for incumbents in the market) held on books they did not write and inventions they did not make are arguably "takers".

The discussion of who is a "maker" and who is a "taker" in the realm of finance could get very nuanced.

I commend Luigi Zingales "A Capitalism for the People" to your attention if you have not already read it. In truth I think it would be better to dwell on his distinction between pro-market and pro-business than on the easily abused maker/taker distinction.

David Yetter

Indeed. There are several dimensions to this matter.

While there may be those who would condemn civil servants and those who work for the government in other ways, they certainly do not include me. I spent a good part of my life working for government institutions, as an undergraduate assistant at the Universities of Iowa and Washington; at Boeing, where a good part of my work was directly paid by the government and had nothing to do with the commercial activities of the company; at Aerospace Corporation which was known as a “government non-profit”, and the work was directly for the Air Force; at North American where I worked on projects funded by NASA; and so forth. And I very nearly took a position as a senior GS at a level that required a vote of the Civil Service Commission before they could offer me the position at that level; I could eaily have ended up as a retired civil servant. I certainly do not despise those who do government service per se.

On the other hand, I have always been in favor of the old Hatch Act which forbade federal civil servants from engaging in any political activities including donating to political parties or candidates or political action committees – in other words, restricting their free speech as a condition of government employment. I suspect that it is time to reopen that debate. FDR favored the Hatch Act and for good reasons, just as he opposed unionization of civil service.

On the other hand, I do not consider artists and authors to be in the taker category. The Constitution is pretty clear on the purpose of patents and copyrights. If the notion is that those rights are being abused, I would quickly agree: it wasn’t me who insisted on copyrights lasting forever. I was perfectly happy with the 28 years plus a 28 year renewable under which I wrote most of my early works, and I would be happy enough with Victor Hugo’s “life plus fifty years” in the international copyright conventions – if I were to alter that, it would be to cut that to life plus 40 years. And I am appalled at what has happened to patent laws in this era of a politicicized plaintiff bar.

As to universities, I am a product of public universities: in my time tuition was quite low. On the other hand, the federal government didn’t try to ‘help’ me by insisting that I be paid some fanciful minimum wage: a good part of my working my way through college came from board jobs, at which I waited on table for an hour in exchange for a meal from the restaurant’s menu. Board jobs no longer exist, but they were pretty standard in college towns at one time.

Universities like all bureaucracies are subject to the Iron Law, and will absorb as much money as comes their way; and if government pumps money out to stimulate demand, the price will rise to absorb all the money and then some. It may be a good investment to provide free or nearly free university level education to some percentage of the population, and then to provide that nearly free to anyone who chooses certain professions and can maintain competence in them; but it is clearly madness to subsidize endless graduates in sociology, ethnic studies, basket weaving – we can all make lists. And it is insane to raise the cost of studying engineering and medicine in order to finance the university departments that turn out graduates in useless studies.

The real debates are on freedom and subsidies: are we to have ‘entitlements’ or investments? It is one thing to justify taxation for investment when there is some relationship between what is spent and what that buys, and sheer entitlements in which the recipient has a right to something paid for by someone else.

Jerry,

It looks like people have finally become aware of Jane Jacobs proposal of the theory of the “survival syndromes” she first published in her book SYSTEMS OF SURVIVAL. Those would be an explanation of the “traders and Takers” systems that have been successful throughout human history that she postulates have evolved into “Marketplaces” and “Guardians” of all societies. In her book she “found” that there were 15 “rules” that needed to be followed for each system to “work.” However, more interesting to me is her discovery that to use the “Taker” rules in a market place, or to use “Trader” (maker?) rules in Guardianship results in total CRIMINAL ACTIVITY. If Taker rules are used in a Market, then you have nothing less than a Mafia style “protection racket” where fees (taxes, political donations) must be paid so you won’t be destroyed by those in charge. If Market rules are used in the “Taker” (Guardian?) arena, then you will have a “Guardian” who is “for sale to the highest bidder”, or total corruption. When you view the current American societal systems operant today, you must conclude that our current system is a mix of a government for sale that is also operating as a Mafia style protection racket where if you make a political donation to the “wrong party”, then the Guardians will put you out of business. Think of all the republican owned GM auto dealerships that were closed and what happened to the non union businesses in the auto bailout as an obvious example.

The information has always been there, but our over controlled media have stifled its’ dissemination. Hopefully, you can get this out to your readership as in the past you have mentioned Jane Jacobs THE COMING DARK AGE (her last book).

Vasyl Banduric

Jane Jacobs is always worth reading and contemplating. While there are items in her rules  I would quarrel with, the concept seems correct. And the media are not to blame for the lack of discussion of such items in our institutions of learning.

Makers & Takers

Jerry, as I recall, the quote (from Heinlein, via Lazarus Long), was “makers, takers, and fakers.” You probably want to worry about all three categories.

–John

As I said, neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive.

Survival in a world of makers and takers.

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

Long before the (temper-tantrum?) petitions to secede, the Balkanization of the USA was a concern. RAH wasn’t the first and maybe wasn’t the best, but his ‘Friday’ struck a chord that I have never been able to forget. While I see the fracturing of this nation in the future, I think the form it will take is to be influenced more by state-to-state immigration rather than corporations splitting the GDP pie.

Please continue to sign me,

Blowin’ in the Wind

I recall California and its Chief in Friday. Mr. Heinlein was prescient…

Everyone is a criminal…except government employees of course

http://takimag.com/article/this_country_is_going_to_jail_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz2CR4NN3Ut

Our incarceration rate <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/sunday-review/candidates-and-the-truth-about-america.htm> is higher than that in China, Russia, Cuba, or Iran. We have “5 percent of the world’s population. But…almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all> .” There is a drug arrest in this country every 19 seconds <http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/sep/20/drug_arrest_every_19_seconds_say> . Charles Lynch faced 100 years <http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Stossel/story?id=7816309&page=1> in prison for selling medical marijuana legally. There are around 75,000 arrests yearly <http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000120> for prostitution.

Charles Brumbelow

unemployment –

Hi Jerry,

Your correspondent is wrong on a number of points. Unemployment had been extended to 99 weeks – which just ended. See http://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/Federal_Unemployment_Insurance_Extensions.htm for details.

Second, the employer pays for unemployment insurance, not the individual. And those rates are skyrocketing because of the extensions, which is part of the reason we’re not seeing salary increases outside of union contracts (the other part is healthcare costs). Those fixed costs are driving price inflation without wage inflation (which, contrary to your other correspondent, can still go hyper). The cost of goods increases.

Third, there is a substantial portion of the folks on unemployment insurance who are choosing it as a lifestyle – especially when combined with SNAP, TANF, and all the other programs, it’s livable. I have a family member who runs a temp agency. The revolving door is that they’ll hire someone, who will work just long enough to reset the unemployment term, and then never accept another assignment and start collecting again.

Now I’m not suggesting that everyone, or even a majority, of folks on it are abusing it. But a non-zero, and somewhat substantial portion of folks are.

While not a direct comparison, here’s a similar example of how to game the system. I worked in a health food store, back in the days when food stamps were paper. Folks would come in, buy 10 cent gum with a 1 dollar stamp, and pocket the change (which was given in real cash). Then they’d come back a couple more times. Then they’d walk next door and buy cigarettes with the coins. Other examples include buying Twinkies, Cheetos, and other junk food with food stamps. Or using the atm machine at casino’s and strip clubs for cash advances on other welfare cards.

There’s something to be said for the old soup kitchen lines – there’s a shame factor there that limits fraud, and that’s a good thing. Folks who really need the help get it, but most who don’t, won’t abuse it because of the stigma. Rather than food stamps, perhaps it’d be better to stop paying farmers not to grow crops, pay them for the crops they do grow, and issue a 50 lb bag of flour, a few #10 cans of peanut butter, and a couple of blocks of bacon and butter every month. Welfare is supposed to be a safety net about human kindness and survival, not tips for dancers, cash for blackjack, or Twinkies to eat in front of the flat panel tv.

Cheers,

Doug

You need not worry about Twinkies…

Preparing for inflation

It may be coincidental to all this, but I note the Google Fibre is up and running in Kansas City. Could it be that they are choosing to invest their capital into infrastructure rather than more liquid forms of wealth to avoid some of these trends?

I can see their business getting stronger all the time, with that kind of thinking.

Mark Love

‘In March 2011, a Predator parked at the camp started its engine without any human direction, even though the ignition had been turned off and the fuel lines closed.’

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/remote-us-base-at-core-of-secret-operations/2012/10/25/a26a9392-197a-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_print.html>

–

Roland Dobbins

"If the ancient finds in the Mediterranean can be verified, they will show that Homo erectus or Neanderthals or both had the skills and cognitive ability to build boats and navigate them."

<http://www.livescience.com/24810-neanderthals-sailed-mediterranean.html>

—

Roland Dobbins

Australia was inhabited 100,000 years ago. It takes no better technology to go to Australia than to go to Crete. And indeed we know what technology was needed to settle Hawaii and Easter Island. While that didn’t happen all that long ago, it’s not inconceivable that it could have happened 50,000 years ago. Sailing isn’t that complicated. I have never thought it impossible that the Americas were settled along the Pacific coast with boats…

Incompetence v. malice

I have been looking for the origin (hard to believe I invented it) of the following mashup of Napoleon and Arthur C. Clarke: "A sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." I first thought of it back when we were hearing of a new Windows / MSIE security hole every few days, but it still holds for much of what governments (all levels) have been doing.

Steve Rush

I am not sure I ever heard that before. Clever.

China Eyes Atlantic Base

Chinese air power could become a threat to U.S. hegemony in the Pacific, but now China appears to be considering a move into the Atlantic.  The article does an excellent job describing the geographical and geopolitical challenges viz. crises China would create with such a base. 

<.>

On June 27, a plane carrying Wen Jiabao made a “technical” stop on the island of Terceira, in the Azores. Following an official greeting by Alamo Meneses, the regional secretary of environment of the sea, the Chinese premier spent four hours touring the remote Portuguese outpost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Wen’s Terceira walkabout, which followed a four-nation visit to South America, largely escaped notice at the time, but alarm bells should have immediately gone off in Washington and in European capitals. For one thing, Wen’s last official stop on the trip was Santiago, the capital of Chile. Flights from Chile to China normally cross the Pacific, not the Atlantic, so there was no reason for his plane to be near the Azores. Moreover, those who visit the Azores generally favor other islands in the out-of-the-way chain.

Terceira, however, has one big attraction for Beijing: Air Base No. 4. Better known as Lajes Field, the facility where Premier Wen’s 747 landed in June is jointly operated by the U.S. Air Force and its Portuguese counterpart. If China controlled the base, the Atlantic would no longer be secure. From the 10,865-foot runway on the northeast edge of the island, Chinese planes could patrol the northern and central portions of the Atlantic and thereby cut air and sea traffic between the U.S. and Europe. Beijing would also be able to deny access to the nearby Mediterranean Sea.

</>

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332454/red-flag-over-atlantic-gordon-g-chang

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The Rise and Fall of Stalin’s Atlantis.

<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/exploring-the-crumbling-soviet-oil-platform-city-of-neft-dashlari-a-867055.html>

–

Roland Dobbins

Denver UFOs buffy willow

Jerry,

The “UFO” activity looks a lot like bugs flying in front of the camera. The various trajectories are about what you’d expect if a bug flew in front of a camera, and the blurry shapes are what an out of focus object would see, especially if digital processing was used for sharpening or other effects, or if the bug was moving fast enough to appear elongated due to CMOS sensor scan rates and framerate adjustments as the sensor info is converted into digital video.

In at least one of the videos, an object that initially appeared to be in the distance briefly flew and appeared in front of shrubbery or trees or other objects, indicating that it was not actually a distant object. Based on relative distances and angular line of sight rates, it looks even more like it is simply out of focus bugs flying in front of the camera.

As for witness statements that there was “nothing there”, as someone blessed with vision that is naturally 20/10 and can be corrected to somewhere around 20/7, it sometimes surprises me what other people can’t see. I’ve seen bugs fly like that all my life, simply because my eyes are good so I notice them as they whiz by. It wouldn’t surprise me if whoever set up the camera didn’t notice bugs flying in the camera field of view or realize that in the video, the out of focus condition coupled with digital processing artifacts would make those bugs look larger, farther away, and more substantial.

Sean

Interesting. Alas, I have never seen a flying saucer. I did a short stint investigating a couple of reports for Blue Book when I worked with USAF in the 1960’s; I could only conclude that a jury would probably convict someone of murder on the testimony of the witness, but there was no possibility of proof. Of course there would be no murder trial without some evidence that there had been a murder.

Plenty of believable people have told incredible UFO stories. As Ted Sturgeon put it one night when we were on a national TV show, “I’d like to see wreckage and bodies. Not someone who says he has seen them.”

On computers and central planning

As a software developer, I tend to feel that the only people who think computers solve the problems of central planning are those who’ve never tried to build large-scale, low-latency systems. They’re hard.

The hardest part? Synchronization. If you want a system to scale without sacrificing latency, you quite literally cannot wait until you have all your information in front of you before doing your analysis. Throwing more hardware at the problem only helps to an extent; you can make a single decision making component as fast as industry allows, but it will never be enough to cope with the additional demands that would always be placed on the system.

The most productive parts of the computing industry over the past ten years have been those built on many actors (be it machines, CPUs, CPU cores or individual GPU units) performing actions driven by local knowledge.

If that doesn’t sound directly analogous to the basis for an economy driven by individuals, I don’t know what would.

Michael Mol

Before I would trust computer systems to run an economy I would like some evidence that our economic models have some efficiency or even correspondence with reality.

We know the market works. With command economies it is always “This time for sure.”

Hyperinflation

The reason a true hyperinflation is highly unlikely in the US is that it destroys the value of financial assets (inflation erodes assets, hyperinflation wipes them out). Too much of the net worth of the US is in financial assets for any government to deliberately ignite hyperinflation, and hyperinflation does not happen by accident. All of the uncontrolled hyperinflations involve countries with relatively limited financial assets and economies dominated by hard assets (Argentina, Zimbabwe) or in the midst of a general economic collapse that wiped out what financial assets existed even before the hyperinflation started (post-USSR break-up, post WWII central Europe). The Weimar case was tied to reparations and Versailles – the German economy of the early 20s was something of a special case in German history.

A simple way to think about this – via Wikipedia as of 2009 the total US bond market (govt & private) was over $30 trillion. Add to that all the pensions, annuities and other fixed income assets and you can see that it makes no sense for the government to inflate away $16 trillion in government debt at the cost of destroying something like triple that amount of national wealth. And as the 70s proved, there are political trip-wires that will go off way before things get that bad. Only in the aftermath of a collapse that wipes out these assets would you see hyperinflation (to wipe out whatever remaining debt is owed to foriegners).

I find it hard to believe some level of inflation beyond the desired 2-3% will not occur in the next 3-5 years. But before it gets very far it will be clear to the powers that be that it does more harm than good, and the damage will be limited. It won’t be trivial, but it only goes exponential if there are far worse things to worry about.

Paul Westkaemper

I have no estimate of the probability of what is called hyperinflation, but I do not see how we can avoid the inflation levels of the Carter era. Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. It has the effect of ruining those dependent on savings and fixed incomes. I would think Carter era inflation levels almost inevitable.

Mail 750 Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Inflation

There is a great deal of mail on inflation, most of it very good, but far too much to post all of it. Here is a selection with comments.

Paul Krugman has discussed inflation on a number of occasions in the past few months. His view is quite different from your view, if I’m understanding you both correctly. Worth a quick google (there are a fair number of articles.)

Here is a short video and a very superficial overview which touches on hyperinflation fears.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/krugman-fed-tolerate-higher-inflation-reduce-unemployment-130644416.html

The problem here is that I don’t really care to listen to the comments of a commentator even if he does have prizes in economics. I’d like to see his theories with data. To the best I can determine, Krugman’s critique of TARP and the Stimulus is that we didn’t put enough money into it. We should have borrowed/printed more, and spent more, and stimulated more, to get us out of this depression. The debt doesn’t actually matter.

That will result in inflation, but inflating our way out of the crisis is the right way to go.

Mark

Perhaps so; spending one’s way out of debt would certainly work if the spending resulted in great waves of new production. Once production ramps up you don’t have a paucity of goods, and having lots of money chasing those goods doesn’t rack prices up. So far this hasn’t worked, in part because the money tends to be invested in companies rather than technologies, and the companies picked by the government have not been successful. Stimulus resources tend to be allocated to political allies, not for economic reasons.  This time for sure, of course; we will almost certainly see more of that.

Given the popularity of Dr. Krugman with liberals and the left, it is likely that we will see more attempts to implement his plan. We can only wait and see what that does.

Hyperinflation

Your fairy-tale themed corrector seems to be wrong, from a bit of poking around online; hyperinflation just means inflation that’s so big it needs to be distinguished from vanilla inflation.

Example: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hyperinflation.asp#axzz2C8MKG0Ap

*quote*

One of the most famous examples of hyperinflation occurred in Germany between January 1922 and November 1923. By some estimates, the average price level increased by a factor of 20 billion, doubling every 28 hours.

*end quote*

I would guess that he’s using a specific definition from a specific theory.

Amanda S.

I did not see the German inflation but I did see the Brazilian model. Incidentally, “what I tell you three times is true” is from The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in Eight Fits) by Lewis Carroll, not precisely a fairy tale, and of course I have used the phrase many times myself.

I did like the tone of the Hyperinflation mail either, but I have been intrigued by this subject as it relates to computing for some time now. With our current computing power we should be able to represent every person and business and study any economic theory, before we implement it! Why have we not modeled our economy? I used sabermetrics back in the 90’s in little league and it does not give you a huge advance, but it does give you something. I read Paul Krugman book and thought it was the biggest pile of junk I ever read. Lots of statements, but no documentation backing it up. I’m an engineer and a programmer not an economist. I would like to some modeling and documentation as it relates to the economy. Not another WAG.

Regards,

Curtis

Economic Full Stop

Jerry,

Our congress critters have been very effective at changing how inflation is measured. As a result must of what impacts fixed incomes is not measured.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

"Economic Full Stop" when googled results in Chaos Manor’s post from yesterday third from the top. The two above are referenced to Paul Krugman, the only economist the liberals like, and both reference this post from Krugman:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/things-that-arent-bubbles/

In my experience with liberals, if Krugman says something it is as good as a law of nature, and is not to be doubted or questions. To doubt or question just shows that you are a "regressive".

Philip

Alas. I confess to some doubt about the efficacy of the spend your way to success theory. Of course no one doubts the truth of “Invest your way to success.” Many politicians have asserted that as well. Invest in infrastructure seems to be one of the recommended investments. Generally the execution is a bit less than the intention, and the usual result is that the money simply vanishes. There are exceptions. One can make the case that TVA was a great success, and I certainly believe that if the US had spent the projected $300 billion cost of the Iraq War on domestic energy development the result would have been better than what we obtained, even if those investments had simply vanished without effect. When government chooses what to invest in, the results are not always predictable. The Manhattan Project certainly changed history, and Oak Ridge was not a likely private investment scheme. Generally, though, what government invests in does not directly make profits, and simply passing money out does not end depressions.

hyperinflation

Your nasty commenter does have a point.

How does the money get into the hands of the people? With high unemployment, open borders, weak unions, workers don’t have much leverage to get higher wages. There is also a credit squeeze as banks sit on the money they are getting from the feds.

It seems likely that the actions of the Federal Reserve are merely staving off deflation.

bob sykes

* * *

Re:Inflation and hyperinflation

The flaw in your belligerent correspondent’s argument is that he assumes wages and salary to be the only source of income. Many if not most Americans receive some sort of Federal payment, the amount of which is set by Congress. When prices go up high enough the People will demand Congress Do Something. The Price-Payment spiral will be driven by an Act requiring monthly COLA adjustments, and possibly direct Economic Stimulus payments.

John Stephens

Dr Pournelle

Regarding https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=10601, Inflation and hyperinflation.

"Hyperinflation requires a wage-price spiral." — your unnamed correspondent

I am not persuaded by your correspondent’s repeated assertions that the above statement is true. It appears to be a thesis; that is, a hypothetical proposition put forth without proof. It needs support.

My guess is that your unnamed correspondent is young, studied economics in some college or university, and deludes himself that the answers to his exams map one-to-one with reality. In my experience, nothing credible has ever come from the sogenannte science of economics.

I note that in the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974 was awarded to Friedrich Hayek for "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and . . . penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." In 1975 the Prize was awarded to Soviet economist Leonid Kantorovich for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kantorovich> his "contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources." Hayek was a classical liberal; he championed life, liberty, and property and a free economy. Kantorovich was a Communist; he championed a demand economy. The fact that these two won the Nobel Prize a year apart tells me that Economics is not a science. It is a political platform.

I recall the Carter years when inflation reached twenty percent a year. I did not and do not regard that as hyperinflation, but it was not a pleasant time.

I traveled through Brazil twenty years ago when the country was in the throes of ‘government managed’ hyperinflation. Every second Sunday, at the end of the evening news, the newsreader gave the inflationary rate to be applied beginning the following business day. During my stay, the rate varied from eleven to fourteen percent. Every other week. Set that up in a spreadsheet and see what you get as a yearly result. To say it was unpleasant fails to describe the experience.

What I saw in both cases was a decrease in the amount of capital available to lend for acquisitions, capital investments, and so forth. Small businesses suffered. That resulted in the generation of fewer new jobs. That meant unemployment rose.

I do not have any faith in college-educated economists. My father manned 8-inch rifles in France and Germany during the Second World War. After the war, he learned a trade while still in the Army. Over the years, he built a company that manufactured custom homes. By the early ’70s, he employed three four-man crews and subcontracted to numerous plumbers, masons, painters, roofers, electricians, sheetrockers, heating and air conditioning installers, and finishers.

I have never had a course in Economics. The hardest courses I ever took were Complex Analyses, Nuclear Physics, and Secured Credit Law. Maybe I am not smart enough to understand Economics. But on economic advice, based solely on the rate of return from the initial investment, given a choice between my father and the combined talents of Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, I shall choose my father.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

I was in Brazil in that period; it was fine for the rich who seemed to have ways to get new money as the indices rose. Not so good for those who had to stand in lines. And one learned not to convert many dollars since the local currency lost its value by the hour.

inflation, wages, gold, etc…

the value of money, any currency, be it fiat money or commodity-based, is what people expect to be able to buy with it later. tomorrow, in ten years, today’s value is an aggregate of immediate and expected value. how this is resolved depends on too many – fluctuating – factors for anybody short of Harry Seldon to determine.

In the case of fiat money it’s actually simpler: it’s what people expect the country who prints the money will produce in the future. Will this country make things people will want to buy?

Next there’s the problem of money supply vs the requirements of the economy. Is there enough money to go around? this is where fiat money is superior to commodity-based systems like gold. In a growing economy, you need more money every year. If your currency is commodity based, you may or not produce more money. In an ideal world of fiat money the central bank will print more money to fit the need of the economy. this is why inflation is unavoidable: you’ll have the central bank print a little more just in case so there’s no shortage. A little inflation is not a problem, a lot less a problem than money shortage. As long as inflation stays within reasonable bounds, say less than 5% a year.

A little inflation is also a good thing because it’s more productive to have people invest their savings in inflation-proof vessels like private companies shares than rent.

The catch, of course, is the Iron Rule: if government can print money to increase its power, it will.

Up to a point it’s not a problem. History shows that up to, say, 7% inflation, people have time to adjust.

Wages: the key point is that most people live from a salary, and on average economy works if and only if people on a salary can buy the things they make. So if wages are disconnected from inflation people will be able to buy less and less.

(making a big jump because it’s late)

the real problem is we now have the technology to supply most people’s basic needs with very little work. with robots and nuclear power 10% of the world’s population are enough to feed, house, water, etc… the rest of the people. The 50% below average are irrelevant. How do we manage this?

Depends on the people who are adjusting. Losing 7% of your income per year, which is what happens to those living off savings and annuities, soon leads to ruin. Cost of Living Adjustments to Social Security and other government payments never keeps up with the actual inflation rate. The squeeze can be excruciating. My mother lived with us during the big inflationary periods, and we could see what it did to her incomes; and my father was a prudent man who had left her savings.

As to the 50% below average, surely the best thing to do would be to design a system in which they are valuable and can know that they are? Being entitlement consumers is not a bracing occupation. But perhaps we can teach people that they also serve who only spend and consume?

hyperinflation?

given the tone, i really don’t want to respond either, but will note that we have an additional factor in (relatively) easily available consumer credit to meet the increasing prices. If eggs and milk for my family costs $50 and i do not have it…but do have $50 left on my mastercard, …Crying hungry children are so annoying. Of course,…bein’ as how consumers don’t typically have a printing press, paying off the credit creates yet another problem. The credit card people will certainly be helpful, they would prefer for everyone to be in hock to them up to the eyeballs and making minimum payments—The only thing that is really clear is that things are not as simple as the writer wishes them to be.

stacy stanley

Inflation and deflation

I think your very rude correspondent has a kernel of truth going for him. It’s important to distinguish between a general inflation, like the stagflationary 70’s, and a deflationary hyperinflation. If you’ll forgive my layman’s understanding of the difference, I’ll give it a go.

Sorry for the length, but it’s a complicated subject.

A general inflation (such as the 1970’s) may be a monetary phenomenon, but it also features a decrease in the aggregate productivity of inputs–the ability of a man-hour or a quantity of iron ore to produce a dollar of economic output. If an industry wants to make a buck, they’ve got to shell out more bucks to get it. Thus, a positive wage-price spiral. This can be exacerbated by monetary policy (as it was in the 1970’s), but monetary policy is not the sole cause. The 1960’s were a period of general price inflation even before the mistakes of the 70’s.

For several reasons we are in a general period of deflation, characterized by increasing productivity of inputs. Industry does not need to shell out more dollars just to maintain profitability. They can actually spend less over time for a given output. All things being equal, that leads to a negative wage-price spiral. Note that productivity does not equal increased GDP–the Great Depression was deflationary.

So far so good. Inflation is one thing and deflation is another.

However, even in a deflationary environment it’s possible due to bad fiscal and monetary policy to break the relationship between a currency and its future value. The currency loses its value catastrophically, as people catch on to what is happening. My understanding is that this is what happened in Argentina, for example, when they broke the peso-dollar link. I’m not exactly sure which category Weimar fits under, although it has many hallmarks of a deflationary environment.

Note that Weimar and Argentina have a common feature–a parallel currency. Weimar had gold marks and Argentina had the dollar, and both were in general circulation as legal tender right alongside the paper mark and the peso. That’s something that is most emphatically NOT a feature of the U.S. economy, and if you try to run a business denominated in anything other than dollars then heaven help you; the IRS certainly won’t. The federal government has gone to great lengths in the tax code to make it difficult to maintain the value of one’s savings against a rapid increase in money supply.

My best guess at the moment is that the Fed will indeed simply print enough money to keep the government in clover. There will be some odd distortions to the economy, but not a general price increase at least for the next several years. Anything imported will likely start to get expensive, although other countries will be concurrently expanding their money supply to "defend" their export markets so that too is not easily predictable. The most predictable outcome is that the first recipients of the newly-minted money will do fairly well in this economy. Everyone else will see their buying power erode. Unless there is a drastic shift in fiscal policy, that I suspect that means government retirees, government employees, Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries, and government-subsidized corporations. "Nice work, if you can get it."

Now hopefully someone more knowledgeable can point out the flaws in my understanding.

Neil

If the problem is that productivity is too high, it is soluble. It is much easier to divide a large pie than a small one. The problem is that the entitlement economy leads to attitudes widely seen in Moscow toward the end of the USSR: “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” On my morning walk in Moscow I saw seven men filling a hole in a blacktop street. Two hours later I returned from my walk to the Russian Parliament building. The hole was still there and they were still ‘working’ on it. I asked the foreman why it took so long to fill a pot hole. “Ah, well, but there is always another hole…”

No one seemed particularly unhappy with the situation. They would spend the evening in a tavern. And my visit to the Writer’s Union lounge was instructive. The main complaint was the price of American cigarettes. I had thoughtfully brought a carton of Marlboro’s; the result was that many joined at my table, and I was told, with some laughter, that this was the first time the Jewish and Gentile Members had sat at the same table in weeks.

It is surprising how well one can adjust to situations. If productivity had been higher, the USSR would exist today.

on the end of entrepreneurship

Being a founder of a startup here in silicon valley, I can comment on Spengler’s essay. In the EDA business (Electronic Design Automation) everyone expects to get bought by one of the large EDA companies. No one expects to go IPO. Why? All of those wonderful laws the democrats passed after the fake energy crisis. Once you pass the small business threshold and enter big business, the cost of doing business goes up prohibitively. Further, the extra burdens placed on IPO’s in the last 10 years, make it much harder to go public. The net result is we all (if we are lucky) join the collective. We get paid for our stock or get new company stock, stay the minimum required time and leave. Those of us with the energy, do it all over again. The unintended consequence is we build bigger and fewer large companies. Just what the democrats like. As Amity Shales pointed out in "The Forgotten Man", bigger companies act more like the government and are easier to manipulate. Resistance is futile.

That of course appears to be desirable to the liberals, who do not care for all that independence which spoils the big plan. The obvious way out of a depression is a booming economy with great production of goods, so that the problem is distribution of goods, not unemployment. It is easier to divide a big pie than a small one. And of course to most of the world, the impoverished in the United States are enormously wealthy, and the temptation to divide THAT pie is great. If one we can get there and be part of it…

Wage-Price spiral

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I have read your recent mail discussion with your somewhat impolite correspondent. His thesis seems to be that the result of inflation will not be hyperinflation but instead an economic full stop. He seems to believe this will be the case because wages will not rise as prices do, resulting in the economy grinding to a halt.

While this is possible, I do not believe it likely.

As prices rise, skilled workers such as lawyers will be able to negotiate for better wage packages, because they are needed and not easy to replace. They can hold a gun to their company’s heads and will do so.

Unskilled workers who are unionized will use the union club and their allies in government to push through wage increases as well.

That leaves the unskilled minimum-wage workers and the "shadow economy" of illegal immigrants. Given who’s in office, I assume it won’t be very long before Congress raises the minimum wage again. Shadow workers will still take money because even at inflated rates it’s still far better than they could earn at home.

So I don’t see the nightmare scenario your correspondent envisions. I think an increase in prices will result in an increase in wages as well. Wages are, after all, themselves a form of "price" — a price set on labor.

I do believe that inflation is a within-one-sigma possibility. I believe hyperinflation is an outside-two-sigma case but not impossible. But the most likely case, I think, is dramatically increasing debt with no attempt to pay it off either through inflation or through taxes. The can will be kicked down the road. Eventually, of course, the bill will become due but I’ll wager the government will do everything it can to prevent the bill coming due before 2016.

Those of us who have a life expectancy past that point would be well advised to inflation-proof our investments against when, not if , the bill comes due. For myself, I will also keep an eye out for opportunities in Singapore or HK or Australia or Switzerland et al. I don’t know what will happen when the hammer finally falls but I don’t want my family to be here when it does.

Beyond that, of course, I still have hope because the God who delivered Israel from famine in the time of Joseph is still alive and looking after his followers today. Still, God has a tendency to use natural phenomena like, say, a neighboring Egypt than dumping manna on people from the clouds. So I’ll keep my eyes peeled and watch for my chance.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I have not given up on recovering the nation, but I don’t expect to live to see it. I had a picture of the future in A Step Farther Out that I thought might happen in my lifetime.

Disturbing News

Well, the left managed to disturb me once again:

<.>

Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported.

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https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/strip-citizenship-everyone-who-signed-petition-secede-and-exile-them/ZbMjcwPf

The disturbing part is not the request; one expect immature people to make idiotic statements.  The disturbing part is the cognitive bias vis-a-vis executive orders, which seems to suggest the petitioners think that executive orders have the power of law or act as imperial decrees.  Of course, Youngstown Sheet Company vs. Sawyer (343 U.S. 579) set the precedent that executive orders — as an attempt to make law — are illegal.  Justice Black took the position that Presidents have no power to act except in those cases expressly or implicitly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.  This case presented a stinging rebuff to Harry Truman — another president that enjoys unfair popularity with the ignorant — and to the imagined authority of executive orders.

I came across this case when researching executive orders for my political science course.  I wanted to know why presidents seemed to think they could write some of the strangest crap I’ve ever read on paper, call it an executive order, and put the wind up so many people’s butts.  I learned that presidents really have no power with these executive orders, but the bureaucrats and most citizens do not seem to know that, which poses a problem.  Still, we have the precedent of Youngstown Sheet Company vs. Sawyer and other interesting precedents.  As an aside, martial law cannot — legally — occur while civilian courts are functioning — see Ex parte Milligan (71 US 2).  The ignorant often remind me that Lincoln declared martial law, but they do not seem to know of Ex parte Milligan, which declared Lincoln’s action unconstitutional. 

The left seems to have little understanding of how our government works.  The left do not seem realize  that our government is a polyarchy, as the left constantly refers to governance as a "democracy", which it is not and was never intended to be.  The left do not seem to understand that our president is not a despot who rules by decree, that Congress makes laws and is the main branch of governance, and the left does not seem to understand the role of the courts.  Unfortunately, the rest of the government seems to bend to the will of the ignorant as the Obamacare ruling underscored.  Like Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it".  The left is making that most difficult in 2012; perhaps we should put a petition that if you voted left that you should be exiled to a communist country?  Or are we already in one?

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

See the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. That period of American history was taught in 5^th grade in Tennessee when I was growing up. Now it is hard to find anyone who knows what they were. I do hear about secession petitions.

Your point about executive orders is well made.

The original theory of these United States was that only the States had inherent sovereignty; the federal government was a government of specific and limited powers. It was supreme within its jurisdiction and all state and local judges had sworn allegiance to it as the supreme law of the land; but only within its limits. Sovereignty rested with the states. This guaranteed considerable competition among the states, and allowed all kinds of political experiments. That notion no longer seems to be taught in our schools.

FBI in the Sex Scandal!

This FBI agent seems to live in a porno movie.   I say that because I saw a porno movie from my father’s collection when I was 13; two people were copulating in a bush and some other person came along and joined it.  There was no surprise or objection from any of the original participants.  This FBI agent seems to think that he can just join in on the extra-marital fun:

<.>

A federal agent who sent topless pictures of himself to the woman at the center of the Petraeus and General Allen scandals was told to ‘stay the hell away’ from the investigation but took it upon himself to ‘nose around’, it was revealed today.

After receiving a half dozen harassing emails from an anonymous account – but later linked to Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell, Jill Kelley, the Florida woman who served as a volunteer social liaison officer at the Tampa military base, contacted a male FBI agent that she knew and had previously worked with.

During a prior exchange, when the agent was trying to establish a friendly relationship with the married mother-of-three, he sent her shirtless photos of himself adding to questions over his true intention behind going above-and-beyond his work duties to help her with the threats.

</>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232130/FBI-agent-sent-topless-pictures-David-Petraeus-whistleblower-Jill-Kelley.html

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I confess to both amazement and amusement as the melodrama unfolds. But there is the serious question of what happened in Benghazi and the timing of the release of this sex scandal. I don’t expect much to come of that. A spymaster brought down by the jealousy of a mistress: the stuff of novels. I am tempted to write one…

Subject: Inflation and business

Jerry,

"I have said that the prudent will prepare for inflation; that inflation is taking place now and will continue. I have also said that sometimes inflation has resulted in drastic hyperinflation "

Some of the things my family did in the ’70s suddenly seem to make a lot of sense. My mom and her preserves, my uncle and his huge pantry full of groceries. My dad buying a lifetime supply of stakes for his new stockade fence, to replace broken bits over the years.

Something you could touch on in the next few weeks might be how business will fare. My employer has a fair bit socked away in the bank, and we have as little in inventory as possible. And a lot of effort has gone into Just In Time systems and practices. We’re ‘product realization’: we make other people’s electronics.

Not seeking specific advice, but a general sense of ‘what to expect’ for business in an inflation/hyper-inflation environment.

—

Brian Dunbar

We will address specifics over time. And I invite suggestions. My income is reasonably inflation proof since the price of books is easily raised, and the market for entertainment is generally good in bad economic times. I am digging out some of my old survival essays. I am not sure how much expertise I have on predicting the future of small business.

I admit to having been a big fan of Petraeus…What he did in Iraq to get them back on track was amazing, as was his career in general. I find it difficult to forgive him for taking a mistress, and I’m sorry that he has fallen from the lofty level I had placed him at.

However, this issue seems to be all consuming in much of the press, much more so than the deaths of the four men in Benghazi. Could it be that it’s a distraction from some issues at hand, such as the big push in new regulations the President is pushing through, the tax raises, sequestration or another issue? Media is reporting that the government was aware of it some time ago….why did this and the Iraqi attack on our drone get suppressed until after the election?

There are just too many issues for there not to be some cover-up, and I cannot believe that the FBI would not have made the President aware of the issues about the Director of the CIA as soon as they came to light; it’s just too critical a position.

Tracy

We now know that the Attorney General knew some time ago. He says he did not tell the President, who is said to be his best friend. You can believe as much of this as you want to.

Jerry,

I infer that the excitable correspondent maintains that hyperinflation is not possible without having wages indexed to inflation, creating a painfully obvious positive feedback loop. The correspondent then maintains that in the absence of automatic wage indexing, hyperinflation of prices results in an "economic full stop" at some point in the process before postage reaches three millard marks.

I will admit that I am not enough of a student of history to know if the Weimar republic had such an index, but I had certainly never heard of one. However, if employers want to keep employees in a hyperinflation scenario they have to index the salaries accordingly, which is the mechanism I had always assumed. In other words, indexing does not have to be codified to be effectively in place. Also, real property assets (real estate with improvements, precious metals, and other tangible commodities) sustain some level of value above the previous baseline and are available for sale or barter.

In any event, hyperinflation does NOT refer just to cases where price increases are measured in decibels or tens of decibels per annum (which seems to be another implicit assumption of the excitable correspondent). I would construe inflation rates of above about 30% per annum (sufficient to necessitate a more frequent than annual assessment of prices and wages) to fall into the category of hyperinflation, and I believe that’s close to the definition you were assuming. We are going to exceed that level, at least on a quarterly basis, in the first quarter of Calendar 2013 when the new taxes and Obamacare taxes kick in, and again in the first quarter after "cap and trade" become the regulatory basis under EPA rules. (Note: that does not necessarily mean that the official inflation rate will be recorded at those levels, since the federal government is fully capable of adjusting the formula basis for reporting — inflation has been understated for much of the past four years because increases in food prices have been offset in the numbers by the continued weak housing market.) Those changes are strictly due to the underlying changes in the fundamentals. The expansion in the money supply over the past four years probably represents the opportunity for another 30% correction but not necessarily on the same schedule. So in the absence of significant wage corrections, a near doubling of prices over the next two years seems likely; a wage correction will drive it higher and trigger the inflationary spiral.

I could probably add more but that’s about the limits of my erudition for this morning.

Related note: http://www.cnbc.com/id/49792979 Wealthy Dump Assets Amid Worries About Going Over ‘Cliff’

TJM

The financial cliff is quite real. Be prepared.

Hyperinflation on Russ Robert’s "Econtalk" and Ricochet.com

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I do not know if you are familiar with Russ Robert’s "Econtalk," but it is a great source of information about everything economic. He is a professor at George Mason, and I believe now a Hoover fellow or some such. He does weekly, approximately 1.5-hour interviews with a wide range of economists, "ordinary" people, academics, authors, etc. A recent podcast on an economist who studied hyperinflations is here: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/10/hanke_on_hyperi.html

I really appreciate your work here, you are a treasure. You do seem to turn up in many parts of my internet reading and podcast listening – TWiT, Instapundit, John C. Dvorak (although not on No Agenda…that is a fun, informative show, if wacky at times).

Do you know of Ricochet.com? It is a project of Rob Long and Peter Robinson and others with National Review ties – Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg turn up from time to time…along with conservatives celebrities such as Pat Sajak. They were aiming for something like a civil HuffPo of the Right. Membership is required for commenting, which, along with a code of conduct, keeps things civil even while arguing politics/culture. They are now generating a number of podcasts. "Law Talk" with John Yoo and Richard Epstein is one of my favorites. I just threw your surname into their site search and found 19 hits for you; people do like to quote the Iron Law. 😀

Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely yours,

Scott Littler

Nashville, TN

Inflation concerns

I think inflation is going to be less of a worry than you think. I suspect that the various crazies out there, maybe starting with North Korea, are going to start testing. And going by the issue with the embassies in the middle east, I think those tests will be met with apologies from the US. Which will encourage more testing. As the only real losers in the Arab Spring were those dictators who had learned the hard way not to harass Israel, I can see things hotting up over there, plus Germany has got to be getting fed up with being guilt-tripped into paying for the welfare habits of Greece, Spain and Italy, a frustration which could increase hugely if Russia decides to start taking chunks out other countries, not just Georgia. And then the Brits could try buying better quality food at lower prices from countries in the Commonwealth rather than propping up a failing EU. And so on, and so on.

With the lid that’s been kept on the crazies since WWII, I think we’re heading into interesting times at a great rate of knots.

Mark Love

Interesting times. They can be made a bit less interesting if one has a large stock of non-perishable food acquired quietly and without drawing attention. You do not want your neighbors to believe you are hoarding. Hoarding is evil. Being prepared means protecting yourself from having the reputation of being a hoarder.

Inflation

It’s been my experience that people who use copy & paste, then declare what they tell you three times is true, are generally belligerent assholes who ravings can be readily dismissed.

As several analysts have noted, the situation we’re in is unprecedented. Even during the worst of FDR’s excesses there was some semblance of adult supervision. There is something worse than hyperinflation, where there is at least a value attached to the currency. The worst scenario is, for lack of a better phrase, though economists might have one, is complete dehydration of the currency. This is the opposite of liquidity, where the money is utterly worthless. You can make a bill three feet wide to have room for all of the zeros and it won’t matter. If enough people stop believing it is just pieces of paper.

Part of the crisis in 2007 was that financial institution holding massive piles of Mortgage Backed Securities said they couldn’t act because they couldn’t find any functional mechanism to place a value on the MBS paper. This was nonsense, of course. A thing is worth what someone will pay you for it. They refused to ask the market what it thought of their product because they already knew what the answer would be. So instead they threw a tantrum and threatened to hold their breath until…, well, until the government became the worse kind of weak parent and gave the brats what they wanted. A smarter parent would know the kid would immediately start breathing again after losing consciousness. And if autonomic nervous action didn’t kick in there were plenty of other kids looking for a good home in Manhattan.

Breaking the money is the CTRL-ALT-DEL of global finance. It’s the only way you can really start over. How you do this without WWIII is the question.

It’s late and I’m not sure much of the above makes sense. But anyone who thinks bizarre scenarios are impossible when we’re already in a bizarre scenario is whistling in the dark. We can either back away from the cliff and absorb some hurt to get back to a rational policy or we can make history of the ‘interesting times’ variety. Rational policy isn’t a strong suit of our species, so I expect history it is.

E

And you might look into other nightmares. Indeed.

PLEASE RECONSIDER WRITING…

…a survival book. The election and your recent musings on preparing for inflation make me think you could do it with your eyes closed.

Surely some of your old research and columns are still relevant? I realize that nuclear war is much less likely (although I think an isolated event much MORE likely now) but you have plenty of material to pore over, edit, compile…

I know you have enough on your plate already, but I think people would pay attention now. Tuesday really was a game changer.

—

Jason Merrell

We will at least have discussions here.

Conservatives, don’t despair

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/opinion/frum-conservatives-despair/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

While I don’t agree with a few things in there, especially the snarky remarks at the end, the article does contain some good information and a bit of realism on what just happened. We’ve seen worse time – depression and WWII come to mind – and we’ve seen better times – roaring 20s and Reagan years come to mind. We’ll see worse and better times again, hopefully tinier bits of the former and grander bits of the latter. It isn’t the end of history and conservatism is a more sound philosophy than liberalism, but we need both. In my opinion we got a little too much of the latter in the last election, but hope is not lost. When Obama first came into office his party controlled all branches of government and still barely managed to pass Pelosicare. We are not done yet by a longshot.

Braxton Cook

And we can end on that note. And despair is a sin.

We have sown the wind, and we will reap the whirlwind, but that has all happened before. And Moore’s Law works inexorably.

Mail 750 Sunday, November 11, 2012

our plan

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

Despair is a sin. When does the constant beating of one’s head against a brick wall become a sin?

Our plan for the foreseeable future is not much of a plan and may even be despicable, but it has the virtue of stopping the pain. For years my wife and I have met the requirements to draw a "disability" check. Instead we have worked longer, harder and more diligently to maintain the lifestyle we established with relative ease in the 1980s. No more.

We are both retiring and applying for disability now. We will put our house on the market, such as it is. It probably doesn’t surprise you that our mortgage is considerably less than the market value of the property. As soon as we close on the house, we will start to travel this still-beautiful land, going where we choose, when we choose.

Our only child has special needs and will never have children of his own. There is absolutely no reason for us to continue working as we have. We have accomplished most that we set out to do and have no reason to wish to leave anything behind to be looted. If this be sin, count us among the damned.

Please do not use my name or email address, but you may sign me,

Blowin’ in the Wind

Be careful of inflation.

Four More Years

Dr. Pournelle:

The economy is already tanking.

I had a decent job in 2008. A month after Obama was inaugurated I lost that job and didn’t see another for two years.

Now I’m in the worst job I’ve had in thirty years. I just found out that we are going to have a six days of unpaid "vacation" between Thanksgiving and New Years, twice what we had last year. I would not at all be surprised if they made us part-time in order to avoid Obamacare.

Obama seems to suffer from the same sort of obsession with gigantism that afflicted Stalin. Apparently the only jobs of which he’s aware are with G.E., G.M., or government. Everyone else is utterly invisible to him, and in fact don’t matter at all. As far as he’s concerned, we could, in the words of a once famous low grade moron, "Die quickly".

During the run-up to the Obamacare vote, I told my mother, a former AFSCME member, "We’ve long since passed the ‘It’s a bad idea’ stage. We’re now at ‘It’s mathematically impossible." Her reply? "They’ll just print more money." To this I responded, "You’re old enough to remember what happened when the Germans tried that." What’s going to be worse, Obama or what comes along to "fix" Obama? President for Life Buchanan? Obama’s setting himself up to be Salvador Allende. Who’s in the wings waiting to play the role of Augusto Pinochet?

Chris Morton

Beware of inflation.

= = =

Inflation

Please do not publish my name.

> That is the first lesson: prepare for inflation.

And how does one do that in 2012? Traditionally, defense against inflation consists of cost-of-living raises, investment in precious metals (gold, silver), investment in manufacturing commodities (e.g. copper), buying land, and purchasing hard consumer goods (e.g., toilet paper) as far ahead as possible and storing them.

Cost-of-living raises are likely to be minimal in the private sector given the weak economy. Purchasing gold and silver is very easy through ETF’s, but I strongly suspect that at some point the federal government will put a steep tax on capital gains earned through sales of precious metals. They will sell it to voters as a form of the "rich" hoarding capital that is needed by the masses; after all, if you can afford to buy gold ETFs, you are clearly affluent.

Buying land may make sense, but if you live in an expensive region of the country, it may not be viable even for the middle class.

Storing consumer goods has limits, and makes more sense in a period of serious hyperinflation. It’s particularly difficult if you live in an apartment or condo rather than a house.

Many Americans have been frugal savers for decades and have a great deal to protect, and they do not have time to go back and replace their savings with new earnings if they are lost due to inflation. And a significant proportion of that savings is in 401k and IRA accounts with legal limits on the types of investments that can be made in them.

I would welcome your thoughts.

Please do not publish my name.

C

We will be discussing this in the next few weeks. It is a very serious question.

"Fallen Angels": Science or Fiction

Throw another log on the fire…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/09/peat_ice_age_coming_only_co2_can_save_us/

Robert Forrest

Yours is one of many pointing to that article. We don’t know what halts Ice Ages; we do know that there was a great deal of ice and much lower seas during much of pre-history of mankind, and that the ice sheets have come and gone more than once.

We also know that it was warmer in the Viking age than it is now. We know that the seas have been rising at about a foot a century for at least 300 years, and we are fairly certain that this rate goes back a very long time (you can see the ruins of coastal cities in the Mediterranean, for example).

The problem with the cult of Global Warming is that we aren’t studying what is really happening.

Swedish boffins: An ICE AGE is coming, only CO2 can save us! FALLEN ANGELS

Jerry

What a lovely headline. Swedish boffins: An ICE AGE is coming, only CO2 can save us. Have a look:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/09/peat_ice_age_coming_only_co2_can_save_us/print.html

“A group of Swedish scientists at the University of Gothenburg have published a paper in which they argue that spreading peatlands are inexorably driving planet Earth into its next ice age, and the only thing holding back catastrophe is humanity’s hotly debated atmospheric carbon emissions. "We are probably entering a new ice age right now. However, we’re not noticing it due to the effects of carbon dioxide," says Professor of Physical Geography Lars Franzén, from the Department of Earth Sciences at Gothenburg uni.”

Fallen Angels seem to be coming home to roost. I guess it’s time for me to dust off my old copy.

Ed

End-of-life medical care

Mr. Pournelle;

Your musings regarding "death panels" reminded me of a set of questions Senator Paul Wellstone used to recommend:

Who profits?

Who pays?

Who decides?

I thought they were good questions then, and they’re good questions in your comments. I agree that end-of-life medical care needs to be brought under control, and also that this is going to be emotionally, ethically, and politically hard to do. But it needs to happen; seems to me our medical technology is good enough to keep people "alive" for a very long time, while not being good enough to do any real healing at that point.

Allan E. Johnson

Death Panels

Dear Dr Pournelle,

Your comments on the last two years of (expensive) life, and voting on treatment with Death Panels, reminded me of the controversies over here in England over the Liverpool Care Pathway. In essence a panel of doctors decide that a patient is dying and stop almost all treatment (I think pain medication is still continued). This is certainly cheaper, and arguably retains some dignity for the patient. The controversy arises from the lack of consent, in some cases, and apparently some patients dying of thirst after artificial hydration being stopped.

I think that this type of regime is almost inevitable when health care is universally available, but resources are limited. I expect that Obamacare will bring a variant of LCP to the US.

Regards,

Dave Checkley

Sobering

Jerry

I happened upon a teacher’s blog. She was going to vote Obama. When talking with people who were going to vote Republican, she thought (but did not say out loud) “You want to repeal the programs we fought to get enacted.” That, and the infamous 47% voting their pocketbooks, probably explains the results.

Your comments on end of life care remind me of a couple of events that hang in my memory. The first was when I was talking with an old man who described his Parkinson’s disease as “Death on the Installment Plan” (these days I have to explain to many what an installment plan was). This old man, whose quality of life (QOL in current medical jargon) was pretty low, said this about just letting go: “I don’t want to die.”

The other event came when I was asked to determine the competency of a man with a mouthful of tubes and respirator hoses. Should they turn off his breathing machine? His wife was convinced that he was suffering and would welcome death. The doctors agreed. The man had never had a mental illness, but they needed a shrink to pronounce on his competence. So, remembering the first event, I gathered up all my fancy expertise, leaned over and asked the man, “Do you want to die?” He shook his head NO, a look like terror on his face. The wife changed her mind instantly and rushed to his side.

I think that end-of-life issues are complicated. I know some men who would welcome death to get away from their wives. I knew a woman who died happy because her death had shown up some doctors who believed she had psychosomatic paralysis.

The answer is 42.

Ed

Astroboffins spot smiley face on Mercury

Jerry

Have you seen the smiley face on Mercury?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/09/smiley_face_on_mercury/print.html

Ah, those lads and lasses at NASA . . .

Ed

Financial cliff

Dr. Pournelle –

It appears to me that the electorate has, by re-electing the President, told us that they want government spending to continue. At the same time, by leaving control of the House with Republicans, they have told us that they want the spending to be covered by revenues, not by borrowing. And finally, by leaving the Senate in Democrat hands, they have told us that they believe that letting the Bush tax cuts expire is the way to pay, not cutting rates in anticipation that it would increase revenue.

So I say, make a deal. The Bush tax rates expire, the automatic spending cuts do NOT go into effect, and we’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, we need to start calling the new tax rates "the Obama Tax Rates" and the increasing deficit "the Obama Gap."

I understand that the more acceptable deal, for some, might be to trade the Bush rates for the cuts, i.e., just go over the cliff. That would be my second choice.

Harmon Dow

Chicago, but my house is red.

Spengler > If You Believe in Staples, Clap Your Hands

Jerry

Spengler has some comments on the current business scene:

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/11/07/if-you-believe-in-staples-clap-your-hands/?singlepage=true

“The last wave of entrepreneurship is long since gone, and there is nothing in the pipeline to replace it. The startup sector of the U.S. economy is dead in the water. In past recoveries, firms with 500 to 1,000 employees were the biggest job creators, as the successful few became big companies. This time around, firms of this size lost the most jobs. Venture capital is doing terribly. Three-quarters of venture capital firms lost money during the past decade, and the sector performed well below publicly traded indices. Once the poster-child for edgy entrepreneurship, Apple has transmogrified into a would-be monopoly that relies on its legal team more than its engineers to suppress prospective competitors. That’s distasteful, considering that Steve Jobs started out by stealing the idea for GUI from Xerox.”

We need a German Miracle. Won’t get one with this President.

Ed

And by the time his term is over, much will be irreversible. Depend on that. Recovery is possible, but it will not be quick. We had the ‘quick’ choice until this election. It’s gone now. And entitlements will continue, and the bunny inspectors will get raises. It is time for the clever to be clever.

"Free Stuff" and the Election

Mr. Pournelle:

Hal makes interesting points regarding "Free Stuff." As a liberal, I think as a country we need to start paying the bills; and I expect that would mean my taxes would rise. I accept that. I would also support spending cuts, if they offend Democrats and Republicans equally; I don’t think either party can play "let’s cut your priorities, but ours are all sacrosanct." For one specific, I am now receiving Social Security, but would support bringing expenditures on that program down; although I would *not* support "reforms" which appear to be intended to eliminate Social Security by attrition. As a liberal, I have written, and will write, to my congresscritters in such terms.

I am glad that Mr. Boehner has been ready to distance himself from Grover Norquist’s theories far enough to accept the notion that increased revenues could be useful. However, I don’t have any confidence that tax cuts can achieve this, and, regarding tax reform, I’d have to see the details. The difference between reform and pandering isn’t always obvious.

Regarding taxes: while I concede that, at some point on the Bell Curve, increased taxes bring decreased revenue, I think it’s equally obvious that at some point decreased taxes no longer stimulate growth. The question would be: where are we on the curve? I tend not to trust economic theories or predictions much, but it seems to me that our tax structures under Presidents Reagan and Clinton worked pretty well. For that matter, Eisenhower-era tax rates didn’t eviscerate growth, though both Republicans and Democrats would probably have cat-fits if anyone proposed such rates now. Before continuing the Bush-era tax cuts, I’d like to see some evidence they gave us a stronger economy. I have no useful comment on the stimulus approach to recession — it doesn’t seem to me that anyone really *knows* how to head off a depression, so I don’t see the point in second-guessing.

If neither party can muster enough integrity to negotiate a "grand bargain" on taxes and spending, then maybe the so-called "fiscal cliff" (even with its attendant shocks) will be the best we can do. It’s something like using a machete to prune the tea roses, but at least it would be something of a reset button.

Allan E. Johnson

Hal’ observations re: "Free stuff" and the election

"Even if one disagrees with him on policy, Mr. Obama has always recognized that optimism sells. Just as Mr. Reagan did. The substance may be different, but the more Reaganesque candidate in presentation won last night. And that too is ironic."

Mr. Reagan did not personally demonize his opponent, and did not run a nasty, divisive campaign. While I agree in general with many of the points that Hal made, I find it appalling to characterize President Obama as in any way “Reaganesque”.

Don Hallenbeck

Re: Hal’s comments

With respect, Hal’s comments are way off base. In the midst of a poor economy, Hal wants to blame Republicans on the one hand for spreading "fear" and on the other for not having "real world concerns" and then claim they’re also responsible for the "free stuff" idea. But those ideas are internally inconsistent. In truth, Republicans ARE talking about real world concerns in terms of our debt and the unemployment crisis, and a proper understanding of that does generate fear about our current trajectory with the implication that there can be no more free stuff. To wave that away as Obama did was not being "positive", it was indulging in fantasy, the fantasy that Medicare is Strengthened even while paying for Obamacare and that somehow he’ll cut the deficit by taxing the rich while "investing" more on education and green energy and that there will be no tax increases on the middle class, yada yada yada. Romney was positive in that he thought he could confront and succeed at these challenges; Obama pretended they were never there. (As for the allusion to Mr. Norquist, I have no idea what Hal’s point is supposed to be. The whole point of the government interference is that it is driven by political incentives, not market supply and demand. And nothing I’ve seen about tax cuts seem even remotely connected with making the cost of government services "low low low". Baffled by this statement.)

Jason Fletcher

Niven & Benford at Google.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-PF32jdqkw>

—

Roland Dobbins

The stupidity, corruption, and freak of Pasok, the most infamous socialistic mafia on Earth, are out of this world! Pasok mafiosi are the freaks that initiated the impunity and immunity of Graecokleptocrats, the Siemens scandal, the military bribes, myriad kickbacks, and the fiasco of October 18, 2010, which destroyed my life. Pasok freaks stole my life. Pasok declared a war against me, but the whole world is watching this Armageddon. Many Pasok politicians, such as Akis Tsochatzopoulos, Yannos Papantoniou, Tasos Mantelis, Christos Verelis, and Mariliza Xenoyiannakopoulou, are now investigated by the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE).

The Greek government is the #1 enemy of the Greek people, a den of thieves, a source of myriad stupid things, a grand sink of bribes and kickbacks, the mother of all bureaucracies, a sender of Trojan Horses, a master of hoodwinks and smokescreens, a gang of freaks, a madhouse, a rot of rabble-rousers, a clan of kleptocrats. http://venitism.blogspot.com

The government of Greece in 2010 was so stupid that it hoodwinked all media that I conspired to trigger a war between Greece and Turkey and blame Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, for it! Accusing dissident bloggers of treason, the Greek government manufactured a blood libel in cyberspace, which in turn incites hatred. The government of Greece gave my head on plate to Erdogan. Brutal Graecokleptocrats have destroyed my life. My life is stolen. Now I demand my life back!

In October of 2010, an unknown American, member of Crystal Clear Forum, an American Yahoo Group, used as pseudonym the name of Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, to post a single message about Turkey. The unknown American did not violate any law because, according to the Supreme Court of USA, anybody can use any pseudonym or pen name. For example, thousands of people use Obama’s name as a pseudonym. It’s considered an honor, not a forgery. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Only spoofing is forgery. The unknown American would have used spoofing if she used Xenogiannakopoulou’s email which is marilxen@gmail.com. Instead she used mariliza.xenogiannakopoulou@yahoo.com which is not Xenogiannakopoulou’s email. The unknown American posted on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crystalclearforum with her pseudonym using a kind of literature called Lyric Essay, which uses emotion and color to enlighten a message.

A malevolent blogbuster misinformed Xenogiannakopoulou that the culprit was I, Basil Venitis, just because my name was mentioned in the post! As a result of this misinformation, on October 18, 2010, a gang of six brutal cybercops of the violent Greek Cyber Crime Unit (CCU) broke into my home in Athens and into my college office, and stole my computers, software, files, documents, and personal data. http://venitism.blogspot.com

The cybercops locked me in jail for a night, they humiliated me with handcuffs, fingerprints, mug shots, and lies, leaked false information to the media parrots, and the Greek government initiated sham court proceedings for a stack of stupid freakish charges, including forgery and treason! There was neither pillow nor toilet facility in my jail cell. I had to urinate in a bottle! I, a 67 year old with high blood pressure, was not allowed to keep my hypertension pills with me. There was neither toilet paper nor soap in the whole CCU jail facility.

As a result of the huge bad publicity in all media, I resigned from my job without any kind of compensation. I had to protect my employer from any spillovers of government stupidity. The government of Greece misinformed all TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, and blogs with stupid freakish stories about me, presenting me as a traitor and warmonger!

But that’s not the end of the story. Xenogiannakopoulou never shows up in court. My nerves are broken by infinite deferments of my court trial! The judge always postpones the trial ad infinitum. Meanwhile, I always have to show up and waste the whole day waiting as there is no definite timing for the hearing, but only a day. I and my lawyer have to be in the courtroom the whole day until the judge calls my name. Then the judge postpones the trial for another day of harassment, and so it goes. This has happened six times so far! This is a real Greek tragedy! Justice delayed is no justice, justice perpetuated is hell. This amounts to routine summary punishment of the presumed innocent.

Greece, the most corrupt country in Occident, has become a kangaroo valley, violating basic human rights and Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty, but nobody gives a damn. I cannot understand why the European Commission tolerates political persecution and freakish Kangaroo Justice within the borders of the European Union and cannot refer the Greek government to the Court of Justice of the European Union. I cannot understand why the European Commission cannot protect Greeks from appalling violations of Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty by the Greek government. If the European Union cannot protect Greeks from the repressive Greek government, who will?

The government of Greece uses charge stacking to persecute dissident bloggers. Charge stacking is the ability to charge a large number of overlapping crimes for a single course of conduct. Combining crimes enables prosecutors to get convictions in cases where there is no misconduct at all. By stacking enough charges, including treason, prosecutors jack up the threat value of a trial against a dissident blogger, even if the government’s case is very weak. Charge stacking is terror. Disgusting governments cannot terrorize their people.

Persecuting dissident bloggers, the government of Greece violates Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states the European Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, nondiscrimination, tolerance, and justice prevail.

Greece violates Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Greece violates Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Greece violates Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which states that every citizen has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected. http://venitism.blogspot.com

JAILBIRD FOR A NIGHT

By Basil Venitis

Big brother checks the internet

For things you criticize

To shut your mouth on the net

To shut your mind on the sky.

Cops busted my home

And stole my computer

Hard disk on their comb

blogger on their mooter.

They threw me in jail

For speaking my mind

My words are out of jail

Revolting in a kind.

This jail is awful

Without pillow alone

Urinating in a bottle

And the girl next cell begins to moan.

Screaming in the dark of jail

Guards pretending they are deaf

She is a girl, she is frail

She is missing her Jeff.

I can smile at the old days,

I was a handsome professor then.

Those were real happy days

Happy memory lives again.

Lesmiserables in jail

Kleptocrats out of jail

This is hell on Earth

It’s shame and pain.

Time for a real revolt

To bring a real change

To bring the looting to a halt

Kleptocrats should not escape.

Kleptocrats must be laughing

Premier must be happy,

This is stupid and disgusting,

Government has a party.

Harmglads sleeping before dawn

Silence cut with a cry

Jailbird could be reborn

Coming back to a happy life.

My memory leads me

Finding strength within

People really love me

A new life should begin.

Waiting for the sunrise

Thinking of a new life

I mustn’t give in

A new day will begin.

Mail 747 Tuesday, October 23, 2012

I was on TWIT this week:

: Link to latest TWiT.

<http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-tech/376>

Roland Dobbins

West London Free: Is this the strictest state school in Britain

Jerry

“Cicero said ‘a mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than a field, however fertile, without cultivation’. So it is perhaps fitting that his head is on pupils’ blazer badges at one of London’s newest and most audacious schools.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220516/West-London-Free-Is-strictest-state-school-Britain.html

“Young refuses to accept that children from low-income and single-parent households or ethnic minorities should set their sights any lower than those from white, middle-class homes.

‘Too often schools make excuses for children, particularly children on free school meals, children from low-income families. We don’t do that,’ he says. ‘Critics said if you include Latin and expect children to do at least eight academic GCSEs you won’t have a single Special Education Needs applicant, but that has proved to be wrong.

‘We were also told that because of the classical liberal curriculum we would only attract rich, white children with educated, middle-class parents. Actually, 50 per cent of our intake have English as an additional language, and 35 per cent are black, Asian or minority ethnic. A quarter of our pupils are eligible for free school dinners.”

I liked this bit:

“Along the corridor, a group of children stood around a teacher singing What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? before sitting down and playing individual keyboards.”

Maybe there will someday again be an England.

We can all hope so. I hate the thought that England will be something else from what I grew up with.

Iran nuclear

Jerry,

rumor circulates that Obama has secretly recognized Iran’s nuclear rights

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/10/21/iran-says-obama-sent-secret-message-through-swiss-envoy-recognizing-their-nuclear-rights/

I have no comment. The official Obama position is that Iran will not get nuclear weapons.

Elections and predictions

Dr. Pournelle,

On listening to Minnesota Public Radio, I heard a couple of predictions of the electoral vote. One estimate was 7-1 in favor of Obama gaining enough electoral votes; the other put the odds in Obama’s favor at 9-1. Past performance (one of these guessers came within 1 electoral vote when predicting the 2008 elections) doesn’t guarantee future accuracy, but it’s enough to worry me.

On the other hand, I’ve seen few Romney lawn signs, and NO Obama signs.

And a comment about political correctness: Mankato, Minnesota, is a pleasant city, with a mix of light industry and educational institutions.  The largest mass execution ever held in the US took place in Mankato. The executed men were 38 Dakota (Sioux, in some references) at the conclusion of the Dakota Uprising in 1862.The public library was built on the ground where the hangings had taken place. (This is where PC rears its ugly head.)

Some years ago, a local gun collector had donated his collection, which included many historic rifles and pistols.  This collection was displayed in the library. This was a handsome and historically worthwhile collection, available for public view, but not an in-your-face display. PC types pressed the library to remove the guns, for the usual reasons, although I doubt many of the guns had killed, or even shot at, anything other than food, and so the decision was made to remove the collection, which had been housed in the library since the building was completed.

The guns were put on display elsewhere.

The guns were all stolen. From the new National Guard armory.

The theft took place a few years ago, and so far as I know, no item from the collection has ever been recovered. Apparently, gun thieves don’t visit libraries.

jomath

I don’t predict elections unless I have to. I have generally been right when I had to do it, but it’s a lot of work to do right. My first cut through the data I have available shows Romney winning, possibly by a lot, but I won’t bet on that because I don’t have all the tools I used to have nor access to all the data. But if I absolutely had to bet, I’d say Romney, Republican House, and pretty close in the Senate.

The last big prediction I did was for Gingrich just before he became Speaker. I was quite close on that election.

Robots pass the Final Frontier,

Jerry

Robots pass the Final Frontier: they can Dance.

Video: Navy’s Humanoid Robot Dances Gangnam Style:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/navy-robot-gangnam-style/

Well, there’s worse things they could be doing.

Ed

Uh – yeah, I suppose.

Mitt Romney jokes at the Alfred E. Smith dinner:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/politics/2012/10/transcript_mitt_romney_at_the_alfred_w_smith_dinner.html

This is funny!

Ed

These were pretty good. I think both Romney and Obama are good actors, since they don’t really like each other, and neither is all that comfortable being among the Catholics….

Subject: Free Education is Illegal in Minnesota

Yes, the headline is correct. Stanford-based startup Coursera has been informed that they cannot provide free college classes online to Minnesota residents. This is because the government of Minnesota requires that colleges receive approval of the state before they can teach anyone anything. Pushing back the frontiers of ignorance one learner at a time?

No one knows how the state government will be able to tell if any of its residents are taking any of the free online classes.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/18/minnesota_bans_coursera_state_takes_bold_stand_against_free_education.html

—

Dwayne Phillips

I believe they fixed that once it came out. One advantage of a free press.

Janissaries 1V – Mamalukes

Hi There

When can I expect this book to be for sale ? The previous three books of this series are "classics", and for the series not to be completed would be "failing your duty to your followers". (The ‘Act’ of a Republican).

I look forward to hearing some good news

Regards

I did a thousand words on Mamelukes last week. I hope to finish this cycle shortly. You do understand that Rick and his troops can never leave Tran, and the story will go on…

Doesn’t this essay describe the background of one your books? I think it was Exile to Glory.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/biased-against-the-bright/

—

Mike Johns

Worth reading. I don’t know how to fix the system. I do believe it’s broken.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html?src=me&ref=general

Mark

The way to ‘fix’ the system is to apply the Philadelphia Constitution of 1787 as amended through the 13^th Amendment. Reconsider all the rest of them. And enact the Sherman Anti=-Trust Act and add “And this time we really mean it.”. Then do a new Amendment that says that no person shall be deprived of the equal protection of the laws for reasons of race and this time we really mean it.

Trahsparency and subsidiarity coupled with rule of law and a long tradition of liberty produces happiness and prosperity. And we actually all pretty well know it. As to the losers in society, the poor you will always have with you: they are your opportunity to do right. Don’t let government take that right to be charitable away from you.

Jerry

Xkcd on precedents in Presidential elections:

http://xkcd.com/1122/

Ed

Phishing

Jerry,

From where I’m sitting, the latest trend in phishing appears to be emails offering protection from child predators.

Jim

I haven’t seen those. I have seen some very interesting phishing offers. Of course I only read mail after it is converted to plaintext and I only follow links when I am sure of what I am looking at. And I don’t believe the stories they send me. I have probably lost my chance to become king of some interesting place…

Florida Passes Plan For Racially-Based Academic Goals

Jerry

I’m sure you have seen this by now — Florida Passes Plan For Racially-Based Academic Goals:

http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/florida-passes-plan-for-racially-based-academic-goals/

Read ‘em and weep.

Ed

And we will see more this until it falls of its own weight…

: Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it,

Jerry

And I’m sure you have also seen this — Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html

I wonder what this will do to the defenders of the faith? Probably nothing, as the religiously committed never let mere data dissuade them.

Ed

Yes it s becoming clear that we do not understand climate at all. If you can’t predict el nino you can’t predict glacier formation – and that has more to do with climate trends than CO2. So there it is.

Jerry

The five second rule.

I received what follows in the mail.

Study: Germs Trump ‘Five Second Rule’

San Diego State University researchers tested the myth that if something falls on the floor and one picks it up within five seconds, it is safe to consume. (My snide aside: This is cutting edge research?!)

Well, look at this paragraph:

The study, co-funded by Clorox and conducted by researchers at San Diego State University, found that germs do in fact attach themselves to edible items within that amount of time . . .

According to a survey conducted in tandem with the study by researchers at SDSU, a reported 65 percent of parents admitted to implementing the five second rule in their homes . . .

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta also warns against the dangers inherent in germs contaminating foods.

My correspondent went looking for the "study" and failed to find any published information, other than in the media. What I did find was the CV of Scott T. Kelley, Ph.D.

She found this:

Clorox Corporation Research Award 2011. Periodontal therapy using a diluted sodium hypochlorite mouth rinse. PI. $86,000

Clorox Corporation Research Award 2004-2009. Microbial diversity in the arena of public health. $160,000. PI.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Clorox Corporation

To which a friend replied:

So what?

I apply the five second rule so that I’ll eat what falls on the floor or rug. Introducing that known pathogen in small quantity allows me to develop antibodies and not suffer from an overly clean environment.

The film parallel is, of course, taking small doses of Iocane Powder in order to build immunity.

Clorox is good at killing germs. But I don’t want to live in a place that has killed EVERY germ.

Interesting enough.

Ed

I find Windex works pretty well. It also shoot flies and moths from the air with minimum collateral damage.