Reverie

The first thing the new House started  to talk about was raising taxes. The next is the promise that the investigations will begin. The political shoe is now on the other stupid foot.

Populism. This is a word that s being thrown around as if it means something definitive. It has become pejorative, "anti-elite" as if that meant anti-educated. My understanding of the word comes from its original meaning in the late 1800s in the U.S., monetary and agricultural. It's become an insult the establishment uses to defend itself. Expect to see it in discussion of Trump's decision to leave Syria. Trump is a jerk, but that does not mean our decisions in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Somalia have been well thought out. The real risk with Trump is that he is so incompetent he will make the return of the original idiots look like an upgrade.

An interesting article in the HuffPo, which is beginning to take itself seriously, viciously attacked Romney's anti-Trump article in the WashPo, continuing the policy of Wack-a-Mole aimed at any non-Dem who might start to emerge. No one will be allowed to take advantage of anti-Trump rhetoric except them.

60% of the return of stocks is buy-backs. With dividends and buybacks, Apple pays the equivalent of 9.5%.

In 1800, 75% of [an American's] working man's expenditures went for food alone. By 1850, that had dropped to 50%. Today it is a little more than 11%. --The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 1996

 

Some very tough teams in the playoffs last weekend.

The Chargers played against the Ravens with three safeties at linebacker.

A number of stories on the Internet suggesting the Steelers will get rid of Brown.

And tough shows on Netflix too. Bodyguard. The Last Kingdom, from the Cornwell book, has raised species brutality to an art form. I had to take some time away from it. Fortunately there are some crazy silly funny options.

The recently departed--and sainted--Khashoggi seems to have had a more complicated background. Text messages between Khashoggi and Maggie Mitchell Salem, an executive at Qatar Foundation International and a former State Department official during the Clinton presidency, show she "at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government." The Post added, "Khashoggi also appears to have relied on a researcher and translator affiliated with the organization."

Qatar? Former State Department?

Researchers found those who gave up booze for a month reported drinking less, even seven months later. Even more striking, the participants reported a range of other lasting benefits: 70 percent reported improved overall health, 71 percent slept better, 67 percent had more energy, 58 percent lost weight, and 54 percent had better skin.

What does it mean that Bohemian Rhapsody is thought to be the best movie of the year?

A civil rights institute in Alabama has withdrawn an award for Angela Davis, the longtime radical political activist, author and academic. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's board of directors had chosen Davis to receive its "Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award" at its annual gala next month. But the institute decided to withdraw the award and cancel the annual gala at which Davis, a Birmingham native, would have been honored. It is said the award was withdrawn because of her opposition to Israel. Apparently being a supporter of the homicidal Communists and the Black Panther Party was ok.

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.       
 Sooo,beauty is a virtue?  And ugliness a vice?

 Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the wealthiest Americans ought to pay a marginal tax rate of as high as 70% to fund a “Green New Deal.” “It only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said. “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security. If that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”  Shallow, illogical, and silly.  That statement is as dumb as anything Trump has said.  Voting rights for dolphins is radical too.   

Explorers and producers are finding themselves in the midst of an increasingly heated debate in Norway on the future of fossil fuels, with calls for cuts to incentives, more drilling restrictions and higher taxes.

If you had a perfect ability to predict how far the market would fall and when it would bottom out, it would make sense to move money in and out. But you do not.

Gunmen opened fire in a crowded bar in the Mexican resort city of Playa del Carmen, killing seven people, authorities and media reports said Monday.

 

Bordeaux summarizing McCloskey: "While reasonably secure private property and contract rights, and reasonably free markets, are necessary for capitalism to operate, they are not sufficient. An openness to innovation and (for lack of a better term) a culture that accepts economic change are also necessary. If fear of innovation and opposition to change are widespread throughout a society, that society cannot and will not be capitalist. And the typical denizens of that society cannot and will not be as materially prosperous as are even the poorest denizens of capitalist societies."

Like all these goofy government programs created to subvert the laws of economics, the tariffs will be shouldered by the usual people, the hard working average guy. Some vague character or industry will eventually have some symbolic benefit but it will be the result of the usual transfer from the working guy to the connected guy. For some reason this lesson has to be relearned and relearned, like some problem of recurrent social amnesia.

While Carol was ill last year, we started a writing project during hospital visits. The idea was this: If Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank says that 95% of wine in the U.S. sells for $13.95, then all those people are enjoying average wine without the need for greatness. So it might be with novels; not everything has to be To The Lighthouse or Moby Dick. So the plan was to write a novel with Mondovi, not Petrus, intent. Two novellas and a short story have emerged. Now the question is what if anything to do next. 

Malthus anticipated that population would soon outstrip the food supply. His thinking was mathematical: Food production was linear, population growth logarithmic. It made a lot of sense. Was that settled science?

The anxiety over losing Ginsberg from the Supreme Court is impressive. She must be as smart as Bork.

If we are looking for topics to worry us, try this: A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the worst known hack into the nation’s power system reveals attacks on hundreds of small contractors. The hackers then worked their way up the supply chain. Some experts believe two dozen or more utilities ultimately were breached.
 

Last year the Republican Party approved a deficit approaching $779 billion. The Congressional Budget Office figured the president's 2019 budget will push the deficit to nearly $1 trillion, and the numbers will continue to rise, to $1.527 trillion in 2028.This debt increase would be accompanied by rising interest rates. CBO figured "net interest," which disguises federal costs by subtracting interest paid to Uncle Sam, will rise from $315 billion last year to $819 billion in 2028.

 

37 percent of all American adults now say they prefer socialism to capitalism. A 2016 Harvard University survey revealed that 51 percent of Americans aged 18 and 29 say they reject capitalism outright. If anyone was looking for evidence of a failure in American education, this It.