Taxoholism

This night upon the Stoa, one of the many voices from the stairs asks me a good question. My son was wondering if taxes are easy to notice or easy to identify.

This is a good question given todays kabuki theater in Washington D.C. Regardless of what they tell us, this "deal" will have "cuts", but not actual "cuts". These will be "reductions in baseline spending". This simply means that instead of increasing spending by 12%, they will only increase spending by 6%. They then book a $2.5 Trillion "savings" and crow about the money they saved. Try that one at home, kids.

Then, the other item in this "compromise" will be the "revenue enhancers" that Democrats live for. They will claim that there are no tax increases contained in the deal, however, there will be plenty of new "revenue". Now, if there are no "tax increases" how can government revenue still go up?

Let us explore the ways. This is by no means exhaustive, in fact, I'm not creative enough to come up with even some of the ways.

First one I can think of is "expiring the Bush Tax Cuts". First, I'm offended that it takes an act of law to hold taxation level. The "Bush Tax Cuts" were simply a reduction in the tax rates. I would think that if you pass a law to reduce taxes, then raising them again should be another law passed by Congress. Simply allowing the "Bush Tax Cut" to sunset is an automatic tax increase on just about anyone. A "revenue enhancement" without passing a tax.

Increasing license fees, tolls, the cost of interacting with a government agency, etc, will likely all go up. Just look at the banks and the ATMs ever since the government tried to "help" protect us from the evil bankers.

Taxes will go up on gas, corporate licensing, small business, big business, and anyone who makes a buck in the country. Since these are not personal taxes, these won't really "count" as tax increases, even though every tax on a business will go straight into the cost of any good or service, so those taxes have all been passed on to the consumer...that means you.

It will not be long before they simply drop all pretense to honoring an earlier commitment to the taxpayer and simply go feasting. Why rob a bank? Because that is where the money is. What does a government do when they are going through monetary withdrawals? They will go to the taxpayer, especially the middle class, because that is where the money is. Remember, any corporate tax is an indirect tax on all of us.

The only ones that are going to win in the current debt debate in Washington are the politicians. They will continue to spend, their piglets will continue to suckle, and the those of us with an ounce of productivity left will be tapped for the revenues needed.

They are Taxoholics, and they can not admit it. We are enabling their behavior by allowing them to retain their seats. Until we remove these people, we will continue to receive the treatment we deserve.

Please think on that last sentence. We ARE to blame for all this. They are just the symptoms. We are the cause. We are also the answer and the cure. WE the PEOPLE have to say "no" and vote them out of office.

Oh yes, they will be creative with what is said and done in Washington this night...and we will all be the poorer for it.

Live well, cheaply.

--Zavost

Perceived Prosperity

From atop the Stoa this day, I am pondering whether I am well of, average, or poor. By any measure of wealth in the world, I sure look prosperous. My home has air conditioning, I have more than one computer, more than one television, cell phones, and a gas grill.

However, I must wonder whether this wealth is real or perceived. Now, don't go all daft on me, my laptop computer is not going to evaporate once I make a philosophical discovery. I do not live in the quantum world.

Here is a story that I've been pondering as it relates to our nation and us as individuals, since national finances do not work quite the same way as your home finances.

Lets say you earn $100,000 per year. For decades, this amount was enough for you to build your household wealth, replace items that became outmoded, educated your children, fixed your driveway and even allowed you to hold enough money to lend to your neighbors.

Then over the course of time, you decide that you want to add on to the house, make some more space for new friends that have a desire to live with you. You expand your driveway, loan more money, and buy all sorts of new stuff for your home.

In the past, you were saving up for your retirement. You felt that putting away $100 per week was a fair amount. As your expenses continue to rise and they begin to push up against your ACTUAL monthly earnings you decide that instead of putting a $100 dollar bill in the savings account, you write an IOU in the accounting books. The savings account looks like it is still growing, but the dollars in there are no longer growing. After a while, expenses climbing, you decide to raid the savings account and replace those dollars with IOUs. For a little while, you are able to finance your expenses, but the savings account is now gone, replaced only with little white strips of paper.

After some more time, you begin having to borrow money from some of your other neighbors to continue to meet your obligations. All those people that have moved into your home now expect a certain kind of lifestyle. You yourself have also grown accustomed to all the nice things this money (debt) has bought. You still bring in $100,000 per year, your expenses are now $180,000 per year and growing rapidly. You are still loaning money to other people, even while you promise more and more goodies to the people living in your home.

Eventually, your neighbors begin to become reluctant to loan you more money. Not to be deterred, you begin to print your own money, backed by your future earnings and material possessions. That can not last forever and eventually, no one will take your fake money any longer. Things must be paid for now in real currency. No one accepts anything else any longer.

A huge argument ensues where two camps of people emerge. One wants to borrow more money and spend more, making the assumption that adding on more debt makes you more prosperous. The other says that we must cut spending, get our debt paid down to less than we earn every year and become a frugal people once more, just as we were in the past.

The group that advocates spending has told the other people in the house that they can have and keep whatever they want, in the hopes that they will continue to listen to them. The other group is like your grandparents, telling you that you will have to make due with the same clothes for a few years, drive the same car for more than 5 years, and work harder, perhaps even work for a promotion to earn more money. One is an easy option, the other is a harder option. Humans intrinsically go for easy if given a choice.

We will have to decide, as a people, if we want to live like a banana Republic, doing as we please, printing what we please, and ignoring reality. Or, are we going to bite down and remember who we were and still are. We have this choice to make now. It seems like the children are still in control, though, and that saddens me. Sober, common sense Americans know what we need to do, but they are more interested in elections then reality. I find that you can ignore reality for only so long, before reality reminds you that it has not gone anywhere.

The reality is that Reid, Obama, and Boehner are more interested in what their constituents think and feel rather then what must be done for the good of the country. As a country we will have to cut back our spending. You can not spend $80,000/yr more than you make every year for decades and not expect to have to do without in the future.

Are we really wealthy as a people? Am I really prosperous? We have been living on the international credit card for a very long time. We have made promises to our people that we simply can not keep, no matter what the level of taxation. Hang ever rich person upside down and shake every last penny out of them and that does not even finance our debt for A SINGLE YEAR!

We live in a nation of perceived prosperity. If we are spending 2.5 trillion every year on everything from guns to butter. Next year, if we can only spend $1.65 trillion, then we have some difficult choices to make. As a nation, as a people, and in our families.

So I wonder, regardless of what the children in D.C. end up passing or not passing, what the next few years are going to look like.

I go now, to fix a mid-day meal. I gave up red meat long ago, not because of health, but because of cost. Time to eat my chicken and my salad. Wonder what my lunch will look like in a few years.

Live well,

--Zavost

Boehner, the "Al Bundy" of Negotiators

Upon the Stoa this day, the frenetic lunacy about the debt ceiling raging around me, I sit in sad contemplation for the fate of my nation.

As a nation, we have been spending irresponsibly since at least the 1960's, though those seeds were sown in the 1930's. The financial situation has finally caught up with us and the fantasy of riches is no more. The people have been waking up since before Obama's ascension to power. It expressed itself in the Tea Party sweeps of 2010. Many of those newbies are scrambling to maintain their moral compass while the veterans of both parties sling lies and half-truths at each other simply to score points.

Boehner, who I knew was not up to the task, debates and negotiates like Al Bundy trying to get a deal on a Ford Mustang. The Tea Party, represented by Cantor and Bachman, attempt to rally this conservative minority within the current ocean of irresponsible elected officials.

Boehner stands up in the beginning and states we will get 4 Trillion in spending cuts over 10 years; this is only 400 billion per year, even while we are SPENDING 120 billion more EACH MONTH then we take in as tax receipts. That's your plan...Wile E. Coyote can come up with a better plan then this.

Reid smirks, the veteran dirty politician that he is, knowing how he will toast Boehner's bagel. Reid says that, pretty much anything that comes his way is going to die at the door.

Obama, chain smoking, scolds that he will veto anything that will interfere with his re-election campaign (yeah, thats grown up).

Boehner says, "Ok, how about 2.7 trillion?"

Reid, "No."

Boehner, "How about 1.7 trillion?"

And on and on and on we go. Boehner's plans have gotten weaker and less likely to actually mean anything (pushing cuts into the future). Reid puts out plans with imaginary "cuts" and huge tax increases and the only thing keeping that from getting Boehner's approval is Cantor and the Tea Party poking him in the ribs and shaking their heads.

Now Boehner gets a bill passed that Reid kills 120 minutes after is passage. Reid will now send Boehner a bill and point a finger at HIM about how HE is being an obstructionist. The MSM will give Reid all the assistance he requires. A babe in the woods, Mr. Boehner is.

I predict that Obama will get his debt ceiling, Reid will get his tax increases, and Boehner will tell Cantor and company that, "He tried".

I also predict that the economy will be worse in 2012 then right now. Boehner will go down to defeat as will many of the liberal, "get along" Republicans. Liberal Democrats will continue to go down as well until there is only the hard core socialists, communists, and progressives left. They will be counter-balanced by their opposites in the Tea Party, as all the other squishy Republicans have gone down. Very polarized.

We will be in bad shape and it will take a lot of austerity and growth to get us out of this mess. A mess entirely due to our lax oversight on our political leaders, and the self-inflicted cultural decay.

Live well, everyone.

--Zavost

Shared Experiences

Today I shall delve a bit into the idea of race. Oh, yes, that subject.

Atop the Stoa today, it was a beautiful morning. The sun rose over the Newport News shipyards, framing the heavy lift cranes and dry-dock slips. That facility employs over 24,000 men and women. Nuclear powered aircraft carriers and other surface ships are produced there. Floated, they are pulled around the Hampton Roads peninsula to have their weaponry installed in another shipyard. Truly impressive.

Why do I mention race and then swerve into the Shipyard? It is because people work there. I don't mean white people, black people, or hispanic people...I mean people. They all march into the gate, lunch bags in hand, in the morning, and march back out when the shifts change, grimy and tired. The arsenal of Democracy unleashed.

The US military wears uniforms of different colors and schemes, but is looked at as soldiers, sailors, and airmen. They are neither white, nor black. Those that work in a corporate setting are bound by policies that prohibit discrimination, of all kinds, against all kinds of people. In other words, all must be treated the same.

Why is it so easy to get along in our professional lives (affirmative action aside...another article) yet still seem to feel so uncomfortable out in public? Head scratcher, it is.

I think it is due to Shared Experience. I have read account after account of mixed racial groups getting along as if race were not an issue for centuries. Heck, back in the Roman days, ethnicity counted more than race. Think on that one for a while. Even in New York at the turn of the 20th century, the Irish and the Italians were being discriminated against in all things...but I digress.

The white Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts regiment, an all black regiment with white officers, loved his men as any colonel should love his regiment. He inducted them and then trained them hard. He worked to demonstrate that, if well lead, a black regiment was the equal to any other regiment. In reality, they tended to perform better since they had a point to prove. When pinned in an entrapment below a battlement, men being ripped to bits around him by concentrated rifle, cannon, and grenade fire, he stood up, drew his sword and then charged the top of the battlements. He made it about three steps before his body was torn to shreds by high calibre musket fire. To him, that regiment was his regiment, not a black or white regiment.

In 1854, for him, the black man was an abstract. He knew educated Northern blacks, had gone to school with them and had a common bond of class and upbringing. In 1863, they were not just black soldiers, they were HIS soldiers. They were not an abstraction, but flesh and blood. They had shared campfires at night, sang songs and eaten meals together. They went unpaid together to prove a point. In the end, they died together, as men.

I've read accounts that at the end of WWII, when the soldiers returned home that decorated, brave black soldiers were immediately segregated and treated poorly, and if a white soldier was nearby that fights would break out. Not between whites and blacks, but veterans agains the whites. The white soldier did not see a black man, he saw a fellow soldier.

Blacks have been working in professions for centuries. Doctors, lawyers, soldiers. Some of them quite famous for groundbreaking work. The black political agitators of today like to hold them up, though the individuals being held up always seem embarrassed and humble. Without exception, they say that the opportunity is there if you are willing to work for it. This implies that the American Meritocracy is still in play. As long as Affirmative Action can be eliminated, the best and the brightest will always rise to the top of any profession.

While I'm thinking of professions, let me ponder for a moment. Professions have by-laws, they have established dogma to determine who can be called a doctor or lawyer. These extend into trade unions (NOT UNIONS in general) as they relate to training and experience. Color and background are meaningless variables in the entire calculus. If a black person has M.D. after their name, they will lose their license as fast as any white person with M.D. after their name. If a CEO is not performing, the shareholders will show that CEO the door...no questions about race need be asked. Do the numbers add up or don't they. End of discussion.

The bond people share outside of the home and family tend to be the bonds of trade and/or employment. Others are the bonds of childhood. Think about your childhood friends and how diverse they likely are. How many of them would be your friends in the professional world? How many of them would even be acquaintances? Think about that. White or black, this is the same application of thought.

It is when, as professionals, that we move out of our comfort zone and meet each other on the street or at a gathering. Neither of us have the shared environment of work to frame our relationships within. It is a shame to think it, but it happens. The same individual that we share an office with may be thought of as a danger if encountered on the sidewalk or parking lot out in the world.

People need to think about this and adjust their behavior accordingly.

I have another article that will be out shortly that pulls apart culture much as this one pulled apart race.

Until then, live well.

--Zavost

And the Trash Piles Up

I sit, chin in my hands while my daughter takes, once again, a spray can to the column of the Stoa. Popular culture is such a drag, but is certainly as indicative for the illness of our culture as pus streaming from your eyes may indicate illness in a person.

She is a big fan of the show "Bridezilla's" and other shows of its ilk. I attempt to avoid them as if they were a DNC commercial, but sometimes you just can not. Despite trying to be busy doing other things, I could not help but hear the several episodes she watched. After grinding my teeth for awhile, it finally dawned on me that this fits well with what I feel is the ongoing rot and symptomology of our once great culture.

This show details spoiled little girls who's personal bubble barely escapes their skull. Everyone and everything around them are just shadowy tools to be used for their own self-gratification and edification. Men are simply sources of money that they need not earn and are items of amusement when they want them. Women are "bro-hoes" who join up in shifting wolf packs to hit the bars and troll for illicit men with money and toys...and trouble. Fathers make excuses and mothers usually hide in shame over the behavior of their spawn.

That their parents allowed these brats to grow up this way is unconscionable, it is another thing for our culture to revel in their antics. What are we doing? Why is this interesting? If you want to see spoiled brats throwing fits then just hang out at the mall. What do you learn from watching this show...other than there are a lot of parents and friends and businesses that put up with WAY, WAY more than I ever would.

These pathetic excuses for womanhood are put on TV and people tune in to watch them. It boggles my mind.

Other shows exist like this that clearly show the stress that our culture is under. You have shows that describe the frustration of our Border Patrol agents and their impossible mission to keep our borders sealed. There are a variety of pawning shows that see people trading in family heirlooms for a dinner in Vegas or to pay the bail bondsman in Detroit. One shows the middle class and the well to do turning in their family legacies for quick, and quickly spent, cash while the other shows those struggling in Detroit to keep the lights on and food on the table, going so far even as to pawn their artificial leg.

Various Storage unit shows tell the saga of tens of thousands of people who can no longer pay the rent for their storage units and subsequently lose everything to the stars of the various shows. They are vultures who pick over the bones of the less fortunate in our society. I'm not saying that what they are doing is any more wrong then what real vultures do, they are just symptoms of a declining society.

The video put together by the talented and gorgeous Jessica Frech about the "People of Walmart" shows what people feel is acceptable cultural behavior in our big retail stores. Watch the video, you will definitely get what I'm talking about.

Are we civilized barbarians? Are we a rotted culture just waiting for someone to kick in the door and put an end to our unique (yeah, Barak, I said it) culture?

I see lots of trash. Trash that piles up relentlessly. I'm sorry that Amy Winehouse is dead, but she was an out of control drug user. It happens sometimes. I'm sorry for Charlie Sheen, he may be the American Keith Richards with an invulnerability to drug overdoses. The trash piles high with divorce court, newlywed games, reality TV, etc. Trash as far as I can see sometimes.

I also see the shiny paint under all the splattered excrement. Jeopardy! is a great show, despite it HUGE leftward lean. We continue to unravel the mysteries of the universe with M-theory and Super Gravity, despite most of the PhD grads all having Chinese and Indian last names (that is a dig at us Americans in case you didn't get it). I see private industry trying to get us back into space quickly after Obama retreated on NASA. I see iPads and iPhone 5's coming out, even though they are built in China. We are still creative and dynamic. As long as we remain relatively consistent in our business practices and government then we will survive as a nation. As long as we continue to honor the military and their sacrifices on our behalf then we will be worthy of those young men and women. As long as women like Jessica Frech continue to work hard to better themselves, help the poor because they WANT to help the poor and create fine music then I feel we are on the right track, in general.

All is by no means lost, though it sure stinks out there with all the excrement heaped at the base of the Stoa.

I must hose off the Stoa and the steps and then take a shower myself.

Live well.

--Zavost

Don't Ask Don't Tell--Don't CARE

Atop the Stoa this day I again keep my attention focused on what is important in life and not the constant side-attractions pitched in front of us by the MSM.

While we argue about the meaning of "default" and what word comes after "Trillion", the trash stories of our culture are slapped in our faces like roaming newspapers on the highway.

For years, since long before my time in the service, if you were "outed" then you were put out. The powers that be had their reasons, such as blackmail, fear of internal romances hampering efficiency and all that. Those may be valid reasons and all but I prefer to look at the elephant in the room and call things as I see them.

I suspect that the rank and file are just uncomfortable with having a member of the same sex "interested" in them. I feel that as long as this is disclosed at the time of enlistment, then there is no fear of blackmail. If the men are held to the same standards of sexual harassment to other men as the men are towards women then I see absolutely no issue here.

I feel that the military should ask as a matter of enlistment. It should not be kept a secret and the rest of the men should not really care. The way I look at it there is less competition for the available women on or near the base. I feel that they should "tell". Gets things out in the open. If the military does not care if you are white or black then it should not care if you are straight or gay.

Perhaps I see things too simply, but that is just how it is. There are rules on the books for treating with people who abuse others due to their orientation. Sooner or later, they will blend in with everyone else. You will know who is available to chase and who is not. The movies of the future dealt with this years ago (Alien, Starship Troopers, Terminator, to name just a few) and all of this is irrelevant to them. Just as it should be with us.

Ask, Tell, because I Don't Care.

Live well.

--Zavost

The Default that Wasn't

Upon the Stoa tonight I scratch my chin and marvel that the myth of default continues to echo, loudly, throughout the mainstream media when the issue before us is not default, but the permission to pile on more debt.

Words mean things. Choosing to ignore vital facts in a debate, ON BOTH SIDES, no less, means something else to me. It means that both parties in power are playing their own games. I have to wonder to what ends the GOP is working towards.

Now, what am I really talking about? I will not bore you with numbers and stats...you will just have to look those up for yourself. Seeing for yourself means more then just being told.

I'm talking about "default". The United State's current tax receipts easily cover the annual interest on the national debt. Therefore, the US government will only default if it CHOOSES to default. I hear, endlessly, about our "obligations". Those obligations are to programs that have grown out of control since their inception. Just as at home, if you can not meet your cash outlays, then you will have to cut your discretionary spending. If Obama and Geitner decide to play politics and skip a payment on the debt interest, then we will default through choice. Not sure what Obama hopes to get through this. The shocks will travel around the world and into our cities, since most of their debt is municipal bonds. He is playing a very dangerous game. Then again, if his goal has been to wreck and humiliate the evil United States of America, then he will certainly get what he wants.

Now, what does the GOP get by playing this "default" game? I have to admit, I don't really know. Either side could trumpet this little point and score some points. Then again, enough time has now passed that the hypocritical factor has risen.

This is something that I'll have to ponder further.

Live well.

--Zavost

Thrice Damned NO!

From atop the Stoa this day I grunt with irritation and incredulity. I may even snort and roll my eyes before the deficit/debt ceiling deal is inked.

If I have a debt that is unsustainable, I don't go borrow more money to make my minimum payments. If I have a business and I have to borrow money to meet payroll, then my business is doomed. If I am a country, borrowing money to keep the lights on and the old people fed then I'm not running that country well. If that country is the United States of America then I am the most inept money-manager in human, if not stellar, history.

This is supposed to be the "richest" country in the world, but I have my doubts. The Social Security "Trust Fund" has nothing but piles of IOU's stapled together and not a penny to be found unless the government clerk dropped one next to the file cabinet. Corporate taxes are among the highest in the world. The "cost of doing business", that is regulation and its costs are among the highest in the world. The "rich" in this country are among the most taxed individuals in the world. The barrier to enter markets and start up new businesses is at its highest point in history. The number of listings on the stock exchange is anemic, something like 9 in 2010 where there were 300 in 2005.

Our national debt is something like 14.3 TRILLION dollars. Trillion is a word so big that most countries in the world do not even use it (they use billion, billion), yet we throw it around with style.

Remember this point: the debate is about raising the DEBT ceiling. Taxes and budget have been stirred into the pot, and I feel that the fundamental focus of the debate is being lost. Both sides agree in principle that the debt is too high and needs to be addressed, but are paralyzed by politics. So much for doing the right thing regardless of ideology (I know what you are thinking, but that is another discussion).

There are so many plans, committees, and Gangs roaming the political landscape it is hard to keep them all straight. So, lets break down the fundamental discussion. The debt is too high. How do we fix it? Well, we either stop spending or we cut spending. Both sides agree that we need to cut spending. Good. Now, where do we cut or do we hold spending steady and not index anything for inflation for, say, 5 years? Boy, now we are getting into the marrow of the matter. Every time the scalpel hovers over a portion of the budget, groups come out of the wood works crying and lamenting for their projects. We don't just have a sacred cow, we have a sacred herd. Once this happens, everything shuts down since politicians can't tolerate irritating people who donate heavily to their campaign funds. So...

Taxes, or as people in Washington like to call it, "revenue enhancers" are on and off the table daily. One of the fundamentals of economics is that you do not raise taxes when the economy is on life support. You just don't do it. Do you bleed your anemic ulcer patient because your 200 year old textbook tells you to? No, and nor should you tax an overburdened economy even though the dead hand of Marx says you should (since 100% of the money belongs to the government, aka the people). The folks in Washington, hesitant to actually cut a dollar, despite Obama doubling Federal Spending every year he has been in office, feel that taxing is the only way to balance the budget. Again, despite overspending more than the GDP of most of the world in a single year. Hellloooooo!

I am hearing about "spending cuts" of 3.7 Trillion over 10 YEARS. This is spoke with gasping word-gobbling by the media that SO MUCH would be cut from our spending priorities. In reality, Obama and the Congress overspent last year by about 1.4 Trillion and the year before that by 1.35 Trillion. This year they are on pace for another 1.4 Trillion dollars. My math has never been that good, but if we are spending, roughly, 4.15 Trillion over-budget over the last 3 years, then how does "cutting" 3.7 Trillion over 10 years help us? Promising cuts is really easy. Delivering on them with the interest groups bawling at you is harder. Raising taxes is easy. Eliminating a tax on the books is harder than surpassing the speed of light. See where this is going?

No new taxes. No more taxes. Cut taxes on the books. Eliminate taxes on the books. The Tea Party swept waves of true conservatives (with some glaring exceptions) into Congress (and the States) and it is THEY who need to kill any deal that includes TAXES (or REVENUE ENHANCERS). Period. End of story. Cut spending, cut spending, cut spending. No taxes. Period. Is that clear enough?

Provide certainty to the market place, don't over-regulate, and don't tax it to death and the economy (and tax receipts) will soar for 20 years. Then again, the Feds will have less control over it. Head scratcher.

America rebelled against England for less, far less, then the garbage that the Federal Government is stifling the States with daily. I hope that the Tea Party movement does not become corrupted and that those members elected through their efforts hold firm to their guiding principles. I want people there that will vote the will of their constituents, good or bad.

We rarely get the government we want, but we certainly get the government we deserve. As Wirecutter has stated repeatedly, "The American Sheeple". Don't be a Sheep. Plug in and pay attention. Congress works for YOU. They should not be able to order you to do JACK SQUAT.

It is hot down here and my normally calm veneer is sweating off so forgive the irritated rhetoric.

Live well, all.

--Zavost

Money from Nothing

Atop the Stoa this day, I am thinking about money and where it really comes from and how to manipulate it so that it can grow.

In the old days, when actual metal coins were the preferred currency, you would spend a few copper on materials, spend some time, effort, and apply some skill and you could then trade your work for silver coins. You grew wealthy doing something useful. Later on, people realized that you could charge interest (as in, you "have an interest") by loaning someone some copper pieces to generate silver. You would take back your loan, plus a little extra. Abuse of this created "usury" laws to keep people from being taken advantage of.

Even later, Nation States used silver and gold as their currency. Paper money existed, but it was a certificate for its equivalent in gold. It stood for a certain amount of gold being held elsewhere. If a nation borrowed money to fight a war or build a bridge, it had to transfer a certain amount of gold (or goods) to the country doing the lending.

Today, nations are trading in each others' debt. Ponder this. They are trading on a countries' future ability to generate more wealth than they currently possess. This means that, intrinsically, the country is borrowing money that it does not currently possess to finance their lifestyle NOW. People do this in their own lives on a small scale only the "debt vehicle" is a credit card. Show of hands, all, how many people do you know who are bankrupt because they can no longer meet minimum payments? How many people "roll over" debt from one card to another to stay just another month ahead of default? Too many, unfortunately. Nations play that game as well.

If you have to borrow money to pay off your debts, then you are already functionally bankrupt. What if you get terminated from work? No paycheck means no more future earnings. Those people who loaned you money (some of which they borrowed at lower rates to loan to you--yes, it makes your head spin sometimes) expect to be repaid with interest. Millions are a few missed paychecks away from actual, not functional bankruptcy.

Greece, Ireland, Iceland, and Portugal know all about this. Spain and Italy are becoming familiar, and Germany is slapping the credit card back in their wallet and yelling, "NEIN".

Why loan money to a country that is arguing about the meaning and triggering of the word, "default". Not a good investment. Now Italy is calling for a Eurobond, to "share" the risk. If Germany is the only country in Europe with real money, why would they want this? They would fund the debt and everyone would suck their blood. It only hides the illness (drunk on debt and spending) and kicks the issue of default a little farther down the road. Sooner or later, only debt will exist and paper money will be worth only paper--a commodity, if I recall. Gold, silver, and copper will once again be the only means of "currency".

What happened to those days were a dollar was money? What is a "debt swap" and is it really "worth" anything? Am I rich if I own a million dollars of your future earnings? I doubt it very much.

Now, on to other things to ponder. This stuff gives me a headache.

Live well and DON'T trade in your gold for dollars.

--Zavost

Technically Correct Answers...The best kind of Answers

As I sit upon the Stoa and sip my coffee, listening to the Gulls wheel about overhead, I am drawn again to the idea that most adults are just grown up children.

No adult likes to be caught in the truth, or a lie. They want problems to just "go away" when they wish them to, bending reality to suit their needs.

I am thinking, of course, of the latest Federal Reserve commercial-making appearance before a committee of Congress the other day. Of course, the Democrats were asking slanted, self-serving questions to shore up their lies at home and to create sound-bites for the elections next year, and of course, the Republicans were doing the same thing.

With, I think, at least one notable exception. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX). He asked the most devastating question all session and received the most technically correct answer Bernanke could have given without lying. He knew the spirit of the question, yet gave his technically correct answer anyhow.

He was asked by Rep. Paul if gold was money. At $1,580/oz my first response to that t-ball question would have been an emphatic, "YES". However, Mr. Bernanke, pausing, emotions rippling across his face, answered very correctly, "no". He is correct. Technically correct. And as Bureaucrat #1 from Futurama once said, "It is the best kind of correct."

In this day and year, you can not walk into a bank and convert paper money into gold. You have not been able to do this for many decades. You can not go to the local Walmart and plunk down a few grains of gold for your purchase. Bernanke correctly stated that gold was a, "valuable commodity, and asset". Again, correct. People convert their paper money into the asset called "gold", but it is not, in itself, money.

That is so technically correct as to be preposterous. Quite technically, anything is money, or Currency. My work is currency, the whole, "will work for food" sign seen from time to time on the highway. How about, "Time is money". In that more acceptable, non-nuanced discussion, gold is most certainly money, the BEST kind of money.

Chickens and goats are even money in a barter system, so Mr. Bernanke had best take his questions literally because the American people are not going to notice or care whether his response was "Intellectually Nuanced". They will simply put their palm to his face and shove him down as they step over (or on) his suit to get at the gold.

The ongoing discussion about the national debt and taxes is another item I am following with some interest. We get the government we deserve, not want. This is playing out according to history. Americans get lazy and we get Obama. Has the Tea Party jump started our interest in national politics? Guess this will show us.

I'm waiting for Obama to simply abolish the S&P and Moody's rating companies. He took GM and Chrysler and gave back the share holders squat. What is to keep him from looking at the world and saying, "Look what THOSE people are doing to Europe and Greece. THEY are tanking those economies with their scare tactics...and just to enrich BOND HOLDERS. IGNORE them." Just you wait. He will feel that there is no reason what so ever to listen them. In my mind's eye I can almost see and hear the meetings going on over at Treasury and the WH.

Sooner or later one of his eager, ambitious, Marxist minions will speak (squeak) up in a meeting about just ignoring the rating companies. That will then spark a legal discussion, which will be shouted down. A political discussion will then kick off that will go on for quite some time looking at all the angles. Propaganda and spin will be developed and a scape goat targeted, fixed, and polarized. In short order we will all know who the managing directors of those agencies are and how much money they make. They will be demonized and destroyed. The TV coverage, sit-ins at their homes, and media anal probes will be epic.

The rating agencies will be ignored since their realistic rating is an inconvenient reality. THEY know what is best for us and if we ALL believe the way they do then reality can be manufactured. It CAN be what they wish it to be...we just all have to believe! NOT.

I don't remember who said it, but I like the saying anyhow, "You can ignore reality all you want, but you can not ignore the consequences." Maybe it was Ayn Rand. I'll have to look it up.

Think I'll wander down to the shoreline and watch crabs battle for territory in the mud.

Live well.

--Zavost

All is dust in the end

Despite the bright, sunny, and hot day at the Stoa, I wish to discuss darker things. I say dark only because that is how some see these topics, though I do not necessarily.

Humans have strove to have better lives ever since we realized we didn't like wearing skins (the bears tended to argue with them about how they were obtained) and eating bugs. Just as we strive to have a 30' HD TV screen instead of the out-dated 25' screen. It is just in our nature.

We bring order to a chaotic and entropic universe. We are an anomaly, despite being, I suspect, common in the Universe (life, that is). Since the universe cooled and expanded, entropy has been steadily breaking things down. Systems get more chaotic and energy spreads out. It is just physics. Gravity, which may be a force originating outside our universe (look up M-theory and gravity), makes things clump up and form galaxies, stars, and ultimately, humans. Despite these forces of order, entropy will always win in the end.

Humans die. Building decay and fall in on themselves. The very mountains themselves are worn away by nothing more than the wind and the rain.

The Egyptians had a vibrant and colorful culture. They built monuments to the gods and to themselves that we can still see today. Those monuments are pitted and worn and are but baked shadows of their former glory. The builders and occupants of those structures are but desiccated jerky wrapped in cloth that tend to fall to dust if not handled with care.

Rome was the center of the universe for the civilized Western culture, yet there came a time when people scrambled in the ruins for food and shelter. They stared at the huge structures around them and wondered at the people who could have built them, perhaps knowing that those people were once themselves.

Taking the long view on these things makes one wonder at the futility of it all. A modern human, without ObamaCare, has about 50 good years to make a difference in the world. We strive for wealth, comfort, and possibly, a legacy. Legacies fade and become legends which become myth. In the end, even that fades. Yet while we are here, we will kill others to secure that legacy. Makes you think.

Despite my desire to live forever, I know that is not possible given current technology. When I really think about it, I think that mortality may be God's greatest gift to us. Without death, we can not truly APPRECIATE life. Without the risk of death, there can be no X-Games. Without death, the world will be packed with Caesars, Napoleons, Hitlers, and Stalins all vying for control. It would be full of Bachs and Beethovens scratching their heads at the changing tastes in music. Monsters would live among us with no hope that death will take them from us and lock them forever behind the barriers of history. The creative will commit suicide in time knowing that they can create no more of interest. Death allows for growth, ambition, and even joy. Odd that.

For whatever reasons, we are driven to better ourselves, our families, and our people. Intellectually we know that in the end it will be futile. We live in the moment. We must, for moments are all that we are given. Take joy in what you do, take joy in what you are. Stare at a flower and marvel at its geometric complexity and think about the good smell later.

Nothing will stop the Universes' decline to entropy, though between gravity and life, we can delay the inevitable and bring some order to the chaos. In the end, all may be dust, but for now, as the Romans once said, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Got to love them.

Live well.

--Zavost

Peer Pressure or Gene Pressure?

From atop the sun-drenched Stoa today I wish to discuss Peer pressure. It seems appropriate in these days, as the children seem so connected with Twitter and Facebook. Just as the humidity here on the Bay can be oppressive, so can the desire to conform.

Recently, I read an article on weight gain and its affects on the developed, developing, and 3rd world (aka, starving) nations and their cultures (yep, my Saturday nights are EXCITING).

One stat, among many, that caught my interest was that of Japanese women. While the women in the developed and developing countries were all gaining weight, the women of Japan were losing weight (lets just assume that all men everywhere are gaining weight and leave it at that).

I drilled down in the data and began reading up about social norms, conformity, and culture. All of which are inseparable qualities within the Japanese culture. It also made me wonder if this was everywhere in Japan or just in the metropolitan areas. That last pondering is not off the wall for Japan. They are a relatively homogeneous people with fringes of aboriginals (don't go on with the angry mail, I'm aware of what they are all called and how many of them there are), and it is possible that this is shared cross-culture.

In the US, the largest critic of a woman and how she looks is another woman. Sometimes even their closest friends, or Frenemies as my daughter might say. Guys make a blanket assessment in about 1.3 seconds on whether a woman is attractive or not. Then when they open their mouths, we decide if we want to ask them on a date. American women spend hours primping for that 1.3 second assessment--the First Impression. A guy is lucky if he has clean shorts on, but I digress.

There is competition among girls/women for the pick of the guys out there. What many do not realize is that much of their thinking is driven as much by genetics as it is culture. In America, the tall, strong, and athletic type is sought out when a woman is younger. Stronger genes and all that. Later, the woman seeks out a man with potential to support the family. The looks of the man are important, but less so. Research even states that women have the ability to scent a man's pheromones and determine his health and potential as a male. This is all done subconsciously and drives or "shades" their first impression of the man to be either positive or negative. Interesting.

So, women compete among themselves to look more attractive to the male, and will keep turning down guys until the one that "smells" right comes along. I say that only half-jokingly. They do this in America by eyeing up the competition, scoring themselves against the other's looks and fashions, and then, once the calculations are complete, either go back and make changes, proudly strut past the other female, or, in some cases, tear the other woman's dyed hair out by the roots and call her nasty names.

In Japan, the issue is not so much that they look good for the Japanese men, though that is still a large part. They have an ideal in their collective minds about the "ideal" woman, whether they get this from Western magazines or a cultural gestalt is beyond my research at this time. Not only do they want to look good for the men, they want to look good for each other, competitively so. Hair pulling is not an option, so unless they are acknowledged as being at the pinnacle then it is back to the drawing board. Often, this means watching their weights...and the weights of all of their friends.

We all feel, regardless of culture or race, that we are somehow inferior to the human specimen next to us. It seems to be just basic psychology, unless you are a narcissist. Couple that truth with the Japanese culture and you see a self-sustaining feedback loop. They get skinnier and skinnier while Western women get heavier. American women see the girls in the magazines and think "airbrushing" and "photoshop" and then ask their girlfriends what they think. If that girlfriend is a bit on the pudgy side, then she is going to say "you look fine". We don't want to hurt their feelings and all that. Not so in Japan. You will be told that you are "fat", just like that...fatty.

So in a world that is getting fatter and fatter, the Japanese women buck the trend. They are short and petite, and though embarrassed on the outside, they are spiking the football on the inside. They are short because they deny themselves protein as children and stay slim and petite out of cultural pressure (peer pressure).

Why is this so?

Again, it makes no difference what language you speak or culture you come from. Women want to look good for men (even sub-consciously) and men what to look good to women (just ask the guy jumping from the second story window into the 3' deep kiddy pool headfirst to show how 'manly' he is). It is in our genes.

A man from America wants to look muscular, tall, and trim. A man from Japan wants to be slight and effeminate (again, no hate mail, people). A man from Central Africa wants to be tall and skinny. American women want to be medium height, not taller then their men. They want to be "built" but thin (not always an achievable combination). Japanese women want to be short and slight. African women need to be robust and fertile.

The point is this: genetically, we are driven to perpetuate the species; culture decides how all that looks. Things get out of control, though, when you start to add technology and civilization to the mix.

Remember, we have been a going species for over 100,000 years, with our close ancestral roots going back at least 500,000 years. The hardwiring runs deep. It runs throughout our genes and it runs in the background of our thoughts. Oftentimes, we do not really know why we think or feel certain things. Why are we afraid of spiders, or snakes, on an instinctive level. Why do we like what we like and dislike what we dislike?

Civilization kicked off about 5,500 years ago. A strobe light blink of historical time, and the strobe has only gotten faster. 10,000 years ago, it took thousands of years for new ideas to spread around. Today, the same idea flashes around the world at the speed of the typing finger.

The ideal European women in the Middle Ages was plump, small-breasted, and had pale skin. Those characteristics were of someone who did not have a lot of chores (she was rich or her family was), breasts did not seem important to the middle age fellow, but the hips and trunk seemed important which is why that Ruben fellow painted them with heavy posteriors. The pale skin also meant that she did not have to work in the field.

The Muslim woman has gone from embroidered burka to black robes and back again numerous times through the centuries. I've heard that next year the new stile will be a sexy gray that permits the eyelashes to show. Can't wait.

The Japanese woman of the Middle Ages had bound feet (to be petite), had pale skin, and wore kimono. Depending on the dynasty, she had no rights, or few rights. The peasant woman in Japan was better off, legally, than the urban wealthy. Odd, that.

The Japanese still seem to have a modernistic take on the Middle Age ideal while the Western woman seems to be reinvented on an annual basis. America has had a riot of styles and flavors through the ages. The hem-line would change every few years. Bathing suits when from actual "suits" to bikinis, and then backed off into a more tasteful middle ground. Bras have gone from bound to unbound and everything in between. It is no wonder so many American women are messed up. They have no idea, culturally, what "Normal" is. Everyone has a different message and a different "look".

Fat, thin, in-between. Modern feminism attempts to tell women that you are beautiful at any size and I agree with that whole-heartedly. People need to have more time thinking about who they are, now, and not what they should look like, tomorrow. I feel sorry for Japanese women because even as their culture embraces the modern world, their women are still caught in the collision between genes and culture.

I guess the thing you should take from this is this: be happy at whatever weight you are. If a man does not accept you for who you are then keep moving. Life is too short. If being heavy bothers you, fix it. If it does not, then don't. You may have to learn to live with cats when you are older, but it is all about personal fulfillment in then end, is it not? If being alone bothers you, then get thinner, but don't do it because society tells you to do it.

Live well...and pass a towel. It is hot and humid down here.

--Zavost

The Truth

From atop the base of the Stoa, I wish to discuss something that should be basic to us all. Truth. There are no "versions" of the truth, nor are there "gray" areas of the truth either.

The first editor for the Wall Street Journal once said, "There are not two sides to every story. There is only one side to the truth." Or something to that effect. Wise man.

The modern Liberal, as exemplified by Biden, Obama, Ayers, Pelosi, Reed, etc. treats the truth as a tool to fool the people who expect to hear the truth from those officials who have been elected into positions of authority. The truth is an amorphous concept that can be "true" depending on your personal point of view. Aristotle (of whom I am NO fan) famously stated as he laid down the concept of logic, "a=a". Truth can be expressed in much the same fashion. For example:
Did Hitler run extermination camps in Central and Eastern Europe during World War II? Yes or No. What do we have to support the claim? Millions of survivors and millions of unburied, burned, and buried corpses. We have thousands of US soldiers who witnessed the camps operating even as they liberated them. We have diplomatic cables during the war discussing the issue at the highest levels of the English and American governments. We have captured Nazi documents (boy, they sure were good at keeping records) that record the concept genesis all the way towards "Final Solution".

Sounds like it happened and we can safely place, "Truth" behind it. However, today you have liberal Jew-haters who simply make a statement about it not happening and now you have ideological followers believing the lie. A nut job in Iran makes the claim and people today would prefer to believe him rather than the millions who survived the genocide. The truth still exists, like pristine wood that has been painted over a dozen times. If you peel away the lies, the truth will still be there. An incredible inconvenience to the Liberal. Must be difficult knowing your entire way of life must be lied about for the majority of Americans to believe you. Then again, I doubt that many Liberals are very introspective.

Did the Japanese "rape Nanking"? Oh, yes, the documentation is there. Volumes of data is available. The Japanese say there were not that many civilian casualties, the Chinese inflate the number. The truth, in this case, is somewhere in the middle. It happened, that is truth. To what degree the Japanese Imperial Army slaughtered the civilians is in question. The Japanese people carry shame like no other culture on Earth. At the time, their culture saw non-Japanese as a lower level of life and their people did not necessarily feel guilt like a Westerner would. Only after WWII and their integration, truly, into the modern world, did they realize the depths of their evil. Americans, for the most part, do not feel guilty about slavery or the extermination of the Native Americans. We feel bad that it happened, but we do not feel personally responsible. To most of us, it is history. Life moves on. To the Japanese, they will carry this shame for many generations. It is understandable that they will wish to downplay the atrocity. It does not remove the guilt, but it allows them to live with the actions of their ancestors. The Chinese have political cards to play and use them to slap the Japanese at every turn. The truth just is. Others use it for good or evil.

Obama claims that we are only in an Intelligence and Support role in Libya. Then why have we launched over 200 bombing missions since that announcement? Did he lie? Well, we did not hear the truth, that is for sure. Does he think he is telling the truth? He may, if he drinks his own philosophical kool-aid. I believe that he is aware of the lie and uses it to fool those of us that ACTUALLY expect to hear the truth from the President of the United States.

Does Bill Ayers feel guilty about bombing and killing people during the 60's and 70's? No. He accepts the truth of his involvement and he accepts the truth that he is a bomb-throwing radical of which the left claims comes only from the Right. To him, the truth is subjective and can be manipulated to fit the template they wish to preach at the time.

Are Republicans trying to starve children and grandma? They voted down a bill that would have increased funding by 15%, therefore, yes, they voted to starve them. Is this truth? Most don't know but these programs have escalators built into them so that they will go up indexed to inflation every year even without a vote. Without the vote, funding was going to go up by 10% anyhow. The truth is 1. funding increased over demand, 2. the Right felt that 15% was excessive, 3. money is left over and wasted every year.

The truth there is that the Left was playing politics. It does not take much effort to uncover these games. You just have to make AN effort.

I can have sympathy for the truly stupid among us. Not the mentally deficient, but those whose light bulb will never be that bright. They try to learn and they are eager, but the concepts must be kept simple. These people are especially susceptible to the truth stretching of the Left. Those that I loath are the ignorant. They have the intelligence to figure things out for themselves, but instead rely on a compromised MSM to spoon-feed them pre-packaged drivel and flavored truth. I encounter them in my travels frequently. Some are innocently ignorant and are open to discussions with me that ultimately help them to learn and question for themselves. Most are blinkered, bubbled individuals that hope that if they hold to a certain world-view that they can make that world-view reality. They are the ones that believe that the Republicans gather to come up with new ways to pollute the planet and to kill off children (despite the Lefts love of abortion) each and every day.

I loath those people. They are the useful idiots that Lenin relied on. Since WWII, ignorance has been our greatest harvest. Forget corn or wheat.

The rain upon the steps means that I will have few students today. Time to get some cooked goat meat and some onions.

Live well.

--Zavost

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

From the base of the Stoa, upward gazing at fireworks, I would like to think about internal contemplation.

At the risk of sounding like a drugged up hippy, I would like to remind everyone that the universe does talk to you if you are willing to listen. God is out there, no matter what your religion/science calls it. We are crafted from the dust of long destroyed stars, blown into the void and reshaped into new stars, planets, and life. Something of the past exists in all of us, to create the future.

Conscience, consciousness, right, wrong, good, evil, honor, morality, evolution and mortality. It is all there, threaded into this complex machine that is the human body. We know when we are doing something bad and we know when we are doing something good. It is more than upbringing, it is our "tuning fork" that is built into us all. When we act against our nature, we feel a negative emotion. If we have a good character (our default mode, I believe), we learn from those emotions and seek to avoid the feeling. If we have been overwhelmed with negativity then it will destroy us, body and soul. Like attracts like.

The header for this entry comes from a Douglass Adams book of the same name. The man was brilliant and taken from us far too soon. I would have loved reading more of his work. In my opinion, The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul is a perfect description for what we do at lat at night, when we are all alone with nothing but our thoughts to entertain us. It is deep introspection and contemplation. When we sleep we reboot our systems, restock supplies and remove waste products. Our brains collate all the data that was compiled during our last waking-cycle. Likewise, I believe that we need to have a psychic reboot as well, and no, I'm not talking about ESP or any other mental "powers". No, just a simple "refounding" of principles.

In the movies, this is always shown with a bottle of scotch. Wrong. You must keep alcohol out of this equation. You must remain perfectly clear while having this internal dialogue with yourself. Party afterwards, but not at this time. Deep down we all know what is right. I have stated before that this is inborn to all people. The "string" within us vibrates sympathetically to the universe/god. Deciding what to do with one's life is another of the Tea Times of the Soul.

Teenagers have the world at their feet, but sometimes, that world is scary, intimidating, and full of choices. Early immigrants from the old Soviet Bloc in Europe could be found, stuck in the pharmacy section looking at, and having to choose from, 50 different types of toothpaste. Back home, they were lucky to find one tube of toothpaste, let alone different brands or types. Simple choice there. Teenagers face this problem with life, and it only grows more stressful the closer they get to graduation. As adults, we forget sometimes that they do not have the same benefit of wisdom and hindsight that we have developed over the decades.

No one sets out to flip burgers at the local fast food restaurant, nor do they seek out the exciting life of door to door vacuum salesman. People do flip burgers and people do sell vacuums door to door. Many avoid these Tea Times of the Soul so that they do not have to look at what their lives have become, and are poorer for it. Acknowledging that you do not like this course in your life allows you to "own" the bad feelings and change your course. If you do not like flipping burgers then you will have to go to college, university, and maybe even get a Master's degree. Are those things hard to do? Yep. Are those things expensive? Hell yes. We do them so that when we have this communion with our "greater self" (that is for another time...) we can feel good about ourselves, who we are, and what we are doing with our lives.

I would rather feel the stress of a high power job then deal with the soul killing emotions that come from knowing I have squandered my abilities. To know that you are smarter than the idiot telling you how to do your menial job yet have no recourse is an awful thing to have to bear day after day.

Teenagers are dumb. They are socially immature and naive. They do not know how and and not been forced to have these quiet discussions with ourselves. They are so sure that they know everything that it is sometime before they are old enough to realize that they really know exactly nothing.

However, I also have to give credit to the power of ignorance. Think back to a particular poor choice you made, and knowing what you know now, if you could change the past, would you? I do not regret much in my life, so I'd be answering "no" much of the time. However, we are who we are today because of what we were yesterday. Think on it. If people really "knew" how hard it is to make through military training, not many would join. If we really "knew" the outcome of a poor marriage choice, would we still do it? What about any children born from that ill-thought out marriage? Who knows what great things they will do in life? From poor choices, great things can be born. The biggest disasters lead to the greatest wisdom. If we seek to avoid the hard things in life, then we will never experience the joy that comes with it.

When you are young you have ambition and drive in spades. That is what allows them to colonize a continent or fly an airplane for the first time. The first person to eat a chicken egg was either very hungry or too dumb not to know that you can't eat that (since it fell from a chicken's butt). It is the young and the ignorant that fly and test experimental aircraft. It is the young and the ignorant that think that you can start up a computer company in your garage or use the Internet to sell goods and services. Thousands will fail at those enterprises yet those that succeed did so because TRIED. As one grows older they get more conservative. Sometimes you just have to say, "what the hell" and run into something screaming, tongue flapping on a cheek, spittle flying and your hair on fire. You never know, it may just work.

Don't forget that one is never really alone. You always have yourself. You will always know what is best for you and only YOU can make the tough choices that change your life. You, you, you. The only blame that is not yours is when something terrible is done to you when you have done everything right. Then, you just write the guilt off and keep on swimming. Think on that some more as well and get back to me.

Live without regrets.
Live with informed consent from yourself.
Live well.

--Zavost