Federally Assured Destruction

Monty Pelerin sums it up nicely.

Read the whole thing.  Here's is the wrap-up:

The unavoidable Depression will occur regardless of their actions. The only issue is whether it is triggered by a massive inflation or a debt collapse. An immediate debt collapse would be less painful for the citizens than hyperinflation. In a debt collapse, balance sheets are cleansed and the economy is purged of much of the mal-investment and mis-allocation that has built up over the last couple of decades. The liability side of balance sheets shrinks to the underlying value of the assets.


In a hyperinflation, savings and fixed incomes are destroyed. That is, much of the assets of prudent individuals is destroyed. We would enter the Depression later, but most of us would do so without any nest egg which would have been demolished by inflation. Further, the mal-investments and mis-allocations go on longer, making the pain and recovery from the Depression that occurs that much harder.

Simple Workouts

About a year ago my wife's niece was here visiting for a couple of days.  She was always a cute girl but somewhat on the plump side.  She's about forty now, so she was looking a little "matronly".  At the time she was visiting, she mentioned that she and her husband had started working with a personal trainer -- something I always find amusing. 

She has a couple of fairly young children, and she travels a lot with their activities as well as her business.  There is not a lot of time in her schedule for working out. 

We saw her again in January of this year -- about nine or ten months since we had last seen her.  The transformation was astonishing.  Though a forty-year-old mother of two who always had a bit of a weight problem, she now looks strong, healthy and slender.

I am a very diplomatic person and managed to compliment her on her new look without suggesting that she was a tub-butt before.  I asked her how she did it.  First, she said, they tried to avoid processed foods -- which I took to mean more of a paleo-diet, staying away from starches and simple sugars.  The other key is exercise.  She doesn't have time to do a lot of running or go to the gym.  The focus of what she does is calisthenics, and her main exercise is that infamous gym class killer known as the burpee.

It is all well and good to have guns and ammo, food and water, seeds and tools, but your most important prep is good physical and mental health.  Most people can do a burpee.  You don't need equipment or a gym membership, special clothes or anything except a willingness to move and improve.

Drop your excuses, push away from the keyboard, and start now.

The Self-Defense Slingshot

You have probably seen this nice German gentleman, Joerg Sprave, on his slingshot channel on Youtube.  In this particular video from a couple of years ago, he demonstrates a sort of multi-tool "self-defense" slingshot.  It's kind of silly, really, but very creative and entertaining.  I like the fact that he has put so much thought into it and developed such a compact design. 

A thinking person can always come up with a way  to "get an edge", and this is a good example of that. 

By the way, I seriously doubt that a mugger looking for an easy target is going to pick this dude.  There are two kinds of fat people in the world -- the Wal-Mart kind and the other kind.  Joerg is the other kind.  The kind who shoots machetes at you.

An Unreasonable Response is Propaganda

 From a NY Post story (emphasis added): 

The circumstances surrounding the Koran incident, which happened overnight Monday to Tuesday, are still subject to investigation.
 
But US officials said the military removed the books from a prison at Bagram because inmates were suspected of using them to pass messages.

But by all means, let's make sure we get out in front and take the blame for this. 

What I suspect is that the inmates wrote in the books, including their precious Koran, in Arabic script.  Guards realized messages were being passed and seized the books.   Since they were already defaced, they disposed of them by burning. 

I have met Muslims who are quite reasonable people.  Apparently, they are not the majority. 

This is purely a propaganda event by the Taliban.  It is easy to work people up against a very restrained authority where there is very little danger of retaliation.  This suits cultural Muslim Obama just fine, petty little dilettante that he is.  Here is our excuse to get out of Afghanistan and let them have their Taliban Spring.  Obama, like Carter, figures he will be out of the White House -- or el presidente for life -- before anything too bad happens stateside. 

Careful Now, Nobody Mention the "I" Word

How does this work?  Europe has forecast a "mild" recession.  The euro, though, is up against the dollar.  I guess that could be due to the Greek deal.  It just seems odd with Greece's forced debt re-issue being labeled a default by the rating agencies and their bonds declared all but worthless.  Crude is bouncing around $106 -- last I checked.  But that's because of Iran cutting off European supplies.  Right?  The equity markets are running pretty strong.  Metals are up, too -- although copper, the recession indicator, is not showing much movement.

My guess is that the money the Fed has pumped in for the last couple of years is starting to have an effect.  Crude is up because the dollar is down, and Iran is a good excuse.  The euro maybe dying, but everything is relative, and, compared to the dollar, the euro doesn't look all that bad.  Equities and precious metals are rising on inflation.  All those extra dollars have to go somewhere.  People are afraid to put them under the mattress.

Good news, my 45-mpg motorcycle with all that storage capacity is starting to look like a prudent investment (even if it does prefer premium).  This is $3.50 in FEBRUARY, not exactly the peak of the driving season.  Crude is up despite world-wide demand being down and the threat of new or continued recessionary trends.  I am not impressed with the fact that there were only 351,000 new UI claims this week.  

We have to go to town anyway this afternoon, and I need to buy more coffee.  We might as well pick up a few cans of this or that while we are at it.  I'll be planting potatoes on St. Pat's, weather permitting.  We started going through the seed bins and notes yesterday to see if there is anything we need to order.  I haven't planted field corn in a while.  I am thinking about a three-sisters planting outside the garden, perhaps over by the pond where it will be easy to water.  I might try an something like Inca Blue corn, heirloom red beans, and acorn squash.  My neighborhood deer will love it if nothing else.

Vegetarians are the best eatin'.

Marketing, Modeling, and Privacy

This is what can happen if you use your credit card at Target.  It seems that, like many stores, Target likes to, uh, target its customers with specific mailings.  In the linked story from Forbes, we read that a teenage girl became with child unbeknownst to her father, who upbraided the local store's manager for sending coupons to his daughter, still in high school, that, to him, appeared to encourage her to get pregnant.  

The local manager had no idea about the model that analysts back at headquarters had built to identify possibly pregnant women and offer them timely coupons.  Target's statistical model is so good that they can predict the due date within a reasonably small window.

I have an old friend who would love this -- that is, if he didn't go to work for Target and help create it.  He worked in the marketing department of a credit card company.  I have stood next to him looking out at the parking lot as people arrived and listened to him tell me all about the number of kids the drivers had and their approximate ages, etc., based on the make, model, and year of the car they were parking.  It was his hobby even more than his job.

Most of the time companies want to put people on a mailing list and assign a customer number.  It is likely that one of the reasons for Sam's and Costco requiring a membership is to help them track customers.  Almost all the bigger retailers from Bass Pro to Best Buy to Krogers have some kind of system they want to get customers keyed into to allow targeted marketing.  I have no particular problem with the process when it is voluntary and overt. 

We just need to be aware that modern "mad men" have methods of tracking us and marketing to us with specific strategies.  It is a sign of the times.  Mass marketing and mass media are passing away as the only way to profitability.  In the age the 3-D printer and the smart phone app, you can personalize and individualize your world.  Remember, though, somebody may be watching you.

A Word from the Professional

Tony Sanchez-Arino Via Field and Stream:

He’s contemptuous of a number of things: “Ballistics tables, all these formulas and numbers, anything you read on the Internet, and ‘experts.’ All you need is a bullet with enough penetration to reach the vitals of whatever you’re hunting. The rest is nonsense. And never believe anything you read on the Internet, or anything you hear from an ‘expert.’ From them, you get horse***t in industrial quantities.”

I tend to agree with that sentiment.