lexicography.com

Yet again I am forced to determine “what is goin ‘on”

I’ll tell you, we are all absolutely flummoxed.

If someone follows the markets - is it inflation or deflation? As a serious question it could not be asked other than during a few months in the decades behind us. In 1971, ask inflation or deflation? Impossible because everyone knew we was an inflation. Deflation means people do not buy because they expect lower prices in the future. In 1971 inflation was clear.

Today, well your portfolio should have long term bonds (rates are historically low but if things go deflationary nothing will be as good as a long term bond paying interest.) During the Depression deflation, a fixed rate long term treasury bond was as close as you could get to nirvana.

Here’s the kicker, no matter what anyone claims, no one knows if we are in a deflation or an inflation. Real estate is valued higher then ever in the history of the American financial system by any measure, a real estate implosion, as NASDAQ did, would lead to deflation and reduced prices. Everyone would hord cash just as they did in Japan for the last fifteen years.

Thoughts of the Modena 360 (read back a few posts) have grown on me even though we are apart; and there has been no progress towards ownership or even another visit. Perhaps only women (or the prospect of serious money) have the ability to engender such a response.

Lots of bloggers live on the financial edge, and I thought that even mentioning this car stuff might be construed as bragging. Then I realized, this is an ANONYMOUS blog. So onward.

When I was young, many times I lusted after some material possession. Sometimes I indulged beyond my means. Almost every time the experience was a great disappointment.

This car is one dashboard of red warning lights going off. I drove the $200K used model and I smelled slightly of motor oil when I disembarked. Two hundred grand and your tux will be sprayed by Mobile One every time you drive. The factory warranty, I am told, excludes oil leaks.

On the other hand, entering the car is like entering a conversation with a very attractive woman. Maybe someone so attractive that you entertain no thoughts of a relationship. So, you find that you get along - she smiles. She does not seem to be crazy (as many attractive women are). Not some wounded, brittle psychopath but a normal attractive, if high maintenance, person.

Is there danger? Yes.

Well, I am going to buy the car. Not the one I drove, but a one. Even a movie audience would approve, after watching my life. I have worked hard and provided schooling for my children, and even college and graduate school. Once you have provided for your retirement and for your kids start, you are entitled to something for yourself.

UPDATE: I referred to this car as “my last car” because I have diabetes. I was once a new member to this club and I was horrified by things written so allow me to explain. I will not die after this car, my wife simply means that at 50 plus years old - normal age related degeneration plus the problems of diabetes means that I may be able to drive from zero miles per hour to one hundred miles per hour and back to zero in less than ten seconds as the Modena is capable - particularly while scanning, as I do now, for police everywhere. There’s is nothing about diabetes that is a death sentence.

ABRIDGE, v.t.

To shorten.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Oliver Cromwell

This reminded me of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man.

Said underground man plots over how he will not step aside when some big personage comes walking towards him on a public street. Then the personage will recognize the contempt he is held in, the hollowness of his medals and honors, the seething hate directed towards him.

Only, the TSA functionary you are giving the evil eve to is able to require you to submit to a body cavity search before flying to your destination - so make the contempt subtle.

I mean, if that big fat TSA woman said “jump” would you say anythig other than ” how high?” and if you did how would you get home, rental car?

I hate to throw out without all the h ref’s and cites, but this is my place after all and I get to do what I want:

1.) Profiling in the UK will pretty much end this cultural relativism/multiculturalism bull. You cannot officially have police extend extra effort examining one or another group for criminal activity and maintain that all groups are equal in all essential respects.

2.) Asymmetrical Information is right. The University, MSM and bar associations are not left because of some feature of “word” people. The University, MSM, bar, judges, &etc. are reactionary simply by being large institutions governed by consensus instead of an objective outside measure, such as making a profit or peer review. I’ll bet in 1954 the University was stodgy while the leading edge was leftist. When I was a lawyer I always thought the bar was a little late getting on board anything, and then they joined with a gung ho. Thirty years from now the colleges, courtrooms and television studios will be full of near libertarians and will look just as dated as they do today.

3.) While I have provided a great deal of calming balm here, I haven’t disposed of the big problem. Collectivism is an ideology still gaining mindset and power. Boiled down, it views a group of people as analogous to an organism, and as in an organism no part may complain if sacrificed for the good of the whole. In a collective social organization, no individual may complain about his sacrifice to the whole. Naturally, the overall concept is wrong. The sacrifice of an individual is always to another one or more individuals, who claim to represent the public good, but in reality represent mere parasitic consumption of one individual by another.

That is all (for today).

Here’s a good one.

Would it help China if Japanese or Koreans or Malay were imported into the Chinese workforce so that no office, factory or store in mainland China was 100% ethnic Chinese?

Would it help Africa if White Americans were encouraged to emigrate to Africa to work side by side with the Africans in a diverse workplace?

Should Japan open its borders to Koreans, Americans, and Russians so that their workplaces are diverse?

Why does not the UN pressure the countries of the Middle East to increase the diversity of their workplaces and educational institutions?

Of course everyone knows that those proposed changes would do nothing to benefit the nations in question - in fact the introduction of people with vastly differing cultures would probably cause civil strife and problems.

Diversity is applicable to the United States only. No one cares about the diversity of any other nation on the face of the Earth. If you are American, do you suspect that you are being duped?

There is an idea forming in the great hive mind of the Internet. I offer these two early sightings:

So life went on for me in its normal pleasant way, as it did for 99% of Westerners. People did of course talk about the sadly twisted Muslims but they had no impact other than that. If the Muslims ever do succeed in making a serious nuisance of themselves to large numbers of us, though, I am confident that they will be dealt with effectively. If we all felt really threatened by them, their end would be swift.

Unfortunately there are no permalinks at this site so you may have to scroll down to see the entry and in the future you may have to consult the archives, but honestly, this post is there now.

Or consider this:

People make all sorts of political hay out of the sweeps-week TV news stories exposing vulnerabilities — a train yard here, a chemical plant there, a chokepoint bridge… But, really, this country is a land of vulnerabilities. It’s built that way. The whole place is founded on the premise that people can be trusted not to fuck with stuff. And, for the most part, we don’t. And that means we’re a vast, target-rich environment for sneaky, underhanded, violent nihilists who think they’re at war with the world’s lone superpower and the culture whence it springs.

Or so they want you to believe.

But if they had the capability to wage an even minimally effective guerilla or terrorist war agaisnt the U.S., there would be trains exploding and bridges falling every day.

Gottta Wonder

Look, if you gave me $100,000 and one hundred dedicated people I could cause more death, anguish and absolute horror than all terrorists have to date in in the United States. I could not bring down two skyscrapers but I could easily hurt Americans where they really cared much more one hundred times over.

So that raises the question: is it intentional? Are they not hitting us because they realize that a too effective attack will cause us to go over the edge, while constantly applied pressure will achieve their aims?

I have trouble believing that. The enemy does not have that sort of command and control to apply measured pressure. It is a sort of mob army which attacks when motivated often without direction.

Is it the limit of their capability? Could it be that they can muster 20 people to bring down a building but not the next hundred to bring down a country?

I simply do not know.

ABRACADABRA.

By _Abracadabra_ we signify

An infinite number of things.

‘Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?

And Whence? and Whither? — a word whereby

The Truth (with the comfort it brings)

Is open to all who grope in night,

Crying for Wisdom’s holy light.

Whether the word is a verb or a noun

Is knowledge beyond my reach.

I only know that ’tis handed down.

From sage to sage,

From age to age —

An immortal part of speech!

Of an ancient man the tale is told

That he lived to be ten centuries old,

In a cave on a mountain side.

(True, he finally died.)

The fame of his wisdom filled the land,

For his head was bald, and you’ll understand

His beard was long and white

And his eyes uncommonly bright.

Philosophers gathered from far and near

To sit at his feat and hear and hear,

Though he never was heard

To utter a word

But “_Abracadabra, abracadab_,

_Abracada, abracad_,

_Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_”

‘Twas all he had,

‘Twas all they wanted to hear, and each

Made copious notes of the mystical speech,

Which they published next —

A trickle of text

In the meadow of commentary.

Mighty big books were these,

In a number, as leaves of trees;

In learning, remarkably — very!

He’s dead,

As I said,

And the books of the sages have perished,

But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.

In _Abracadabra_ it solemnly rings,

Like an ancient bell that forever swings.

O, I love to hear

That word make clear

Humanity’s General Sense of Things.

Jamrach Holobom

All the educational materials my children bring home state as a fact that “diversity” is a great good.

When I went to school, 25-50 years ago, diversity was not a value at all. We had values, honesty, bravery, achievement, fairness. Diversity was not a value in itself.

It seems for two thousand plus years of human advancement they missed the great value of diversity. Then late 20th century, just about the time the rationale for affirmative action being limited to prior discrimination pretty much put the kibosh on affirmative action - suddenly “diversity” became a great unchallengeable value to one and all.

Harvard discriminated against Jews for centuries but no one in the PC world wants more Jews at Harvard. Harvard presently discriminates against Orientals, but no one wants more hard studying and high achieving Orientals at Harvard. Enter “diversity”, rationale for discrimination in favor of certain groups with no prof of discrimination against the group in the past. In fact past discrimination is irrelevant to the diversity argument. Never empirically tested, never publicly debated. The education establishment decreed that diversity, in your neighborhood, your school, your tastes, was a great good.

Somehow my poor kids think that the recently discovered diversity (which did not exist as a value for 2000 plus years of civilization) is now the greatest value. No empirical data, just a political agenda.

ABORIGINIES, n.

Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

For a nice libertarian presentation, I recommend this flash animation.

One reservation I have, if I may be so bold, is the implicit idea that people’s interests naturally coincide, and that it is only the actions of governments that cause strife in areas of the world. My opinion is more in line with Szatz, people’s interests conflict, it is part of our nature. There is nothing about our situation that yields harmony. You just have to reign in the use of force or live by force.

UPDATE AND EXAMPLE

How long should a patent last? How long should copyright protect a work? If it is 100 years the creator/inventor benefits, if it is one year the public benefits. One may not just call on utility, measure what protection yields the greatest intellectual property production because that is akin to measuring how much beating will yield the greatest work from a slave. As a mater of justice, the most production of intellectual property is poor utilitarian argument that does not survive.

The producers of intellectual property are in conflict with the consumers of intellectual property, neither side has a clear moral victory.