Meanwhile these photos were taken only a couple hundred yards from the house.
Fifty years after the fall of Saigon (or its liberation, depending on whom you ask), Vietnam has transformed from a war-torn battleground to one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies—and now finds itself caught between two superpowers.
For North Vietnam, the war was a hard-fought victory for independence; for South Vietnamese refugees, it marked a heartbreaking loss of homeland. For the United States, it was a national trauma and a cautionary tale about military overreach and unclear objectives. But beyond the battlefield, the country’s postwar path tells a remarkable story of recovery.
After years of economic stagnation and international isolation—including a costly occupation of Cambodia and reliance on a crumbling Soviet Union—Vietnam had little choice but to pivot. The collapse of the USSR forced the country to look elsewhere, and by the late 1990s, it began opening its economy to the West. With the normalization of ties under President Clinton, Vietnam entered a period of rapid economic growth, joining the WTO and becoming a major global exporter, particularly in manufacturing.
Today, Vietnam plays a careful geopolitical balancing act, especially as tensions rise between the US and China. When President Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on Vietnamese goods in April—only to pause them 90 days later—Chinese President Xi Jinping seized the moment to deepen ties with Hanoi. Now, Vietnam must decide whether Trump’s aggressive trade policy will push it further into China’s orbit, a reversal of centuries of resistance to Chinese influence.
Geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer breaks down how Vietnam went from devastation in the wake of the Vietnam War to becoming a regional economic powerhouse.
Become a subscriber to follow where this leads us....
Unsatisfied with disrupting and breaking the over the road freight business President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday requiring truck drivers to pass English literacy tests as a "non-negotiable safety requirement" amid mounting communication problems between truckers and federal and local officials.
I'm sure this tough, new, executive order has been lauded in Trump World; except for the fact that federal regulations already require fluency in English to drive a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in the United States.
According to 49 CFR § 391.11(b)(2) from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR), a driver must:
“Be able to read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse
with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and
signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and
to make entries on reports and records.”
If I had to hazard a guess the White House is looking for a reason to
stop and interrogate brown skinned truckers who also happen to speak Spanish.
Nah. Too conspiratorial. They'd never do that. Would they?
I don't drive the I-43 corridor between home and southeast Wisconsin as much as I used to before retirement; nevertheless, when I've previously made a trip down and back It's not at all unusual to note a significant volume of Canadian truck traffic - particularly on the down-bound southern route. I actually made it practice to keep an eye peeled for rigs sporting the Bison Transport logo and their distinctive Manitoba tags.
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| photo credit Land Line Magazine |
Unsurprising, the primary Canadian port of entry in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge connecting Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. There is also my favorite border crossing; the Grand Portage-Pigeon River port of entry connecting Grand Portage, Minnesota, with Neebing, Ontario and Thunder Bay. It's a major route between Duluth, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Ontario.
No wonder a significant portion of Canadian freight found its way to Interstate 43.
As the chaos and confusion, Red Light, Green Light, moving of the goal posts of the White House's tariff policies roil the global economy it turns-out that the trucking industry is emerging as another victim of these tax increases on international commerce.
To be clear, truckers are not a direct object of Trump's levy wrath; nevertheless, this sector is feeling unwelcome pressures and upheavals because lots of stuff moves across North America by truck.
How much stuff you ask? Consider this - The North American trucking industry is a massive sector, generating significant revenue and employing millions of people. In 2022, the US trucking industry alone generated $940.8 billion in gross freight revenue and had 3.54 million truck drivers. The entire North American trucking industry (including Canada and Mexico) is even larger, with over 12.7 million truck entries combined on the Canadian and Mexican borders in 2022, and the value of goods traveling via truck across the borders jumped to over $947 billion in 2022.
Impacts are not isolated to freight companies and drivers; last week Mack Truck and Volvo announced the layoff of hundreds of workers as a consequence of falling demand due to tariff troubles and market uncertainties. It hasn't taken very long for negative impacts to ripple across the entire industry.
It is clear that this meaningful player with our largest trading partners has been seriously disrupted. But we all know that Donald Trump thrives on disruption and breaking things. Pure speculation on my part; but I don't think he thought this thru sufficiently to understand how broken this is becoming. But that's how Trump rolls (pun intended).
Anyway, follow this link for a higher-level analysis of how the president's taxes on trade have disordered and begun to seriously dislocate a previously well-oiled engine of supply chain logistics. It's a short read and worth it. Trust me. Further evidence of the Law Of Unintended Consequences.
Meanwhile, If I'm driving to the Naked City for any reason I'm gonna keep an eye peeled for any Canadian transports.
The Moon's orbit around Earth is imperfect. It is not a nice, neat circle but elliptical with one side closer to Earth than the other. As a consequence, the distance between the earth and the moon varies. The closest approach (perigee) for 2025 is today - a distance of 221,902 miles. The furthest approach (apogee) was January 20 - a distance of 252,595 miles. On average, the distance is about 238,000 miles.
When the moon is at perigee (closer) you have a Super Moon because it will appear larger. When the moon is full and is at perigee you have a Full Super Moon and with everything larger and up to thirty percent brighter you are witness to a spectacular night sky phenomenon.
When there is a New Moon around the closest point to Earth it is known as a Super New Moon. These Super New Moons, like any other new Moon, are invisible as a consequence of the new Moon’s passage between the Earth and the Sun. The resulting dark skies will provide several evenings beginning tonight for observations of the heavens without the interference of moonlight. With colder temperatures there is also less humidity. A cold sky is a clearer sky.
Tonight and for the next couple of nights about an hour after sunset look to the west to spot Jupiter.
Doggo and I are roughing it for a couple of day while Jill is away.
This evening we enjoyed porch peanuts and a frosty import.
Steak and baked potato - including snipped chives from the kitchen garden.
And a beautiful peninsula sunset for for desert....
Sure, it's turkey hunting season, and an opportunity to scratch your outdoor itch during springtime.
The gobblers and the ladies are on the march....
Some recent images from the trail camera trap line include:
A curious doe
A screech owl
Hegseth has yet to hold a press conference in the Defense Department briefing room, but he has used it to film appearances on Fox News.
Our war fighting capability — and apparently eye shadow — spending is safe from Trump’s cost-cutting agenda: He and Hegseth just proposed the country’s first-ever $1 trillion annual defense budget.
From the Davenport Sports Network there is this.
On April 21, 1970 the Cincinnati Royals stunned the basketball world by trading superstar Oscar Robertson to the Milwaukee Bucks for Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulo. No reasons were officially given to why the Royals made the trade, but many pundits suspected head coach Bob Cousy wanted to trade “The Big-O.” Robertson himself said, “I think he was wrong and I will never forget it."
The relationship between Oscar and the Royals had soured to the point that Cincinnati had also approached the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks about deals involving their star player (the Knicks players who were discussed in those scenarios are unknown, but Los Angeles stated publicly that the Royals asked about Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, with the Lakers saying they would not consider trading either star).
The trade to the Bucks proved highly beneficial for Robertson and, after being stuck with an under-performing team the last 6 years, he now was paired with the young Lew Alcindor. With Alcindor in the low post and Robertson (pictured below being given a physical by Dr. Robert Parks LeTellier with Alcindor waiting in the background) running the backcourt, the Bucks charged to a league-best 66–16 record, including a then-record 20-game win streak, a dominating 12–2 record in the playoffs, and crowned their season with the NBA title by sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals.
From a historical perspective; however, Robertson's most important contribution was made not on a basketball court, but rather in a court of law. It was the year of the landmark Robertson v. National Basketball Association, an antitrust suit filed by the NBA's Players Association against the league.
As Robertson was the president of the Players Association, the case bore his name. In this suit, the proposed merger between the NBA and ABA was delayed until 1976, and the college draft as well as the free agency clauses were reformed. Robertson himself stated that the main reason was that clubs basically owned their players: players were forbidden to talk to other clubs once their contract was up, because free agency did not exist until 1988.
Six years after the suit was filed, the NBA finally reached a settlement, the ABA–NBA merger took place, and the Oscar Robertson suit encouraged signing of more free agents and eventually led to higher salaries for all players.
This is a real gem that YouTube suggested.
From likely fifty years ago.
Forgotten - now remembered....
Google Photo periodically furnishes unsolicited photo vignettes using their AI platform. Like these brief, fleeting, moments associated with the rising and setting of the sun.
Characterized as the Magic Hour almost always these moments are not even close to an hour. Most often they are there and gone in a heartbeat. You snooze you lose.
This is nice slideshow....
Performance
Here's a really fun story about the search for a surviving Big Block Chevy Police Interceptor from the Hemmings New archives.
It's that time of year.
As the daylight hours continue to lengthen a hormonal response in the male of this species has commenced. These long-beards have got loving on their mind.
The turkey trot commences.
From the trail camera trap line there is this.
The 1960 Corvair baby cradle
Touted as a "safe" and comfortable way to carry your baby.
Pointing out that this is the warmest place in the car since it has a
rear engine, and the engine vibrations can lull the baby to sleep.
After a couple year-long turkey drought the dam broke yesterday and I dropped a real nice gobbler with a record-breaking fifteen minute hunt.
Yup. No sooner than a sat down and made some initial calls this gobbler walks-in from behind me, quietly making a beeline for my jake decoy.
Kaboom!
I never even unpacked the book I brought to read.
I didn't pluck this bird choosing to butcher it and break it down into its component parts.
I got two - three pound - pieces of breast meat; I'm thinking stir fry and risotto for starters. The hind quarters are destined for homemade wild turkey vegetable noodle soup.
My pals Lawyer and Braumeister are on deck with tags for next week and the following.
The month of April brings us the Lyrid Meteor Shower which will reach its peak the evening of April 22-23 before a thick waning crescent moon rising several hours before dawn.
Picked these-up at the bird food outlet as a supplemental protein source for my migratory bird arrivals until the local bug hatch.
Consider the same.
The birds will thank you....
On Tuesday, March 4th President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress. I do not begrudge our President the opportunity to take a victory lap; particularly on the heels of six busy weeks of cabinet hearings, executive orders, reductions in force, court hearings, spending freezes, tariffs followed by pauses, starts and follow-up pauses of the the latter.
The speech was exceedingly long however; meaning the volume of dubious claims or lies was target-rich. Nothing new under the sun; nevertheless, worthy of truthful daylight. Consequently, from time to time one of more of the King's gems will be featured here.
Enjoy.
“We have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in America in just the past few weeks.”
This is a spurious figure, and Trump frequently takes false credit. Most of this claim comes from statements by Apple ($500 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($600 billion). But Apple has a practice of making this sort of announcement after the installation of a new president. In 2018, Apple announced it would contribute $350 billion to the US economy over five years; it made a similar commitment in 2021 during the Biden administration. The most recent announcement mostly overlaps with the latter 2021 announcement.
As for Saudi Arabia, who knows. Word is that this was floated in a phone call between Trump and the Saudi leader. In 2017, Trump claimed Saudi Arabia had struck $350 billion in deals. Yet, after further inspection and analysis we learned that the "deal" was a haphazard collection of magical wishful thinking, fuzzy math and double counting. In the end almost all of the investment occurred in Saudi Arabia - no the United States.
The president also talked-up a $100 billion investment in AI data centers; truthfully, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman had launched the Stargate deal almost a year before Trump was inaugurated.
Finally, a $100 billion investment announced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was originated by former president Biden and included funds from the Chips and Science Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that passed in 2022.
So yeah, wink wink, tall tales and don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain.
In Poland and Russia a Babushka is an old woman or grandmother. Characterized by a headscarf.
This is the canine version...
Composed by Lee Hazlewood and recorded by Nancy Sinatra it was released in December of 1965 and immediately charted reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1966.
Covered by countless artists I best remember it playing on a transistor radio as a kid and later as an adult in a scene from Stanley Kubrick's classic film Full Metal Jacket; where a South Vietnamese hooker in a miniskirt propositions a couple of GIs.
In 2020, this version was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame.
These Boots Are Made For Walkin'.....
Taco Bell needs to bring back the Tostada, Ala Carte Frijoles and the Bellburger...
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Photo Credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society |
I have blogged about this tid-bit before.
On this day in history; April 16, 1944, Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Corporation launched a small coastal freighter at its yard in Kewaunee, Wisconsin.
Built for the Army Transportation Corps, she was originally designated FP-344, but that was later changed to FS-344. In 1966 FS-344 was transferred to the Navy and renamed USS PUEBLO.
At the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard she was crammed with sophisticated electronic gear and converted to an Auxiliary General Environmental Research (AGER) vessel – a class recognized by few naval officers. PUEBLO (AGER-2) was a signals intelligence collector – a spy ship. Jointly operated by the National Security Agency and Naval Intelligence, she carried a crew of 83, 30 of which were communication technicians.
Last week I was listening to a radio guest on the Sirius POTUS station speak on the subject of the president's fixation with trade balances instead of trade barriers; both of which occur in the world of international trade. As I explained a week ago they are quite different from one another - and the president has fixated-upon the former instead of the latter. Trade barriers are bad because currency manipulation, digital services taxes, value-added taxes and actual tariffs are obstacles to free trade. Traded imbalances happen all day long in the normal course of commerce. I spend money weekly at my chosen grocer who has never purchased anything from me. We have a trade imbalance.
This blog post was composed last Friday, April 12, 2025 and was in the can for publication at 6:30 PM today. And then this fell into my in-box early yesterday morning. Somewhat perfect timing by Peter Zeihan yet technically a week late as I'm not a paid subscriber. But I digress.
Anyway, getting back to the satellite radio broadcast the guest shared with the program host that what the president was exhibiting in his policy of reciprocal tariffs is known in economic circles as a Fallacy of Composition.
Whoa! I'm no economist but as a recovering financial guy I happen to have a deeper understanding of economic principles than the average bear. I suspect I've never heard this precise terminology before; and if I had learned about it in an earlier life it has been long forgotten as a consequence of disuse.
Anyway, it is during difficult economic times that economists actually talk about the Fallacy of Composition; a concept that is a principle of logic. So I looked it up and it goes something like this.
The Fallacy of Composition is committed when someone concludes that what is true of the parts of a whole must apply to the entirety of the whole without there being adequate justification for the claim in the first place.
For instance, in mathematics one and three are odd numbers; consequently four is an odd number because 1 + 3 = 4. Naturally, this is untrue because four is an even number.
In the economic realm the fallacy occurs when the economy is treated as if it were a family or a business. Namely, that a policy that will work for a business will work for the economy as a whole. When someone concludes that what is good for a family or a business is good for something as large as a nation's economy then the fallacy of composition has occurred.
This is because a theory that might apply to family finances or a business may not be relevant to an economy as complicated as that of the United States. Economies play by rules that are far more dynamic than rules that apply to a business. When a decision-maker concludes that a country is being raped and ripped-off as a consequence of a trade imbalances then the outcome for the entirety of the economy may be completely other than intended. Such as a soft 3-year treasury note auction or currency markets that punish the US dollar as a consequence of a lack of confidence in the United States. The fallacy becomes worse than simple irrelevance when the world begins to lose faith in your country's diminishing reservoir of economic goodwill. There can be serious consequences.
The application of tariffs on a selective basis can reduce imports thereby providing protection for a specific economic sector; which is a good thing. Conversely, if all nations impose trade barriers in a global trade war then world trade will decline resulting in everyone being worse-off.
Similarly, if everyone stopped spending during a recession in order to be thrifty and to save money then aggregate demand may fall and aggravate the downturn. In this example thrift may very well be good for an individual situation; yet if extended to an entire economy it may lead to a reversal of economic growth. Thus the fallacy of composition.
So, just like when you are at a Packer game and stand-up it is a fact that you can better see the play unfold; until everyone else stands to do the same. Decisions based-upon the fallacy of composition can lead to bad policy recommendations, flawed economic predictions and ineffective solutions. Understanding this is crucial to avoiding errors of logic in economic reasoning and avoiding faulty outcomes.
Inconsistency and moving of goal posts continues to raise doubts in American boardrooms and in the minds of American investors and retirees; all of whom could use a measured dose of predictability and policy certitude.
I'm not seeing much yet that will improve your and my prosperity and general lot in life. And maybe make the world a safer place. But I'm a patient sort. Time will tell.....
One of the countries who got caught up in the 'Liberation Day' crossfire was Vietnam. Through an arbitrary and poorly informed process, Vietnam was slapped with a 46% tariff.
According to Zeihan, Trump's team is filled with loyalists that lack any semblance of expertise in their designated areas, so these inflated tariffs are more about pleasing Trump than logic. Which doesn't make for great economic policy in case you were wondering.
Vietnam has been a key ally in reducing US dependence on China, but since Vietnam doesn't import enough from the US due to the income disparity, Trump and his lackeys sniffed a trade deficit and abracadabra; punitive tariffs.
Be sure to check-in tomorrow for a deeper dive into the illogical nature of this pseudo-policy....
Probably not. Today is the regular filing deadline for individual taxpayers and the title of this post is purposefully misleading because if the White House succeeds in a 25% reduction-in-force at the Internal Revenue Service the probability of an audit will most certainly be reduced.
Using IRS published data audits of individual taxpayers has fallen by roughly two-thirds since 2010.
A decade and a half ago audit rates fell across all income levels. In 2010 for most of us the probability of an audit might have been about 1 in 100. By the time 2020 rolled-around it was even less.
Nowadays the probability of an audit is the lowest it's been in my lifetime.
If you are a high roller or a business the same holds true.
Consequently, lower audit rates result in reduced revenue to the treasury. In 2010 the IRS collected an additional $11 billion by means of auditing individual tax returns. For the 2019 tax year that had fallen to $4.5 billion despite higher overall income levels.
With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, President Biden planned to reverse attrition at the IRS by adding an additional 20,000 employees over the next decade. The goal was to increase enforcement spending by about $45 billion over that same decade in hopes of capturing an additional $125 billion in revenue over the same period. Naturally, the White House and Congressional Republicans have since rescinded or frozen spending on this initiative.
The Yale Budget Lab has estimated that planned reductions-in-force will result in a loss of gross revenues of anywhere from $395 billion to $2.4 trillion over the next decade. This loss of revenue adds to the deficit even as Elon Musk's claims the efforts of the DOGE are an attempt to reduce the deficit.
Revenue contributions aside, our tax code is basically a voluntary mechanism for collecting taxes. I submit my return based-upon my assessment and that of my CPA of the adequacy of certain deduction or tax preference items. If a taxpayer receive a nasty gram from the IRS challenging that assessment I can either pay-up or challenge it. If I lose my challenge it is likely I won't take the same or similar position in a future year.
Of course, if there is a steadily decreasing probability of an audit and subsequent rebuff I may be emboldened to be more aggressive about a filing.
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.
- Judge Learned Hand
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