Drama At The Oval

Last Friday's Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky was ostensibly intended to discuss peace negotiations concerning the Russia-Ukraine conflict and to finalize a natural resources agreement.  However the meeting devolved into a heated exchange with Trump accusing Zelensky of being ungrateful and risking global conflict by not pursuing peace with Russia.  Vice President JD Vance criticized Zelensky for discussing policy matter publicly, leading to an abrupt end to the meeting without a signed agreement.  

Naturally, the incident drew significant attention both here and abroad with numerous world leaders expressing support for Zelensky and criticizing President Trump's approach.  Leaders from countries such as Canada, Norway, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Moldova condemned Trump's remarks and reaffirmed their commitment to supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion.  

Given the contentious nature of the meeting, the choreographed timing of Vance's entry into the fray gives the appearance of not merely a theatrical performance, but a planned public setup.  The first thing that came to mind was the boardroom scene of the Final Episode following another lame season of The Apprentice.  I digress.

The lack of any substantive outcomes and subsequent international reaction seems to imply that the meeting had significant implications beyond just the political theater.  Precisely what they are remains to be revealed.  Is Trump ten moves ahead in a three dimensional chess match; or is he simply chaotic?  You pick.

Nonetheless, I sort of saw it coming; like a slow moving train wreck.  There were earlier signals from Secretary Hegseth,  the US joining both North Korea and Russia in the vote at the United Nations (China abstained), along with Trump's parroting of Kremlin talking points.  I shared with a couple of pals that I figured Trump was going to orchestrate things in a way that Putin would get the whole shebang in the end.  Time will tell.

Does this suggest we've signaled to the world that we're done with 70+ years of transatlantic alliances; trading all of it for an alliance with a ruthless blood-soaked gangster like Vladimir Putin and his rapidly failing Russian state?

Or was this a garden-variety Mafiosi protection racket?  Listen-up youse.  Give us your raw earth minerals, or your dry-cleaning shop, izza gonna burn down, see.

Why does Trump have a hard-on for Putin? 

Why isn't Putin being held to account?

Does Zelensky understand a bad deal is better than a good war?

Judging from the reaction in the cesspool called Face Book, the base is loving the red meat.  Of course the base has also turned a blind eye, or loves, (you pick) the forcible abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.  Similarly, supporters of Ukraine were quick to post their own collection of cut and paste unoriginal memes.  Although I didn't note anyone volunteering to send their children or grandchildren over there to join the fight.

It's too soon and uncertain to know where this takes us.  Although for the first time this year I watched all the Sunday morning talking heads on both sides as White House spokespeople twisted them selves in convoluted knots in an attempt to explain this is ten moves ahead three dimensional chess and not simply chaos.

What I've learned over the years is that Trump means what he says and he closed the Friday drama with this:

This is going to be great television.  I will say that.

 

Thanks for reading and stay-tuned. Hardly a dull moment nowadays. 

Free Speech

I was witness to a disturbing phenomena over the weekend and I don't believe I am the only person to have made this observation. Moreover, I am not surprised that it has come from the same small group of individuals who six months ago were getting-off on Face Book with vulgar, racist, sexual memes and hate speech focused towards Vice President Kamala Harris.

It took only about 24 hours for these same individuals to go over the top gleeful as Californians suffered the tragic misfortune of losing everything to wildfires.  

Homes, businesses and property lost. Families displaced. 

People still missing and unaccounted-for.  

Lives lost.

Thanks to an abundance of material supplied by Russian and Communist Chinese troll farms my recalcitrant acquaintances have somehow roped forestry policy, the LGBTQ community, pedophilia, diversity, equity and inclusion, a wild smelt, Hollywood personalities, Gavin Newsom, North Carolina and Ukraine all into one big wet dream of joyful, celebratory and triumphal mirth over the loss of life, destruction of neighborhoods and communities reduced to ash.

As a casual observer it is interesting to watch this social psychology at play in real time.

There's a great deal of unresolved grievance and hatred out there. Waiting only for the opportunity to be unleashed on social media from behind the warming glow of a device. Hard to know if it's a character flaw or a pathology. Strikingly, some of these individuals wear their 'Christianity' on their sleeve and remind me of it regularly.  

I wonder what Jesus would have to say about their flagrant expenditure of bandwidth to mock the dead and air their loathing and scorn for the people of Los Angeles?

I just don't get it. I'm grateful I'm not hardwired to be ecstatic and gratified over my fellow countryman's misfortunes.....

*Individual screenshots of Face Book posts, commentary and replies have not been reposted here for privacy reasons and because the content is just sick.

Independence Day

The week preceding my South Dakota vacation (likely Monday, October 28 or thereabouts) a couple of economic news feeds caught my attention with some pre-election chatter.   

Equity, fixed income and currency markets were beginning to signal a Trump win.  

With that I thought to myself:  Election too close to call.  Bad news for Team Harris.  All of which was confirmed Wednesday morning November 6.  Donald Trump had won both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

With this came a big mandate for change.  And a bit of relief for me about something long in the making and now confirmed.  The party of Ronald Reagan was dead.  I take no joy in its passing; only relief in that it is now over and done with.

As a general rule my opinions about Donald Trump have reflected that I do not think very much of him as a person.  Nothing in this recent election outcome has changed that view.  His exhortations invalidate everything I have been taught about how to live my life and everything I've imparted to my daughter about being kind, generous, loving your neighbor, being accepting, showing understanding, empathy, being truthful, ethical, sensible and levelheaded.  Not being a bully, selfish and an asshole.

There is a reasonably good possibility that about half the people reading this would tell me that they like Trump because he says what's on his mind, he tells it like he sees it and doesn't have a filter.  Well, sometimes it's OK to have a filter.  There was a time, not so long ago, when being an asshole wasn't cool.  If you were a shitty person and kept it to yourself, society was a better place because of it. 

I am the product of a lifetime of unintentional, prior influences and imprints.  Dig deep enough into my implicit biases and you'll likely catch a whiff of cold war.  So, get over it. 

In 2016 I considered Donald Trump to be a goof and a joke; not to be taken seriously.  While my life got along swimmingly with his policies during the first three years of his administration all of that changed with the COVID shit show of 2020.  In over his head, by the time the election rolled-around more than enough people had enough of the drama that I believe it cost him the election.

2024 was different.  In a disciplined fashion Donald Trump tapped-into working class anxieties and resentment over inflation and the general economy.  It doesn't matter a lick if I feel my world is doing better if a plurality of my countrymen do not. I've learned to be cognizant of this.  I can do better.  We can do better.

Donald Trump won the White House, the Senate and the House.  The Trifecta.  SCOTUS is icing on the cake.  Donald Trump is no goof or joke.  He brought home the first popular vote win for the GOP in two decades.  He is the real deal. He expanded the GOP base to broadly include a meaningful number of minority voters.  He deserves a great deal of credit for that.  Consequently, he has a ginormous mandate for change and an abundance of goodwill.

Speaking of which, political parties undergo generational change.  And my generation has been shuffled aside as there is no place or role for us any longer in what was previously known at the Party of Reagan.  Social media has been fertile ground for fourth grade caliber ridicule.  Being derisively called a NeoCon is apparently a new pejorative.  Who knew? 

None of the foregoing amounts to much.  Sticks and stones.  It is the loss of friends and acquaintances who have excommunicated one another over perceived grievances that is the real tragedy.  Perhaps this will heal with the passage of time.  We'll see.

In the fourth paragraph of this post I alluded to a feeling of relief.  A consequence of the election outcome is being relieved of the burden of party.  Doesn't matter which party either.  I'm done rolling that boulder up the hill.  I'm basking in the warming glow of something I find strangely liberating; and it is not my laptop.  My newfound independence is a second chance to look at the world with a clean slate.  Independence Day has come to November 6.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to stand for something other than our base instincts. I'm capable of better.  Donald Trump won fair and square and there wasn't even a whiff of political violence as a consequence.  That speaks volumes.  So, I'm going to sit on my hands for a bit and wait for detailed policy proscriptions to materialize.  You know, stuff that will improve your and my prosperity and general lot in life.  Along with making the world a safer place.

Bring it on....

Free Speech

It should come as no surprise that Vice President Kamala Harris has long been the target of racist and misogynistic online attacks as a consequence of her Black and South Asian ethnicity.  

As a candidate for president the gendered, sexualized and racial attacks aren't going away.  In some respects they've become worse.  In the absence of any personal restraint on the part of internet users combined with lackadaisical oversight by tech companies, the close to this election cycle will likely set a new standard for tastelessness.

Interesting to me is that of my 348 Face Book friends virtually everybody (on both sides of the aisle) have refrained from posting or reposting crude and vulgar content related to any candidate on their FB pages.  If anybody is talking politics they're going about it correctly;  sticking with policy differences, tasteful humor and witty sarcasm.  Personally, I avoid it.  If I have anything to say on politics I do it here because reading the blog is voluntary.  There is no faceless algorithm to foist it upon you.  If you're bothered or troubled about anything I publish;  don't come here.  But you already knew that.  Getting back to the subject of Face Book there are four acquaintances of mine who cannot seem to help themselves.

Moreover, the curious thing is that all four of these acquaintances have a great deal in common with me.  We're all within a year of each other in age, grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools and for some the same church.  By all outward appearances they're upright citizens.  If you met them socially you'd find them personable and likeable.  Not a criminal amongst us.  But when it comes to the volatile mix of Face Book and political speech you might just think that from time-to-time they've lost their minds.

A couple of days following President Biden's abdication of the throne I spent a few moments  sampling of the Face Book pages for these four individuals and collected these screen shots.

Frankly, this sort of behavior is a turn-off.  And I don't think it's restricted to a conservative-leaning independent like me.  Many of my acquaintances who are Trump supporters likely share this sentiment.  Can you believe these are adults?

Are these four individual's under the impression that licentious posts are going to polish Donald Trump's brand?  Advance their cause?  Attract voters from the Big Fat Middle who are necessary to win an election?  It hasn't let-up either.

Thankfully it's a small number.  But Holy Cow, they've sure got a hard-on for sexualized hate speech. 

Meanwhile, last Wednesday, former President Trump questioned the racial identity of Vice President Kamala Harris during a tense appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago.  He asked, Is she Indian or is she Black?  He falsely claimed that Harris, who has long identified as Black, attended a historically Black university, used to identify as Indian and then, all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person. 

This is all part of the Trump campaign play book.  Skip the policy and dominate the media cycle.  Like I said earlier; looks like this election is game-on.

Pro Tip - Watch the Vegas Line and the odds-makers......

Notable Quotable

Correct each other in private.

Defend each other in public.

And keep your grievances off Face Book.

- Unknown

Playing The Victim Card

As an occasional and casual fan of country music I'm having a chuckle over all the valuable bandwidth consumed by the feigned outrage over Jason Aldean's new song.  I include outrage from both sides of the divide.  Umbrage over the song and outrage in response to Aldean and his defenders perceived victimization.

Is this serious?

If you don't care for the song, don't torture yourself listening to it.  And precisely where and how does a song inspire victimization?

Frankly, as far as country songs go this one isn't particularly inspiring and in my view quite formulaic.  I was speculating this morning if it was composed by a focus group and not a serious country artist.  A song to provoke feigned outrage among a divided populace.  Adroitly-playing the victimhood card.  My, oh, my.  Just like performative politics nowadays.

Imagine that; insulted victims to boost downloads instead of talent and an aspirational message.  Nope.  That's just too conspiratorial.

Anyway, it's an interesting social experiment to observe people being led about by the nose over a very average piece of music.  Alas, country music nowadays is mostly unexceptional.  There are standouts, of course; but on a historical scale, most current artists are too dilute to hold a place in history.

This is the Gold Standard of country music.....

Hopefully The Final Balloon Update

Last week Old Uncle Joe spoke to a nation weary of balloon drama about the necessity to develop sharper rules to identify and, if necessary, shoot down unidentified aerial objects.  All of this a consequence of weeks of breathtaking drama associated with the transit of a Red Chinese spy balloon that crossed the airspace of the United States and Canada.

As I have said before, I take seriously the encroachment of anything suspicious in our nation's airspace.  This includes civilian private and commercial aircraft, military aircraft and balloons;  anything without a previously-filed flight plan.   Satellites are a completely different matter.  On this matter there is nothing funny about China's criminal conduct and willful disregard for our laws.

It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that roughly half the population dislikes Old Uncle Joe.  That is OK.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion.  It is a foregone conclusion that this population will complain if a balloon isn't shot from the sky immediately.  Considering the Red Chinese balloon was more than 200 feet tall and carrying a payload the size of three school buses if blown to bits it might result in a very sizeable debris field.  Suppose you shoot out of the sky something of this size?  Suppose all of that mass broke-up at an altitude of 50,000 feet, scattered and fell from the sky, damaged property, injured some children or killed someone?  Do you think these same people might howl even louder? 

Seems to me Old Joe is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.  But that's his problem, not mine. 

I'm actually slightly tickled to have witnessed some people contort themselves into knots over the course of events because as days passed we eventually learned that by the time the spy balloon had crossed into American airspace late last month our military and intelligence services had been tracking it for nearly a week already; watching as it lifted-off from its home base in Hainan Island near China's south coast.

Expecting it to surveil our extensive military installation on Guam an unexpected jet stream carried it far off course to the north where a cold Canadian weather front pushed it back south and then eastward penetrating the American heartland.  Chinese ineptness following a bad turn of events?  What, no self-destruct mechanism?  Or a Chinese attempt to exploit a bad turn of events?  Its sloppy carelessness either way.

So yeah, I'm kinda pissed about this.  Floating thru our airspace is at a minimum an affront to national pride.  At worse an act of aggression.  Nevertheless, if I had to hazard a guess the PLA was caught flat-footed by this untoward turn of developments; so much so they wouldn't even pick-up the phone to answer our calls to ask- WASSUP?

Their playbook was reminiscent of a Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy cartoon strip.  Did the PLA do and end run around President Xi?  Or fall on their sword for President Xi?  Meanwhile, if you paid attention to the rhetoric last week at the Munich Security Conference, China's senior foreign policy advisor Wang Yi  was indignant and laid blame for all of this at the feet of U.S. indiscriminate use of force. He demanded an apology.  In Asian cultures Face counts for much more than in western culture.

So, in my view, I thought it prudent to follow the advice of the military and intelligence services to track it, jam its transmissions, study it, photograph it, record its telemetry, shoot it down in shallow territorial waters, recover as much wreckage as possible, move the debris to the FBI lab at Langley to study it further and reverse engineer as much as can be done.  Maybe even rub their nose in it.

Big loss of face to be punked on those terms.  Plausible?

You may disbelieve all of the foregoing or disagree with it.  That's perfectly OK.  Inasmuch as anyone reading this (including yours-truly) isn't privy to secure briefings in a SCIF we all are entitled to an opinion.  Nevertheless, and because I try to keep an open mind, if your narrative of the spy balloon drama includes our military lying to us, all of the combined intelligence services deceiving us, the Biden Crime Syndicate accepting billions of dollars of Chinese bribes, Hunter's laptop, and the Canadians implicated in the entirety of it than by all means please share.  If you have evidence of a cover-up or conspiracy you have an obligation and absolute duty to reveal it.  Post it in the comments section.  The congressional inquiries, indictments, impeachments, arrests and firing squads will follow.  

Which is more plausible; the latter or the former?

One more thing; I believe that splashing some hobbyist's or a university's or other legitimate entity's non-nefarious and totally legit balloon with an air-to-air Sidewinder missile at $400,000 a pop is just a wee bit over the top.  So we'll just have to see how this is parsed in the real world.

In closing, and to remain grounded in some rational perspective on the whole affair, consider this:  People routinely allow Face Book, TikTok (Red Chinese spyware), Pinterest, Alexa and similar platforms to spy on their lives willingly and all the damn day long.  Is a Chinese spy balloon a larger threat than Google Earth?  Want to see a missile silo from above?  Open source photos are readily available on the web.  (The silo doors are always closed BTW and everyone knows their locations).  Listen-up people, everyone's satellites have already photographed everyone else's secret stuff by high resolution means already.

It occurred to me the other day that the commotion over Red China's balloon is reminiscent of the hysteria that followed the launch of Sputnik by the Soviets when I was a little kid.  Or a scary cold war era episode from The Twilight Zone.

For the love of God and all that is holy I sure hope I don't have to publish anything further on the subject of balloons.

Speaking of balloons - these are one more of many useful tools that the US Weather Service uses to forecast their guesses.....

Balloon Update

Has the Chinese spy balloon become a punchline or does it remain a threat?  The humiliation of Red China getting caught red-handed (pun intended) and having to continue denying it with lame evasive explanations really has diluted its propaganda and/or surveillance value.  

When the F-22 Raptor weapons system was conceived its creators likely could not have perceived it's initial prey being a balloon and several other "objects".  Who would have predicted that this state of the art military technology would be engaging with UFOs?  At the time of publication the current record is F-22 Raptor 3 and balloon/objects 0. Yesterday, and a little too close to home, an F-16 splashed a UFO over Lake Huron in Michigan using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.  One has to wonder if Old Joe Biden won't have to emerge before too long and reassure us that our forces aren't doing battle with extraterrestrials. 

I'm not sure to whom this balloon belongs.  Discuss it amongst yourselves.....

 

Balloon Update

 

 

Amazing how much valuable bandwidth is being wasted on Face Book With feigned balloon outrage.

What is important and meaningful to the social media world is this.

Not to be upstaged by the Chinese spy balloon the Kardashians have launched their own.....

Oooooh The Humanity

The drama of a Chinese Civilian Airship (cum) Spy Balloon floating over North America has certainly been an embarrassment for Old Uncle Joe what with Xi Jinping giving him the finger over this.

Was this because Chinese hardliners wanted to upstage the planned summit between Antony Blinken and Xi Jinping thus nixing the opportunity for the first US Secretary of State to sit down with the Chinese Premier in nearly six years and the first of Uncle Joe's Cabinet Secretaries to visit China?  

Or was it retaliation for neutralizing and isolating China from the global semi-conductor manufacturing sphere?

Or was this a consequence of the US Navy aggressively exercising Freedom of Navigation operations in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait (without violating Chinese airspace)?  

Or was it something as benign as clumsy carelessness and gross incompetence?

Or something else?

Out of an abundance of patience and forbearance this blogger is satisfied to wait a bit and see what comes from the salvage of this airship and allow smarter minds in the intelligence community to analyze it, reverse engineer it, scavenge information pre and post-flight and see if this might not be a net intelligence gain for the US.

What I do know is that out of an abundance of patience and forbearance; and on the advice of the military and intelligence community, Old Uncle Joe waited to splash the balloon only after it had safely drifted beyond the mainland and could be dropped into salt water.

Was the overflight of a Chinese balloon an urgent matter of national security to us and our friendly neighbors to the north?  Or was it a turgid assault on the national pride of some of my countrymen?

I can only speculate on this, but what I do know is that last Friday and Saturday there was ample evidence of some of my FB friends wasting valuable bandwidth as they got their undies in a twist over (get this) our woke military and senile president didn't shoot down the balloon (including in the sovereign airspace of our friendly neighbors to the north) immediately.  Woke military?  Between you and me that seems a bit over the top.

My hypothesis is these individuals were going to shout at their handheld devices and furiously broadcast their rage if Old Uncle Joe didn't put the trigger immediately.  And if Old Uncle Joe did pull the trigger and something on the order of two to three school buses worth of debris dropped to earth and crushed a school, flattened a business park, set a neighborhood on fire or killed a single Montana steer and possibly hurt or killed a bunch of people they would howl their outrage over that too.  Only louder.  Anti-Biden people gonna howl their outrage one way or the other.  They got grievances - plenty too.  I get it. And I got no problem with it.  There was a Full Snow Moon out this weekend - which explains much of the howling.  It must really suck to go thru life humping the burden of all of those grievances.  But I digress.

What they won't grouse about is that the Chinese Communist Party has been launching these balloons for more than a decade.  According to the Pentagon five have successfully circumnavigated the globe, three that intruded into our airspace during for the reign of the Former Guy and one additional intrusion earlier in the Current Guy's administration.  Including a second over Latin America.  Granted, and speaking only domestically, the former incursions were not as lengthy as the most recent; nevertheless before you hurry-up and shoot something down you need to ponder basic stuff such as what toxic or dangerous substances might be present in the payload.  Consider our policy not to routinely shoot down other nation's satellites in low earth orbit. From 1992 to 2020 we adhered to an Open Skies Treaty with the Soviets.  (Trump withdrew from that treaty).  We got history with restraint.

Given all of the forgoing I think an abundance of patience and forbearance was in order and am perfectly fine with waiting until yesterday for the balloon's demise over open water. 

We shot down the assholes' balloon, the summit was been cancelled, the Chinese now have another grievance to howl-about on top of being largely shut-out of the semiconductor trade.

My only grievance is that we couldn't capture the airship intact so we could proudly parade it in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as a propaganda prize and give Xi Jinping the finger.

In the meantime, a retired pal of mine in Myrtle Beach sent me some photos of the shoot down.  They were really cool.  And out of an abundance of caution, patience, forbearance and respect for his privacy I'll not post them here for everyone on the interweb to see.  

Instead there is this....

Not So Secret German Spy Balloon

Stay-tuned.  There's so much more to learn.  

And if you are aggrieved - by all means - HOWL!

What's Up With Prices Up?

Inflation on your mind? 

If you’ve topped-off your gas tank, purchased a steak, hired an employee, bought and sold a house or a vehicle you’ve likely noticed that stuff costs more.  And there is all manner of craziness on the subject floating around in Facebook World.  No surprise there. 

So in the interest of spreading interweb tranquility I’d like to take a stab at making this subject a wee bit understandable.  

Here goes...

Fundamentally, inflation refers to the rise in the prices of wages, goods and services. It is
around us all the time and for most of the past 41 years has been behaving like background noise.  Every day the cost of wages, goods and services fluctuate both up and down.  The average rise has been about 3.5% a year - give or take. That means an item that cost $100 in 1979 would have inflated to $396.75 at the start of 2021.

Sure, some sectors of the economy - healthcare for instance - have risen at a faster rate. While prices in some sectors - consumer electronics comes to mind - have declined.  And for others - such as energy - have experienced greater fluctuations (volatility).  More about that in a bit.

Recent prices for much of what we consume are the highest they’ve been in decades. What gives?

First-off understand this equation: Demand + Supply = Price.

We live in a capitalist economy and that simple equation explains how markets work.  Meddle with this at your own peril.  And know this universal truth: There is no switch whereby any president can dial the price of anything either up or down. Yes, government policy can impact
the equation but that requires the passage of time.  Alas, there is no ON nor OFF switch.

Second, it is useful to know that roughly 70% of our economy is driven by consumer spending.  Manufacturing has a role.  Government spending has a role. Yet you and I play the biggest role.  Our consumption of goods and services drives the lion’s share of the US economy.  

Commit that factoid to memory.

It is noteworthy to recognize that inflation, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.  As long as it doesn’t get out of whack. However, a deflationary economy as much as runaway inflation invites economic pain, bad psychology and equally bad karma.

In the 1990s Robert Shiller conducted surveys to try to understand why even moderate
inflation frustrated people to an extent greater than economic theory suggested it should.  In his findings what Shiller found was that the idea of inflation evokes “arbitrary injustice, arbitrary redistributions and social bitterness,” as well as “memories of social situations in which morale and a sense of cooperation were lost.”  As a consequence, if the average person begins to feel helpless and powerless at the hands of inflation he will likely become restless.

Consider the prices of natural gas and crude oil - which together heat more than half of U.S. homes - as global prices have soared.  When the heating bills start arriving this month and January average folks will predictably become restless.  Back when I worked at the day job this phenomenon was filed under Behavioral Finance.  The study of which will make your eyes glaze-over and was more or less an academic discussion, but I digress.  

I do not want to be dismissive of the impact of this situation. If you commute to a job in a car or truck, run a business that has to deliver goods or are on that rung of the economic ladder where transportation costs consume a larger share of your household budget this is a big deal.

High energy prices are a political problem for the Current Guy.  Releasing stockpiled oil from our strategic reserve might make acceptable political optics but will not reduce these costs in any significant fashion.

You’re probably scratching your head and wondering how things got out of whack. The short
answer is: Pandemic.

It wasn’t too many years ago that this retired guy was enjoying the economy over-which the
Former Guy presided. It was a well-oiled economic engine humming-along without skipping a
beat. Until COVID paid a call and it became the Former Guy's political problem. 

In the spring of 2020 it was like someone poured a truckload of sand in the gears of that
well-oiled economic engine. It wasn’t only here - it was world-wide. International manufacturing ground to a halt. People stopped going out to eat. Nobody went to the theater. Travel ceased and airlines had no passengers. Lock-downs were imposed.  Consumers here, there and everywhere stopped spending.  My favorite Packer Bar in Paris went out of business.

In a remarkable contrast with present energy costs, in April 2020 an oversupply of oil led to an unprecedented collapse of oil prices, forcing the contract futures price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to plummet from $18 a barrel to around -$37 a barrel.  

Yes, minus $37.  Prices went negative for a short period of time.

Small business bankruptcies soared to record-breaking levels and millions of individuals lost their jobs. It was the sharpest economic contraction in memory. To this day I am puzzled that as many people fail to appreciate how close the economy came to being taken off life support. 

As in pulling the plug.

Thankfully the patient did not die and both the Former Guy, the Current Guy and Congress
threw massive amounts of money at the pandemic recession.  We continue to be awash in cash stemming from a lack of spending during lockdown and all of that government largess. 

And beginning in 2020, and continuing to the present moment, consumers found their nerve and began spending.

The inflation problem is found in the equation: High Demand + Limited Supply = Higher Prices.  Consider all of this pent-up demand, further fueled by an ocean of liquidity and a limited supply.  Is it any wonder prices have gone off the rails?

Which brings us to the subject of the supply chain.

Business continues to struggle with backlogged ports, a shortage of truckers and a surge in
demand for imported products.  Nowadays it can take almost 80 days for manufactured goods traveling by ship and truck from a factory in China to make it to an American warehouse - about double from two years ago.

We have plenty of domestic capacity to build cars. But automobiles are complex and are assembled from thousands of parts sourced from hundreds of suppliers scattered all over the globe. For a lack of computer chips - fewer cars roll-off the assembly line. With a dearth of new cars is anyone surprised that the price of a finite supply of used cars has spiked?

The current economic condition began with the pandemic and now is largely a supply chain
issue.  Inasmuch as there is no ON or OFF switch it is likely good counsel to tune-out facile FB outrage proffering simple explanations for slightly more complicated global economic forces. 

It’s going to take some time to clean-up the sand from the economic engine, oil the gears and get things humming again. How soon is anybody’s guess and I don’t make predictions beyond tomorrow. The stock and bond markets can be forward-looking indicators about the state of the economy at any given point in time.  And brace for the possibility of continuing volatility in the energy markets.

What is yet to be known is if current inflationary pressures are ephemeral and will normalize as the world economies return to equilibrium.  Or is this the beginning of a semi-permanent 1970s style of inflation?  We don't know that answer definitively.  So stay-tuned.

In closing you are likely reading this because you know that we embrace critical thought here at The Platz and take economics seriously.  But don’t take my word for it - the single best thing you can do is to reach out to your trusted financial advisor for guidance as it impacts you personally.   A competent advisor has had this on their radar screen for about a year already.

And for the love of God and all that is holy try to avoid taking your financial cues from the Face Book cesspool of lazy economic memes. 

Get Over It

I wish to preface my remarks with the admonition that I am no fan of suppressing First Amendment liberties.  Having spent four decades in the financial services industry where such rights are limited by regulation and company policy this is serious stuff.  I chaffed under the restrictions.  

Nevertheless, following the suspension of Donald Trump's various online accounts there has been no small amount of feigned Facebook outrage and righteous indignation.  Much of it a litany of predictable backlash from predictable sycophants - including cut and paste content that truthfully is a waste of valuable bandwidth.  

Some of it was thoughtful and persuasive.  The 'thinkers' can be taken seriously.  

And as a consequence, I 'think' it is useful to revisit the backstory - including the doctrine of what a common carrier is – and isn’t. 

A common carrier is a public or private company that transports goods and people for a fee (airlines, railroads come to mind) or provides services to people for a fee (utilities and telecommunication companies come to mind).   What they have in common is that they must provide service to anyone willing to pay the freight (the fee). The only exception is grounds for refusal (no shirt, no shoes, no service comes to mind). 

Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. do not charge a fee for service. They are for-profit companies that gather data about their users in order to sell advertising.  In Twitter’s case this also includes a stylized Town Square of the Internet.  The bottom line is that they are internet platforms that mine your data should you choose to participate.  As a consequence they are self-regulated.

Between you and me if you are troubled by this gathering of data it is a small matter to engage a technology solution to counter it by cloaking your internet presence and deflecting the probing.  But I digress. 

These platforms do provide some quasi-public functions.  And while it is true that private companies who deliver public services are generally regulated, or obligated to provide universal service under common-carrier law (wired and wireless communications companies come to mind) - internet platforms have none of those commitments.  What they have are Terms of Service – which means they can more or less block, ban or suspend anyone whenever and for whatever reason they choose. 

That may sound arbitrary or capricious and these companies may have clumsy, lame and broken moderation systems; nevertheless, these Terms of Service function as law in the absence of any common carrier regulations. 

One of the things I like most about my Facebook account is the access I have to public and private groups for which I have an affinity.  This would include hunting and fishing, grilling, smoking, cooking, high school alumni, family, local and military history, astronomy, photography and going back to Germany all the communities I've lived since birth to the present.  One of my faves is a group dedicated to Gary Larson cartoons.  

These groups exist solely at the behest of Facebook - and must comply with Facebook's Terms of Service.  If they do not comply Facebook can shut them down.  

I can participate in these groups as a follower and/or contributor to their content if inclined.  And the moderators can boot me off the group if I do not comply with the Group Terms of Service.  Translation: if I post something off-topic, is divisive, outrageous or otherwise not compliant with the rules I will be exiled.

As the owner of this blog I have to comply with Google's Terms of Service.  If I behave badly Google can shut me down.  And if a reader posts something on my blog that in my opinion is divisive, outrageous or otherwise not compliant with my own arbitrary and capricious terms of service I can delete the content and even block the reader. 

That's the nice thing about not being a common carrier - on the interweb sometimes life is unfair (the wild west comes to mind).

Get over it. 

Follow this link to an alternative opinion piece over at the Wall Street Journal. 

Don't Let Your Politics Affect Your Planning

One of the things about being an old, retired, former financial advisor is that I carry the scars from wounds long-ago healed as evidence of decades of turmoil and uncertainty. 

Sure, mistakes were made. Nevertheless, I survived the Darwinism of roll-up your sleeves capital markets to emerge on the other side not just a survivor - but a winner. Tell me what the rules are and I can play the game successfully.

I now belong to the ranks of grizzled, cantankerous, Silver Backs – with long hair – and who only occasionally wear socks. And I would like to share some wisdom that comes from experience that has to do with a topic everyone seems to be tiptoeing around nowadays – namely politics. Now that I'm retired I can speak freely about such things.  

When clients bring up politics it can be useful to be prepared to speak about it in a thoughtful, sensitive, and productive fashion. Let’s face it – it is pervasive – like an old-school miasma. And there are many very good reasons to discuss politics including connecting with a client to know what is on their mind – to ascertain what makes them anxious, to demonstrate empathy and be an active listener. The consummate financial professional knows to listen, to respond rationally, address uncertainties, sort fact from fiction and never allow irrational thinking to impact important planning decisions. 

The risk is that much of this is done with some measure of professional peril.  If it is sloppy and ill-conceived clients may feel embarrassed, disconnected, confused and lose confidence. The very best of advisors always make a point to leave personal politics at the day job door. They are masters of political agnosticism. They listen with the intent to understand and not to debate. And they know at all times to separate planning from politics. 

The takeaway? It’s OK to talk about what’s on your mind with your trusted financial advisor. The relationship will be all the more stronger as a consequence.  

Alas, when you see a financial services individual getting their undies in a snit with a bout of Feigned Face Book Outrage – that’s just unprofessional.   Social media outrage is for amateurs.  Introducing political bias to the planning process is done at great peril for both client and advisor.

The Mother of all Admonitions - never let politics cloud your planning judgement.  It is just fine to talk about it as long as it does not cloud sound, rational judgement.  The truth of the matter is that partisan politics does not impart one side with a winning strategy versus the flip side of the political card.  

It makes little - if any - difference.  

That is a fact. 

Smart people can profit readily under the rules advanced by inept and even unsavory political leaders.  Knowing what the rules are is the key to winning the game.  Policy should take precedence over personality.

And if you want to spout-off about politics - there is plenty of time for that in retirement.

The Embarrassment of the Truth

A day does not pass without President Trump claiming – without any evidence whatsoever – that November’s election is ‘rigged’ because of rampant mail-in ballot fraud.  What else is new?  That's just part of Donald Trump's shtick - and we've been forced to listen to it for more than five years.       
 Nevertheless, it has gained some traction on various social media platforms as a source of fakery, agitprop and disinformation. 

Let's be absolutely clear - I am not saying that voter fraud DOES NOT exist.  It does. On a national scale it occurs in remarkably small amounts.    

There is this, lifted verbatim, from a Face Book page: 

Talked to a fellow I used to work with. He lives in Madison. Tells me his neighbor is trying to figure out how to handle 7- thats 7 absentee ballots mailed to her for her husband. Who died 3 years ago. All signed and ready to be mailed back.

What could possibly go wrong with other than in person voting? I'll let you figure that out.     

Ummm.  Let’s call it what it is.  A fairy tale. Basically a lie.

In Wisconsin mail-in ballots simply do not magically materialize out of nowhere. The meme about dead people makes it even more fanciful.

I hate to repeat myself but once-again let’s review how voting by mail works here in Wisconsin.

1.  If I wish to vote by mail I first have to be registered to vote 

2.  I have to provide acceptable photo identification 

3.  I have to initiate the request in writing 

4.  I have to do this for each election (it is not automatic)  

5.  The ballot is mailed to me 

6.  After completing my ballot I seal it in a post-paid return envelope  

7.  I sign the envelope (under penalty of perjury)  

8.  I have my signature witnessed by another adult 

9.  After mailing it I can track the return of my ballot online 

10.  Upon receipt by my Town Clerk the ballot is logged-in and further tracked  

11.  The signature must match the one on file with my voter registration 

12.  The address must match that on file with the registration* 

13.  One ballot per voter         

*Noteworthy is that addresses for voter registration are updated via Wisconsin DMV for both drivers licenses and state-issued IDs.  If you move you have to notify the DMV of your new address.  As a result - if you are a registered voter - your registration is also updated with your new address and your former registration at the old address if purged from the voter rolls.  You are unable to vote twice using a new and former address.  

This entire process is a product of Republican voting reform measures enacted into law under Governor Scott Walker's administration.  It is a solid system with little, if-any, opportunity for fraud. 

So please tell me where the forgery, fraud, foreign interference, ballot-stuffing, tampering, counterfeiting and ‘rigging’ of the election occurs? 

How does a guy dead more than three years pull this off?  The short answer is that this is fiction.  As proof, why would someone intent-upon committing voter fraud bother with mailing forged and signed ballots to a surviving spouse?  Not very creative.  And it won't work.    
 It is a small matter to conjure-up a fabrication and post it on Face Book or Twitter. The amount of wasted bandwidth amounts to nothing.  Call it what it is - a fanciful prevarication. A lie. And individuals who pull this stuff out of their ass are liars. 

Consider this tall tale might conceivably have happened.  Then by extension, a failure to report it to law enforcement or carry it through would be complicity to commit voter fraud. Crowing about it on social media would be really stupid. With a high probability of being caught and to your embarrassment and possible loss of employment you would join the small list of convicted Wisconsinites found on the link above.       

That you know to be the truth.

Here's a handy guide to fighting lies, fake news and other social media fabrications.  

Cue the Drama

There are some days I think I should just shut down and abandon the old Face Book page.  Too much fake news, anger and drama.  Force-fed too.  It is unlike here where attendance is strictly voluntary.  Sure, I use this platform to give voice to my opinions from time-to-time.  But if you don't care for my point of view - don't visit.  It is a simple solution.  

In any event, Face Book is voluntary as well and I have concluded that the benefits of keeping in-touch with relatives, neighbors, real friends, old childhood and high school or college friends and former business acquaintances outweighs the negative stuff.  I can skip and ignore the feigned outrage as needed.  And block those who drinketh the Kool Aid..

Nevertheless, there is this gem.  I share it as an example of what I am referring-to.  

From time to time I have challenged some individuals who claim that there is widespread and rampant fraud in Wisconsin's vote by mail program.  I challenge them to furnish evidence.  In this instance I likely pushed a wee bit too hard and accept blame for same.  Nevertheless, no evidence was forthcoming.  Instead there was this.....

Look at your profile picture. That mask is more about Trump hatred than anything. 

What the heck.  I never even introduced Donald Trump to the discussion.
  

Common sense would suggest that is a proud Wisconsin Badger mask.  I see nothing there that inspires either love nor derision of President Trump.  Get a grip for gosh sakes.

What I do know is in any given week I might don one of my masks for a cumulative total of 60 minutes - give or take.  I do this because I care about others when I cannot practice safe social distancing.  I have no clue if those people in close proximity have elderly parents in their home or a child with an auto-immune disorder.  I may have Covid and be asymptomatic.  Same for them.  Who am I to not take precautions and protect my neighbors and countrymen during a pandemic?  The contagion is yet to be extinguished.   Sure, I know that a mask is not 100% effective - but my doc suggests it is a good idea and I consider it my small contribution to the common goal of slowing the spread of disease and getting this country back on its economic feet.  It really is that simple - slow the spread of disease and get this country back on its economic feet.  

Around here businesses (properly) determine whether or not masks are required. They're optional otherwise.

And in case you haven't already gotten your calculator out I've done the math.  That 60 minutes is .006% of my entire week. It is not a hardship. This teensy weensy inconvenience is not a political statement nor the draconian yoke of government overreach.

It is not Trump hatred.  Sheesh.....