Tariffs Versus Free Trade

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders on the first day of his second term, Jan. 20, 2025. Credit: White House. - Daniel Torok

Lots of fuming and teeth gnashing over tariffs these days. This professor from Missouri argues tariffs can beneficial. Makes sense to me.

Raising Wages and Preserving Social Cohesion: President Trump and the Unseen Benefits of Tariffs - Emir J. Phillips

Though sometimes dismissed as antiquated economic measures, tariffs have great advantages when seen holistically. Critics point out possible rising consumer prices, but a closer look shows that tariffs not only boost wages but also conserve vital skills, support social stability, and help to offset the negative consequences of unemployment. In a close-call cost-benefit study, tariffs are indispensable even if the consumer cost matches wage gains since their long-term social and economic advantages exceed their negatives.

Strategic use of tariffs allows countries to not only attain economic resilience but also achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth—a concept firmly anchored in the background of American economic policy. Under leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, the Whig Party accepted tariffs as a pillar of national progress. Lincoln’s advocacy of protective tariffs served to finance infrastructure, boost industrial development, and guarantee young, aspirational America’s economic independence—not to mention win the Civil War.

Consumer Costs vs. Worker Gains: A Socio-Economic Calculation

A common argument against tariffs is that they raise prices for consumers, eroding disposable income. While this is partially true, research suggests that the wage increases resulting from tariffs often offset the additional consumer costs. A study in The Review of Economics and Statistics (Autor et al., 2020) found that U.S. manufacturing tariffs implemented between 2018 and 2019 resulted in measurable wage increases for domestic workers, even as they marginally increased consumer prices. Crucially, these wage increases helped stabilize industries that might otherwise have collapsed under foreign competition oftentimes where unions are illegal (Communist China and Communist Vietnam) and these workers in “Worker Soviet States” have tawdry labor rights.

In industries protected by tariffs, workers are more likely to retain and hone their skills, which would otherwise atrophy due to job displacement. The loss of employment in skilled trades leads to a deterioration of the workforce’s capabilities, creating long-term structural weaknesses in the economy. A displaced worker may never regain their previous earning potential, as demonstrated in research published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Jacobson, LaLonde, & Sullivan, 1993), which found that displaced workers often experience persistent earnings losses, even after re-employment.

Truth is, tariffs effectively act as a counterbalance to the “race to the bottom” in global labor markets, where corporations exploit cheap overseas labor at the expense of domestic workers. By imposing a cost on imported goods, tariffs incentivize companies to invest locally, fostering a virtuous cycle of job creation and wage increases. This dynamic is particularly critical in sectors like manufacturing, where wages have historically supported middle-class stability.

That's just the introduction. You can read the whole thing here.

Note - the photo was included in the linked article, but I couldn't copy it from there, so I asked Google. Google turned up multiple copies, so I copied it from a site that would let me. The story on that site has nothing to do with tariffs, but I linked to it anyway, just to give them credit for posting the image.

P. S. I wonder who the guy standing next to the Donald is. He's not getting enough credit for his role in keeping the mob under control.

Sturgeon

Jay Woiderski (left) presents a trophy to Austin Dreifuerst, who was crowned the 2025 Black Lake Sturgeon Shivaree King. Photo courtesy Jay Woideroski

All I know about sturgeon is that they are big fish, and that's where caviar comes from. Don't think I've ever seen either one, much less eaten any. But I'm old, it could have happened. The fish in the photo weighed 78 pounds, which is a chunk.

I'm posting this because of the weirdness of the sturgeon fishing season at Black Lake in Michigan. The department of fish set the opening time and then closed it by notifying all the registered sturgeon fishermen by text message. Each time someone caught a fish, they had to notify the government that they had done so, also by text message. When the government got their 7th notice, they closed the season. It took 17 minutes.

Gotta keep a tight rein on the planet's apex predators or they will kill everything.

OutdoorLife has the story. Via The Shekel.

House Shenanigans

Great stuff from Knuckledraggin My Life Away. Follow the link for the whole story.

The CR That Wasn't by T. L. Davis

Interesting few days in congress and actually a good class on government corruption. The ugly sausage-making of the system is completely exposed by these shenanigans. Trying to back the people into a corner, the resident GOP/POS Speaker Mike Johnson attempted to dump a 1,547 page “continuing resolution” (CR) which should contain a few lines of text stating simply that current funding will be extended for a specific period of time. Instead it included a pay raise for Congress, funding of a key part of the government censorship of the people and a defense for the January 6 committee from investigation.

The leadership of the House: Johnson, Scalise, et al praised it as a tough but fair bill. It wasn’t, it was pork. It wasn’t even particularly good for the GOP. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and other conservative bloggers and influencers rose up against it. This is the key point, this was the people rebelling against a horrible omnibus bill disguised as a CR, not the dictates of Musk, Ramaswamy or Trump.

 

The Chris Boden Prison Story - It Gets Better

The Chris Boden Prison Story - It Gets Better
Chris Boden

I've watched numerous short videos by this guy and he's pretty entertaining, if you like technical stuff. This is the first long video of his that I've watched. If you don't like the Federal Government you probably shouldn't watch this as it will likely make your blood boil.

There are other people with the name of Chris Boden out there. Google turned up a sports commentator and a football coach.

Wikipedia has a page about this Chris Boden, the bitcoin gangster.

Portland Oregon City Council

City of Portland District Map Plan

The City of Portland is changing the way city commissioners are elected. Used to be a city wide election, but now they are going to have three commissioners from each district. We shall see if it makes any difference.

Assange

Stolen entire from Aljazeera, mouthpiece of Qatar Islamists.

Julian Assange enroute from London to Australia

Iraq to NSA spying: The biggest revelations by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks unearthed documents ranging from conflicts within the US Democrats to toxic waste dumping in West Africa. 

By Al Jazeera Staff 25 June 2024

On Monday, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, was released from prison after fighting a legal battle spanning more than 14 years.

In 2006, Assange launched the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, a platform that allows users to anonymously submit secret, classified documents and videos. The most recent publication by the platform was in 2021.

The New York-based Nation magazine reported in January 2024 that Assange said WikiLeaks was no longer able to publish documents since potential whistleblowers were thwarted following his imprisonment, United States government surveillance and funding cuts.

During the years it functioned, the whistleblower platform published classified documents that had been never seen before – embarrassing governments, causing diplomatic standoffs and forcing policy changes.

Here is a look at 10 such leaks by the platform:

Report about toxic waste in the Ivory Coast

In 2009, WikiLeaks released the Minton Report that exposed how an internal report commissioned by Singapore-headquartered multinational company Trafigura concluded that its dumping of 540,000 litres of toxic waste, including harmful chemicals, in the Ivory Coast potentially led to “burns to the skin, eyes and lungs, vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of consciousness and death”.

The United Nations reported that 108,000 people were affected by this dumping of waste.

Cablegate

In 2010, WikiLeaks started building out its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD), which is a growing collection of 3,326,538 US diplomatic cables between American diplomats posted to 274 consulates and embassies from 1966 to 2010, and their colleagues and bosses, including back home at the State Department.

In the first round of these leaks, 250,000 cables were released to the public – arguably the single largest such dump of confidential documents ever released.

The leaks included embarrassing details of how US diplomats perceived some of their foreign counterparts and nuggets of conversations where foreign officials, including many in high positions today, expressed frustrations with their own governments.

Afghanistan war files

In October 2010, the whistleblower site released 90,000 classified documents on the US war in Afghanistan.

The United States launched the Afghanistan war in 2001, following the September 11 attacks that year, finally withdrawing its forces from the country in 2021.

The documents painted a picture of the war – and the US struggle against the Taliban – that was very different from the public posture of confidence adopted by Washington.

Iraq war files

Also in October 2010, WikiLeaks made public almost 400,000 secret US files on the Iraq war.

In 2003, the US government under President George W Bush invaded Iraq.

The documents, from 2004 to 2009, showed that the civilian deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were much higher than the numbers being reported. The leaks represented the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history.

Collateral murder – Iraq helicopter video

Among the most prominent of WikiLeaks revelations, in April 2010, was the release of video footage showing a US Apache helicopter attack which killed a dozen unarmed people, including two Reuters journalists, Namir Noor Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The video, filmed from the chopper’s cockpit shows a US missile strike and shooting on a square in a Baghdad neighbourhood in July 2007, according to WikiLeaks.

The Guantanamo files

In April 2011, WikiLeaks released secret documents spanning thousands of pages to select US and European media outlets.

These documents unearthed how the Geneva Conventions were being violated routinely in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The documents, dating from 2002 to 2008 showed the abuse of 800 prisoners, some of them as young as 14.

At least 150 of these prisoners were found to be innocent Afghans or Pakistanis who were rounded up as part of frantic intelligence gathering and then imprisoned for years, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the so-called “war on terror”.

The Syria files

In July 2012, WikiLeaks began making public two million emails from 680 Syrian political figures and ministries working with the Bashar al-Assad regime between August 2006 to March 2012.

The emails unearthed the involvement of European companies in the surveillance and crackdown on Syrian civilians. One such company was Italian-government-owned Selex, which continued to expand its contract with the Syrian police, despite sanctions.

The emails also exposed how PR company Brown Lloyd James (BLJ) was paid to engineer a now-deleted Vogue article about al-Assad’s wife Asma, according to WikiLeaks.

NSA spying

In 2015, the whistleblower website released details of illegal intercepts from the US electronic spy organisation, National Security Agency (NSA).

In a series of publications released from 2015 to 2017, WikiLeaks said the US, using the NSA, was also routinely spying on foreign officials from Japan, the European Union, Israel, Germany and Brazil.

Additionally, the whistleblower said the NSA intercepted communications between former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

WikiLeaks said that the NSA was not only spying on international politicians but also civilians. In 2017, it tweeted that the NSA could hack Pakistan’s mobile networks.

Sony Pictures hack

In 2015, WikiLeaks released at least 170,000 emails and more than 20,000 documents from a 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The leak was around the same time Sony was set to release the film about a fictional American plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The emails also revealed that female celebrities such as Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were paid less than their male counterparts in the 2013 crime comedy film American Hustle.

US Democratic Party emails leaked

In 2016, WikiLeaks exposed 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the US Democratic Party national leadership.

The emails exposed that even though the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the party’s principal committee, pledged impartiality in the 2016 presidential race, it appeared to act against Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton.

The leaks resulted in the resignations of five top DNC officials including the chair, CFO, CEO, communications director and finance director. Clinton accused WikiLeaks and Assange of colluding with Russia to raise questions about the credibility of the US election process. She lost the 2016 presidential race to Donald Trump.

I am glad Julian was released. I always thought the charges were bullshit and I still think so. The US Federal Government seems to be in the hands of idiotic maniacs, or maybe it's maniacal idiots. Somebody needs to bring the smack down on those useless fools.

Bureaucracy

Stolen entire from David Warren's Essays in Idleness 

Publishing & perishing

Ludwig von Mises was not, to my mind, strictly an economist. He was a moralist, and a practical philosopher, his chief object being the destruction of bureaucracy. It is not a “necessary evil,” but necessarily an evil, done like the others under cover of good. Mises is understandably hated by all socialists and progressives. In addition to its rhetorical attack, his book Bureaucracy (1944, revised 1962) documented the rise of bureaucratic agencies controlling public life throughout Europe and America. It showed that the “profit motive” paradoxically advances the public interest, in almost every case; that the “non-profit motive” is not only counter-productive, but apparently, politically ineradicable. Over time, bureaucracy stifles not only individual freedom, but the adaptability of society itself, leading to its decline and ruin.

This, and Mises’ chef-d’oeuvre, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, fell into my hands as a teenager, and made me an exponent of the “Austrian School.” Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) was another guide along the road not taken, or rather taken only briefly, by the allies after World War II. Such books helped to make me continuously unpopular, among budding Leftoids, from the age of fifteen. Since, I have done some supplementary reading, to make my attitudes more ghastly to them. My preference for liberty, beauty, goodness, truth, have cost me many popularity contests: for the “progressives” invariably prefer plausibility, subterfuge, and lies.

But there are rewards for resisting them: for instance, the satisfaction one feels that Javier Milei is eradicating the bureaucracy of Argentina (where it had been laid on especially thick), and others in their stations (Nayib Bukele, Giorgia Meloni, Geert Wilders) dispatching bureaucracies elsewhere. This is encouraging, as is the rightwing sweep in trans-European elections yesterday. Note: the method of “cutting back bureaucracy” consists not of a few minor trims, but of the permanent, outright closure of entire government departments.

Even more I enjoy subtle developments in “science,” where bureaucratic takeover has made most public scientific enterprises dishonest and innately alarmist. The international “global warming” climate fraud continues to be Exhibit A; the Wuhan Batflu event, Exhibit B. Both monstrosities are the product of self-interested government strategy and funding.

More generally, the “non-profit” pursuit of academic science produces crooked, fund-grubbing results in the overwhelming majority of cases. I am delighted to see that the big American publisher, Wiley, has had to shut down nineteen of its scientific journals, and withdraw 11,500 scientific papers, to cut its losses from lawsuits. For it is, sometimes, still possible to expose falsity in the courts.

We look forward to an age that follows “follow the science.”

 Word of the day: chef-d’oeuvre - masterpiece

NPR Political Apparatchiks

The Free Press has a story:

I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust. by Uri Berliner

It's a fine story, Uri goes through a long list of stories that NPR (National Public Radio) screwed up in recent years. Okay, but why? Near as I can make out the place was infected with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).

The fish rots from the head, so who was in charge of this place?

Wikipedia has a list of CEOs:

List of presidents/CEOs

• Donald Quayle (1970–1973)
• Lee Frischknecht (1973–1977)
• Frank Mankiewicz (1977–1983)
• Douglas J. Bennet (1983–1993)
• Delano Lewis (1993–1998)
• Kevin Klose (1998–2008)
• Vivian Schiller (2009–2011)
• Gary Knell (2011–2013)
• Paul Haaga (2013–2014)
• Jarl Mohn (2014–2019)
• John F. Lansing (2019–present)

Funny, Wikipedia has a page about all of them except the last one: John F. Lansing. Actually he's not last, Katherine Maher was appointed as new CEO in January.

Lansing was a big wheel at USAGM (U.S. Agency for Global Media). Apparently retired now. Mahler is a Biden appointee, so I expect she is just as worthless as Biden, well, except for pumping out more hard left bullshit.

Via The Shekel

Missouri Cheese Cave

Cheese stored underground in a former limestone mine, Missouri

Rumor has it that the government has 1.4 billion pounds of cheese stored in these caves under Springfield, Missouri. The Farm link Project has a page about this as does Wikipedia.

One pound of cheese can provide enough calories to sustain one person for one day, so 1.4 billion pounds is enough to sustain the entire country for like four days.

The natural temperature of the cave is 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but refrigeration brings the temperature down to 36 degrees. I wonder what the electric bill is.

It would be a good thing to have all that cheese in case of famine, but 70% of the world's population is lactose intolerant. 

It sounds like a government project run amuck, but this is small potatoes compared to some.

Via a meme on Bustednuckles

Property Taxes - Plutocratic SF Inbox

Remember the California Property Tax Revolt?

On June 6, 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a property tax limitation initiative. This amendment to California's Constitution was the taxpayers' collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and a growing state revenue surplus. - Assessor's Office County of San Luis Obispo

That's just to get you warmed up to hear what California Bob has to say about property taxes:

SF property tax increases are capped using some formula like "lesser of CPI or 1.5% per year." It's like rent control for property owners. I was paying my property taxes and started digging around on the tax website.

Picking a random block near me, with all pretty similar, typical Sunset crap shacks, I found that taxes on the street ranged from $962 per year to $19,600 -- a 20x difference. My own block ranges from $2800 (for a large duplex, interestingly) to over $18K. Happily I'm nearer the lower end.

Scanning Nancy Pelosi's neighborhood, taxes on this $8 million place are about $4500/year -- considerably less than we pay, and equivalent to about 5 basis points on value. Surprisingly inequitable for a city committed to progressivism (TBF this is state law, not local)

This comes from properties remaining in the family for generations. So Cal voters recently passed a proposition which will limit heirs' ability to inherit their parents tax base. Unless the heirs make it their primary residence, the tax base will reset. So if you keep the property as a second home, or a rental -- no tax protection.

I can't help but feel this will increase property turnover. For single family homes, some heir will have to make it their primary residence, or face tax resets. The greater impact will be on rental properties, which have their own rent protection. I see owners dying, taxes resetting ten-fold higher, and the kids realizing that rent control makes it uneconomic to operate, and they have to sell. Haven't seen much movement yet but that's my theory.

BTW rental properties with existing tenants are dirt cheap here. Running a rental in SF is an investment death sentence.

Random residence in Pelosi's neighborhood 1

Random residence in Pelosi's neighborhood 2

Notes:

BTW - By The Way

CPI - Consumer Price Index

SF - San Francisco

TBF - To Be Fair

basis points - A basis point is primarily used to denote changes in interest rates. Common abbreviations of the term include “bps,” “bp” and “bips.” One basis point is equivalent to one one-hundredth of one percent. In other words, 50 basis points equals 0.50 percent, and 100 basis points equals 1 percent.

The Rot Starts at the Top

Phantom Legion

Excerpt from The "Phantom Legion" Problem by Charles Hugh Smith

Of the many signs of systemic decay in the late Roman Empire, one of particular relevance to our era is the Phantom Legion, military units that on paper were at full strength--and paid accordingly--but which were in reality no longer there: the paymaster collected the silver wages and recorded the unit's roll of officers and soldiers, but it was all make-believe.

When the Empire's wealth seems limitless, graft, embezzlement and fraud all seem harmless to those skimming the wealth. Look, the Empire is forever, what harm is there in my little self-interested skim?

This rot starts at the top, of course, and then seeps into every nook and cranny of the system. When those at the top are getting fabulously wealthy on modest salaries while claiming to serve the public, the signal is clear: go ahead and maximize your own private gain at the expense of the public and the state. Civic virtue--the backbone of the Empire--decayed into self-interest, incompetence and indulgence.

Golly gee, does that sound familiar?

A Big Raise for Congressmen? Part 3

National Debt of the United States

The biggest problem facing our country is the huge amount of debt we are carrying. We keep adding to it every year because Congress keeps voting to spend more money. Much of that money goes to the military and the defense industry. The defense industry likes this because it means more business for them. All the people who work in the defense industry like it because it means they get to keep their jobs. 

I don't know if we can stop this constant overspending, but we should try. One way that might work is if we get Congress critters a bonus if they manage to reduce the debt. Say, through some miracle, they manage to reduce the debt by one trillion dollars. One percent of that would be $10 billion dollars. Divide that among the 500 Congressmen would be $20 million dollars for each Congressman. That might motivate them to do something.

Part 2 here.

A Big Raise for Congressmen? Part 2

Corruption by Leslie Garvey / POGO

I've been thinking we need a better way to pay our Congress Critters. One idea I had was to raise their salary to something that would reflect their responsibility, like the way the heads of large corporations are paid. Since then I've had a couple more ideas.

One is that Congress Critter's pay should reflect how much tax people are paying and how much money the Federal government is borrowing. Lower taxes mean Congress Critters get paid more. Reducing the Federal debt would also result in a bonus. I have no idea how you might calculate that.

The other idea is that Congress Critters should be paid by the states they represent. Each congressional district would be responsible for paying their representative, and the state government would be responsible for paying Senators.

Not to worry though, nothing is going to change our current arrangement, especially not some post from a deranged conspiracy theorist. Our country is on a slippery slope. Everyone on the inside is scrambling as fast as they can to keep from sliding any farther down the slope and if their scrambling is sending other people into the abyss, well, that's just too bad.

P. S. I thought I put up the linked post last month. Turns out it was six months ago. 

Frazz

Found in today's Sunday comic section.

Frazz

Half of Americans would be about 165 million, 824 divided by 165 is 4.99 . . . which is close enough to five to make me happy.

You might want to read The Secret History of Lead.

Headlines

A couple of headlines that hit my eye this morning.

US national debt passes new landmark

US national debt is now $33 trillion dollars. What does that even mean? Let's take a look.

        Price of gold in 1960:         $36.50 per ounce
        Price of gold now:          $1,954.20 per ounce

        National debt in 1960:    $286 billion
        National debt now:     $33,000 billion

        National debt now:         527,763 tons of gold
        National debt in 1960:     244,863 tons of gold

Why pick 1960? Peak America? Because it's a round number? Because I was only nine years old and didn't know any better? Because I used it the other day looking at car prices?

 

Anyway, measuring the national debt in dollars, it is 115 times larger than it was in 1960, but if you measure it in gold, it is only slightly more than twice as large. Which means the dollar is only worth about 2% of what it was in 1960. It likewise means that that Popsicle that cost 7 cents at the corner store in 1960 should now cost three and half bucks. There might be fancy concoctions at your local 7-11 that would cost that much, but I suspect that is the high end.

Is a frustrated right starting to consider a larger constitutional process?

What ho! Is something actually going to happen? Silly boy, the story is about Israel, not about the Rhinos suddenly growing a spine.

 

Ventusky Hurricane Lee

Ventusky Hurricane Lee

This Ventusky thing is pretty cool. Zoom in, zoom out, change your altitude, look at a dozen different elements of weather. There is a heck of a network of computers and instruments collecting data, processing it, and funneling it through a stack of systems a mile high all to deliver this animated view of the weather. I suspect most of the data comes from NOAA which is funded by magic money from Congress. Your taxes? That's just the vig on the national debt.

Via The Feral Irishman

A Big Raise for Congressmen?

My theory is that the entire Federal Congress and the administration are totally corrupt. They are passing these enormous spending bills solely for the purpose of getting kickbacks from the benefactors of this spending. And who can blame them? They are in charge of one of the biggest economies in the world and they are getting salaries comparable to what any mid-level manager in the private sector is getting. Congressmen should be getting salaries like $10 million a year, something comparable to what CEO's of large corporations make. If we combined that with a serious anti-corruption campaign, things might improve.After all, these days Congressmen have to spend government money to get a kickback, but if they get the kickback up front (whether they spend government money or not) it might lead to some better decisions for the country.

Update July 30, revised the last couple of sentences to make them clear.

Waterfalls of Money

Hector Falls - Royce L. Bair

In my post about Serebin I mentioned that their project was being funded by a 'waterfall of money'. Then I got to thinking about how impressive waterfalls are. There is just a torrent of water rushing by breakneck speeds. You keep your distance if you are smart because you just dip a toe into that stream and it's liable to jerk you off your feet and drag you to your doom. On the other hand you don't need to actually touch it, just standing near will get you soaked.

Government is like a whole series of waterfalls. Up top we have a reservoir that is constantly being replenished by the streams of imaginary money from the misty mountains of Mordor. Of course, we have an army of servents / slaves / true believers passing buckets of water up the hill to help to fill the reservoir, though I wonder why we bother since we can apparently get all the water we want from over the hills and far away.

The reservoir is up at the top of our mythical mountain. There is one big gate which controls how much water flows out. It's usually wide open and water is rushing out in a torrent. Occasionally Congress gets in a snit and threatens to close the gate, but its' not something I worry about. 

The torrent from the big gate falls into a big pool a little ways down the hill. This pool has a bunch of gates directing water / money to any number of industries, departments, companies or consortiums. These gates are also pretty much wide open all the time. Occasionally the flow in one or another might be restricted a bit and sometimes an old will be shut and a new one will be opened, though usually the newness is just a new name painted on the gate.

The streams from all those gates fall into smaller pools that also have a bunch of gates, and those streams flow into even smaller pools that also have a bunch of gates, and so it  goes on down the side of the hill until it gets to the point that a gate is directed solely into somebodies pocket.

However, each time water flows through a gate, it is going to give off a spray, as I noted earlier, you can get pretty well soaked just by standing near the stream. Those who are higher on the mountain are going to get the spray from the big streams so they are going to get very wet. Now imagine all that water is money. There are probably as many people standing by the waterfalls as there are people actually getting their pockets filled at the bottom of the mountain.

The thing about waterfalls is that they are all impressive. Big ones are more impressive, but even a small one viewed from up close is impressive, especially if you are thirsty. It's all a matter of perspective, i. e. how high you are in the pecking order. So project Serebin was working on was probably way down on the mountain, but viewed from an individual's perspective, it was still pretty impressive.

The government spent 6.27 trillion dollars last year. That's 200 thousand dollars per second. One second of that stream would undoubtedly make your life easier. I should also note that if we divided the 6.27 trillion amongst all the citizens we would each get like 20 grand.

California, Land of Peaches and Cream, is worse than you thought

Los Angeles Train Trash

Mathew Crawford looks at corruption in the California DMV.

Logical Thought Versus Feelings

I was listening to a tune yesterday. Maybe I'll remember a line and be able to track it down, but right now I can't name it. I've heard it many times before and I like it well enough, not enough to rate posting it here, but well enough. I'm listening to the lyrics and it suddenly occurs to me that a great deal of the noise we here on the media about politics is inspired by feelings, not by logic. That's why so much of what we hear doesn't make any sense. It's because the spouters are not trying to make sense, they are expressing their feelings. And people react emotionally to those statements.

That's why trying to have a rational discussion with political opponents so often fails. It's not because one party is wrong, it's because they aren't even speaking the same language.

Update ten hours later. I figured out what the tune was:

Broken Bells - Good Luck (Official Video)
brokenbellsmusic

The song came out two years ago, so some people might think that Trump is 'the face of evil's on the news tonight', but you listen to it today and you might think Biden is the devil under discussion. The two guys who made this tune had this to say:

"wanted to release 'Good Luck' while it felt timely and reflective of specific discussions between the two of us, questioning the state of things, as we do…"

 That's pretty neutral. However, people will hear what they to hear.

Then I found this post on Daily Reckoning:

The Deep State Is Sadistic by Jeffrey Tucker

Which prompted me to comment:

My theory of the day is that the people in white house are operating on the premise that wanting something is enough to make it happen. They are operating on feelings and dreams. They do not understand how the world works. They are smart people, smart with words and playing to people's emotions, but they are dreaming. They have no idea how the world actually operates. This can work for people at the top level, if they have competent people doing the actual work. But when all you have is true believers and you don't have any competent, grounded people available to do the actual work, you get the disaster that we see happening now.

I posted a link to another essay by Jeffrey Tucker a week ago.