We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The problem for the U.S. political class is that the provision of actual public goods is nowhere near large enough of an enterprise to justify all of the clients they want to pay on the public payroll or all of the large, complex, lavishly funded agencies that they want to establish for the purpose of putting themselves in charge of them. So they have to return to the old protection-racket model: Much of American government today exists simply to stand between you and your own goals to collect a fee.
The "modern" system that we have adopted with its low birth rates, late marriages, working parents, high social spending and retirement benefits is at odds with itself. We can have low birth rates, deficit spending or Social Security; but there is no possible way that we can have all three.
... call this condition Bubble Blindness. It’s a contagious ideological disease that afflicts the entire corridor from Wall Street to Washington, and CNBC is the infected host that propagates it.
Hundreds of immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous journey in part because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits, according to internal intelligence files from the Homeland Security Department.”
The turmoil in the trucking industry is a window into the social and economic changes sweeping the country; expect to see more industries faced with similar challenges as the blue economy fades away.
Taking on The Teamsters. Teamsters don't like that.
Celebrity and Politics. Obama is the classic celeb in politics, but it expands beyond electoral politics, even into urban planning and architecture. Williamson
The modern GOP pol is one step from groveling to these people on camera. It’s unmanly and disgusting and that’s why no one takes Rubio seriously. He looks and sounds like a little boy being corrected by his teacher. But he is the modern GOP. The only thing they are missing are guys with neck beards and ear gauges, perhaps a few trannies thrown in to make the pathetic freak show complete.
Overweight is not exactly a minority. Last I read, Mexico leads the world in fatties, USA is #2. Most Western countries feel fat is aesthetically gross and unwholesome, but many prefer food anyway.
Had dinner with a Swedish friend this weekend. Just back from Sweden. H told me the Swedes have no problem, on the whole, with mass immigration. He said "Our view is, they are just people. We don't judge them by a few bad apples."
Why should 23-year-old Mohammed work for four decades so that Hans or Fritz across the way can retire at 61 and lie on a beach in Mallorca? The idea that Mohammed would ever want to do such a thing out of love for Europe was a silly fantasy that European governments fed their worried citizens.
...
Muslims have a high birth rate because their approach to the future is fundamentally different than the European one. Europeans have chosen to have few children and many government agencies to take care of them. Muslims choose to have many children and few government agencies. The European values so admired by American leftists have no future.
Asylum seekers are increasingly using tactics such as hunger strikes, lawsuits and threats of violence in efforts to force German authorities to comply with an ever-growing list of demands.
Misery loves company. I hope to inspire readers towards my exercise program so you can share the pain with us.
My Fridays are just for calisthenics (it's never the same things, but it's always some form of "kick the sh-t out of you morning" at 5 am):
- 3 minutes Elliptical wake-up warm-up - 3 sets of medium-weight bench press, third dropped set to muscle failure, alternating with 3 types of high step-ups (this is to weaken me for the rest of the hour) - 3 sets of heavy ball smashes alternating with squats - 3 sets of hand/arm step-ups in plank position (not sure what they are called but my damaged shoulder can't do ordinary push-ups) alternating with heavy ball burpees (like Burners) - 2 sets of lunges with light weights alternating with 2 sets of one-sided kettlebell walks
That's it. One hour. I felt a little faint a few times, and out of breath often. Good stuff. The goal of calisthenics is to use your body with max intensity, not to build strength but to improve endurance, posture, agility, and cardio. If that sounds like a warm-up, then you don't know how many reps I do in each set.
After that, coffee, sausage, toast, and eggs at the diner with my Bible pals. Stress and challenge in all areas of life build American strength. That's Life in America,where all citizens strive constantly for physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, relational, artistic, and financial improvement and uplift! What else is there to do?
Tomorrow is my 3 day/wk cardio-fat-burner day, first thing in the morning. That will be this simple routine, under 60 mins:
10 min intervals on elliptical 70 calf-lifts 1 1/2 min elbow plank 5 min stair machine 50 calf lift 1 min straight-arm plank 20 min inclined treadmill intervals - fast walk intervals 50 calf lift 1 min straight-arm plank 5 min stair machine fast
That's it. No breaks. I will shorten the calf thing with weights. The stair is a killer for me. Can't do 10 min on it at one shot. (As I explained before, Mon and Weds are for upper, back, and lower body heavy weight work plus pull-ups, pull-downs, dips, rows, one-arm and dumbell presses, etc) I am almost 6 months into this darn program now and showing some progress. Thank God for Sunday - day of rest and recovery before dead lift Monday.
We are blessed with a smart, savvy, knowledgeable, attentive trainer who really knows his physiology. Without him and accountability to him, this would not work at all. And I have a "partner" - Mrs. BD.
Economic freedom is so unpopular among liberals that Bernie Sanders openly disavowed it to the sound of roaring applause. Clinton was hesitant (for now) to fully label herself a socialist, so instead she said she’s a sorta-capitalist who thinks “capitalism has to be saved from itself.” This is another way of calling American people children who need to be rescued by benevolent bureaucrats, but that’s OK because Democrat voters fervently wish to be treated like children.
The Barrister's post today on whether aid organizations know what they are doing struck a chord with me. Last week, the non-Nobel Prize (it's not one of the originals, but was funded by Sweden's Central Bank in memory of Alfred) was given to Angus Deaton.
Deaton is well-liked in the community of Economics because he is generally perceived as not having an ideological ax to grind. In other words, he hasn't spent time justifying one school of thought versus another as many economists, such as Krugman, typically do. Deaton has spent his time analyzing the reasons for, and solutions to, extreme poverty in the world. He was not wedded to a school of thought which supported intervention over markets, or vice versa.
What he found, as a result, is broadly accepted by many different schools of thought, because he plumbed the depths of human behavior, particularly the behavior of the very poor.
In seeking solutions, he did not limit himself to the need for individual endeavor, or simply promote ideas supporting government aid and intervention. What he found is that inequality was a great driver of behaviors to improve individual position, and promote general progress, as long as there were structures in place to protect individual rights.
Most overseas development aid, he argues, is a waste and even destructive use of money, and he worries that even some humanitarian aid ends up doing more harm than good.
Deaton is critic of foreign aid, as that line suggests. His primary thrust, however, is that the world is on the whole wealthier and healthier than it's ever been in history and has the potential to continue getting wealthier and healthier. He points out there is not a nation on earth where infant mortality has risen since 1950. The main reason for this, is income growth which is the result of trade and markets. However, Deaton points out that aid is similar to using an engineering approach to solving a problem. Pumping money into the 'problem' doesn't solve it. The solution requires strong institutions to protect rights and activity.
“Innovators need to be free from the risk of expropriation, functioning law courts are needed to settle disputes and protect patents, and tax rates cannot be too high. When all of these conditions come together— as they have in the United States for a century and a half— we get sustained economic growth and higher living standards.”
Deaton is by no means advocating Laissez-Faire Economics. He recognized strong judicial institutions supporting individual drive and effort are necessary, or gains are easily lost. However, he points to the value of trade and markets and the goodwill they spread over a broad swathe of society. He generally disagrees with Piketty's claim that income inequality is a scourge. However, he did worry about centralization of undue influence in the realm of politics, since wealth can be used to derive political power.
In the United States, in one paper with co-author Darren Lubotsky, he showed that—contrary to deeply held views—income inequality in the U.S. was not linked to higher mortality rates.
By focusing on how the poor behave, rather than on seeking institutional solutions that adhere to a particular economic theme, Deaton has found ways to help the poor, and has created the potential to completely eliminate extreme poverty (as opposed to the relative poverty we often see positioned here in the US by politicians as reasons to provide assistance) within our lifetime.
Deaton has done a great service to the realm of Economics. It is a field which often comes under justifiable criticism. One area of criticism has often been the lack of attention paid to poverty, as opposed to wealth accumulation. Deaton, in focusing on poverty, has shown that the two are inextricably linked. Not because wealth accumulation makes others more poor, but because wealth accumulation spreads goodwill to all, if institutions exist to protect individual rights. But he is critical of the use of intrusive aid and handouts, particularly in environments where individual rights are still lacking.
Not really. No doubt these agencies and people hope to do good, but they view "poverty" through Western, materialist eyes. Many people do not know that they are poor and deprived until Westerners tell them that they are because they lack refrigerators and large-screen TVs . (See Eskimos as a case in point.)
I am not talking about famine and the like, just about normal times in subsistence pre-industrial areas with pre-industrial societies. Isn't there a condescending assumption that these brown people cannot figure out their lives by themselves? Why do Westerners wish to intrude on these peoples' lives and cultures? I suppose the Asians and Westerners have done so already through our desire for their natural resources, though, especially in Africa.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
Mike Rowe is one of my favorite life commentators. His program Dirty Jobs was excellent television, not just for his portrayal of the everyday laborer as a hero of modern culture, but because he showed that hard work is its own reward. He has assiduously avoided taking sides in political debates, though he's made it pretty clear people need to be left to their own devices as much as possible. Mike is a trained opera singer, who stumbled into television quite by accident via QVC, and has become a bit of an icon, though he tries to distance himself from any kind of hero-worship. His life advice, I've found, is usually spot-on. I don't know if he comes up with it himself, but it's all pretty darn good.
He seems like the kind of guy you would love to have an everyday conversation with, toss back some beer or bourbon, then work with him to replace your septic system. In no particular order.
He responds to fan mail fairly regularly, and I really enjoyed his post today:
The New York Times just published a 27-point guide on what it means to be a “Modern Man.” As someone widely regarded as a “Man’s Man,” I’d love to get your take. (Personally, I’m not sure what a “Man’s Man” is, but my wife assures me that you are one.)
America’s 
Why leaves change color 
Hitchhiking 
Halloween pic 
Has Feminism 
Misery loves company. I hope to inspire readers towards my exercise program so you can share the pain with us.
Dylan does Sinatra 
